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Over an extended period, intimidating messages recurred. Initially, allegedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a retired army general, subsequently from law enforcement directly. Finally, a local artisan asserts he was called to the police station and told clearly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is among those opposing a multimillion-dollar initiative where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be bulldozed and redeveloped by a corporate giant.

"The culture of the slum is like nowhere else in the planet," states Shaikh. "Yet they want to eradicate our community and stop us speaking out."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that dominate the area. Homes are constructed informally and frequently lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the atmosphere is saturated with the overpowering odor of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and homes with proper sanitation is an aspirational dream achieved.

"There's no proper healthcare, roads or sewage systems and we have no places for youth to recreate," states a chai seller, 56, who moved from southern India in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

But others, including Shaikh, are opposing the redevelopment.

All recognize that this community, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. But they fear that this initiative – absent of public consultation – is one that will convert valuable urban land into an elite enclave, evicting the lower-caste, migrant communities who have lived there since generations ago.

This involved these shunned, displaced people who built up the vacant wetlands into a frequently examined example of local enterprise and economic productivity, whose production is estimated at between $1m and a substantial sum a year, making it one of the world's largest unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Among approximately 1 million residents living in the dense 2.2 square kilometer neighborhood, fewer than half will be qualified for new homes in the project, which is expected to take a significant period to accomplish. The remainder will be transferred to barren areas and coastal regions on the remote edges of Mumbai, potentially divide a long-established community. Certain individuals will not get housing at all.

People eligible to remain in Dharavi will be provided flats in multi-story structures, a significant rupture from the organic, communal way of residing and operating that has sustained Dharavi for many years.

Commercial activities from tailoring to pottery and material recovery are projected to decrease in quantity and be transferred to an allocated "business area" distant from people's residences.

Existential Threat

For residents like the leather artisan, a leather artisan and long-time resident to live in this community, the project presents a fundamental risk. His informal, three-floor facility produces apparel – sharp blazers, suede trenches, decorated jackets – distributed in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

Relatives dwells in the rooms below and employees and garment workers – workers from different regions – reside there, allowing him to manage costs. Outside the slum, accommodation prices are frequently 10 times more expensive for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the government offices nearby, a visual representation of the Dharavi project shows an alternative vision for the future. Slickly dressed residents move around on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing western-style baked goods and breakfast items and socializing on a terrace near a coffee shop and dessert parlor. This represents a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and low-cost tea that sustains the neighborhood.

"This isn't development for residents," explains Shaikh. "This constitutes a massive property transaction that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the corporate group. Headed by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and an associate of the national leader – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of favoritism and questionable practices, which it rejects.

While local authorities describes it as a partnership, the corporation contributed $950m for its majority share. Legal proceedings alleging that the redevelopment was questionably assigned to the business group is pending in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to publicly resist the project, protesters and community members assert they have been faced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – involving phone calls, explicit warnings and suggestions that opposing the project was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by people they allege work for the developer.

Among those suspected of issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c