Through local narratives

At a first glance, it appears like any other densely populated urban village in the City. But Shadi Khampur and its neighbourhood in West Delhi, carry a legacy which is at least four centuries old. Belonging largely to the lower middle-classes, the villagers claim that their history goes back to 17th century. Some locals also claim to be successors of Prithviraj Chauhan, who ruled over Ajmer and Delhi in the late 12th century.

Khampur was the first village that was set up in the present day location, and residents brought in more people from their native places and settled them in an area that later came to be known as Shadipur village. Today, they are together known as Shadi Khampur.

At present, the village and its surrounding areas like Ranjit Nagar and Guru Nanak Nagar are home to migra­n­ts from Kerala, Orissa, Bihar and western UP. A small lane that runs through the area has come to be christened ‘Border’ because it houses Muslims on one side and other communities on the opposite side. Residents of the XYZ Block are Muslims, who resettled here after being evacuated from Turkman Gate area in 1972.

Jan Natya Manch aka JANAM which set up its Studio Safdar in this area some time back, has brought to the fore many such interesting stories in an exhibition entitled, ‘Shadi Khampur Neighbourhood Museum’, in collaboration with Ambedkar University.

Using pen and paper, cameras, recorders and mobile phones, stories at the exhibition come from over three dozen local residents. The idea was conceptualised by Surajit Sarkar, an associate professor at Ambedkar University, for a Local History Project.

Komita Dhanda, member, JANAM and coordinator of the exhibition says, “As we were new in the area, this seemed a great way to know the locality and its communities. Our teams interacted with a lot of people about how long they have been here, their history and things which would tell us more about the place. We also collected some artifacts from them, which are on display along with pictures, audio and video recordings, texts and handmade maps.” Articles like radios, a charkha and a phulkhari chadar as old as 60-70 years have found pride of place in the exhibition. Also on exhibition are some old and new photographs of the same location, describing the transformation the area has gone through.

During the project, it also came out that though the area does not have monuments like many other parts of the City, there used to be many wells in Shadi Khampur which have been built over. The stories thus told, have been ratified by talking to a number of people.

“The history is always told from the point of view of the rulers. It is about them mostly. But history also belongs to aam janta. We are telling the history of Shadi Khampur through stories of common people, which have never been told,” adds Komita. The exhibition at Studio Safdar will remain open till January 21, 2013.