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Across several weeks, intimidating messages recurred. At first, reportedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, and then from law enforcement directly. Ultimately, one resident claims he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

Shaikh is part of a group resisting a high-value redevelopment plan where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be razed and modernized by a corporate giant.

"The culture of the slum is like nowhere else in the planet," says the protester. "But their intention is to dismantle our way of life and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that loom over the settlement. Residences are built haphazardly and frequently missing basic amenities, informal businesses release harmful emissions and the atmosphere is saturated with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

To some, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of premium apartments, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and residences with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision come true.

"We don't have sufficient health services, proper streets or water management and we have no places for children to play," explains a tea vendor, fifty-six, who migrated from his home state in 1982. "The single option is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Local Protest

However, some, including the leather artisan, are resisting the plan.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is desperately requiring economic input and modernization. However they are concerned that this plan – without community input – might convert valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, evicting the disadvantaged, immigrant populations who have resided there since the late 1800s.

It was these marginalized, displaced people who built up the vacant wetlands into a frequently examined example of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose production is estimated at between one million dollars and $2m a year, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Out of about 1 million inhabitants living in the dense 220-hectare neighborhood, fewer than half will be eligible for replacement housing in the project, which is projected to take seven years to complete. Additional residents will be moved to wastelands and coastal regions on the remote edges of Mumbai, risking divide a historic community. Certain individuals will not get residences at all.

Those allowed to stay in the area will be given flats in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the natural, shared lifestyle of living and working that has maintained this area for generations.

Businesses from tailoring to clay work and recycling are likely to decrease in quantity and be moved to a designated "industrial sector" distant from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of the leather artisan, a leather artisan and third generation inhabitant to call home the slum, the project presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-storey facility produces leather coats – formal jackets, luxury coats, decorated jackets – sold in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

Household members resides in the accommodations downstairs and laborers and tailors – migrants from different regions – reside in the same building, enabling him to afford their labour. Outside Dharavi's enclave, Mumbai rents are typically tenfold more expensive for basic accommodation.

Pressure and Coercion

At the official facilities nearby, a visual representation of the Dharavi project depicts a contrasting perspective. Slickly dressed residents gather on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, buying western-style bread and croissants and having coffee on an outdoor area near Dharavi Cafe and treat station. This depicts a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and budget beverage that maintains Dharavi's community.

"This represents no progress for us," explains Shaikh. "This constitutes an enormous land development that will render it impossible for us to survive."

There is also distrust of the development company. Run by an influential industrialist – a leading figure and a close ally of the national leader – the conglomerate has faced accusations of favoritism and questionable practices, which it rejects.

Although the state government describes it as a joint project, the developer invested nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. Legal proceedings stating that the initiative was questionably assigned to the corporation is being considered in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to vocally oppose the project, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been faced a long-running campaign of pressure and threats – involving messages, explicit warnings and suggestions that speaking against the development was tantamount to 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