Restructuring life and work through bulldozer “justice” in urban India

Abstract

This article examines the intensification of demolition drives in urban India over the past decade. It situates forced evictions within the history of “development” induced displacement and the contemporary rise of Hindutva nationalism. The Indian development model has historically relied on large-scale displacement for infrastructural expansion, conservation projects, and urban redevelopment. Policies to produce a “world-class” city have increased the incidence of forced evictions, even as avenues for rehabilitation have diminished. In recent years, punitive demolitions—popularly termed “bulldozer justice”—have emerged as a key instrument of repression targeting Indian Muslims, particularly migrant workers. The recent coupling of punitive demolition with mass deportation has further deepened the crisis of housing precarity and internal displacement, while simultaneously resulting in statelessness and external displacement for Muslims. Forced evictions across the Global South have long accompanied urban beautification, mega-events, and capitalist redevelopment, and have also served as mechanisms of nationalist consolidation and rising fascism. India participates in both trajectories, offering an instructive example of how right-wing nationalism converges with capitalist development, worsening housing precarity for urban workers in the informal urban economy. Drawing on reports, policy documents, and case studies, this article demonstrates how demolition drives operate simultaneously as an economic strategy to capture land for private real-estate capital and as a punitive tool deployed against political dissent and the country’s Muslim population.