Title: Contemporary discourses on slums

Authors: Deepak Kumar

Addresses: Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI), BSIDC Colony, Off Boring Patliputra Road, Patna 800 013, India

Abstract: Slums have been most often identified as 'crime pockets', 'encroachments' and 'public nuisance'. In this article, I have attempted to explore contemporary discourses on slums that represent the problematics of such informal settlements in India. This article is based on interactions with civil society members, retired chief justice of Delhi High Court, a legal researcher, and an academician in planning and design, and views of activists, researchers, and public officials at conferences and seminars that I had the opportunity to attend during my MPhil research between 2017 and 2018. The article is structured along multiple tropes indicative of different discourses at play.

Keywords: slum; city beautification; eviction; urban planning; human rights.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHRCS.2024.141715

International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 2024 Vol.11 No.4, pp.389 - 402

Received: 14 May 2023
Accepted: 20 May 2023
Published online: 01 Oct 2024 *

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