Urbanization and Sustainable Social Design in India

Urbanization and Sustainable Social Design in India

By: Mihir Bholey

Economic liberalization and urbanization in India have become complimentary to each other in recent years. McKinsey Global Institute estimates by 2025, Indian cities will have additional 215 million population equal to 38% of its total population. During 1950-2005 India urbanized at the rate of 29% which was way behind China’s 41%. It’s expected by 2025 close to 2.5 billion Asians will turn city dwellers which will be nearly 54% of world urban population. The global impact of urbanization will hugely influence India too where 2/3 of its GDP and 90% of government revenue are generated by even less than 1/3 of its urban population. Urbanization is thus also the economic imperative of the rising India. Its growing economy, rapid urbanization, sustainability and environmental issues are not only of serious concern for the global world economy but for the world environment as well. India’s ever growing need for energy, fuel, consumer goods, housing, and infrastructure

are matters of concern for economic and environmental sustainability and urban design.

The Ministry of Urban Development data reveals out of the total population of 1027 million as on 1st March, 2001, close to 742 million people lived

in rural areas while 285 million lived in the urban are as. India has experienced 2.1% rate of growth in its urban population beginning the era of economic liberalization in 1991 till 2001. Is the expansion of this kind making Indian cities unsustainable both economically and environmentally? The India Infrastructure Report of 1996 estimated that in the next ten years India would have required an investment of Rs. 280.35/ billion on sanitation, water supply and roads. Some of the biggest challenges of urbanization in India is not just creating urban infrastructure but also making them socio-culturally and economically sustainable. The growing Indian economy of the post-liberalization

is shaping the process of urbanization. Maturing financial market, robust banking and credit system, flow of international capital and infrastructure are precipitating the process. As a result, urban housing and realty has become a product of investment and market forces rather than basic necessity. To sustain the cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi having estimated population of over 16, 13.2 and 12.7 million respectively is nightmarish for the urban planners, designers and environmentalists alike. The development deficit always looms large in urbanizing India.

Of late, urban infrastructure, spatial planning and the growing environmental concerns are getting more and more integrated. The cities are in a perpetual state of developmental chaos; laying of cables, drainage lines, new roads, additional lanes, flyovers, drainage, demolition of good habitable houses to construct malls, business centres or multistory apartments are the infrastructural pangs cities have to bear with. An environmental audit can highlight their ecological impact. ‘Brown Agenda’, which include concerns like water pollution due to untreated municipal and industrial wastewater, lack of sanitation, adequate solid waste collection facilities, indoor and surrounding air pollution, soil and land contamination because of improper disposal of solid and hazardous waste among others are emerging as the major environmental anxieties. Simultaneously, green and sustainable design is also being seriously discussed among the designers, architects and urban planners, but the impact of green and sustainable design in urban planning look like an oasis in the island of clutter and pollution.

To an extent India has inherited overconcentration of population in certain urban centres as the colonial legacy. The British-India presidency cities like Bombay, Calcutta, Madras became the seat of power, prestige. The emergence of cities like Delhi, Bengaluru (earlier Bangalore), Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat and their like have though succeeded in creating wealth but not in bridging the growing regional disparity, poverty and rural-urban divide in India as much. Interestingly, the urban policy in India has provisions of establishing suitable alternative centres of trade, commerce, industry, residential dwellings with investment in infrastructure so as to reduce pressure on the existing cities. But in reality, instead of creation of new cities, it’s mostly the existing big cities which are expanding and converting into megacities. The policy also has provisions for nurturing and encouraging economic and social activities with large infrastructural investment in relatively smaller cities to check migration and concentration of opportunities in few big cities. It’s in this context that the rationale of organizing international events like Commonwealth Games in a city like Delhi can be questioned. Perhaps with the same infrastructural investment an altogether new modern city could have been established. The new CWG infrastructure in Delhi added more chaos than comfort to Delhi, besides the huge financial mismanagement.

There is no effective mechanism either to stop the exodus or to stop the expansion of the cities beyond a certain size which is a major concern of sustainable urbanization. On the one hand the overconcentrated cities are becoming environmentally and socially unsustainable, on the other the urban planning in India seems to be more concerned with quick fix solutions rather than visualizing a long term plan for development. The real issue of urbanization, urban planning and design today is not only about the design of infrastructure and spatial artifacts. It’s also about shaping and designing the society and social set up of the present and future. Urbanization has to be sustainable not only ecologically and environmentally, but also socially, economically and culturally. Eventually, it should not be seen as the process of designing dwellings and infrastructure alone rather as the larger process of creating sustainable social design.

(Mihir Bholey is a Senior Faculty at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, INDIA)

(All Images: Mihir Bholey)

The Obituary of Caste Politics

By: Mihir Bholey

The only other election in Bihar which may be somewhat comparable in terms of the overwhelming mandate was the 1977 elections in which the Janata Party making a wave won 214 out of the 324 assembly seats. It was 66.04 % of the total assembly seats. But that was the first assembly election of the post-emergency era and the Janata wave was conspicuous due to the nation-wide appeal of late Jai Prakash Narayan. The 2010 assembly elections in Bihar were not riding on any such wave. Still the NDA figure of 206 in a house of 243 was an unprecedented 84%. But surely there was a sharp undercurrent drifting the popular sentiment towards development which the NDA government had brought to centrality. The undercurrent was sharp like one of Bihar’s unpredictable rivers Boodhi Gandak known for silently eroding its bank. Apparently, this time the undercurrent of development seems to have eroded the terra firma of caste-centric social justice in Bihar. Has this unprecedented mandate written the obituary of caste politics in the state with the ink of development?

Notwithstanding the unexpected majority, those watching the socio-political developments in Bihar ever since the Nitish Kumar and Sushil Modi led NDA government was voted to power find their observation being vindicated with this mandate. The reason is simple; the agenda of development in a development starved state could not have been ignored for long more so in the era of intense and real-time connectivity with the rest of the world. The issues of Sadak-Suraksha-Bijli-Pani (Road-Security-Electricity-Water) have become metaphors of development politics in India of late. However, in Bihar, both the political class and people took time to realize the importance of development oriented ‘inclusive politics’.

Does this mandate vindicate pro-incumbency for a pro-development agenda or just an outright rejection of ‘caste exclusive’ politics of Laloo Yadav? Can we see it as a mandate for evolving a new model of development devoid of caste and communal politics? Some political analysts even suggested that as a result of its alliance with JDU, the BJP should now contemplate to promote the Bihar model of ‘soft Hindutva’ and development as against the Gujarat model of ‘aggressive Hindutva’ and development, should it want to repeat its Bihar performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. A considerable percentage of Muslim votes which BJP bagged in the minority dominated districts of Bihar were attributed to the appeal of Nitish Kumar among minorities by some political analysts rather than BJP’s matured and measured stance on the Ayodhya verdict.

Like other political alliances the DNA of NDA too is not completely free from caste molecules. In fact no political outfit can be free from it. It will be naïve to imagine that BJP and JDU were not setting their caste and communal equations right. But perhaps unlike RJD they disdained from giving sixty-five percent tickets to Yadavs and Muslims and tried to present what they call a rainbow spectrum of castes. That was NDA’s caste pragmatism as against RJD’s caste-centricism. The NDA in Bihar is a strange combination of dichotomous ideologies. One stands opposed to pseudo-secularism, another to pseudo-social justice. Both have different and even conflicting constituencies to address. But after joining hands, one was compelled to adopt a secular plank another ‘inclusive politics’ providing space to people belonging to all caste categories in politics and governance not by courtesy, but rightfully. Perhaps nothing could have worked as a better cohesive factor than the agenda of development. To counter the formidable caste polarization of RJD-LJP combine, the agenda of development was also a well thought of tactical retreat for NDA and it worked.

Does this mandate mean that caste will now cease to play a decisive role in Bihar’s politics henceforth? The fact remains that Bihar since at least a decade has been a witness of the rise of OBC assertion and politics. The biggest contribution of Laloo Yadav was to organize them as a consolidated vote bank along with the SCs and minorities. But Nitish Kumar’s social engineering succeeded in creating yet another axis of OBC politics with a much less shrill caste overtone and an expression of willingness to do ‘inclusive politics’ with scope for every caste group. A strong Congress could have made a dent in the BJP Forward caste vote bank. But it did not succeed. The RJD-LJP combine also tried to consolidate its votes on caste and religion equation of OBCs, SCs and minorities in the state, but JDU countered this with its Ati-Pichhada and Maha-Dalit equation.

Has this mandate written off the era of caste politics in the state? Perhaps it will be too early to endorse this notion. Development is a genuine concern of the people, but it may be a temporary euphoria as well. Caste is a deep rooted socio-political reality of the state’s politics even today and the first constituency for any political party or leader which they don’t want to ignore. Castes and communities which were branded as ‘vote banks’ of a certain political party due to their consolidated voting pattern, broke off their ‘vote bank’ identity and voted differently. This fact can’t be ignored. The result of this election may have written the foreword of development politics, but the obituary of caste politics can only be written when Bihar will truly adopt the imperative of ‘inclusive politics’ both in rhetoric and action

Mihir Bholey is a Senior Faculty at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. Views expressed are personal. bholey.mihir@gmail.com

Wheel of Fire: Social Justice or Development: Bihar Must Choose ...

Wheel of Fire: Social Justice or Development: Bihar Must Choose ...: "Social Justice or Development: Bihar Must Choose By: Mihir Bholey After d..."

Social Justice or Development: Bihar Must Choose

By: Mihir Bholey

After decades of hiatus Bihar has woken up to assert its priority- the need for development which has acquired centrality in the election agenda this time. Though, the residual impac

t of the castiest politics of social justice can still be found. But a new truism and truth has gripped Bihar’s elections this time around. The truism is more and more people in Bihar among all castes now recognize social justice a mere pseudo name for caste politics. The truth is despite the realization it’s still used to mobilize the voters on caste lines. A formidable source of caste realignment in the state since the decade of nineties, social justice is now being weighed against development; the emerging imperative in the state. Can the castiest assertion of social justice and the emerging imperative of development reconcile in Bihar following the ongoing assembly elections?

In the guise of social justice, Bihar suffered from ‘caste exclusive’ politics for a long time. The rising social assertion for development may be a new breakthrough eventually leading the state towards a ‘caste inclusive’ politics. The five years of feel good governance ensuing the near absence of governance for decades is now precipitating the demand for development. While the elections are on, the real issue this time is whether the ‘caste exclusive’ agenda will again subvert the demand for development or whether the agenda of development will succeed in initiating the process of ‘caste inclusive’ politics in the state?

The politics of social justice in Bihar has turned castes into absolute vote banks. As such, caste mobilization becomes stronger during elections. But there is also a growing realization this time that social justice is meaningless if not matched with economic development and growth opportunity. Interestingly, a large number of people who feel so are the numerically and socially dominant OBCs; the real beneficiaries of social justice. Following their socio-political empowerment, they now also want to achieve economic empowerment which can only be attained by pursuing development. In Bihar besides the Upper Castes many among the OBCs also feel that even for reservation - a major agenda of social justice, the criteria of economic backwardness may be a better option. There is also a realization this time that the economic basis for social justice and development can better level caste disparity which the champions of social justice ignored.

What has Bihar gained from social justice all these years except a false sense of honour and dignity among the garib-gurba (the poor and marginalized) without bringing any qualitative change in their life? The fact remains that social justice couldn’t help large scale migration of the Biharis to distant states in search of livelihood and face persecution there by the parochial political outfits like MNS and ULFA. Surely, migration was the result of the collapse of development for decades. The populism of social justice left Bihar far behind in the race of economic development. Even the World Bank report on Bihar observed from time to time that a wide range of fiscal pressure including the need to serve the populist policy by the underperforming state became an important reason for the visible deceleration in its economic growth.

The process of economic reforms in India which were set in motion during the 1990’s, accelerated the GDP of the nation from a meager 5.6% in 1990-91 to its highest ever 9.6% in 2006 and helped many states achieve unprecedented economic growth. But due to the lack of development agenda until 2004 Bihar’s rate of economic growth stagnated at 4.6% while during the same period it was 7.1% in Gujarat. Ironically, prior to the onset of economic liberalization in 1990s Bihar’s economic growth was 5.2% but thanks to the single point agenda of social justice, it dropped to 4.2% in the post-liberalization era. While Bihar remained obsessed with its make-believe of social justice, states like Gujarat steadfastly pursued the agenda of economic development and ensured comprehensive socio-economic development. Though, many political leaders in Bihar seem averse even to the reference of Gujarat due to their political compulsions, but the model of overall social development it has presented through its economic development can’t be ignored.

The much talked about Sushasan (good governance) in the last five years is working as a feel good factor and the little semblance of order in the state is contributing to the rising demand for development in this 2010 assembly elections. The maiden step towards development in infrastructure after a long hiatus is now paving way for further economic development. Even the people at the grassroot level can now make out the difference between the politics of social justice and the politics of development. It’s a positive sign. More than political parties’ it’s the people’s agenda this time; an agenda which may begin the process of inclusive politics leading to real rather than pseudo social justice in Bihar.

(Author is a Senior Faculty at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. Views expressed are personal and based on his recent research on caste conflict and social justice in Bihar.)