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For months, threatening messages continued. At first, allegedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, later from the police themselves. In the end, one resident states he was called to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is part of a group fighting a expensive initiative where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – is scheduled to be bulldozed and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The unique ecosystem of this area is like nowhere else in the globe," says the resident. "However they want to dismantle our community and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of this community present a dramatic difference to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the settlement. Residences are constructed informally and often lacking adequate facilities, small-scale operations emit toxic smoke and the atmosphere is permeated by the suffocating smell of uncovered waste channels.

For certain residents, the vision of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of luxury high-rises, neat parks, modern retail complexes and homes with two toilets is a hopeful vision achieved.

"There's no sufficient health services, proper streets or water management and there are no spaces for children to play," explains a tea vendor, fifty-six, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and provide modern residences."

Resident Opposition

Yet certain residents, such as the leather artisan, are fighting against the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, historically ignored as unauthorized settlement, is in stark need financial support and improvement. But they are concerned that this initiative – without public consultation – is one that will transform premium city property into a playground for the rich, evicting the marginalized, working-class residents who have been there since generations ago.

These were these shunned, displaced people who established the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose economic value is estimated at between $1m and $2m a year, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Of the roughly 1 million residents living in the crowded 220-hectare area, a minority will be eligible for new homes in the project, which is expected to take seven years to accomplish. The remainder will be relocated to barren areas and salt plains on the remote edges of the metropolis, threatening to divide a historic community. Certain individuals will receive no residences at all.

Those allowed to remain in the area will be allocated units in multi-story structures, a significant rupture from the organic, communal way of dwelling and laboring that has maintained Dharavi for many years.

Businesses from clothing production to ceramic crafts and waste processing are expected to decrease in quantity and be moved to a specific "business area" distant from people's residences.

Existential Threat

For residents like the leather artisan, a leather artisan and third generation resident to call home Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, multi-level workshop makes leather coats – formal jackets, luxury coats, decorated jackets – marketed in premium stores in south Mumbai and overseas.

His family dwells in the accommodations underneath and laborers and sewers – workers from different regions – reside in the same building, permitting him to afford their labour. Away from this community, Mumbai rents are frequently significantly as high for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the administrative buildings in the vicinity, a visual representation of the Dharavi project shows an alternative vision for the future. Slickly dressed residents mill about on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, acquiring international bread and breakfast items and having coffee on an outdoor area adjacent to a coffee shop and Ice-Cream. It is a complete departure from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that sustains Dharavi's community.

"This is not development for residents," says the artisan. "This constitutes an enormous real estate deal that will price people out for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the business conglomerate. Headed by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the government head – the corporation has encountered allegations of preferential treatment and ethical concerns, which it denies.

Although local authorities describes it as a joint project, the corporation contributed nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. A case claiming that the initiative was improperly granted to the developer is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to publicly resist the redevelopment, protesters and community members claim they have been faced an extended period of pressure and threats – comprising messages, clear intimidation and suggestions that speaking against the project was comparable with speaking against the country – by people they allege work for the corporate group.

Among those accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c