ABSTRACT
The state's politics in the 1960s were rooted in patronage: shelter policies in specific were aimed at satisfying slum dwellers who formed a large part of the vote bank. This meant that the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) was oriented mainly towards in situ slum improvements and tenement construction, rather than eviction and resettlement. This chapter looks at interviews with officials from the TNSCB, activists, lawyers, and with the communities, to understand the evictions and to identify best practices for resettlement in the city upon which a better and more consistent resettlement policy can be built. Residents of a particular slum are subject to worse treatment than other, for reasons that are completely out of their control. The chapter offers new evidence of inhuman, extra-legal, and ad hoc procedures followed by the government in evictions and relocation that only strengthen the argument in favor of better policy that is pro in situ development and anti coercive evictions.
