Collective action and the right to adequate housing : the impact of resettlement on community mobilisation to access public services

Abstract

Over the next two decades, India alone is expected to add over 40 crore people to its cities. However, a significant share of the urban population continues to live in informal settlements without adequate access to basic services. As the world gets increasingly urbanised, nation states face a daunting task in upholding the right to adequate housing, enshrined in various international covenants. At the same time, with the ever-increasing commodification and contestation of land, governments, especially in the Global South, have resorted to en-masse evictions and resettlement to the urban periphery as the preferred mode of fulfilling the two-pronged challenge of providing public housing to the urban poor and fulfilling the demands of the neoliberal world order. On the other hand, despite living in informal settlements, literature has widely covered how the urban poor have used a combination of horizontal community mobilisation and vertical clientelist strategies to guarantee access to basic services. In an era of decentralised governance, collective action has emerged as a vital precursor to fulfilling the right to adequate housing. This study sought to examine the impact of resettlement on collective action to access uninterrupted piped water supply at Perumbakkam, one of the largest public housing sites in Tamil Nadu, at Chennai’s periphery. Through interviews of residents at the site, the study identified several major factors that impede the extent of collective action, which include structural barriers in the form of high-rise buildings and high population density, lack of livelihood opportunities, social fragmentation, breakdown of political patronage, and ineffective decentralisation. The study argues that the policy decision of involuntary peripheral resettlement is the key underlying factor that precludes successful community mobilisation at the site, and thus, the right to adequate housing. In light of the findings, it is imperative upon the government to enact a comprehensive resettlement and rehabilitation policy to ensure adequate representation and participation of those impacted, and explore alternative mechanisms such as in-situ upgradation of settlements.