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For months, threatening messages persisted. At first, supposedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, and then from the police themselves. Ultimately, one resident claims he was ordered to the local precinct and told clearly: stop speaking out 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 bulldozed and redeveloped by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is unparalleled in the world," explains the protester. "However they want to dismantle our community and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The narrow alleys of this community present a dramatic difference to the high-rise structures and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the area. Residences are built haphazardly and often missing basic amenities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the air is permeated by the overpowering odor of uncovered waste channels.

To some, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of premium apartments, organized recreational areas, modern retail complexes and apartments with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future realized.

"There's no adequate medical facilities, roads or sewage systems and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," says a chai seller, in his fifties, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Community Resistance

However, some, like Shaikh, are resisting the plan.

All recognize that Dharavi, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is desperately requiring economic input and modernization. But they worry that this plan – without resident participation – could potentially turn valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, evicting the marginalized, migrant communities who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

These were these shunned, displaced people who built up the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose production is worth between $1m and two million dollars annually, making it a major informal economies.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly one million people living in the packed 220-hectare zone, a minority will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to finish. Others will be moved to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the distant periphery of the city, potentially fragment a generations-old community. Certain individuals will be denied residences at all.

Those allowed to remain in the neighborhood will be allocated apartments in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the organic, communal way of residing and operating that has maintained the community for many years.

Businesses from tailoring to ceramic crafts and recycling are projected to reduce in scale and be moved to an allocated "commercial zone" separated from people's residences.

Existential Threat

In the case of the leather artisan, a leather artisan and long-time inhabitant to call home this community, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His rickety, multi-level operation creates garments – sharp blazers, luxury coats, studded bomber jackets – distributed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.

Household members dwells in the accommodations downstairs and his workers and garment workers – laborers from other states – live in the same building, permitting him to sustain operations. Outside the slum, Mumbai rents are frequently tenfold costlier for basic accommodation.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the administrative buildings in the vicinity, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project illustrates a contrasting perspective. Slickly dressed people mill about on cycles and electric vehicles, purchasing international baguettes and croissants and enlisting beverages on an outdoor area adjacent to Dharavi Cafe and dessert parlor. This depicts a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that supports the neighborhood.

"This is not progress for our community," explains the protester. "This constitutes an enormous real estate deal that will make it unaffordable for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's concern of the corporate group. Run by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has been subject to claims of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it rejects.

Although administrative bodies calls it a partnership, the developer invested a significant amount for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings stating that the initiative was improperly granted to the corporation is pending in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to publicly resist the project, local opponents assert they have been subjected to an extended period of harassment and intimidation – comprising phone calls, explicit warnings and implications that opposing the development was equivalent to speaking against the country – by figures they claim represent the corporate group.

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