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For months, intimidating phone calls recurred. Initially, allegedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, and then from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, one resident claims he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is part of a group opposing a multimillion-dollar project where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be bulldozed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of the slum is like nowhere else in the globe," explains Shaikh. "Yet the plan aims to dismantle our community and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of this community stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that overshadow the settlement. Residences are assembled randomly and typically without proper sanitation, small-scale operations emit toxic smoke and the environment is saturated with the unpleasant stench of exposed drainage.

Among some individuals, the vision of a renewed Dharavi into a glistening neighborhood of luxury high-rises, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and apartments with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision come true.

"We don't have proper healthcare, roads or drainage and we have no places for children to play," states a tea vendor, in his fifties, who moved from his home state in that period. "The single option is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

But others, including the leather artisan, are opposing the project.

None deny that this community, consistently overlooked as unauthorized settlement, is desperately requiring economic input and modernization. However they worry that this plan – lacking public consultation – might convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a playground for the rich, evicting the marginalized, working-class residents who have lived there since the late 1800s.

This involved these shunned, migrant workers who built up the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and commercial output, whose output is valued at between one million dollars and two million dollars per year, making it a major unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Of the roughly one million people living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, fewer than half will be able for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is estimated to take a significant period to finish. Additional residents will be moved to wastelands and coastal regions on the far outskirts of the city, threatening to break up a historic neighborhood. Some will not get homes at all.

Those allowed to remain in the neighborhood will be allocated flats in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the organic, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has sustained Dharavi for many years.

Commercial activities from garment work to ceramic crafts and material recovery are expected to decrease in quantity and be transferred to an allocated "business area" distant from homes.

Existential Threat

For residents like this protester, a leather artisan and multi-generational resident to call home Dharavi, the project presents a fundamental risk. His informal, three-floor workshop makes garments – sharp blazers, luxury coats, decorated jackets – distributed in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and internationally.

Relatives resides in the rooms downstairs and laborers and garment workers – workers from different regions – live in the same building, enabling him to manage costs. Away from Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are typically tenfold as high for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the administrative buildings in the vicinity, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative shows a very different vision for the future. Well-groomed inhabitants gather on two-wheelers and e-vehicles, buying western-style baked goods and breakfast items and having coffee on a terrace outside a coffee shop and dessert parlor. It is a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that maintains Dharavi's community.

"This represents no improvement for residents," states the artisan. "This constitutes a huge property transaction that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's concern of the development company. Headed by a powerful tycoon – one of India's most powerful and an associate of the national leader – the corporation has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and questionable practices, which it denies.

Although local authorities calls it a joint project, the developer invested a significant amount for its majority share. A case claiming that the initiative was improperly granted to the developer is under review in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

From when they initiated to vocally oppose the development, local opponents claim they have been faced an extended period of coercion and warning – involving phone calls, explicit warnings and insinuations that criticizing the project was comparable with speaking against the country – by individuals they assert are associated with the developer.

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