The 'slum' as a homogenous spatial, physical, legal and moral unit has been a significant focus of planning and policy in Indian cities. Despite urban poor and marginalised settlements transgressing and appropriating planning norms from different periods, this imagination has remained the same, retaining the approach of addressing a dominant alternate urbanism with regressive tools of clearance and rehabilitation. This study and capacity building conducted from 2017 -2018 by Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA) and the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) aimed to problematise this imagination and consequent practice by presenting the relationship between formal planning processes and urban settlements categorised as 'slums' in Indore. This was done to evaluate the oversights and illustrate opportunities for new modes of articulation, analysis and intervention. Indore's history of planning, beginning in the 16th century. presents a platform layered with diverse and starkly varied frameworks and politics.

The study used both qualitative and quantitative methods and extensive secondary data review. Unique to the study is the action research methodology that used capacity building workshops and community researchers who are residents of the settlements of study.

English