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Across several weeks, coercive messages recurred. Initially, reportedly from a retired cop and an ex-military commander, subsequently from law enforcement directly. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh states he was summoned to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is part of a group fighting a high-value initiative where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be demolished and modernized by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of Dharavi is like nowhere else in the planet," states the protester. "Yet they want to eradicate our social fabric and stop us speaking out."

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the towering buildings and elite residences that loom over the area. Dwellings are assembled randomly and often without proper sanitation, 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, neat parks, contemporary malls and apartments with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision realized.

"We lack proper healthcare, proper streets or water management and we have no places for children to play," explains a chai seller, in his fifties, who relocated from southern India in 1982. "The single option is to tear it all down and provide modern residences."

Local Protest

However, some, like the leather artisan, are opposing the redevelopment.

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, historically ignored as informal housing, is desperately requiring financial support and improvement. Yet they are concerned that this plan – lacking public consultation – is one that will turn premium city property into an elite enclave, displacing the lower-caste, working-class residents who have lived there since the late 1800s.

This involved these shunned, migrant workers who developed the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and business activity, whose economic value is valued at between one million dollars and $2m annually, making it a major informal economies.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about one million residents living in the crowded 220-hectare neighborhood, fewer than half will be able for alternative accommodation in the development, which is projected to take an extended timeframe to finish. The remainder will be moved to barren areas and coastal regions on the remote edges of Mumbai, risking divide a long-established community. Some will be denied housing at all.

Those allowed to stay in the neighborhood will be provided flats in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the evolved, collective approach of living and working that has sustained this area for so long.

Commercial activities from clothing production to clay work and material recovery are expected to decrease in quantity and be moved to an allocated "commercial zone" separated from people's residences.

Livelihood Crisis

For those such as the leather artisan, a workshop owner and third generation inhabitant to reside in this community, the plan presents a fundamental risk. His rickety, multi-level workshop makes leather coats – formal jackets, suede trenches, decorated jackets – sold in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Relatives dwells in the accommodations below and employees and tailors – laborers from north India – also sleep on-site, allowing him to afford their labour. Away from this community, housing costs are often significantly as high for basic accommodation.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the government offices nearby, a visual representation of the Dharavi project illustrates an alternative outlook. Well-groomed residents gather on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring international baked goods and breakfast items and enlisting beverages on a patio near a restaurant and dessert parlor. It is a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that sustains the neighborhood.

"This is not improvement for residents," says the artisan. "It represents a huge land development that will render it impossible for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the corporate group. Managed by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the national leader – the corporation has been subject to claims of favoritism and questionable practices, which it denies.

Even as administrative bodies calls it a joint project, the business group paid nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings claiming that the redevelopment was questionably assigned to the developer is being considered in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to publicly resist the development, protesters and community members state they have been faced an extended period of pressure and threats – comprising communications, clear intimidation and implications that speaking against the project was equivalent to speaking against the country – by figures they claim are associated with the business conglomerate.

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