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Across several weeks, intimidating phone calls continued. Initially, allegedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a retired army general, subsequently from law enforcement directly. In the end, a local artisan claims he was ordered to the police station and instructed bluntly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

This third-generation resident is one of many opposing a multimillion-dollar redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be demolished and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The distinctive community of the slum is like nowhere else in the globe," says Shaikh. "But the plan aims to destroy our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The cramped lanes of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the towering buildings and elite residences that dominate the area. Residences are built haphazardly and typically missing basic amenities, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the air is filled with the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

Among some individuals, the vision of the slum's redevelopment into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, neat parks, modern retail complexes and homes with two toilets is a hopeful vision achieved.

"There's no sufficient health services, roads or sewage systems and we have no places for youth to recreate," says A Selvin Nadar, 56, who migrated from southern India in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

However, some, including this protester, are opposing the redevelopment.

None deny that Dharavi, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is in stark need investment and development. But they are concerned that this initiative – without community input – is one that will convert premium city property into a playground for the rich, evicting the disadvantaged, working-class residents who have been there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these shunned, relocated individuals who developed the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of local enterprise and commercial output, whose output is worth between one million dollars and $2m per year, making it a major unofficial markets.

Resettlement Issues

Out of about a million residents living in the packed 220-hectare area, fewer than half will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is projected to take seven years to accomplish. Others will be relocated to wastelands and coastal regions on the remote edges of Mumbai, potentially fragment a historic social network. A portion will be denied homes at all.

Residents permitted to stay in the area will be given units in multi-story structures, a major break from the evolved, collective approach of dwelling and laboring that has maintained the community for generations.

Industries from tailoring to clay work and material recovery are expected to reduce in scale and be moved to a designated "industrial sector" distant from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For those such as this protester, a craftsman and long-time of his family to call home the slum, the plan presents an existential threat. His informal, multi-level facility makes leather coats – formal jackets, premium outerwear, decorated jackets – marketed in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.

His family lives in the rooms downstairs and employees and garment workers – workers from other states – live in the same building, permitting him to afford their labour. Outside Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are typically 10 times more expensive for minimal space.

Pressure and Coercion

At the administrative buildings in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan depicts an alternative perspective. Slickly dressed inhabitants gather on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, buying western-style bread and pastries and socializing on a terrace outside a coffee shop and dessert parlor. This depicts a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that maintains local residents.

"This is not development for residents," states the artisan. "It represents a huge land development that will price people out for residents to remain."

There is also concern of the development company. Run by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and an associate of the national leader – the corporation has faced accusations of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it disputes.

Even as the state government labels it a joint project, the business group invested nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. Legal proceedings stating that the project was improperly granted to the developer is under review in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

From when they initiated to publicly resist the project, local opponents assert they have been subjected to an extended period of harassment and intimidation – comprising phone calls, direct threats and suggestions that speaking against the project was comparable with opposing national interests – by figures they allege represent the developer.

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