Urbanisation and its Imperatives

Text of the talk delivered at the Architects Meet, IIA Noida Centre, 9 September 2022

Good evening.

I am going to strike what may perhaps seem a completely different chord in the panel discussion on Urbanisation and its Imperatives.— and turn the theme for today’s discussion on its head. It appears to me that we are spending excessive energy and attention on urbanisation — both literally and metaphorically. What we should instead be discussing is Ruralisation and its Imperatives.

When I say this, I am neither being irrelevant nor flippant. We only have to look at the primary evidence around us — the volume of dust and pollution; the piles of garbage and waster; the insanitary, unhealthy and degrading conditions amidst which the majority of urban dwellers live; the issue of clean and sufficient water that confronts all of us; the traffic and the distances we encounter in our daily commutes — to realise that the current model of planned urbanisation is a failure on multiple counts.

Nonetheless, ignoring this primary evidence, the solution at a policy level is to push for greater urbanisation. More funds for more cities. And more schemes for alleviating the so-called ‘inevitable’ problems of urbanisation in existing cities. What I question is the validity of these presumptions. So:

1. Is urbanisation inevitable? Do we need so many cities?
2. Is the inequity, waste and loss of ecology that accompanies urbanisation, inevitable? Do we need the kind of cities that are being planned?

To me, the answer to these questions is a resounding NO. When I say this, I am obviously not in line with conventional professional wisdom or government policy. According to Government of India projections, “urban areas are expected to house 40% of India’s population and contribute 75% of India’s GDP by 2030”, up from the figures in the 2011 census of “31% of India’s population housed in cities with a contribution of 63% of the GDP”.

That these projections are seen as inescapable — even desirable — is evident from the stated objective of “attracting people and investment to cities” as part of “a virtuous cycle of growth and development”, in the description of the Smart Cities Mission (SCM). The SCM, declared to be an ‘innovative and new initiative’ by the Government of India, further announces that “the focus is on sustainable and inclusive development”. This is proposed to be achieved by “enabling local development and harnessing technology”. Nowhere in the Mission Statement is the necessity or desirability of urban shifts and population concentration evaluated.

There is clearly a fundamental contradiction in the proclaimed objectives of such programmes and their methodologies. How can you provide sustainable and inclusive cities without examining and addressing the root cause that gives rise to unsustainable and inequitable conditions? It is because such analysis is missing, that there is no acknowledgement of the fact that our cities are nothing but a manifestation of the centralised large-scale industrial method of production and control, that we have adopted with such enthusiasm.

If we continue with this same old economic system and its exploitative and mechanistic ways, we cannot escape their attendant effects — including rapid, uncontrolled urban growth. What I propose may be termed an ‘out-of-the box’ approach. The imperative of urbanisation, in my opinion, therefore is to halt such growth, and both the number and the extent of cities.

Though we are architects gathered here, an analogy from medicine should help to better understand the logic of this statement. Growth in the human body is part of the natural cycle of life — but unnatural, rapid growth results in cancerous cells, that has to be stopped to prevent loss of life. Isolated, concentrated, expensive efforts such as chemo or radio-therapy are largely unsuccessful in providing a cure. Similarly, “project based approaches” and “area based strategies”, put forward in the SCM statement, will not succeed in infusing humane conditions back in our cities. We can only do so, by finding alternatives to centralised, industrial ways of production and living.

We are fortunate that we have such alternatives in the scientific, artistic and technological knowledge embodied in the resource of our crafts and craftspeople — the largest such resource anywhere in the world. The development of the crafts sector, a ‘creative and cultural industry’ as it now recognised and designated internationally, is a national imperative. It is important here, to mention Prof Ashoke Chatterjee’s observation that India’s crafts-sector, even in its denuded and neglected state, satisfies 11 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015 by all UN Member States. And this sector with its key characteristics of de-centralisation and emphasis on natural, local materials and hand-skills can be carried out not just in urban areas but equally well — if not better— in rural areas. Yet, there is practically no dependable statistical data about numbers of craftspeople or their contribution to the GDP, nor a specific Ministry for the crafts sector as a whole and sufficient budgetary allocation, reflecting the lack of seriousness with which this sector is taken in institutional and official planning policies.

Where do architects and organisations of architecture come into all this? I believe, they can actually lead the way — in convincing policy makers about the necessity of shifting to alternative ways of production and building; as well as by pioneering a shift to acquiring knowledge about alternative, natural, low-energy materials and decentralised design and planning processes. In other words, to focus on both ruralisation and what has been termed rurbanisation — within the context and practicality of our culture and society.

I would like to end by reminding ourselves about the celebrated historic city of Shahjahanabad, established in the 17th century. It encapsulated many sustainable and equitable urban features by following a philosophy of building and making the optimum rather than the maximum — while epitomising urbanity in all its meanings of courteousness, consideration, and refinement. This is clear even in accounts by observers such as the Frenchman, Francois Bernier, despite his bias in favour of his own culture and his city of Paris. Through him and other sources, we learn how the very heart of the city of Shahjahanabad makes space for the poor, even in areas immediately outside the imperial Fort. And how the main ceremonial streets and urban spaces of Shahjahanabad, house markets that do not just display expensive life-style stuff but also basic food and grain for the less affluent, and accommodate artisans of different trades and a variety of goods.

To put this in context, imagine that the vista of India Gate leading up to Rashtrapati Bhawan, is inhabited by a market — which not only sells expensive items for the rich, but also goods for the poor and lower-income groups. Imagine that bands are allowed to practise and play music in the Vijay Chowk area, and later on in the evening, that informal performances, street-plays, and itinerant markets are held here. 

Put this further in context. Recall that even designated market-areas now increasingly disallow goods and services that do not cater to the rich. Tailors with sewing machines, watch-repair wallahs, food-vendors, hawkers are regularly evicted from markets and road-sides — including the Brahmaputra Market in my neighbourhood in Noida — even when a landmark Supreme Court judgement reinforces their right to sell in public places as part of the Right to Livelihood enshrined in the Constitution of India.

I leave you with an incident from a fictional account of an event in 19th century Shahjahanabad, written by Mirza Farahatulla Baig Dehlavi, who was born and brought up in Shahjahanabad. In  his book, Dilli ki Aakhri Shama, or ‘The Last Mushaira of Delhi’, Maulvi Karimuddin, an actual personage from history, and the organiser of the mushaira, is described as ‘footing it across the lanes and streets of the city, in search of patrons and poets’ for the mushaira. He traverses practically the entire city on foot,  from Zauq’s house near Kabuli Gate to Ghalib’s in Ballimaran; from Hakim Momin Khan’s Haveli in Kooche-e-Chelan to the Lal Qila itself. 

In contrast, though our gathering of today is barely 1.5 kilometres from where I stay, it is virtually impossible for me to walk here in comfort or safety.

Of Monsoons and Mangoes, and Outings in Orchards

Consider this:

‘The girls now go towards the mango orchards…Various kinds of mangoes grow here: Mohammad-shahi, laddoo, shahad kooza, shah pasand, batasha, safeda, gulabi, sindoori and siroli. They are piled up ready to be eaten. Jamuns fall from the trees and the girls rush to pick them up. Several fruits — sour lime, mulberries, oranges, phalsa berries, khirni, gular, star fruit, berries, jackfruit, peaches and apricots — have ripened, ready to be plucked from the trees…While the grey clouds sway and dance in the sky, every now and then a burst of rain adds to the beautiful ambience. Peacocks sing, nightingales chirp, koels sing…A girl pulls at the fruit cluster of the banana tree…and they climb various trees in a rush to be the first to pluck the fruits and eat them on the branches itself…Some friends continue to swing from the trees laughing joyously.’ 1

This is a description of the princesses and their friends, maids and attendants, enjoying themselves in the baghs and amriya’n, the mango orchard near Zafar Mahal in Mehrauli in the monsoons. The family of Badshah Bahadur Shah Zafar accompanied him here every year for some weeks before and during the Phoolwalo’n ki Sair held in the month of Sawan. Not just the royal family and their retinue, we are told that ‘Monsoon is the season when everyone spends time in the gardens’. 2  

In a time when the onset of monsoons in Delhi essentially means water-logged roads, sweltering heat, more traffic jams and mosquitoes, this description of how monsoons in Delhi might have been around two hundred years ago, sounds idyllic — and impossible. The stuff of stories. Too far away to seem real.

Amidst the first few showers of the season, as these thoughts ran through my mind while reading about nineteenth century Delhi, I happened to speak to my Mausi, now in Shanghai where she has been ever since the lockdown. The talk turned, as it invariably does between us, to gardens and green things. She was missing her litchi trees in Dehradun, and trying her best to make up for it by growing chillis, marigolds and melons in pots in her daughter’s house. 

Not one for normally reminiscing, in the course of our conversation, she was led to recall that when she was a child, the litchis would ripen much earlier in summer than they did now. And how after they returned from school, entrance to their grandfather’s house on 36 Lytton Road — where they lived with their mother, and their uncles' families — would be preceded by a climb up the litchi tree at the gate. Only after eating their fill of the half-rosy half-green litchis, would she and her cousins and siblings pick up their bags and satchels deposited on the ground at the foot of the tree, and proceed inside the house. 

She also told me how the children in the house and the neighbourhood would walk from the Lytton Road house in the heart of town, all the way to Ballupur to their extensive orchards and fields and the family-temple. Their grandfather had given strict instructions to the contractors who manned the orchards in the fruiting season, that the children should be allowed to eat their fill whenever they came. So they would eat quantities of litchis and mangoes straight from the trees, play around under them, and then walk back home singing all the way. My mother, when I mentioned Mausi’s recollections, remembered cycling there in big groups and sometimes staying-over on the top floor of their Nana’s house there, clattering over the wooden floors.

And suddenly, it seems to me that Bahadur Shah Zafar and his family, just like the other residents of Delhi then, and my mausi and mother as children in Dehradun in the middle of the twentieth century, had essentially done the same things. Enjoyed the seasons, frolicked under trees in the company of family and friends, feasted on fruits. The Badshah and his family and the people of Delhi swinging under trees and sampling mangoes in orchards, are not so distant after all.

Growing up in cantonments, I am fortunate to have somewhat similar memories. My walk back home from school in Wellington in the Nilgiri hills, was enlivened by the simple device of choosing a different path back home everyday rather than simply following the road. Sometimes that meant sliding down stretches of a steep grassy slope, or getting momentarily lost amidst tall trees and shrubs, or climbing up a particularly challenging tree-trunk. But the one constant in all these different routes, was the eating of the blue-black lantana berries that grew profusely everywhere. We plucked and consumed these with single-minded concentration, berry-stained fingers and much delight, despite already having had two tiffin-breaks at school.

I have not gone back to Wellington, but the fact that it is a cantonment means there is a greater chance that it is still green and blessed with trees. Not so Delhi. Nor Dehradun — or indeed any part of the country. We can only visit them in memories and in drawings — such as the one Snehanshu made of the mango orchards that once surrounded his ancestral home in Birnagar in Nadia.

Mukherjee-Bari among Mango trees, Birnagar, Nadia, Bengal.
Sketch by Snehanshu Mukherjee

I remember the first real project I was more or less independently entrusted with, in the architectural studio I joined after graduating. It was a tiny building in Najibabad, a place I had not heard of till then, about five-six hours drive from Delhi. We needed to set out at five am to reach there by mid-morning, and then head back after checking work at site and a late lunch. 

It was always a tiring journey, but the distance and the discomfort of being cooped up for hours in the Ambassador taxis, was, at least for me, always mitigated by the mango orchards that bordered many of the narrow roads or lay beyond the fields on the way. As we sped past their dark stillness, with golden bars of sunlight slanting through their intensely green solidity, I would beguile myself with visions of lying there on a charpai, with a favourite book, nimbu-paani, mangoes, parathas. And the scent of the mango blossoms wafting in as we dozed or looked out into the dark on the way back, stayed with me long after we entered the noise and hard lights of the city close to midnight.

It seems strange to think that the number of years that separate today’s time from the days of my mausi’s and mother’s childhood, is half of that between their time and nineteenth-century Delhi. Yet the experiences between them are closer. We have come a long way away in the past few decades. And lost experiences that celebrated everyday life amidst the changing seasons. We have forgotten how much joy trees and gardens can give everyone, even the mere sight and scent of them. So we cut down trees, thousands of them — mango, neem, oak, jamun. And gouge out the earth to widen roads, make stadiums, offices, flyovers. Any excuse will do. What we need is many more trees, orchards and gardens, not manicured memorials, ministries or malls, but is anybody listening?

Trees cut and hillsides levelled in Rajaji National Park and Mohand, Dehradun, April 2022,
Photo: Treya Mukherjee

                                                               

1  Dilli ka Aakhiri Deedar, The Last Glimpse of Delhi, Syed Wazir Hasan Dehlvi, published 1934, Dilli Printing Press; this excerpt is from City of my Heart, p. 50-52, selected and translated by Rana Safvi, and published by Hachette India, 2018. A description of the Phoolwalo’n ki Sair is also included in Bazm-e-Aakhir, The Last Assembly, Munshi Faizuddin, first published in 1885, p.122-128, and included in the same collection of translations.

2  Ibid., p. 23