Basti Clearances: Examining the Characteristics of Informal Settlements Experiencing Evictions in India

Background:

Evictions in bastis (informal settlements) in India leave thousands of people from low-income communities homeless and violate several international human rights, including the right to life, adequate housing, and safety. Between 2020-2021, the Indian government demolished over 24,445 homes, thus evicting over 169,176 people (HLRN, 2021). Delhi alone witnessed the demolition of approximately 3,000 houses in 2017 under the guise of ‘city beautification,’ infrastructure projects, and disaster management efforts (HLRN, 2018).

Under India’s national slum policy framework, some states have begun offering tenure rights that protect people from forced evictions. However, it remains unclear how these rights are conferred, given the complex administrative process involved and the vast variations in bastis based on their size, land use, and surrounding neighborhoods. It is critical to developing a deeper understanding of the types of bastis and the nature of bastis experiencing eviction for proposing targeted solutions to preserve basti residents’ tenure rights. Thus, this study sought to fill this gap by (a) developing a typology of Basti clearances in Delhi based on a set of characteristics, including size, whether the population was resettled, and age of basti, and (b) assessing the relationship between neighborhood characteristics, including population density and Basti clearance typology group membership.

Methods:

The study used data from the Missing Basti Project (a website consisting of data on evictions in bastis in Delhi) and geoIQ (an online database with access to geographic information on Delhi neighborhoods). These two sources provided comprehensive data on bastis, including the location and age of basti, the government agency behind the eviction, the date and reasons for evictions, etc. Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was used to develop a typology of bastis affected by evictions in Delhi based on characteristics of bastis experiencing eviction. After using LCA to identify distinct subgroups of bastis, chi-square tests were conducted to assess the association between neighborhood characteristics in which bastis are located and their membership in these subgroups.

Findings:

Given the small sample size, the best-fitting AIC (3159.8) and BIC value (3481.1) from the LCA were identified, which yielded four classes. The four distinct profiles of the basti location data emphasize heterogeneity within these locations—findings suggest that not all bastis are the same and are cleared between different time periods and for different reasons in Delhi. Most of the bastis were cleared between 2011 and 2020, and the location of the evicted basti remains empty. The chi-square tests revealed a significant association between bastis cleared due to public infrastructural projects and average home values and population density of the surrounding neighborhoods in Delhi.

Conclusions & Implications:

The findings from the study make meaningful contributions to proposing tailored interventions to offer tenure rights to basti residents located in neighborhoods with high average home values and population density. These interventions could also target the restitution of the human rights of the affected people by providing resettlements, rehabilitation, and adequate compensation. Additionally, the findings can be used in advocating for a human-rights-based impact assessment of evictions.