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Over an extended period, threatening communications continued. At first, allegedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, subsequently from law enforcement directly. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was summoned to the local precinct and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is part of a group fighting a high-value initiative where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – faces razed and modernized by a large business group.

"The unique ecosystem of the slum is like nowhere else in the globe," explains the resident. "But the plan aims to eradicate our community and silence our voices."

Opposing Environments

The dank gullies of the slum sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and elite residences that loom over the settlement. Residences are assembled randomly and frequently missing basic amenities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the atmosphere is permeated by the unpleasant stench of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the promise of a renewed Dharavi into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, neat parks, shiny shopping centers and homes with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision achieved.

"We lack adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or water management and there are no spaces for children to play," explains a tea vendor, 56, who relocated from his home state in 1982. "The single option is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, like Shaikh, are opposing the redevelopment.

None deny that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as informal housing, is in stark need investment and development. But they fear that this initiative – without public consultation – might convert valuable urban land into an elite enclave, evicting the marginalized, migrant communities who have been there since the late 1800s.

It was these excluded, relocated individuals who established the vacant wetlands into a frequently examined example of local enterprise and commercial output, whose economic value is estimated at between one million dollars and two million dollars a year, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.

Resettlement Issues

Among approximately one million inhabitants living in the dense 220-hectare zone, less than 50% will be able for replacement housing in the development, which is projected to take seven years to complete. The remainder will be transferred to wastelands and saline fields on the remote edges of the city, threatening to divide a generations-old neighborhood. A portion will be denied housing at all.

Those allowed to remain in the area will be allocated units in high-rise buildings, a major break from the evolved, collective approach of living and working that has supported Dharavi for so long.

Industries from tailoring to clay work and waste processing are expected to decrease in quantity and be transferred to an allocated "industrial sector" distant from residential areas.

Survival Challenge

In the case of this protester, a workshop owner and long-time resident to call home the slum, the plan presents an existential threat. His rickety, three-storey facility makes garments – sharp blazers, luxury coats, decorated jackets – sold in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.

Relatives lives in the rooms underneath and his workers and tailors – laborers from north India – live there, permitting him to manage costs. Away from this community, Mumbai rents are typically tenfold more expensive for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

Within the official facilities nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan illustrates a very different vision for the future. Slickly dressed inhabitants mill about on cycles and eco-friendly transport, buying western-style baked goods and croissants and socializing on an outdoor area outside a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. This represents a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that supports local residents.

"This is not improvement for our community," explains the protester. "It's a huge property transaction that will price people out for our community to continue."

Furthermore, there's skepticism of the business conglomerate. Managed by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and a close ally of the government head – the corporation has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

Even as the state government calls it a joint project, the developer invested nearly a billion dollars for its 80% stake. A lawsuit claiming that the initiative was questionably assigned to the business group is under review in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

Since they began to vocally oppose the development, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been experienced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – involving phone calls, direct threats and implications that speaking against the project was equivalent to opposing national interests – by figures they assert are associated with the developer.

Part of the group alleged to have issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c