Delhi's Army of Homeless

Stuart Freedman

India's booming capital hides a vast and growing army of homeless people~~By conservative estimates, Delhi has a homeless population of around 100,000 people. The city, once a sleepy bureaucratic backwater compared to glittery Mumbai, is now an island of ostentatious wealth floating on a sea of medieval squalor. Slum clearances jar with an astronomic and ever-rising real-estate prices.~~Constant migration has put huge strain on the city's limited housing and ever increasing numbers of migrant labourers compete for a limited number of jobs and space. Those that for the most part make the city function are often the ones who, come nightfall, sleep on its streets. Indeed, Delhi is viciously segregated between those that have wealth and those that produce it, and slipping through the very limited safety net of society is a constant Dickensian fear.

This work, together with a companion piece Stuart photographed about the prevalence of mental illness in the city, is an attempt to examine the darker side of Delhi’s economic miracle. The people that he worked with for the most part had families, jobs and responsibilities. What they didn't have was somewhere to live. Some slept and survived at the sides of roads collecting waste to sell – others lived in shelters and held down office jobs. All wanted something better for their children in a cruel city.

 

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      15 year old Radhika carries bunches of flowers she...

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      15 year old Radhika plays with her sisters beneath a...

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      Ram Pal Gupta, a balloon seller that lives beneath a...

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      A child picks at her sister's hair for fleas on a...

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      12 year old Durga waits by the side of the road while...

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      Govardhan lays down with his youngest son beneath the...

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      70 year old Kathleen Lama, a homeless woman, fusses...

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      Monu and Seema flirt and play on a piece of waste...

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      A family rouse themselves and a girl checks her...

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      Two young friends lie together in the Fatepuri night...

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      Patti Das and his child Khrisha on a piece of waste...

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      Homeless addicts prepare and inject heroin under a...

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      A portrait of 28 year old Lali holding her 12 day old...

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      Vishal, a homeless man whose family lives by the...

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      A homeless rickshaw wallah gives his baby child a...

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      A homeless man under a flyover in New Delhi.

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      A mother and her children wake upon waste ground...

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      Aarti cooks breakfast on a piece of waste ground...

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      70 year old Kathleen Lama, a homeless woman,...

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      Men watch television in the Fatepuri night shelter...

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      People sleep on the ground and in rickshaws beneath a...

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      59 year old Ranjit Sharma talks to a friend in the...

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      A homeless family and their children cook by the side...

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      A homeless woman argues with her husband whilst...

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      A homeless man with a stray dog by the side of the...

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      A mother picks at her child's hair for fleas as a...

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      30 year old Baddhi Lal with one of his children,...

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      Sheela at her tea stall on waste ground near Nehru...

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      40 year old Ravi Hazara, a rickshaw puller in Old...

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      A young homeless girl sits atop a cart used by her...

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      30 year old Buddhi Lal eats jam from his baby's...

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      A distressed man outside the Fatepuri night shelter...

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      Homeless rickshaw drivers smoke and relax at a tea...

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      At the Phool Mandi shelter, Khushi Ram, a worker for...

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      Ram Pal Gupta, a homeless balloon seller that lives...

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      A homeless rickshaw driver smokes underneath a bridge...

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