Definition of "basti"

There is a dreary bustee in the neighbourhood which is said to make the most of any cholera that may be going.

1891, Rudyard Kipling, The City Of Dreadful Night

With the population growth in the jhopadpattis, favelas, bastis and bidonvilles higher than any other environment in the world, we are seeing the emergence of Megaslums, where one million urban poor live in an area measuring just 1.5 square miles.

2012, Sarwant Singh, New Mega Trends: Implications for Our Future Lives, page 63

Her mother-in-law, in her half-delirious state, was sure that their basti would be broken down and had aggressively begun to push her sons to buy a plot of land elsewhere.

2023, Radhika Iyengar, Fire on the Ganges, Fourth Estate, page 294