ABSTRACT

This chapter examines how the violence of judicial decisions maps a homogeneous identity of illegal urban citizens onto the bodies and spaces of squatters. It examines how this then produces among squatters an understanding of resettlement as the only hope for legitimacy and urban citizenship in the future. The juridical institution promotes an ontological glorification. The juridical field' in India has always been an important space where the question of illegality of squatter settlements has been debated. In India in the 1980s, an increased awareness among the judiciary about the failings' of the courts manifested in a form of judicial activism known as Public Interest Litigation (PIL). Since Indian liberalization in 1991, the urban middle-classes have become actively involved in the making of cities and urban spaces through their initiative in preventing environmental ills in cities and urban regions. This reinterpretation of nuisance' is purely aesthetic, tied to judiciary and middle-class understanding of acceptable conduct and visual order.