Published Paper Details:

Urban land dispossession in India represents a critical manifestation of accumulation by dispossession under neoliberal capitalism, wherein the state systematically facilitates the transfer of land from marginalized communities to private capital. This paper examines the theoretical foundations and empirical manifestations of urban land dispossession in contemporary India through the lens of David Harvey's concept of accumulation by dispossession, building upon insights from postcolonial urban theory and critical development studies. Drawing from extensive secondary research and analysis of peer-reviewed literature, this study argues that India's neoliberal urban transformation has fundamentally restructured land relations, creating new forms of primitive accumulation that dispossess the urban poor while enabling capital circulation in the built environment. The analysis demonstrates how the Indian state operates as a "land broker state" (Levien, 2013) that deploys coercive power to overcome barriers to capital accumulation represented by existing land tenure arrangements, particularly affecting slum dwellers, small farmers on urban peripheries, and tribal communities. Through examining key policy frameworks including the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013, Special Economic Zones, and urban renewal programs, this paper reveals how legal and extra-legal mechanisms of dispossession operate within India's informalized planning regime (Roy, 2009). The findings contribute to broader debates on neoliberal urbanism in the Global South by highlighting the centrality of land dispossession to contemporary urban transformation and its implications for social justice and spatial inequality.