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For months, intimidating phone calls continued. Originally, reportedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, later from law enforcement directly. In the end, a local artisan claims he was summoned to the local precinct and told clearly: stop speaking out or face serious consequences.

The leather artisan is one of many resisting a multimillion-dollar initiative where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be bulldozed and redeveloped by a multinational conglomerate.

"The distinctive community of the slum is unparalleled in the globe," says Shaikh. "But the plan aims to eradicate our way of life and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that dominate the area. Dwellings are constructed informally and frequently without proper sanitation, small-scale operations emit toxic smoke and the environment is saturated with the overpowering odor of open sewers.

To some, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of luxury high-rises, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and homes with two toilets is a hopeful vision come true.

"We lack adequate medical facilities, paved pathways or water management and there's nowhere for children to play," says A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The only way is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, such as this protester, are fighting against the project.

Everyone acknowledges that the slum, consistently overlooked as unauthorized settlement, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. However they worry that this project – absent of public consultation – could potentially convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into a luxury development, displacing the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

It was these shunned, displaced people who developed the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose production is worth between a significant amount and $2m per year, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.

Resettlement Issues

Out of about 1 million inhabitants living in the packed 220-hectare zone, fewer than half will be qualified for replacement housing in the project, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to complete. The remainder will be transferred to undeveloped zones and saline fields on the distant periphery of the city, risking fragment a historic social network. Certain individuals will receive no residences at all.

People eligible to stay in the neighborhood will be given units in tower blocks, a significant rupture from the natural, shared lifestyle of residing and operating that has supported the community for generations.

Businesses from clothing production to pottery and recycling are projected to reduce in scale and be transferred to a designated "business area" far from residential areas.

Existential Threat

For residents like Shaikh, a workshop owner and multi-generational resident to reside in the slum, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-storey facility creates apparel – sharp blazers, suede trenches, fashionable garments – sold in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

Household members lives in the rooms downstairs and laborers and garment workers – migrants from different regions – live in the same building, enabling him to manage costs. Outside the slum, accommodation prices are frequently 10 times costlier for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

In the government offices nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the redevelopment plan illustrates a contrasting outlook. Well-groomed people move around on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, buying international baked goods and pastries and socializing on a patio near a restaurant and dessert parlor. It is a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar morning meal and low-cost tea that sustains local residents.

"This is not development for us," says the artisan. "It's a massive land development that will price people out for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the development company. Run by a prominent businessman – a leading figure and an associate of the national leader – the corporation has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and ethical concerns, which it denies.

While the state government labels it a partnership, the business group contributed $950m for its majority share. Legal proceedings stating that the project was questionably assigned to the developer is being considered in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

Since they began to publicly resist the development, protesters and community members state they have been subjected to an extended period of harassment and intimidation – involving phone calls, clear intimidation and insinuations that criticizing the initiative was tantamount to speaking against the country – by people they claim represent the business conglomerate.

Among those suspected of issuing the threats is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c