ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on state-inflicted violence in the city of Delhi. It examines how the state affects the poor in their everyday lives, and how violence is locally experienced and differentially mediated by virtue of varied spatial and material realities. Viklang Colony residents identify the shortage of land and money as their main problems, along with repeated harassment by municipal authorities. The chapter analyses the patterns of urban inequality and deprivation across social categories and localities. This analysis shows overlapping deprivations marked by the households' social status and geographic location. The infrastructural inadequacy in Delhi slums also brings state apathy to the fore. Consequently, residents are routinely forced to fight among themselves for access to basic needs like water, drainage, toilets, and waste disposal. The state also appears apathetic about their safety and security: police rarely patrol these areas at night, unlike in affluent or middle-class parts of the city.
