South Delhi’s urban villages seek their slice of the pie
Beyond the upscale localities of Saket and Vasant Kunj lies an area once called ‘Dilli Dehat’ — a cluster of nearly 100 villages spread across Lado Sarai, Palam, Kapashera, and adjoining areas where farming was the biggest source of livelihood. Over time, with the arrival of development projects and businesses, farmlands gave way to residential spaces, and most villages became urbanised.
However,
‘Dilli Dehat’, where Jats and Gujjars have a sizeable presence, continues to hold sway over South Delhi’s politics. The former two-time BJP MP of the parliamentary constituency, Ramesh Bidhuri, a popular Gujjar face of the party, hails from South Delhi’s Tughlakabad village. Before Mr. Bidhuri, Congress’s Ramesh Kumar, a Jat, was the Lok Sabha member from the seat.
This time as well, both the primary contestants from South Delhi — BJP’s Ramvir Singh Bidhuri and Aam Aadmi Party’s Sahi Ram — are well-known Gujjar faces. While the BJP nominee hails from the same village as the former BJP MP, the AAP candidate comes from Tehkhand village.
Delhi is scheduled to vote on Saturday.
Shrinking farms
Sixty-nine-year-old Rajjo Devi, while tending to her cattle in Lado Sarai, says, “Till about 20 years ago, people here depended mainly on agriculture to support their families. Then the Delhi Development Authority started taking possession of land parcels and residential colonies started coming up.”
She adds that Lado Sarai now has no agricultural land, and only a handful of the nearly 1,500 families living there still have cattle.
As one moves towards Chhattarpur, which houses some of the fanciest farmhouses in the National Capital Region, residents talk about the lack of basic amenities, such as irregular water supply and poorly maintained roads.
Voice of dissent
Sipping tea in front of a huge farmhouse, Dharam Pal, 78, says, “We don’t have access to the same luxuries as them [farmhouse dwellers]. They get clean water; we get garbage and broken sewers. We are perhaps not as important for the authorities.”
Than Singh Yadav, chief of Delhi Panchayat Union, says, “A big problem residents of South Delhi’s urban villages face is the ownership of their land and houses. The issue aects a population of nearly 5 lakh people. So, when people from these areas go out to vote, they are likely to think about the candidate who promised them a denitive resolution.”
Explaining the problem, Mr. Yadav says over the past several decades, many people in ‘Dilli Dehat’ built their homes on land that was demarcated to be outside the village boundaries, as a result of which they had no papers to prove ownership rights. Families that inherited these properties found it diªcult to sell them or take loans against them.
High crime rate
Away from the urban villages, people living in neighbourhoods closer to central Delhi say traªc congestion, high crime rate, and cleanliness are their major concerns.
Chhavi Sharma, a lawyer based in South Delhi’s East of Kailash, says,
“Despite the area being better developed than most others in the vicinity, people here continue to suer from petty crimes such as theft.”
Abhishek Singh, the caretaker of a home in Kalkaji, says, “Here, once the garbage starts piling up, it continues to accumulate for days until compelled by thousands of phone calls by residents, the authorities decide to clear it.”
Poll promises
One of the main poll planks in Mr. Ramvir Singh Bidhuri’s campaign is the promise to regularise Delhi’s unauthorised colonies.
At a rally that Union Home Minister Amit Shah held on May 20 in South Delhi’s Sangam Vihar in support of the party candidate, he said the BJP-led Central government, after winning the election, will ensure that all unauthorised colonies in Delhi are regularised by 2026.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sahi Ram has spoken about working for the welfare of urban villages and ensuring that all the basic amenities are provided to them.