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Over an extended period, coercive phone calls persisted. Originally, allegedly from a former police officer and an ex-military commander, and then from the police themselves. In the end, Mohammad Khurshid Shaikh claims he was summoned to the local precinct and warned explicitly: remain silent or encounter real trouble.

The leather artisan is one of many opposing a expensive initiative where one of India's largest slums – one of India’s largest and most storied slums – faces razed and transformed by a multinational conglomerate.

"The unique ecosystem of the slum is like nowhere else in the globe," says the protester. "But the plan aims to eradicate our way of life and prevent our protests."

Opposing Environments

The dank gullies of this community sit in stark contrast to the high-rise structures and luxury apartments that dominate the area. Residences are built haphazardly and typically lacking adequate facilities, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the environment is saturated with the overpowering odor of open sewers.

For certain residents, the promise of the slum's redevelopment into a developed area of premium apartments, neat parks, modern retail complexes and apartments with proper sanitation is an aspirational dream realized.

"We don't have proper healthcare, paved pathways or sewage systems and there's nowhere for children to play," explains A Selvin Nadar, in his fifties, who migrated from Tamil Nadu in the early eighties. "The sole solution is to tear it all down and build us new homes."

Community Resistance

However, some, including this protester, are fighting against the project.

None deny that this community, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is desperately requiring investment and development. But they worry that this plan – without resident participation – is one that will turn premium city property into an elite enclave, evicting the lower-caste, working-class residents who have lived there since the late 1800s.

It was these shunned, relocated individuals who developed the vacant wetlands into an extensively researched phenomenon of community resilience and commercial output, whose output is worth between a significant amount and a substantial sum annually, making it a major unofficial markets.

Relocation Worries

Out of about a million inhabitants living in the dense 220-hectare zone, a minority will be eligible for new homes in the development, which is estimated to take a significant period to accomplish. Additional residents will be moved to wastelands and salt plains on the distant periphery of the metropolis, risking fragment a historic social network. Certain individuals will be denied housing at all.

People eligible to stay in the neighborhood will be provided apartments in tower blocks, a major break from the evolved, communal way of residing and operating that has sustained the community for generations.

Commercial activities from clothing production to clay work and waste processing are likely to decrease in quantity and be transferred to a designated "industrial sector" separated from people's residences.

Existential Threat

For residents like this protester, a workshop owner and long-time of his family to reside in this community, the project presents an existential threat. His makeshift, multi-level operation creates apparel – formal jackets, premium outerwear, studded bomber jackets – sold in luxury boutiques in upscale neighborhoods and abroad.

Relatives dwells in the accommodations underneath and employees and tailors – workers from other states – reside in the same building, enabling him to afford their labour. Away from Dharavi's enclave, accommodation prices are often 10 times costlier for basic accommodation.

Pressure and Coercion

Within the official facilities in the vicinity, an illustrated mock-up of the Dharavi project shows a very different outlook. Well-groomed residents move around on cycles and e-vehicles, purchasing international bread and croissants and enlisting beverages on a terrace outside a restaurant and Ice-Cream. It is a stark contrast from the affordable idli sambar first meal and low-cost tea that maintains local residents.

"This represents no improvement for residents," states the protester. "It's a massive property transaction that will price people out for residents to remain."

There is also distrust of the development company. Run by a powerful tycoon – among the country's wealthiest and a supporter of the national leader – the business group has encountered allegations of favoritism and financial impropriety, which it denies.

Even as local authorities calls it a joint project, the corporation invested nearly a billion dollars for its controlling interest. Legal proceedings stating that the project was questionably assigned to the corporation is pending in India's supreme court.

Ongoing Pressure

From when they initiated to vocally oppose the development, Shaikh and other residents assert they have been faced a long-running campaign of coercion and warning – involving communications, direct threats and suggestions that opposing the development was equivalent to speaking against the country – by individuals they allege work for the developer.

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