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Over an extended period, coercive phone calls recurred. Initially, supposedly from a retired cop and a former defense officer, later from law enforcement directly. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was called to the police station and told clearly: keep quiet or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is one of many resisting a multimillion-dollar project where Dharavi – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – will be demolished and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The culture of the slum is unparalleled in the planet," states Shaikh. "Yet the plan aims to eradicate our way of life and stop us speaking out."

Contrasting Realities

The cramped lanes of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and elite residences that overshadow the settlement. Residences are assembled randomly and often missing basic amenities, small-scale operations release harmful emissions and the air is filled with the unpleasant stench of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the promise of Dharavi transformed into a modern district of luxury high-rises, neat parks, modern retail complexes and homes with multiple bathrooms is a hopeful vision achieved.

"We don't have sufficient health services, proper streets or drainage and we have no places for kids to enjoy," explains a chai seller, in his fifties, who relocated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The only way is to tear it all down and provide modern residences."

Local Protest

However, some, such as this protester, are opposing the redevelopment.

All recognize that this community, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need investment and development. Yet they worry that this project – without resident participation – could potentially transform premium city property into an elite enclave, forcing out the lower-caste, working-class residents who have been there since the nineteenth century.

It was these marginalized, migrant workers who developed the vacant wetlands into a frequently examined example of community resilience and economic productivity, whose economic value is worth between $1m and a substantial sum a year, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.

Resettlement Issues

Among approximately a million residents living in the dense 220-hectare zone, a minority will be qualified for alternative accommodation in the redevelopment, which is projected to take seven years to accomplish. The remainder will be transferred to barren areas and salt plains on the remote edges of the metropolis, threatening to divide a generations-old neighborhood. Certain individuals will not get residences at all.

Those allowed to stay in Dharavi will be provided flats in high-rise buildings, a significant rupture from the organic, collective approach of living and working that has supported the community for so long.

Businesses from clothing production to ceramic crafts and recycling are likely to shrink in number and be moved to an allocated "commercial zone" distant from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

In the case of the leather artisan, a leather artisan and multi-generational inhabitant to live in this community, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His rickety, multi-level workshop produces leather coats – tailored coats, luxury coats, decorated jackets – marketed in premium stores in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

His family resides in the rooms downstairs and laborers and sewers – laborers from north India – reside there, allowing him to afford their labour. Away from the slum, Mumbai rents are frequently 10 times as high for basic accommodation.

Threats and Warning

Within the official facilities close by, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative depicts an alternative vision for the future. Well-groomed residents mill about on two-wheelers and electric vehicles, buying western-style bread and pastries and socializing on a patio near a restaurant and Ice-Cream. This depicts a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar first meal and budget beverage that maintains local residents.

"This is not improvement for us," states the artisan. "This constitutes an enormous property transaction that will make it unaffordable for our community to continue."

Furthermore, there's concern of the business conglomerate. Managed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the corporation has been subject to claims of favoritism and financial impropriety, which it rejects.

Although local authorities describes it as a collaborative effort, the business group paid nearly a billion dollars for its majority share. Legal proceedings claiming that the initiative was improperly granted to the business group is pending in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to publicly resist the redevelopment, protesters and community members claim they have been faced an extended period of coercion and warning – involving phone calls, explicit warnings and insinuations that opposing the project was equivalent to anti-national sentiment – by people they claim are associated with the business conglomerate.

Part of the group alleged to have making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c