In the popular imagination, the two terms, education & and city often evoke a sense of
optimism and liberation. It is a hope for a better life and liberation from disadvantages and
stigmatized identities. Dr. B.R Ambedkar was optimistic that the city held the
promise of emancipation for the Dalits. These two concepts are also associated frequently
with progress, civilization and are oriented towards the future, a better future. It is not only
material progress but about the very sense of being. This paper seeks to explore the educational
aspiration of the marginalized residents in a squatter settlement of Delhi and how the city
figures in their desires. These imaginaries of the city space embedded in the educational aspirations have to be seen
vis a vis the positioning of Delhi as a “world-class city” by the planners and dominant classes
of the city. Interestingly, and ironically the drive towards world-class city-making has
translated into the removal of these very slums and the dislocation of their inhabitants.
However, the pursuit of urban education and the value it confers on the individual by these
residents also reflect a desire to belong to a city striving to become “world-class”.
In a city that aspires to become a world-class space, how the working
class and poor, often the recipients of state violence, articulate their aspirations for a better
future through the pursuit of education is the focus of this paper. In doing so, the paper goes
beyond the narratives of exclusion, violence against the poor and class antagonism. The paper
emerges from my doctoral work, an ethnographic study in a 40-year-old, multigenerational,
poor neighbourhood of Delhi.
