Sahibi is a case study to understand the way in which a river goes extinct in a city. A course that flew into Yamuna was called Sabi “Naala1807” as indicated in the 1807 map and is now bracketed into various canals and nullahs, and flows only when it rains heavily in the catchment areas.
It was regarded as the ‘Najafgarh drain’ in Delhi, attributed to a process that spans a long time in history, and is intrinsically related to urbanisation, as suggested by researcher Ritu Rao.
So far, we have gathered different data sets on the river and its extinction, and are compiling a timeline of court and NGT orders that have called for the rejuvenation and recognition of the Sahibi as a river. The LG office has allocated a budget and has promised a complete rejuvenation of the Sahibi soon. This, however, is yet to be verified by our fieldwork. Subsequently, we plan to refine our data and publish a booklet with a brief on the river, a timeline of court orders, budgetary allocation and efforts by the LG. All this will be supplemented with visuals from the field site as visual ethnography of a dead river.
