The Kathpulti Colony derives its name from a traditional art practiced in Rajasthan with string puppets. The colony houses puppeteers, dancers, singers, magicians, sculptors, stilt walkers and other practitioners of traditional art forms. There are more than 12 communities living here. Each group stays in its part of the colony, but that does not restrict their interaction with people from other communities… The slum is more than forty years old with around 3000 families living in the small criss-crossing streets with one room, tinned roof homes. Children play around the garbage and dirt around them and if any one of them falls into the black overflowing drains, they simply go under the hand pumps, wash it with water and come back and play again.
The Kathputli colony, recently, has become one the targets by Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in its initiative towards slum free Delhi. It will be one the first slum to have an in-situ rehabilitation i.e. the residents of the slum will be rehabilitated at their original site. The process involves moving the people from the colony to a transit camp and then the slum area to be developed which will include the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) flats built for the slum dwellers along with high rise buildings. The DDA, unfortunately, under the umbrella of Public Private Partnership, has sold off the land to a private builder who will make luxury flats and a mall in place of the Kathpulti colony. A marginal part of the so called developed land will have the EWS flats. The people living in the Kathputli colony have been resisting this development plan of DDA for a few years now. But it’s been years of struggle for them without any fruits. About to get evicted, the artists are less worried about the displacement as they are about loss of the traditional art. Many of the artists have instruments and artefacts which are impossible to keep in a EWS apartment. The puppeteers have more than ten feet puppets, the singers have instruments which weigh 80 kgs. The magicians have gadgets which are to be used only in open and other such issues, which make these artists worry about their rehabilitation in the EWS flats. Another concern is the loss of their land. They are fighting the legal battle to give them plots in the same place instead of flats so that they can keep their art alive.
In this photo essay, an attempt has been made to present the story of Kathputli colony as it unfolded during the visit to the slum.
