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For months, threatening messages recurred. At first, allegedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, and then from the police themselves. Ultimately, one resident asserts he was summoned to the police station and warned explicitly: keep quiet or experience severe repercussions.

Shaikh is part of a group resisting a multimillion-dollar project where this historic settlement – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces demolished and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The culture of this area is like nowhere else in the world," states Shaikh. "Yet their intention is to destroy our way of life and stop us speaking out."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of Dharavi present a dramatic difference to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that overshadow the settlement. Homes are constructed informally and typically without proper sanitation, small-scale operations emit toxic smoke and the air is filled with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

To some, the vision of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of luxury high-rises, neat parks, modern retail complexes and apartments with two toilets is an aspirational dream come true.

"There's no sufficient health services, roads or water management and there are no spaces for youth to recreate," explains A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who moved from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The only way is to clear the area and build us new homes."

Local Protest

However, some, including the leather artisan, are fighting against the project.

Everyone acknowledges that this community, long neglected as informal housing, is urgently needing investment and development. However they fear that this plan – absent of resident participation – could potentially convert valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, forcing out the disadvantaged, migrant communities who have resided there since the late 1800s.

This involved these marginalized, migrant workers who developed the uninhabited area into a widely studied marvel of self-reliance and business activity, whose output is estimated at between $1m and $2m a year, making it one of the world's largest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Of the roughly a million residents living in the packed sprawling area, less than 50% will be able for replacement housing in the project, which is expected to take seven years to finish. Others will be transferred to wastelands and saline fields on the distant periphery of Mumbai, risking divide a historic social network. Some will receive no homes at all.

Residents permitted to remain in Dharavi will be allocated flats in multi-story structures, a major break from the evolved, shared lifestyle of residing and operating that has maintained this area for so long.

Commercial activities from garment work to pottery and material recovery are expected to decrease in quantity and be transferred to a designated "industrial sector" far from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For those such as this protester, a leather artisan and long-time resident to reside in this community, the plan presents an existential threat. His informal, three-storey facility creates leather coats – sharp blazers, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – marketed in luxury boutiques in south Mumbai and overseas.

His family resides in the accommodations underneath and laborers and tailors – workers from north India – also sleep in the same building, permitting him to manage costs. Beyond this community, accommodation prices are often 10 times costlier for a single room.

Pressure and Coercion

At the administrative buildings nearby, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative shows a very different vision for the future. Well-groomed people move around on cycles and electric vehicles, buying western-style baked goods and croissants and enlisting beverages on an outdoor area adjacent to a restaurant and dessert parlor. This depicts a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar breakfast and budget beverage that supports local residents.

"This represents no development for residents," states the protester. "It's a huge real estate deal that will render it impossible for residents to remain."

Furthermore, there's distrust of the development company. Managed by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the national leader – the conglomerate has encountered allegations of favoritism and questionable practices, which it denies.

Although administrative bodies labels it a collaborative effort, the developer invested $950m for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings alleging that the redevelopment was questionably assigned to the business group is under review in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

After they started to publicly resist the development, Shaikh and other residents state they have been faced ongoing efforts of pressure and threats – involving communications, direct threats and insinuations that criticizing the project was comparable with speaking against the country – by people they assert work for the corporate group.

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