Identity and Marginalisation in Urban India: Insights from the Census Data of Delhi

High rates of migration coupled with exorable rates of urban population growth and the inability of the formal housing market to keep pace with the urban population growth has resulted in the widespread proliferation of slums and squatter settlements in the cities of less developed countries. This is true especially in the case of large metropolises in the world, including metropolitan cities in India. Delhi is one of the megacities in India that houses more than sixty percent of its population in various informal settlements such as slums, unauthorized colonies, resettlement colonies, etc. Studies in the past have shown that the majority of the migrants living in such settlements belong to the socially disadvantaged sections of the society. Moreover, the existing literature, though scant, evinces an association between the identity of the migrants and their location of residence in urban areas. Against this backdrop, the present study examines whether the social identity of migrants plays any role in residential location in Delhi. An analysis of the ward-level Census data of Delhi indicates the prevalence of identity-based residential colonies among socially disadvantaged communities, especially in under-serviced areas of the city such as slums and informal settlements. This study finds that such settlements coupled with their location in the urban outskirts further marginalize their residents, even in the city, thereby reproducing the same kind of inequalities and discrimination in terms of housing they are forced to face in rural settings.