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Across several weeks, intimidating communications persisted. Initially, reportedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, later from the police themselves. Ultimately, a local artisan states he was called to law enforcement headquarters and told clearly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is among those resisting a multimillion-dollar redevelopment plan where this historic settlement – a massive informal community with rich history – will be demolished and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The culture of Dharavi is exceptional in the world," says Shaikh. "But they want to eradicate our community and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of this community stand in sharp opposition to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that loom over the area. Residences are constructed informally and often without proper sanitation, unregulated industries release harmful emissions and the air is saturated with the unpleasant stench of exposed drainage.

To some, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and homes with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision realized.

"We lack proper healthcare, proper streets or sewage systems and we have no places for children to play," explains a tea vendor, in his fifties, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The single option is to demolish everything and construct proper housing."

Resident Opposition

Yet certain residents, including Shaikh, are fighting against the plan.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. But they fear that this project – lacking resident participation – might convert premium city property into an elite enclave, evicting the lower-caste, immigrant populations who have been there since the nineteenth century.

It was these shunned, displaced people who built up the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and commercial output, whose output is valued at between $1m and $2m a year, making it a major unregulated sectors.

Resettlement Issues

Out of about one million inhabitants living in the packed 2.2 square kilometer neighborhood, fewer than half will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the project, which is projected to take seven years to accomplish. Others will be moved to barren areas and coastal regions on the far outskirts of the metropolis, threatening to fragment a long-established neighborhood. A portion will be denied residences at all.

People eligible to continue living in the area will be provided apartments in tower blocks, a substantial change from the natural, communal way of living and working that has sustained the community for generations.

Commercial activities from tailoring to ceramic crafts and recycling are likely to reduce in scale and be moved to a designated "business area" separated from people's residences.

Existential Threat

In the case of this protester, a craftsman and multi-generational of his family to call home this community, the project presents a survival challenge. His rickety, multi-level facility makes garments – tailored coats, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – sold in premium stores in south Mumbai and abroad.

His family lives in the rooms downstairs and employees and sewers – migrants from different regions – live on-site, permitting him to sustain operations. Outside this community, Mumbai rents are frequently significantly more expensive for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the official facilities in the vicinity, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative illustrates an alternative outlook. Well-groomed residents mill about on cycles and e-vehicles, acquiring continental baked goods and croissants and socializing on a patio near a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. It is a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar morning meal and low-cost tea that maintains Dharavi's community.

"This represents no improvement for our community," says the artisan. "This constitutes a massive property transaction that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

There is also skepticism of the business conglomerate. Headed by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the government head – the corporation has been subject to claims of favoritism and questionable practices, which it denies.

Although administrative bodies labels it a joint project, the corporation contributed nearly a billion dollars for its 80% stake. Legal proceedings claiming that the redevelopment was unfairly awarded to the developer is being considered in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to publicly resist the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents state they have been experienced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – including communications, direct threats and suggestions that criticizing the initiative was equivalent to opposing national interests – by individuals they assert are associated with the corporate group.

Part of the group suspected of delivering warnings is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c