This is in response to Preeti Mann's article published at UPenn's Center for Advanced Studiy of India:
http://casi.ssc.upenn.edu/iit/mann
Preeti Mann,
This was a timely piece of warning for
an India that is stomping, perhaps too fast, towards a model of development
which has never been well-planned, despite the endless 'planning commission
sessions', and a model which, as it unfolds, turns out to be a miserable patch
work of aping the West's ostentatious consumer-culture. The fault lies not just
in the lack of planning, but also of course in the pitiable execution of
whatever little the rules or laws dictate.
The urban poor are not a new phenomenon, however,
as you mentioned, the gap between the urban poor and the urban rich has never
been so extensive and so stark. Unlike in the past, when there was so much less
conspicuous consumption, it is a difference now in what they eat, what they
wear, where they live, how they commute and everything else visible to the naked
eye. Understandably, as a critical mass develops in the urban poor who are
witness to such palpable inequalities, they are likely to resist the processes
that propagate the status quo. Perhaps we are very far from a Tahrir Square,
but individual acts of resentment/strike have risen unabated in modern centers nonetheless.
Is not crime on the rise in metropolitan centers? Burglaries, rapes and petty
crime, make even prime cities like Gurgaon appear resolved to a destiny of
mindless commercialization and unsafe environments. It is as though, no one in
that city stops to even for once think about the direction in which the
haphazardness of urban un-planning is ballooning. From lack of public
facilities like smooth roads and car parking, to parks and libraries for
children, Gurgaon is an unfortunate example of how India can consistently lose
every opportunity to create models of far-sighted development.
Gurgaon has manifested itself as a satellite city
to New Delhi only recently, around the turn of the century. Even internet had materialized
in the world by then, enabling access to vast libraries and other forms of
information to study the models that have worked as opposed to repeating steps
that have always failed in India, but of course all this only for one seeking
it. Yet, Gurgaon differs from adjoining Delhi and Noida only in the price tags
on most goods.
Part because of my training as an economist, and
part because of the basic social environment that I grew up in, I am typically
biased towards using as a first-cut, a two-step gauge to assess the development
of a community. Do women feel safe.... to start with, do they feel physically
safe, can they move about past dusk on their own, without a fleet of men as
body guards? Second, are there functional public libraries? The recent spate of
molestations in Gurgaon, answers the first question all by itself too well. And
libraries? Really? Well, as my current on-going self-study on the Indian
library system has thus far shown...the answer to second question is a
resounding NO also.
The solution to all of India's malaises will no
doubt have to be super multi-pronged and versatile. Creating more streamlined
public education system enabling access to educational facilities for the
children of slums, can be a good start. And the list is endless. The bottom
line though is that ignoring the urban poor in the process of growth is, as you
pointed, indeed, both sad, and dangerous.
[Reference: Self Study on Indian Library System at:
http://wetheworldenergy.blogspot.com ]
Keep the thinking cap on,
Best Regards,
Nidhi Thakur
