Projects

Missing Basti Project

DELHI

2017

Every year, parts of our cities disappear as the bastis built informally by the poorer citizens continue to be evicted and demolished. The Missing Basti Project archives these missing parts of Delhi in an attempt to preserve their character and history, covering the evictions over 2016-17 documented as part of CEPT University Summer Winter School.

'Missing Basti' was an online mapping project as part of CEPT Summer Winter School 2017 to archive the informally built neighborhoods or bastis in Delhi that were evicted between 2016-17. Using ethnographic research methodologies, the stories of the missing places and people were collected and collated in the form of maps, sketches, timelines and audio interviews to present this information to the larger public in the form of a website. More information at https://beta.missingbasti.com/

The workshop helped trigger a larger and longer mapping exercise in collaboration with social workers, activists, lawyers, designers, film-makers, researchers and rights-based organizations to archive all the evictions in Delhi from 1990 onwards. Started in 2018, the Missing Basti Project is a voluntary and interdisciplinary initiative to archive past and ongoing evictions in Delhi in order to question as well as mobilize action for the prevention of further evictions. It leverages the power of maps and data in supporting marginalized communities to assert their right to the city. The project website is an open and live archive to which anyone can contribute: https://missingbasti.com/