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No Land, No Belonging: Singara Chennai, Dalit Evictions, and the Urgent Call for Reclamation
— ✍️ Shalin Maria Lawrence
The concept of "home" extends far beyond the materiality of bricks and mortar. It is a nest of emotions, woven and knitted with blood and nerves." When the security of this home is fractured, whether at the micro-level of a single dwelling or the macro-level of a city, it precipitates a crisis of identity and belonging. This is a first-person testimony which examines the multifaceted trauma of displacement in a rapidly modernizing Indian metropolis. I dwell into the personal anguish of leaving a beloved house to the collective grief of our community witnessing the systematic erasure of its cultural and historical landscape. The "beautification" of the city, rather than being a universally celebrated development, is a violent process that displaces the natives of Madras and sanitizes history, raising critical questions about who the city is for and what it means to be a "native" in one's own land.
This article is an autoethnographic testimony from a native Dalit woman. It contends that the "Singara Chennai" beautification project and the city's approach to urban development are contemporary manifestations of a centuries-old casteist project. By juxtaposing the lived experience of cyclical flooding in North Chennai's cheris (Dalit colonies) with the systemic erasure of Tamil-Dalit history, I argue that the state, across political parties, actively produces crises to alienate the native from their city, creating a landscape of what I term modern untouchability.
Historical Continuum: From ‘Black Town’ to ‘Singara Chennai’
Chennai's original name is Perumparaicheri, a tapestry of fishing hamlets, cheris, groves, and wetlands. The city's modern history begins with a act of segregation: the East India Company building its Fort and creating the "Black Town," systematically dividing the native from the colonizer. This was the first great displacement.
Post-independence, this model of segregation was perfected not by a foreign power, but by our own governments in the name of "development." The Dravidian political parties, whose rise to power was built on the "sweat," "blood," and the “fan whistles” of the poor during rallies, have now become the new rulers. They discovered that "everyone are the kings of this nation" only applied to the political class, not to the common people. The city they built with our labour is now being taken from us, piece by prime-location piece.
The Engineered Disaster: Floods as a Political Tool
In North Chennai, rain does not mean poetry or pakoras; it means fear. Our lived reality reveals that floods are not natural but politically orchestrated events.
The Lived Experience of Deluge
From childhood, we are trained in flood management. My mother was our weather department, announcing, "The first step has been reached!" We would spend nights moving certificates, my mother's wedding silk saree, and books to higher shelves. The water that enters our homes is not just rainwater; it is a vile mix of sewage, carrying human waste. We would sit on our beds in the dark, fearing electrocution or snakebites, waiting for dawn. The state's response was perpetually delayed and dehumanizing, offering shelter in crowded community halls with unhygienic food, mostly just overly boiled ,semi solid lemon rice and sambar rice.
The Political Economy of Neglect
The question is not why the cheris flood, but why the state refuses to fix the infrastructure. The answer is a brutal political calculus: by allowing the floods to persist, they make life in the cheris unlivable. When we, exhausted, move out—"Why should we leave the main area?"—our prime-location lands are freed up. These are then gifted to North Indian corporates or Marwari businessmen at the cost of the natives. The government's Housing Board resettlement colonies, like those in Kannagi Nagar or Perumbakkam, are not solutions; they are dumping grounds, often more vulnerable and isolated, leading to starvation and death. This is nothing short of ethnic cleansing.
Modern Untouchability: The Casteist Urban Makeover
The displacement is not only physical but also cultural and economic, creating a pervasive system of modern untouchability.
Shalin Maria (L) in the panel at "Conference on Land and politics " organised by All India forum for women intellect" headed by Dr. P. Sivakami, in March 2025.
Nature of allegations, SC/St Act: Punjab and Haryana HC denies bail to woman accused in Sangrur hooch deaths case
On her part, the woman said she had been falsely implicated on suspicion in the Sangrur hooch deaths case, no recovery had been effected from her, she had been in custody since March 2024, and she was suffering from medical ailments.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court.
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