Rural migrants in an urban setting: a study of two shanty colonies in the capital city of India

This is a story about a squatters' colony of the rural poor in a city (one among many such colonies that one comes across in any Indian city)-a story of those unfortunates who seldom make a story, of those who suffer an impoverished, debased and joyless existence under the shadows of the tomorrow unknown, who are trapped in an environment that decrees hunger, malnutrition, indebtedness and emotional tensions with no hope of escape on their own.

The colony is in New Delhi, the capital of India. It mushroomed over night in 1970 right in the heart of the capital city on a vacant piece of land adjoining a high-rise building, close to Connaught Place-the presti gious circular hub and centre of wealth in the city. When it sprang up, it looked like a curiously enough village, in which were evident some birth marks of rurality. Surrounded by the modern edifices, it struck one as a 'rural island' in an 'urban sea. The story relates what came out of a study of the colony over a period. of two years (1973-75). Basically, the study was exploratory in character to know as much as possible about the people in the colony and the physical and social environment that they lived in.