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For months, coercive phone calls continued. Originally, supposedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, and then from the authorities. In the end, a local artisan states he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: remain silent or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is part of a group resisting a high-value project where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – will be bulldozed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the world," says the protester. "Yet the plan aims to dismantle our community and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The narrow alleys of this community present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and luxury apartments that loom over the settlement. Residences are constructed informally and often missing basic amenities, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the atmosphere is filled with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of luxury high-rises, well-maintained green spaces, shiny shopping centers and homes with two toilets is an optimistic future realized.

"There's no sufficient health services, roads or sewage systems and there's nowhere for kids to enjoy," says a tea vendor, fifty-six, who migrated from southern India in the early eighties. "The single option is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

Yet certain residents, including Shaikh, are opposing the project.

None deny that the slum, consistently overlooked as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing investment and development. However they are concerned that this initiative – absent of resident participation – could potentially convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into an elite enclave, displacing the marginalized, working-class residents who have lived there since the nineteenth century.

It was these excluded, relocated individuals who developed the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose production is worth between one million dollars and a substantial sum a year, making it a major informal economies.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly 1 million inhabitants living in the crowded sprawling area, fewer than half will be able for replacement housing in the redevelopment, which is projected to take seven years to accomplish. Others will be transferred to barren areas and salt plains on the distant periphery of Mumbai, threatening to divide a long-established social network. A portion will not get homes at all.

Those allowed to remain in the neighborhood will be provided units in high-rise buildings, a major break from the organic, shared lifestyle of residing and operating that has supported Dharavi for so long.

Commercial activities from clothing production to pottery and material recovery are expected to reduce in scale and be moved to an allocated "business area" far from residential areas.

Existential Threat

In the case of Shaikh, a workshop owner and multi-generational inhabitant to live in Dharavi, the redevelopment presents an existential threat. His makeshift, three-storey operation creates apparel – sharp blazers, luxury coats, studded bomber jackets – marketed in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Household members resides in the spaces downstairs and laborers and sewers – migrants from different regions – reside on-site, allowing him to afford their labour. Away from Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are often significantly costlier for basic accommodation.

Pressure and Coercion

In the government offices nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the transformation initiative shows a contrasting outlook. Well-groomed people move around on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, acquiring international baguettes and breakfast items and socializing on an outdoor area near a coffee shop and dessert parlor. It is a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that maintains local residents.

"This is not improvement for residents," states Shaikh. "It represents an enormous real estate deal that will render it impossible for us to survive."

There is also skepticism of the business conglomerate. Headed by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the national leader – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

Although the state government describes it as a joint project, the developer paid a significant amount for its majority share. A case alleging that the project was unfairly awarded to the corporation is being considered in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

After they started to publicly resist the project, protesters and community members state they have been experienced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – comprising messages, direct threats and suggestions that criticizing the initiative was comparable with opposing national interests – by figures they assert represent the developer.

Included in these accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c