Who's Ciy Is It Anyway - Kiritika Dhiman

As stated by David Harvey in his essay “Right to the city”, the right to the city is a “common right”, rather than an “individual right”, hence transformations can happen by exercising collective power. It is observed that those producing and sustaining the city (the middle and lower class/the working class), are the ones that lack this right to change their cities and they must fight to claim this right. It can be understood as a collective struggle by all those that have a part in building the city.

The Kathputli colony lies in the up-market neighborhood of the Naraina industrial area, Kirti Nagar, Shadipur and Patel Nagar. The area is a prime land parcel of 14 acres inhabited by street performers, puppeteers, dancers, magicians, etc. the colony was home to over 2,800 families, and was known as the world's largest community of street performers.

It was in 2009 when the Delhi government planned the redevelopment scheme for the colony on a public private partnership basis. The contract was awarded to Raheja developers to build 2,800 flats of 350 square foot (sqft) on five hectare land to accommodate existing residents.

According to the plan, only those families would be eligible for the allotments which have verifiable identification. This has remained a larger cause of concern as most of the families here do not have one as the site was one of the jhuggi-jhopri (jj) clusters and not a permanent settlement.

The Project is still under construction as of March 2021 with no major changes in design/administration with some families moving into the new flats (where their art can of course not flourish due to space restrictions and apathetic design). Some of the families are still in transit camps (facing space constraints, water and electricity shortage, commuting problems to their places of work and losing their tradition and livelihood), others don’t know their fate as they do not have their names listed as “beneficiaries” of the scheme and are practically homeless or have set up camps/jhuggis elsewhere.... Until the authorities find this new land Profitable. The community continues to struggle in the Mega City.

I intend to place this tangible model in different places in the University campus for different people to interact with it, including teachers, students, security and cleaning staff, and anyone who is interested. This box is intended to make people question their representation in the development of their city. I also want to have this model as a part of "Main Bhi Dilli" Campaign and "Kon hai Master, Kya Hai Plan", both of which are aiming towards democratic design and planning practices in the development of Delhi. This model can help people understand that a "slum free city" might not be the best option we have.