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Over an extended period, coercive communications continued. Originally, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and an ex-military commander, and then from the police themselves. Ultimately, a local artisan states he was ordered to law enforcement headquarters and instructed bluntly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is one of many opposing a expensive redevelopment plan where Dharavi – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – is scheduled to be demolished and transformed by a corporate giant.

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

Dual Worlds

The cramped lanes of Dharavi sit in stark contrast to the soaring skyscrapers and luxury apartments that dominate the neighborhood. Dwellings are assembled randomly and often without proper sanitation, unregulated industries emit toxic smoke and the atmosphere is filled with the overpowering odor of open sewers.

To some, the vision of a renewed Dharavi into a developed area of high-end towers, organized recreational areas, contemporary malls and homes with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future realized.

"There's no sufficient health services, paved pathways or water management and we have no places for youth to recreate," says a chai seller, fifty-six, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to tear it all down and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

But others, including Shaikh, are resisting the plan.

None deny that this community, long neglected as an illegal encroachment, is in stark need investment and development. Yet they are concerned that this project – without community input – might convert a piece of prime Mumbai real estate into an elite enclave, evicting the marginalized, migrant communities who have lived there since the late 1800s.

It was these marginalized, displaced people who established the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of self-reliance and business activity, whose economic value is valued at between a significant amount and two million dollars a year, making it among the globe's biggest unregulated sectors.

Displacement Concerns

Out of about one million people living in the packed 220-hectare zone, a minority will be able for replacement housing in the development, which is projected to take a significant period to accomplish. Others will be moved to barren areas and coastal regions on the distant periphery of the metropolis, threatening to break up a historic neighborhood. A portion will be denied residences at all.

People eligible to continue living in the area will be allocated apartments in high-rise buildings, a substantial change from the organic, shared lifestyle of living and working that has supported Dharavi for so long.

Businesses from garment work to pottery and recycling are expected to shrink in number and be transferred to a specific "industrial sector" distant from residential areas.

Livelihood Crisis

For residents like Shaikh, a leather artisan and long-time inhabitant to live in this community, the project presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-floor facility creates garments – tailored coats, luxury coats, fashionable garments – marketed in premium stores in upscale neighborhoods and internationally.

Household members resides in the rooms underneath and laborers and sewers – laborers from other states – reside in the same building, allowing him to manage costs. Outside the slum, housing costs are frequently significantly costlier for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the administrative buildings close by, a conceptual model of the transformation initiative shows a very different vision for the future. Well-groomed people gather on cycles and electric vehicles, acquiring western-style baguettes and pastries and having coffee on a patio adjacent to a coffee shop and treat station. This depicts a complete departure from the 20-rupee idli sambar breakfast and 5-rupee chai that sustains local residents.

"This isn't improvement for residents," says the artisan. "It's a huge real estate deal that will make it unaffordable for us to survive."

There is also distrust of the business conglomerate. Run by an influential industrialist – one of India's most powerful and a supporter of the national leader – the business group has been subject to claims of crony capitalism and ethical concerns, which it denies.

Even as local authorities calls it a collaborative effort, the corporation paid nearly a billion dollars for its 80% stake. Legal proceedings claiming that the redevelopment was unfairly awarded to the corporation is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Continued Intimidation

From when they initiated to publicly resist the project, Shaikh and other residents claim they have been faced ongoing efforts of harassment and intimidation – comprising phone calls, direct threats and implications that speaking against the development was comparable with speaking against the country – by people they assert work for the business conglomerate.

Among those accused of making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c