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For months, coercive messages continued. At first, reportedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, and then from the authorities. In the end, a local artisan states he was ordered to the police station and warned explicitly: stop speaking out or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is part of a group resisting a high-value project where this historic settlement – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – faces bulldozed and modernized by a multinational conglomerate.

"The culture of this area is exceptional in the globe," states the protester. "However they want to dismantle our way of life and stop us speaking out."

Opposing Environments

The narrow alleys of this community sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and Bollywood penthouses that dominate the settlement. Homes are built haphazardly and typically missing basic amenities, small-scale operations produce dangerous fumes and the atmosphere is filled with the overpowering odor of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the vision of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of premium apartments, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and apartments with multiple bathrooms is an aspirational dream come true.

"We don't have sufficient health services, proper streets or sewage systems and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," says A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who moved from his home state in 1982. "The sole solution is to clear the area and provide modern residences."

Local Protest

But others, including the leather artisan, are opposing the plan.

None deny that the slum, long neglected as informal housing, is urgently needing economic input and modernization. But they fear that this plan – without community input – is one that will convert premium city property into a playground for the rich, evicting the lower-caste, migrant communities who have lived there since the late 1800s.

These were these shunned, migrant workers who developed the vacant wetlands into a frequently examined example of self-reliance and economic productivity, whose output is valued at between $1m and two million dollars per year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Displacement Concerns

Of the roughly 1 million inhabitants living in the crowded 2.2 square kilometer neighborhood, fewer than half will be eligible for alternative accommodation in the development, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to accomplish. Others will be transferred to wastelands and coastal regions on the distant periphery of the metropolis, threatening to fragment a generations-old neighborhood. A portion will not get residences at all.

People eligible to stay in the area will be given flats in multi-story structures, a major break from the evolved, shared lifestyle of living and working that has sustained Dharavi for generations.

Commercial activities from garment work to ceramic crafts and waste processing are projected to shrink in number and be transferred to a designated "industrial sector" separated from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of this protester, a workshop owner and long-time resident to call home this community, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His informal, multi-level workshop makes leather coats – formal jackets, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – sold in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and abroad.

Relatives dwells in the accommodations below and laborers and garment workers – migrants from north India – also sleep in the same building, permitting him to sustain operations. Outside the slum, accommodation prices are often tenfold more expensive for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the government offices nearby, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project illustrates a contrasting outlook. Well-groomed people move around on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, acquiring western-style baked goods and pastries and having coffee on a patio outside Dharavi Cafe and dessert parlor. It is a world away from the 20-rupee idli sambar morning meal and low-cost tea that supports the neighborhood.

"This isn't development for us," says the protester. "It's a massive land development that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the development company. Managed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the government head – the business group has been subject to claims of preferential treatment and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

While administrative bodies calls it a collaborative effort, the business group contributed nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. A lawsuit claiming that the initiative was unfairly awarded to the business group is under review in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

Since they began to vocally oppose the project, Shaikh and other residents state they have been subjected to ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – including communications, direct threats and suggestions that speaking against the development was comparable with speaking against the country – by people they claim represent the corporate group.

Included in these accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c