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Over an extended period, coercive messages continued. Originally, reportedly from a former police officer and a retired army general, later from law enforcement directly. Finally, a local artisan asserts he was summoned to the local precinct and told clearly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

Shaikh is part of a group resisting a multimillion-dollar initiative where one of India's largest slums – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – faces bulldozed and redeveloped by a corporate giant.

"The culture of this area is exceptional in the globe," explains Shaikh. "However the plan aims to eradicate our way of life and silence our voices."

Dual Worlds

The dank gullies of the slum stand in sharp opposition to the soaring skyscrapers and elite residences that dominate the settlement. Dwellings are built haphazardly and typically missing basic amenities, unregulated industries produce dangerous fumes and the atmosphere is saturated with the overpowering odor of exposed drainage.

To some, the prospect of the slum's redevelopment into a modern district of high-end towers, well-maintained green spaces, contemporary malls and residences with multiple bathrooms is an optimistic future realized.

"We don't have sufficient health services, paved pathways or sewage systems and we have no places for children to play," explains A Selvin Nadar, fifty-six, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in that period. "The single option is to demolish everything and construct proper housing."

Community Resistance

However, some, like Shaikh, are resisting the plan.

None deny that Dharavi, historically ignored as unauthorized settlement, is in stark need economic input and modernization. Yet they worry that this plan – without community input – could potentially transform premium city property into an elite enclave, displacing the disadvantaged, immigrant populations who have resided there since generations ago.

It was these marginalized, migrant workers who established the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of community resilience and commercial output, whose production is valued at between a significant amount and two million dollars a year, making it among the globe's biggest informal economies.

Relocation Worries

Among approximately a million residents living in the dense 2.2 square kilometer neighborhood, less than 50% will be able for replacement housing in the development, which is expected to take an extended timeframe to complete. The remainder will be relocated to wastelands and salt plains on the remote edges of the metropolis, risking break up a historic community. Some will receive no housing at all.

Residents permitted to stay in the neighborhood will be provided units in multi-story structures, a substantial change from the natural, collective approach of living and working that has sustained this area for many years.

Businesses from tailoring to ceramic crafts and material recovery are projected to reduce in scale and be transferred to a designated "business area" far from people's residences.

Survival Challenge

For residents like Shaikh, a craftsman and multi-generational of his family to live in this community, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His informal, three-storey operation makes leather coats – formal jackets, luxury coats, decorated jackets – sold in premium stores in upscale neighborhoods and abroad.

His family lives in the rooms downstairs and laborers and tailors – laborers from north India – live there, allowing him to manage costs. Outside Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are frequently significantly as high for a single room.

Harassment and Intimidation

Within the official facilities in the vicinity, a visual representation of the Dharavi project illustrates an alternative perspective. Well-groomed residents move around on two-wheelers and eco-friendly transport, buying continental bread and breakfast items and enlisting beverages on a patio outside a restaurant and treat station. This represents a stark contrast from the inexpensive idli sambar morning meal and budget beverage that sustains the neighborhood.

"This is not improvement for us," states the artisan. "It represents an enormous real estate deal that will render it impossible for us to survive."

Additionally, there exists skepticism of the business conglomerate. Headed by a prominent businessman – one of India's most powerful and a close ally of the government head – the corporation has encountered allegations of crony capitalism and questionable practices, which it rejects.

Although administrative bodies describes it as a joint project, the developer contributed $950m for its majority share. Legal proceedings stating that the redevelopment was improperly granted to the business group is pending in the nation's highest judicial body.

Sustained Harassment

After they started to publicly resist the redevelopment, Shaikh and other residents state they have been faced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – including communications, explicit warnings and suggestions that speaking against the initiative was tantamount to anti-national sentiment – by figures they claim represent the developer.

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