Forest in the city contested informal settlements on the hills of Guwahati

Abstract

The thesis documents and analyzes contestations around informal settlements on the hills of Guwahati, Northeast India s largest city. It first draws on archival research to explore how post-independence urban development in Guwahati led to the displacement and dispossession of indigenous tribal communities. This process of exclusionary urbanization continued into the contemporary period, as settlements on the hills surrounding the city confronted pressures to remove them. The study draws on the large body of literature on informal settlements in cities of the global south, especially evictions driven by middle-class urban environmental politics. newline newlineThe thesis explores multiple and competing claims to land by settlers and various state agencies (national, state and municipal) that have engendered protest and resistance, which have taken different forms over the years. The discussion focuses especially on pressures from local environmental groups and the state to evict the hill settlements many of which are deemed illegal encroachments on forest land in the name of nature conservation and urban environmental protection. newline newlineThe thesis explores two key dimensions of these conflicts around the hill settlements: First, it documents the everyday legal and discursive strategies deployed by hill settlers in their quest to sustain their communities and ensure clear land titles. Second, it traces the evolution of organized anti-eviction movements, highlighting the shift from Left-led mobilizations in the 1970s to a politics of identity in the 2000s as the indigenous tribal identity of hill settlers was foregrounded to bolster their claims to land and place. newline newlineThe thesis contributes to theorizing the struggles of the urban poor for a right to the city by foregrounding how anti-eviction movements are enmeshed in and shaped by, the regional, environmental and political specificities of southern cities and the agrarian or forested regions in which most are embedded. newline newline