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Across several weeks, coercive communications continued. Originally, reportedly from a former police officer and a former defense officer, subsequently from the police themselves. Finally, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh asserts he was called to law enforcement headquarters and warned explicitly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

The leather artisan is one of many resisting a high-value project where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – will be demolished and modernized by a multinational conglomerate.

"The distinctive community of the slum is exceptional in the world," says the resident. "However they want to eradicate our community and silence our voices."

Contrasting Realities

The dank gullies of the slum present a dramatic difference to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that dominate the settlement. Dwellings are built haphazardly and frequently without proper sanitation, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the environment is filled with the overpowering odor of open sewers.

To some, the promise of a renewed Dharavi into a modern district of high-end towers, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and homes with proper sanitation is a hopeful vision achieved.

"We don't have adequate medical facilities, roads or water management and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," says A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who relocated from his home state in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to demolish everything and build us new homes."

Local Protest

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

Everyone acknowledges that Dharavi, long neglected as informal housing, is desperately requiring investment and development. However they worry that this initiative – without public consultation – is one that will convert valuable urban land into a luxury development, evicting the disadvantaged, immigrant populations who have resided there since the nineteenth century.

This involved these shunned, migrant workers who developed the empty marshland into an extensively researched phenomenon of community resilience and business activity, whose economic value is estimated at between a significant amount and $2m a year, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Of the roughly 1 million people living in the packed sprawling area, fewer than half will be able for alternative accommodation in the project, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to finish. Others will be moved to barren areas and coastal regions on the far outskirts of the metropolis, threatening to divide a long-established community. Certain individuals will be denied homes 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 residing and operating that has supported the community for generations.

Businesses from tailoring to clay work and recycling are expected to reduce in scale and be moved to a designated "commercial zone" distant from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

For residents like the leather artisan, a workshop owner and multi-generational inhabitant to reside in Dharavi, the project presents a fundamental risk. His makeshift, multi-level operation makes leather coats – formal jackets, suede trenches, fashionable garments – sold in high-end shops in the city's affluent areas and overseas.

Relatives lives in the accommodations below and laborers and tailors – migrants from different regions – reside there, permitting him to manage costs. Outside Dharavi's enclave, housing costs are frequently 10 times as high for basic accommodation.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the government offices nearby, a conceptual model of the Dharavi project shows a very different vision for the future. Fashionable inhabitants move around on bicycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing international bread and croissants and enlisting beverages on a terrace near a restaurant and Ice-Cream. It is a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar first meal and 5-rupee chai that sustains local residents.

"This is not progress for residents," says the protester. "It's an enormous real estate deal that will price people out for residents to remain."

There is also distrust of the corporate group. Headed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the Indian prime minister – the business group has faced accusations of favoritism and ethical concerns, which it disputes.

While administrative bodies labels it a collaborative effort, the corporation invested a significant amount for its controlling interest. A case stating that the redevelopment was questionably assigned to the business group is being considered in India's supreme court.

Sustained Harassment

Since they began to vocally oppose the development, Shaikh and other residents state they have been experienced an extended period of coercion and warning – involving messages, direct threats and implications that speaking against the project was tantamount to speaking against the country – by people they assert represent the developer.

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