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Across several weeks, threatening phone calls persisted. Initially, supposedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, later from the authorities. In the end, a local artisan states he was called to the local precinct and warned explicitly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is one of many resisting a expensive redevelopment plan where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces razed and redeveloped by a large business group.

"The culture of this area is unparalleled in the planet," explains 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 soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that loom over the neighborhood. Dwellings are assembled randomly and frequently missing basic amenities, informal businesses emit toxic smoke and the atmosphere is permeated by the unpleasant stench of open sewers.

To some, the promise of a renewed Dharavi into a modern district of luxury high-rises, neat parks, contemporary malls and homes with proper sanitation is an aspirational dream come true.

"We don't have proper healthcare, proper streets or sewage systems and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," explains A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who relocated from southern India in the early eighties. "The only way is to tear it all down and build us new homes."

Local Protest

Yet certain residents, like Shaikh, are opposing the redevelopment.

All recognize that the slum, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is in stark need economic input and modernization. But they are concerned that this project – without public consultation – could potentially turn valuable urban land into a luxury development, forcing out the marginalized, immigrant populations who have been there since the late 1800s.

These were these marginalized, displaced people who developed the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of local enterprise and commercial output, whose output is valued at between $1m and a substantial sum annually, making it a major unregulated sectors.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately a million people living in the crowded 220-hectare zone, less than 50% will be qualified for replacement housing in the redevelopment, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to finish. The remainder will be transferred to wastelands and coastal regions on the remote edges of the metropolis, potentially break up a long-established social network. Some will be denied residences at all.

People eligible to stay in the area will be allocated apartments in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the evolved, collective approach of residing and operating that has maintained this area for many years.

Businesses from clothing production to ceramic crafts and material recovery are expected to shrink in number and be transferred to a specific "commercial zone" separated from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

In the case of Shaikh, a workshop owner and third generation inhabitant to reside in this community, the plan presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-storey workshop produces leather coats – tailored coats, luxury coats, decorated jackets – marketed in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

His family dwells in the spaces underneath and employees and tailors – migrants from other states – also sleep there, allowing him to sustain operations. Away from this community, accommodation prices are often 10 times costlier for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

At the government offices close by, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative illustrates a very different vision for the future. Slickly dressed people gather on cycles and e-vehicles, buying international baked goods and pastries and socializing on an outdoor area adjacent to Dharavi Cafe and dessert parlor. This depicts a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that maintains Dharavi's community.

"This represents no development for us," states Shaikh. "It represents a huge real estate deal that will price people out for us to survive."

Furthermore, there's skepticism of the corporate group. Headed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the government head – the corporation has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and financial impropriety, which it rejects.

Even as local authorities calls it a collaborative effort, the business group paid $950m for its controlling interest. A case alleging that the redevelopment was unfairly awarded to the developer is under review in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

After they started to publicly resist the redevelopment, local opponents claim they have been experienced an extended period of harassment and intimidation – comprising messages, clear intimidation and insinuations that criticizing the development was equivalent to speaking against the country – by people they allege are associated with the corporate group.

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