[Urbanstudy] slum dwellers' rights (was Urbanstudygroup Digest, Vol 49, Issue 16)

[anant m]

--- Aditi Mittal <aditi_surf at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I am wondering, what are the rights given by the
> government to slum settlers. Is there clarity on
> this? Do they have ownership / tenancy rights on the
> property they live in? What is the policy in Mumbai?
Hi Aditi,
I am sure there are others on the list who know this
much better than I do. There was some discussion on
the slumdwellers' rights etc. on this list a couple of
years ago when the NanglaMachi eviction happened in
Delhi. It should be in the archives. If you search
google news for the dates when that episode happened
and then look through urban study archives for those
dates you will find plenty of clues and references
e.g. articles by Usha Ramanathan on displacement etc. 

But very briefly, residents of notified or otherwise
given some sort of legal status by the state/local
administration have some tenurial rights. These are
not the same as clean titled property rights tho. It
is a sort of provisional/usufruct right granted
through a 'patta' document. Other than this, all slums
residents develop social/customary rights locally
through a mix of legal semilegal extra legal
instruments which allow them to trade in property or
otherwise participate in financial transactions like
mortgages etc. (Government granted provisional rights
usually do not permit trading.) 

If I am not mistaken Solly Benjamin documented a
variety of these kinds of transactions/claims in
Karnataka. 

Other than this, squatters and pavement dwellers in
Indian cities have had some sort of protection through
an extended interpretation of Article 21 -- right to
life and liberty (extended to right to
livelihood/work). This protection is of course really
very lose and has mostly been undone in the last
decade through adverse court judgements. 
Anant


----------------
A place does not merely exist...it has to be invented in one's imagination
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