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For months, threatening communications continued. At first, allegedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a retired army general, and then from the police themselves. In the end, a local artisan states he was ordered to the local precinct and told clearly: stop speaking out or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is part of a group opposing a expensive initiative where this historic settlement – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – faces razed and modernized by a large business group.

"The distinctive community of this area is like nowhere else in the world," explains the protester. "Yet the plan aims to dismantle our way of life and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The cramped lanes of the slum sit in stark contrast to the towering buildings and elite residences that loom over the settlement. Residences are constructed informally and frequently missing basic amenities, unregulated industries produce dangerous fumes and the air is permeated by the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

Among some individuals, the vision of a renewed Dharavi into a glistening neighborhood of premium apartments, neat parks, contemporary malls and homes with multiple bathrooms is an aspirational dream achieved.

"There's no proper healthcare, proper streets or water management and there are no spaces for children to play," says a tea vendor, fifty-six, who relocated from southern India in that period. "The sole solution is to tear it all down and build us new homes."

Resident Opposition

However, some, including the leather artisan, are opposing the plan.

All recognize that this community, long neglected as unauthorized settlement, is desperately requiring economic input and modernization. Yet they worry that this plan – without public consultation – could potentially transform premium city property into a playground for the rich, evicting the lower-caste, migrant communities who have resided there since generations ago.

This involved these marginalized, relocated individuals who established the empty marshland into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and economic productivity, whose economic value is estimated at between a significant amount and $2m annually, making it a major informal economies.

Displacement Concerns

Among approximately a million residents living in the packed 220-hectare area, fewer than half will be qualified for new homes in the development, which is estimated to take seven years to finish. The remainder will be transferred to barren areas and coastal regions on the distant periphery of the city, threatening to fragment a long-established community. Certain individuals will receive no residences at all.

Those allowed to stay in Dharavi will be allocated flats in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the organic, shared lifestyle of dwelling and laboring that has maintained this area for so long.

Industries from clothing production to clay work and waste processing are likely to decrease in quantity and be moved to a specific "industrial sector" far from homes.

Survival Challenge

For those such as Shaikh, a craftsman and long-time inhabitant to reside in the slum, the plan presents a survival challenge. His rickety, multi-level operation produces apparel – formal jackets, suede trenches, fashionable garments – distributed in luxury boutiques in the city's affluent areas and internationally.

Relatives resides in the rooms downstairs and employees and garment workers – migrants from different regions – live there, enabling him to sustain operations. Outside this community, Mumbai rents are frequently significantly more expensive for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

At the government offices in the vicinity, a visual representation of the transformation initiative depicts a very different outlook. Well-groomed residents move around on bicycles and e-vehicles, acquiring western-style baked goods and breakfast items and socializing on a patio outside Dharavi Cafe and treat station. This depicts a stark contrast from the 20-rupee idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains the neighborhood.

"This is not improvement for our community," states the protester. "This constitutes a massive real estate deal that will price people out for our community to continue."

Additionally, there exists distrust of the corporate group. Managed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and an associate of the Indian prime minister – the conglomerate has faced accusations of preferential treatment and questionable practices, which it denies.

While the state government calls it a joint project, the business group paid $950m for its controlling interest. A case alleging that the initiative was questionably assigned to the business group is pending in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

After they started to actively protest the development, protesters and community members assert they have been experienced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – including communications, explicit warnings and suggestions that speaking against the development was tantamount to opposing national interests – by figures they assert are associated with the corporate group.

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