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For months, threatening phone calls persisted. Initially, reportedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, subsequently from the police themselves. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was ordered to the police station and told clearly: stop speaking out or encounter real trouble.

This third-generation resident is one of many fighting a expensive redevelopment plan where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – faces razed and modernized by a multinational conglomerate.

"The culture of this area is exceptional in the planet," states Shaikh. "However the plan aims to eradicate our way of life and silence our voices."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of this community sit in stark contrast to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that overshadow the area. Homes are built haphazardly and frequently lacking adequate facilities, unregulated industries release harmful emissions and the air is filled with the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

To some, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of premium apartments, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and homes with proper sanitation is an aspirational dream come true.

"We lack proper healthcare, paved pathways or sewage systems and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," says a tea vendor, in his fifties, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The single option is to demolish everything and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

But others, such as the leather artisan, are resisting the redevelopment.

None deny that the slum, long neglected as informal housing, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. But they fear that this initiative – without resident participation – might transform valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, evicting the marginalized, immigrant populations who have been there since the late 1800s.

It was these excluded, relocated individuals who established the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of local enterprise and economic productivity, whose output is valued at between one million dollars and $2m a year, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.

Resettlement Issues

Of the roughly 1 million people living in the dense 220-hectare area, fewer than half will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the development, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to finish. Others will be transferred to wastelands and salt plains on the distant periphery of the city, threatening to fragment a generations-old social network. Some will receive no residences at all.

Those allowed to continue living in Dharavi will be allocated units in high-rise buildings, a significant rupture from the natural, collective approach of residing and operating that has maintained this area for many years.

Businesses from tailoring to pottery and material recovery are projected to reduce in scale and be relocated to a designated "industrial sector" far from residential areas.

Existential Threat

For residents like this protester, a leather artisan and third generation inhabitant to reside in the slum, the plan presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-storey workshop makes garments – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – distributed in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

His family dwells in the spaces underneath and employees and garment workers – migrants from other states – reside there, enabling him to manage costs. Outside the slum, accommodation prices are typically 10 times costlier for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the government offices in the vicinity, a conceptual model of the redevelopment plan depicts a contrasting outlook. Fashionable residents gather on cycles and eco-friendly transport, buying international baked goods and breakfast items and socializing on an outdoor area adjacent to Dharavi Cafe and Ice-Cream. This represents a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that supports Dharavi's community.

"This isn't development for our community," says Shaikh. "This constitutes a huge land development that will price people out for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the business conglomerate. Run by an influential industrialist – among the country's wealthiest and an associate of the national leader – the conglomerate has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and financial impropriety, which it denies.

While local authorities labels it a collaborative effort, the corporation invested nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. A case stating that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the developer is being considered in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

From when they initiated to actively protest the project, protesters and community members state they have been faced ongoing efforts of coercion and warning – including phone calls, explicit warnings and insinuations that opposing the development was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by figures they allege work for the corporate group.

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