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Over an extended period, threatening messages continued. Originally, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a former defense officer, and then from the authorities. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was ordered to the police station and instructed bluntly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is one of many fighting a expensive project where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be bulldozed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of Dharavi is unparalleled in the world," explains the protester. "But they want to destroy our way of life and prevent our protests."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that dominate the area. Dwellings are built haphazardly and typically without proper sanitation, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the environment is permeated by the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

For certain residents, the vision of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of high-end towers, organized recreational areas, shiny shopping centers and homes with proper sanitation is an optimistic future achieved.

"We lack proper healthcare, roads or drainage and there are no spaces for kids to enjoy," says a chai seller, fifty-six, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

Yet certain residents, including the leather artisan, are opposing the project.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, long neglected as informal housing, is desperately requiring investment and development. But they fear that this initiative – lacking public consultation – might convert valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, evicting the disadvantaged, working-class residents who have been there since generations ago.

This involved these excluded, relocated individuals who established the uninhabited area into an extensively researched phenomenon of local enterprise and business activity, whose economic value is worth between $1m and two million dollars annually, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly one million inhabitants living in the crowded 2.2 square kilometer area, less than 50% will be qualified for replacement housing in the development, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. Additional residents will be transferred to undeveloped zones and salt plains on the distant periphery of the metropolis, potentially fragment a long-established neighborhood. A portion will be denied homes at all.

Residents permitted to continue living in the area will be allocated units in multi-story structures, a major break from the natural, shared lifestyle of living and working that has maintained this area for so long.

Businesses from clothing production to clay work and material recovery are projected to shrink in number and be transferred to a specific "industrial sector" separated from homes.

Survival Challenge

In the case of this protester, a craftsman and multi-generational resident to live in the slum, the project presents an existential threat. His rickety, three-storey workshop produces garments – formal jackets, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – marketed in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and abroad.

Household members dwells in the rooms below and employees and garment workers – migrants from other states – live in the same building, allowing him to sustain operations. Beyond this community, Mumbai rents are often tenfold as high for minimal space.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the official facilities close by, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project depicts a contrasting vision for the future. Slickly dressed people gather on cycles and e-vehicles, buying continental bread and croissants and socializing on a terrace outside a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This represents a world away from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and low-cost tea that sustains the neighborhood.

"This isn't progress for residents," says the protester. "It's an enormous real estate deal that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the development company. Run by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the national leader – the business group has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and ethical concerns, which it denies.

While local authorities labels it a partnership, the developer contributed a significant amount for its controlling interest. A case stating that the project was questionably assigned to the business group is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

From when they initiated to publicly resist the project, local opponents state they have been experienced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – involving communications, direct threats and insinuations that criticizing the development was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by figures they claim represent the developer.

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