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For months, coercive messages continued. Originally, supposedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a retired army general, later from the police themselves. Ultimately, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is among those resisting a high-value redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – a massive informal community with rich history – is scheduled to be bulldozed and modernized by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is unparalleled in the world," states Shaikh. "Yet they want to eradicate our community and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The cramped lanes of this community stand in sharp opposition to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that overshadow the neighborhood. Residences are constructed informally and often without proper sanitation, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the air is saturated with the suffocating smell of open sewers.

To some, the vision of Dharavi transformed into a glistening neighborhood of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and homes with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future come true.

"There's no sufficient health services, paved pathways or drainage and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," states a tea vendor, fifty-six, who moved from southern India in that period. "The single option is to clear the area and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

However, some, like Shaikh, are fighting against the plan.

All recognize that Dharavi, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is urgently needing financial support and improvement. However they fear that this plan – absent of public consultation – is one that will turn valuable urban land into an elite enclave, evicting the lower-caste, migrant communities who have been there since the nineteenth century.

It was these excluded, displaced people who built up the uninhabited area into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose economic value is worth between $1m and $2m a year, making it a major unofficial markets.

Relocation Worries

Out of about 1 million residents living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, a minority will be able for replacement housing in the redevelopment, which is projected to take a significant period to complete. Additional residents will be relocated to undeveloped zones and coastal regions on the remote edges of the metropolis, threatening to divide a long-established community. Certain individuals will not get residences at all.

Residents permitted to continue living in the neighborhood will be provided units in tower blocks, a substantial change from the natural, collective approach of living and working that has sustained Dharavi for generations.

Commercial activities from clothing production to pottery and recycling are projected to shrink in number and be relocated to a designated "industrial sector" far from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For those such as Shaikh, a leather artisan and long-time resident to reside in Dharavi, the project presents a survival challenge. His rickety, three-floor workshop produces apparel – sharp blazers, suede trenches, studded bomber jackets – sold in premium stores in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

His family dwells in the rooms downstairs and laborers and sewers – workers from north India – live in the same building, allowing him to manage costs. Beyond this community, housing costs are often 10 times costlier for minimal space.

Threats and Warning

At the official facilities nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project shows a contrasting outlook. Well-groomed residents move around on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, purchasing western-style bread and breakfast items and enlisting beverages on a terrace near a restaurant and Ice-Cream. It is a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that sustains Dharavi's community.

"This is not progress for our community," explains Shaikh. "This constitutes an enormous real estate deal that will render it impossible for us to survive."

Furthermore, there's skepticism of the corporate group. Managed by a powerful tycoon – a leading figure and a supporter of the government head – the business group has been subject to claims of favoritism and questionable practices, which it rejects.

While administrative bodies calls it a joint project, the business group paid nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A lawsuit claiming that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the business group is pending in the top court.

Sustained Harassment

From when they initiated to publicly resist the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – involving phone calls, clear intimidation and suggestions that speaking against the project was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by individuals they claim represent the corporate group.

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