Forcible eviction?: Protests break out in Delhi puppeteers' Kathputli Colony, world's largest, against "rehab" plan

By A Representative
Protests have broken out in Delhi's Kathputli Colony, the world's biggest settlement of street performers, following threat of forcible eviction to 3,500 families, mainly puppeteers. Belonging to Rajasthan, Bengal, Bihar, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, they have been living here for around five decades, They are being told that they would be shifted for two years to a “transit camp.”
Continuing for the last about 10 days, the protests follow what activists supporting the street performers' cause call, “illicit use of police force, presence of bulldozers, and fearful environment created by Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in the name of taking consent for redevelopment of the colony.”
Situated near Shadipur Depot, the Kathputli Colony houses not just puppeteers, but also magicians, snake charmers, acrobats, singers, dancers, actors, traditional healers and musicians. DDA, responsible for carrying out real estate development in India's capital city, says that the eviction is part of its “in situ redevelopment plan” of the Government of Delhi.
DDA wants the Kathputli colony dwellers to move to a “temporary” transit camp, about 5 km away in the Anand Parbat industrial area. It contends, it has signed a trapartite agreement for this with the Kathputli Colony community heads or pradhans, the Raheja builders, under which each “legitimate family” would be given a flat after two years at the same spot.
Sharply contesting DDA's claim, the Delhi Solidarity Group (DSG), which represents the puppeteers, says, “DDA is on a rampant mission of getting consent from people of Kathputli Colony to shift them to transit camp and handover the land of 5.22 ha to Raheja builders for redevelopment.”

DSG, which is an ally of Bhoomi Adhikar Andolan (BAA), India's apex land rights organization in the fight for the cause of the street artistes, insists, “The hurriedness is not even explained to people. In the presence of heavy police power, DDA officials are taking consent individually by pursuing individual families separately.”
Meanwhile, it alleges, “Public properties are being demolished without the public consent, damaging others house. Even the presence of bulldozers is unnecessary without collective public consent for shifting to transit camp.”
Alleging a “possible nexus between DDA and Raheja builders”, DSG insists, “The land which belongs to the puppeteers and other talented communities, who have made our country proud internationally since several decades, must belong to them.”
According to the scheme put up by DDA, each family would have to shift to the transit camp for two years, after which they would get a flat at the same spot, for which they would have to give Rs 1.42 lakh, which includes Rs 30,000 as maintenance for five years.
Each day, the DDA puts up a camp at the Kathputli Colony, where officials, in the presence of the police, seek the street artistes' consent. A digital TV at the camp shows the type of flats they would get, apart from a park, an open air theatre, two schools, and so on.
In between Prime Minister Narendra Modi is shown telling the slum dwellers about his resolve to free India of slums by 2022.
Activists say, the artistes' families are not told that, while on 3.4 hectares (ha) area of the 5.22 ha of Kathputli Colony flats for resettling the slum dwellers would come up, on the rest of the 1.7 ha, the Rahejas would be constructing a 190 metre high building, Delhi's highest, where 170 luxury flats and a helipad.
They further say, DDA's own 2009 survey estimated there were about 3,100 houses in the Kathputli Colony, yet Raheja is building only 2,641 flats. As of today, they claim, there are around 3,500 families living in the colony.
They wonder, from where would the poor artistes get Rs 1.41 lakh for their new flats, wondering who would give them loan, as no bank has yet been tied up. Also, there is a fear whether artistes' flats would be ready in two years' time.

Comments

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

By Ram Puniyani The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue.

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

Search This Blog