Building Alliances: Power and Politics in Urban India

Building Alliances: Power and Politics in urban India by Neha Sami A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Urban and Regional Planning) in The University of Michigan 2012 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Gavin M. Shatkin, Chair Associate Professor Scott D. Campbell Associate Professor William J. Glover Assistant Professor Matthew Hull ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS When I started the PhD program, I was often told that doctoral research was a lonely process. I have been very fortunate that mine was not. This dissertation has benefited from the insight and support of many who are absent from the pages that follow. My first and largest thanks go out to my committee members. They have tirelessly read draft after draft of this dissertation and have provided encouragement, feedback and advice on academic and non-academic issues that I will always value. I could not have asked for a better advisor and chair than Gavin Shatkin. Gavin has been a mentor, a sounding board, a critic, a constant source of support and encouragement, and much more. His advice and feedback has shaped not only my dissertation work, but also the way I think and write about research. Scott Campbell, both as committee member but also as the coordinator of the PhD program, has been invaluable – from helping me prepare for my first ACSP presentations to editing drafts of journal articles, and for many encouraging conversations when I needed them most. Will Glover brought a fresh perspective to my research, pushing me to think outside my disciplinary boundaries, and I am grateful for his unwavering belief in my work and my potential as a researcher. I am also indebted to both Will and Gavin for allowing me to work with them during the 2009-10 Trehan Theme Year on Indian cities – an opportunity few graduate students get. I owe Matt Hull thanks for not only being very patient and accommodating as I moved through the research process and many conversations on urban India, but also for invaluable help and advice on how to conduct field research, and record observations and interviews. The faculty in the Urban and Regional Planning program have been very generous with their time and advice – in particular, I would like to thank Joe Grengs for his encouragement, for always being willing to talk and also for teaching me how to teach. I would also like to thank Robert Fishman for help with framing my early research ideas. I must acknowledge a huge debt of gratitude to ii the administrative staff in the Urban and Regional Planning program – Lisa Hauser for helping me navigate the maze of requirements and paperwork and for constantly willing to help, Carol Kent for helping me with IRB permissions and writing grant applications, and Stacey Shimones and Beverly Walters for always being available to help and listen. I am also very fortunate to have had a wonderful set of colleagues in my fellow PhD students. Many thanks to my officemates – Nina David, Salila Vanka, Nghi-Dung and Shohei Nakamura – for livening up our little room. Sanjeev Vidyarthi continues to be a mentor and a friend to whom I turn for help and advice constantly. Thank you, Carolyn Loh, Deirdra Stockmann, Paul Coseo, Doug Kolozsvari, Marion Payet, David Epstein, Iris Fadlon, Nick Rajkovich, and Kush Patel for coffee breaks, potlucks, happy hours, trivia nights, and crepe parties. Lada Adamic, TJ Giuli, and Seth and Liz Pettie constantly reminded me that there was more to life in Ann Arbor than doctoral research and provided much needed distractions and ‘non-planning’ conversations. To my family in Ann Arbor and Toronto, thank you for being there and watching over me. I would also like to thank the department of Urban and Regional Planning, the Rackham Graduate School, the Barbour foundation and the Foundation for Urban and Regional Studies (FURS) for funding my work and making this possible. I have been extraordinarily lucky with my fieldwork. The people I met and interviewed in India – in Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai and Delhi – were and continue to be very generous with their time and knowledge. While I cannot mention several of the interview respondents since they spoke to me under conditions of anonymity, this dissertation owes a huge debt of gratitude to all those who spoke to me candidly, multiple times, and also pointed me towards other avenues and observations that I might have otherwise not considered. In Bangalore, I would particularly like to thank the faculty at the National Institute for Advanced Studies: Dr. Narendar Pani, Carol Upadhya and Solomon Benjamin for iii their valuable insights, for connecting me with other researchers in the city, and for providing me with academic stimulation while I was working in Bangalore. My family in Bangalore not only put me in touch with friends and colleagues that I could interview but also made the months I spent collecting data much more fun. I cannot thank them enough for all their help and support. Thank you to my parents and grandparents for teaching me to love learning, for continuously believing in me, and for being patient as I worked through this, even when they weren’t always sure about what I was doing. Thank you, Anuja, for being my strongest supporter and a constant source of laughter. I also owe thanks to my mother-in-law, Shyamala, for helping with fieldwork, traveling with me and for unfailing encouragement. Thank you, Leelu and Subbu, for constant phone conversations, and regular visits. Most of all, thank you, Rahul, for living with this project as much as I have, for patiently and cheerfully putting up with long absences, and for laughing with me. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS   Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ ii   List  of  Figures:........................................................................................................................ vii   List  of  Tables: ........................................................................................................................viii   List  of  Appendices...................................................................................................................ix   Abstract .......................................................................................................................................x   Chapter  I ......................................................................................................................................1   Introduction...............................................................................................................................1   1.   Theorizing  Urban  Politics  in  India: ......................................................................................... 7   2.   Methods: ........................................................................................................................................ 25   3.   Meet  the  cases:  Introducing  Bangalore  and  Pune ........................................................... 28   Road  map  for  the  thesis: ........................................................................................................................... 31   Chapter  II ................................................................................................................................. 33   Literature  Review ................................................................................................................. 33   1.   Introduction:................................................................................................................................ 33   2.   Locating  the  Indian  City: .......................................................................................................... 37   3.   Theorizing  Urban  Politics:  From  the  Global  to  the  Local .............................................. 47   Chapter  III................................................................................................................................ 58   Understanding  Urban  India:  The  Institutional  and  Governance  Framework .. 58   1.   Introduction:................................................................................................................................ 58   2.   Urban  Local  Government  in  India:........................................................................................ 62   a)   Reforming  urban  local  government:  The  74th  Constitutional  Amendment  Act....... 67   b)   The  ‘carrot  and  stick’  approach  to  urban  reform:  JNNURM ............................................ 74   3.   A  Tale  of  Two  Cities:  Situating  Bangalore  and  Pune....................................................... 83   a)   From  the  Garden  City  to  the  Global  City:.................................................................................. 85   b)   Developing  Pune:................................................................................................................................ 90   Chapter  IV................................................................................................................................ 95   Power  to  the  People? ........................................................................................................... 95   Urban  Governance  and  Coalition  Building................................................................... 95   1.   Introduction:................................................................................................................................ 95   2.   Reconfiguring  Bangalore:  The  BATF  and  ABIDe:............................................................. 99   a)   The  Bangalore  Agenda  Task  Force  (BATF): ..........................................................................103   b)   The  Agenda  for  Bangalore  Infrastructure  and  Development  Task  Force  (ABIDe):   114   v 3.   Planning  for  Pune:....................................................................................................................120   4.   Conflicts  and  contestations ...................................................................................................126   Chapter  V .............................................................................................................................. 132   Building  Up:  Urban  Development  in  Bangalore  and  Pune................................... 132   1.   Introduction:..............................................................................................................................132   2.   Understanding  Indian  urban  development:....................................................................133   3.   Building  Magarpatta  City: ......................................................................................................139   4.   The  Bangalore  story:  Developing  Shantiniketan:..........................................................153   Chapter  VI............................................................................................................................. 168   Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 168   1.   A  changing  urban  planning  paradigm:..............................................................................170   a)   Urban  governance:...........................................................................................................................170   b)   Urban  development: .......................................................................................................................173   2.   Building  Theory: .......................................................................................................................178   Appendices........................................................................................................................... 182   Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 190   vi LIST OF FIGURES: Figure  1:  Administrative  structure  of  the  Indian  government............................................ 11   Figure  2:  Situating  Pune  and  Bangalore  geographically  on  the  national  map............... 28   Figure  3:  Governance  zones  in  the  greater  Bangalore  region.  Source:  (H.  S.  Sudhira  et   al.,  2007).....................................................................................................................................103   Figure  4:  Location  of  Magarpatta  City,  on  the  eastern  periphery  of  Pune,  equidistant   from  the  central  city,  Pune  airport  and  in  close  proximity  of  the  national   highway. .....................................................................................................................................139   Figure  5:  Office  space,  Magarpatta  City.  Source:  Self ............................................................148   Figure  6:  Single-­family  homes  under  construction,  Magarpatta  City.  Source:  Self.....149   Figure  7:  Housing  cluster  (apartment  buildings),  Magarpatta  City.  Source:  Self........149   Figure  8:  Although  the  school  was  operational,  parts  were  still  under  construction.   Source:  Self ................................................................................................................................150   Figure  9:  Magarpatta  City  under  construction.  Source:  Self...............................................150   Figure  10:  New  housing  complexes  on  Bangalore's  periphery.  Source:  Self ................154   Figure  11:  New  housing  complexes  on  Bangalore's  periphery.  Source:  Self ................155   Figure  12:  Location  of  Prestige  Shantiniketan.  While  the  development  is  distantly   located  from  both  the  central  city  and  the  new  international  airport  (further   north,  not  on  map),  it  is  located  off  Whitefield  Road,  in  the  heart  of  Bangalore’s   IT  corridor.  The  ITPL  is  located  on  the  other  side  of  Whitefield  Road  from   Shantiniketan.  Source:  www.mapsofindia.com ............................................................159         vii LIST OF TABLES: Table  1:  Comparing  Pune  and  Bangalore ................................................................................... 30   Table  2:  Local  and  parastatal  governance  institutions  in  Bangalore.  Source:  (H.  S.   Sudhira  et  al.,  2007;  Karnataka  Slum  Clearance  Board  (KSCB),  2011).................102   Table  3:  List  of  civic  'stakeholders'  identified  by  the  BATF.  Source:  (Ghosh,  2005)..108   Table  4:  Selected  real  estate  firms  listed  on  the  Bombay  Stock  Exchange....................137     viii    LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix  I:  Sample  list  of  questions  used  during  fieldwork..............................................182   Appendix  II:  Petition  circulated  by  the  Green  Pune  Movement........................................185   Appendix  III:  Suggestions  and  objections  raised  by  the  Green  Pune  Movement.........186   Appendix  IV:  Site  plan  for  Prestige  Shantiniketan,  from  the  marketing  brochures...188   Appendix  V:  Site  plan  for  Magarpatta  City,  from  marketing  brochures.........................189     ix ABSTRACT With economic liberalization, several new actors, like international consultants, financial institutions, and foreign architects and designers, have emerged in urban India. Others like politicians, real estate developers, landowners, civil society groups and government bureaucrats are reinventing themselves to adapt to and take advantage of a rapidly transforming urban environment. Building on primary and secondary data collected in India over 2008-09, this dissertation examines the role that developers, landowners, politicians, business leaders, citizen groups and civic activists play in post-liberalization urban India, and the alliances they form to achieve specific developmental and governance objectives. Building on theories of western urban politics, writing on contemporary urban India and theories of globalization this thesis argues that, increasingly, Indian cities are being shaped by coalitions between various key actors that include participants both from within government and outside. In this dissertation, I examine how a minority of well-connected urban elites (ranging from landed farmers to business executives and financial consultants) is able to leverage personal social and political networks to form ad-hoc coalitions. Studying power structures in two Indian cities: Bangalore and Pune, I find that planning and policy processes are increasingly being shaped by a minority of elites in Indian cities that focus largely on the interests of a sub-section of the urban population. These elite actors rely not only on formal planning processes but also on more informal means of exerting influence and gaining access to power through personal community, caste and other social networks. The actions of such elite groups are being given legitimacy and are gradually being institutionalized through various governmental policy and legislative reforms at x the national, state and municipal level. Data from Bangalore and Pune show that the national government’s reform program and its implementation by the state governments is privileging the participation of (mostly elite) non-state actors that come from and serve the interests of specific urban residents, typically higherincome groups, at the cost of other urban populations. Consequently, a more hybrid model of planning is emerging in Indian cities, in which elite non-state actors are working together with governmental actors to plan and govern Indian cities. xi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION “Perhaps the biggest problem we face in theorizing planning is our ambivalence about power…the main literatures on power—whether of the state, money, or civil society—have thus been imported from outside our field” (Friedmann, 1998: 249-250) In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the study of Indian cities, both within and outside the country, some of which has focused on examining the urban politics in India (Roy, 2009a). This dissertation adds to that growing body of work by emphasizing the role of specific actors in urban processes and the strategies that these actors employ. This is especially important in the Indian context because research that does look at issues of power remains largely normative and often does not focus on an understanding of “Realpolitik and real rationality that characterizes studies of power” (Flyvbjerg, 2002: 353). In particular, until recently research on urban India has largely ignored the role that politics plays in urban development and governance. In 1947, as a newly independent country, India was preoccupied with developing state policies and experimenting with governmental structures. Consequently, the study of Indian politics has been focused on examining the role of government actors at the state level, while urban issues have received comparatively little attention (Kohli, 1986; Gupta, 1989; Kohli, 2004). There are a few historical accounts of the development of India as well as some of specific cities that include sections on the politics of city formation as a part of a larger narrative – colonial and postcolonial (Khilnani, 1999; Nair, 2005). Researchers have also examined the 1 politics of particular sections of urban society: the middle class and civil society (Chatterjee, 2004b), the urban poor (Baviskar, 2002; Roy, 2003; Chatterjee, 2004b) and the politics of culture and identity (Hansen, 2001). In addition, as the central government moved to decentralize responsibilities to urban local governments with the implementation of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act in 1992, several authors have begun to write about issues of urban governance (Benjamin, 2000; Dupont, 2007; Keivani and Mattingly, 2007; Kennedy, 2007).1 However, it is only recently that researchers have begun to take a look at non-state actors involved in contemporary urban processes, their interactions with state actors and the politics of these processes (Hansen, 2001; Roy, 2003; Kamath, 2006; Benjamin, 2008; Weinstein, 2008). A particular area of interest in these studies has been the relationship between the government at the national, regional and local levels and other actors outside government, highlighting the role that informal networks play in urban development and governance processes. Some of this work has focused specifically on the manner in which the urban poor use their social and political networks, especially their relationships with municipal-level government officials, to establish their (often tenuous) claims to space in the city. For example, Benjamin (2008) discusses ‘occupancy urbanism’ in Bangalore, observing that the urban poor leverage their connections with municipal level officials to assert their right to the city.2 Looking at the other side of the coin, Roy (2003) examines the manner in which planning in Kolkata (Calcutta) is intentionally ambiguous, giving state and city government officials considerable power over marginalized populations and land transactions in the city.3 In this dissertation, I examine the ways in which a minority of well-connected urban elites (ranging from landed farmers to business 1 th The 74 Constitutional Amendment Act was passed by the Indian national government in 1992 mandating the devolution of governance and decision-making responsibilities to local-level government, among other changes. This Act and its consequences are discussed in detail in Chapter 3. 2 Although the name of the city of Bangalore was formally changed to ‘Bengaluru’ in November 2006, the two continue to be used interchangeably by residents. I use Bangalore throughout this dissertation for consistency since several of the events discussed in this dissertation took place prior to the official change of name. 3 I provide a more detailed examination of the literature and how it relates to this dissertation in Chapter 2. 2 executives and financial consultants) is able to leverage social and political networks to enable these elite groups to achieve specific developmental and governance objectives. Specifically, in this dissertation, I study power structures in Indian cities, focusing on the ways in which elite actors form coalitions around development agendas. In doing so, I aim to provide a deeper understanding of who benefits from contemporary urban development and governance practices in India. This has important implications for urban policy and planning practice as well, particularly to make urban planning practice more equitable in Indian cities. Growth in the Indian urban population (United Nations Population Fund, 2007) has coincided with rapid rates of economic development and the gradual opening up of the economy to foreign investment. This growth has been accompanied by demands especially from various segments of the higher social classes in Indian cities (for example, from business leaders to Resident Welfare Associations) for improved infrastructure, better governance and a growing need for land and real estate development. As a result, the Indian government has begun to encourage large-scale involvement of the private sector, domestic and international, in various aspects of urban development.4 Private sector involvement has increased significantly in areas that were formerly the domain of governmental agencies including infrastructure development and housing (Banerjee-Guha, 2002; Mathur, 2005). The building of these development projects in the Indian context is accompanied both in rhetoric and physical design by the aspiration of city residents (particularly from the upper classes), and business leaders to become a ‘global’ or ‘world-class’ city, echoing the sentiments of city and state government leaders. This desire, often expressed by state and national level 4 Private sector involvement has taken on a variety of forms ranging from independent projects initiated by specific development companies to public-private partnerships that governmental agencies are forming with several private sector actors that span the spectrum from corporate and business houses to NGOs. The various governance initiatives discussed in Chapter 4 are one example of these partnerships that government is forming with the private sector. Examples of work done on private sector involvement include Kamath, L. (2006) Achieving global competitiveness and local poverty reduction? Examining the publicprivate partnering model of governance in Bangalore, India. Urban Planning and Policy Development. New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; Weinstein, L. (2009) Redeveloping Dharavi: Toward A Political Economy Of Slums And Slum Redevelopment In Globalizing Mumbai. Department Of Sociology. Chicago, IL, The University of Chicago. 3 politicians as well as prominent business leaders and the media, to achieve ‘global city’ status is also evident in emerging urban policy, including the recent creation of advisory bodies like urban taskforces (for example, the Bangalore Agenda Task Force set up by the Karnataka state government in the late 1990s, or the ‘Bombay First’ group that emerged as a recommendation of the Maharashtra government-commissioned McKinsey & Company’s 2003 ‘Vision Mumbai’ report) and governments undertaking reforms to help Indian cities become ‘global’ (Times News Network, 2006; PTI, 2009b; The Hindu, 2010; Goldman, 2011). Yet, not all efforts have been successful and in both successes and failures, the role of those stakeholders controlling access to specific assets such as land has been pivotal. In particular, growing dissidence from marginalized groups such as small farmers and agriculturists against multiple urban planning agendas has repeatedly demonstrated this. The recent violent protests in West Bengal at both Singur and Nandigram against proposed mega project developments demonstrate the growing power of local, erstwhile marginal communities like agriculturalists and the strength of the regional political alliances that these farmers were able to forge (Ray and Dutt, 2007; Roy, 2009b).5 This growing dissidence from marginalized groups and their strategies to exert influence (in West Bengal, and elsewhere in India) are comparatively better studied and understood (Benjamin, 2008; Berland Kaul, 2010; Ghertner, 2011) than the ways in which elite groups mobilize to push their agendas forward and shape planning and politics, leading to an incomplete understanding of the terms of contestation around urban development. In this dissertation, I focus on two specific instances 5 For more information on these projects, see: Bunsha, D. (2006) Zone of conflict. Frontline. Chennai, The Hindu Group of Publications.; Ray, S. G. & Dutt, A. (2007) Bengal shows the way. Tehelka. New Delhi, Tehelka; Financial Express Bureau (2008) Tata pulls out of Singur, blames Trinamool stir. The Financial Express. Web ed. New Delhi, The Indian Express Group. Ray, S. G. & Dutt, A. (2007) Bengal shows the way. Tehelka. New Delhi, Tehelka; Roy, A. (2009b) Why India Cannot Plan Its Cities: Informality, Insurgence and the Idiom of Urbanization. Planning Theory, 8 (1), 76-87. 4 of elite mobilization around urban governance and real estate development in Pune and Bangalore.6 The last two decades have seen the empowerment of several actors (such as real estate developers, local entrepreneurial politicians, farmers with medium to large landholdings, urban designers, planning consultants, and civil society organizations), and the appearance of others who were almost entirely absent before (like international architects, development firms and global financial companies) (Dupont, 2007; Jha and Sinha, 2007; Sharma and Thomson, 2010). The distribution of power as well as existing power structures in India are changing as a result of new opportunities made possible by the on-going economic reform program that began in the early 1990s as Indian urban regions and regional corridors emerge as engines of economic growth as well as centers of political decision-making (Brenner, 2004; Mathur, 2005). One specific outcome has been the increase in demand for and the price of land in and around Indian cities and the regional corridors that connect them (Jones Lang LaSalle, 2006; AFP, 2007; The Economic Times, 2007). The combination of the rising price of and demand for urban land and the growing opportunities for a wider group of actors to participate in urban development has encouraged several urban actors to capitalize on their assets. For example, although farmers in Pune, Maharashtra had owned large tracts of prime land for generations, converting this land into a large integrated township was only profitable after economic liberalization created the demand for large-scale development in their city. Moreover, a changing economic climate also made it possible for this farmer community to build on their assets (their land and their political networks) and undertake the development project themselves without losing their land. 6 I acknowledge that is essential to also examine the impact that growing elite mobilization is having on marginalized groups in Indian cities and the manner in which these marginalized urban and peri-urban populations are reacting, contesting and adapting to a changing urban political environment. However, a fuller investigation of these aspects of elite mobilization falls beyond the scope of this dissertation and I hope to return to these issues in future research. 5 It is in this context that I examine the urban politics of real estate development and related governance issues in two Indian cities: Pune and Bangalore. However, rather than focus on the processes alone, I explore the role that stakeholders play in these processes. I examine which actors have power and are able to leverage their particular assets, ranging from control over land, access to technology, to political connections and financial capital. In this study, my focus is specifically on the social and political networks of elite groups in Indian cities such as large landed farmers, state-level politicians, business leaders, and prominent middle-class citizen groups (like Janaagraha in Bangalore).7 Political power in India has its roots in a fragmented base that includes caste, culture, identity, community and socio-economic class. However, researchers have observed that in several Indian cities, power remains concentrated within a small fraction of the population, typically the higher social classes (Fernandes and Heller, 2006; Benjamin, 2007; Harriss, 2010; Singh et al., 2010). In addition, access to resources such as financial capital, education, governmental authority and land is distributed across similar groups. Moreover, although governmental responsibility for urban areas is spread across several regional and municipal institutions, the administrative power structure in Indian cities is such that decision-making abilities are concentrated at higher-levels of government, leaving municipal and city government officials to perform service delivery functions (Corbridge and Harriss, 2000; Weinstein, 2009). State or regional governmental politicians and bureaucrats retain control over decision-making through state-government appointed officials and institutions often leading to weak city governments, but take little active interest in catering to urban issues (Weinstein, 2010). 7 ‘Janaagraha’ is a non-profit organization based in Bangalore that works on urban governance and development issues in Indian cities. Most prominently, Janaagraha’s founder Ramesh Ramanathan was very closely involved in the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF), discussed in more detail in Chapter 4. For more on Janaagraha and the work that the organization undertakes, see: http://www.janaagraha.org/ 6 The combination of the dearth of power vested in local (city-level) governments as well as the fragmented nature of local political power in Indian cities (within as well as outside government) has created a situation where actors who seek to benefit from urban redevelopment cannot rely only on state actors playing a proactive role in helping them to do so. As a result, these actors turn to their individual social and political networks, building coalitions across these networks to achieve their goals. This makes examining such ad hoc and opportunistic network building around redevelopment initiatives especially important to our understanding of urban politics in India. This dissertation attempts to develop a framework to understand how elite groups of urban actors mobilize and exert what kinds of power in urban India and why. 1. Theorizing Urban Politics in India: Cities in India are experiencing change at two broad scales: the first is at the level of the built environment: change in the physical form that real estate development takes (for example, the change from single-family homes to apartment buildings, from small apartment buildings to large apartment complexes and townships) as well as changes in real estate development processes (the manner in which real estate developers are expanding, outsourcing design and construction, drawing on international financial markets). The second change is taking place is at the level of urban policy and governance: many city and state governments are changing urban development and governance policies to make it easier for specific groups of people to obtain and develop urban land as well as influence the formation of urban governance policies.8 An understanding of the overall political context in which these 8 For example, the state of Karnataka has a special policy in place that enables high tech industries and large developers catering to these industries to acquire large amounts of land in and around Bangalore at low prices in addition to waiving various taxes and fees. For more on how changing government policy is catering specifically to high tech industries in Bangalore, and how this is impacting marginal populations in the city, see: Benjamin, S. (2006). Inclusive or Contested? Conceptualising a Globalized Bangalore via a closer look at territories of the IT dominated territories in East and South Bangalore, IDPAD. Idpad, ; Benjamin, S., Bhuvaneswari, R., Rajan, P. & Manjunath (2006). ‘Fractured’ Terrain, Spaces left over, or Contested? A closer look at territories of the IT dominated territories in East and South Bangalore, IDPAD. Idpad, 7 processes of coalition building take place is crucial to studying urban politics and coalition building in India. This section describes the larger milieu within which Indian urban politics takes place. I also begin here creating the theoretical scaffolding that will underlie the analysis of the case studies in later chapters, examining various theories of urban politics that question issues of power and agency in their applicability to the case of urban India.9 The Indian political context is distinctive: a multi-party democracy increasingly governed by coalition governments, a loose federal structure borrowed from the United States, a central bicameral legislature modeled on the British parliamentary system, and until recently, a centralized planning system inspired by the Soviet model.10 While this political system created a strong national government and offered considerable autonomy to the state governments, local government has suffered.11 Since this dissertation deals with power and politics at the city-level, it is crucial to understand the nature of urban local government in India, its functions and its relationship with state government. Several factors have contributed to a weak local governmental structure in India, both at the urban and rural level. To begin with, urban development has been largely ignored in the national government’s development plans. After independence, the Indian government adopted a planned approach to development through a succession of Five-Year plans. The first three of these National Five-Year plans concentrated almost exclusively on economic and financial planning while largely ignoring the relationship between economic development and spatial planning (Jakobson and Prakash, 1967). Moreover, as Jakobson and Prakash have observed, “none of the plans contain clearly defined 9 This is merely a preliminary discussion of the literature intended to lay out broad themes. A more detailed literature review and analysis is contained in Chapter 2. 10 Pressured by the World Bank and IMF, the Indian government began phasing out the government controlled socialist model in 1990-91 in favour of a more economically liberal approach. 11 India has a three-tiered government system: the national or the federal level government, followed by the state or regional level government and finally city or municipal-level government. Throughout this dissertation, I use the word ‘state’ government to mean regional-level government in India and ‘local’ government to mean city-level government. 8 objectives and targets for urbanization” (Jakobson and Prakash, 1967: 40). With intense industrialization in the 1950s and 60s, urban growth in India accelerated but lacking any clear plan or direction, most of this growth was largely spontaneous and implemented in an unplanned manner (Rosser, 1972). Despite there being attempts at planning at the neighbourhood scale, the proportion and proliferation of unplanned or non-Master planned areas (that were and continue to be an integral part of urban economies) in Indian cities was far greater than those areas that were part of the formal planning process (Benjamin, 2005b). This was in part an outcome of the lack of capacity and authority on the part of city governments, since most major planning decisions were taken by the state governments (Weinstein, 2010). As a result, a significant proportion of development took place in an ad-hoc fashion with private operators providing piecemeal urban services where government was unable to do so thereby creating the impression of lack of governmental planning. A second factor stems from the governmental structure in India. The diagram (Figure 1) below broadly shows the administrative hierarchy of government. The executive at the national level of government comprises of the President, the Prime Minister, his cabinet and the bureaucracy; the bicameral legislature (the Parliament) with its two houses: the Lok Sabha or the House of the People and the Rajya Sabha or the Council of States; and the judicial system headed by the Supreme Court.12 The state governmental structure is a scaled-down version of the Central government, mirroring its structure and organization. The executive at the state level therefore comprises of the Governor, the Chief Minister and his Cabinet but typically only one chamber of the legislature: the Legislative Assembly or the Vidhan Sabha. The members of the Legislative Assembly are extremely powerful within states, and have very strong local connections 12 The Lok Sabha has a total of 545 members, directly elected by the people of India every five years. The Prime Minister and his cabinet are collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha. The President nominates 12 of the total 250 members of the Rajya Sabha. The remainder is allocated among the states corresponding to population and is elected by members of the state legislatures. For more detail, see: Kochanek, S. A. & Hardgrave, R. L. (2008) India: government and politics in a developing nation, Boston, MA, Thomson/Wadsworth. 9 particularly since they are the lowest legislative unit in the tiered hierarchy of the Indian governmental structure and therefore closest to the people (Kochanek and Hardgrave, 2008). In the Indian governmental system, administrative power and decision-making authority is concentrated at the top of the hierarchy: with the Prime Minister, his cabinet and the higher level bureaucracy at the national level and with their respective counterparts in regional governments at the state-level, thereby weakening local government in India (Kochanek and Hardgrave, 2008; Weinstein, 2009). 10 President Central government (Parliament) Union territories (7) (Centrally administered) States (28) State legislative assembly (Vidhan Sabha) Municipal Corporations/ Councils (Urban local government) Zilla Parishad (District level government) Gram Panchayat (Rural local government) Figure 1: Administrative structure of the Indian government. Source: (Human Settlements Division UNESCAP, 2002; Weinstein, 2010) Since local governments in India continue to have a similar structure to those the British created – the current form of local government in India is based on Lord Ripon’s Resolution, adopted in 1882 – it has been suggested that India’s weak municipal governments are a colonial legacy (Fahim, 2009; Weinstein, 2010). The basis for Lord Ripon’s Resolution was to allocate limited administrative power to Indian leaders without sufficient financial powers – the “emphasis was on the maintenance of essential services like sanitation and water supply and not 11 on urban development as such” (Ashish Bose quoted in Rosser, 1972: 79). This was, in part, based on the colonial government’s desire to retain authority over municipal functions that directly impacted their interests like land use and industrial policy (Weinstein, 2010). Besides, Indian leaders who were appointed, and from 1870 onwards, elected, to local municipal office under the British aimed to use their position more for larger political purposes rather than urban administration (Rosser, 1972; Fahim, 2009). Third, despite the role that cities, villages and their residents played in the independence movement, there was no move to distribute power among local municipalities after independence. The decision of the colonial government initially, and later of the framers of the Indian constitution to not vest local governments with complete authority over their own jurisdictions also stemmed from an anti-local bias (Weinstein, 2010). Many leaders of the independence movement, including Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first Prime Minister, believed that local elites made decisions along communal rather than democratic principles and that therefore, the political structure would be more democratic, if it were less local (Corbridge and Harriss, 2000). The British approach of not allocating the more substantive “real financial and political power” (Rosser, 1972: 80), especially authority relating to urban development decisions, to local government persisted after independence. As Weinstein (2010) argues, although the framers of the constitution highlighted federalism as one of the key elements of independent India, they did not define responsibilities for local (urban and rural) governments but only for central and state level government. Moreover, as Weinstein (2010) points out, due to a concern over regional fragmentation along ethnic, religious or linguistic bases, the makers of the constitution vested large amounts of power in state governments, in part, to hold the union of states together. In particular, financing and implementing urban development (including housing, infrastructure, economic development and poverty alleviation) was the responsibility of the state governments (Weinstein, 2010). State governments continue to look at their local counterparts as competitors rather than 12 complementary associates and although state governments have the option of devolving power and resources to municipalities, most chose not to (Fahim, 2009; Weinstein, 2010). As a result, local government in India, particularly urban local government, does not have much authority. Larger Indian cities like Mumbai (Bombay), Delhi, Chennai (Madras), Kolkata (Calcutta), and particularly relevant to this study, Bangalore and Pune are governed by a municipal corporation comprising of a democratically elected municipal council and a mayor.13 The state government also appoints a municipal commissioner who heads the executive. Moreover, state governments have the right to overrule decisions made by the municipal corporation, should the corporation be considered inadequate to the demands of maintaining the city. As a result, the state governments or the officials that they appoint wield significant power and control over local urban governments. Consequently, city governments tend to be weak and largely incapable of (or prevented from) exercising independent decision-making. Acknowledging this issue, the Parliament passed the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Indian constitution in 1992 that required decentralization of government and decision-making.14 These constitutional amendments enable both local rural and urban governments to take decisions with regard to their jurisdictions.15 However, almost two decades since these amendments were passed, there is yet to be any actual devolution of responsibility to urban local governments. The language in the 74th Amendment itself is weak and vague, for example, 13 th Since the passage of the 74 Constitutional Amendment Act, Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in India are categorized into Municipal Corporations, Municipalities and City Councils depending on the size of the urban area being governed, with municipal corporations being in charge of the largest and city councils, the smallest. Municipal corporations and municipalities are fully representative (i.e. elected) bodies whereas city councils may fully or partially comprise of nominated members. For more on this issue, see: Government of India (1992) The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act. , http://urbanindia.nic.in/, http://panchayat.gov.in/ 14 Although I present a brief overview here, I discuss these reforms and their repercussions for Indian urban government in depth in Chapter 3. 15 The 74th Amendment pertaining to urban areas was added on as an afterthought and is therefore not as th forceful or articulate as the 73rd Amendment dealing with rural local government. For more on the 74 Amendment, see, for example, Pinto, M. (2008) Urban Governance in India - Spotlight on Mumbai. IN Baud, I. S. A. & Wit, J., de (Eds.) New forms of urban governance in India: shifts, models, networks & governance. First ed. New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, Calif; London; Singapore, Sage. 13 encouraging devolution of powers from state governments to municipal governments to move “on a firmer footing the relationship between the State Government and the Urban Local Bodies” (Government of India, 1992). Since the central government is hesitant to directly involve itself in the redistribution of power between the state and city governments, it has limited itself to merely encouraging state governments to devolve responsibilities to municipal governments (Weinstein, 2010). There are few incentives offered to state governments to implement the reforms, or indeed few negative repercussions of not implementing them. Also, elected politicians, particularly at the state-level, are resisting this change in the fear that it may cause them to lose the powers of patronage that they currently command (Harriss, 2010). In India, local governments have limited powers to act, and their actions are subject to the approval of the state government. The abundance of bureaucrats, politicians, parastatal bodies and other such organizations has created considerable confusion regarding devolution of responsibility and accountability (H. S. Sudhira et al., 2007; Weinstein, 2010). Few, if any, governmental organizations are able to act on emerging opportunities to effect change – partly due to red tape and jurisdictional issues. The impact of the lack of effective power at the local levels of urban government has created a tension between various political and power interests in Indian cities. A growing multiplicity of actors and institutions (as governments create ever more administrative bodies like taskforces and special commissions as well as new local urban governmental organizations), appointed by and acting at different governmental levels, has created tremendous administrative, managerial and political difficulties in planning growth and development in Indian cities. Additionally, in the last two decades, there are several new actors that have emerged outside government as well. This growing diversity of stakeholders is transforming the urban politics of India (Milbert, 2008). As a result of the failure to share power and responsibility with lower levels of government, local groups are creating 14 spaces in which they may demand power to participate in urban governance and development processes (Pinto, 2008). To illustrate, in December 2006, the Greater Bangalore City Corporation (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike or BBMP) was notified as the primary urban local body for the Bangalore city region. This replaced erstwhile local bodies like the Bangalore City Corporation, neighbourhood level municipal councils and the local governments of 111 newly incorporated villages (H. S. Sudhira et al., 2007). With the constitution of the BBMP, Bangalore now has an elected city council that is headed by the Mayor of the city. This has reshuffled administrative power in Bangalore and has caused considerable confusion both within government and among the city’s residents regarding the role and responsibilities of the various governmental agencies functioning in Bangalore. While in principle the BBMP is responsible for administering, planning and developing the Bangalore city region, in practice the region continues to be managed by a plethora of parastatal agencies like the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) and the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB).16 Moreover, as a relative newcomer to the urban governance arena in Bangalore, the BBMP is constantly bypassed in decision-making processes (Times News Network, 2010; Deccan Herald News Service, 2011; Kumar, 2011). In this dissertation, I argue that a fragmented power base and a changing Indian economic and political environment are encouraging the growth of urban coalitions that are beginning to shape urban development processes and spatial change. I introduce the idea of coalitions here in broad-brush strokes but develop this idea further in later chapters, drawing on both the theoretical literature as well as field research. Urban coalitions have emerged in a variety of forms in 16 Parastatal bodies in India are governmental units that appointed and controlled by state (regional) governments that take on specific functions (like land acquisition and development, industrial development and urban governance) for the state government. For example, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is a parastatal body, appointed and controlled by the Urban Development Department of the Karnataka state government that partially manages urban development in the Bangalore Metropolitan Region. The Karnataka state government also appoints the head of the BDA. 15 many Indian cities, some of which are represented in the cases discussed in this dissertation, including an informal alliance between an agricultural community on the outskirts of Pune that grew to become a real estate development company; the many-layered informal networks comprising of middle-men, government bureaucrats, and local landowners used by real estate developers in Bangalore to accomplish their development objectives; government taskforces like the Bangalore Agenda Taskforce (BATF); and alliances between local media, academics, residents and government officials born out of local activism like the Green Pune movement.17 Urban alliances or coalitions of the type examined in this study have their roots in personal social networks and are formed around the ability of various stakeholders to mobilize specific resources and use their personal relations as bargaining tools (Kamath, 2006; Weinstein, 2009). These coalitions are characterized by flexibility, especially with regard to their functioning, structure and composition, since they are much less hampered by governmental regulations and bureaucracy or electoral politics. As compared to established governmental and quasi-governmental institutions that are currently charged with planning and governing Indian cities, alliances of this kind are infinitely adaptable in terms of the number and type of participants, how long the alliances exist and their purpose or goals. The coalitions are also flexible in the form they take and can choose to focus on specific urban issues – while some engage with specific issues relating to land and its development; others have a larger agenda of urban reform of which land-related issues are only one part. Urban coalitions like these 17 Other examples of coalitions include Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs), the voluntary neighbourhood alliances mushrooming in several Indian cities Zerah, M. H. (2007b) Middle class neighbourhood associations as political players in Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly, 42 (47), 61-68; Harriss, J. (2010) ‘Participation’ and Contestation in the Governance of Indian Cities. IN Shatkin, G. (Ed. Workshop on ‘Contesting the Indian City: State, Space and Citizenship in the Global Era’. Kolkata, India.; informal spontaneous alliances between landowners and politicians like in the case of Singur where farmers and opposition leaders banded together to protest against proposed megaproject development on farmland; or groups working for the rights of low-income populations like the “Alliance”, a coalition between the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) and the National Slum Dwellers Federation and Mahila Milan working to obtain basic civic amenities for informal settlements in Mumbai. 16 have no institutional home and lie between the formal and the informal and are largely comprised of members from elite groups in the city. I find that although specific groups within the Indian middle class exercise influence in decision-making in Indian cities, there is no single group that has enough power to control development and governance policy, leading to a need for collaboration and co-operation. Power in Indian cities is distributed across different elite groups – ranging from what Fernandes and Heller (2006: 500) call the ‘petty bourgeoisie’ including rich farmers, merchants and small property owners; the ‘new middle class’ comprising of those with advanced professional degrees and cultural capital occupying positions of power in various institutions; and finally, salaried workers in public and private sector enterprises (Fernandes and Heller, 2006). Each of these groups has access to a specific set of resources (such as financial capital, property, educational/technical expertise and governmental authority) that makes them valuable to the urban coalitions that are emerging to fill the gap created by the absence of a central font of power. I also find that while a single group does not have the power or resources to influence change, these different middle class factions mobilize their resources through shared social and political networks that are leveraged to form urban coalitions, enabling them to share access to resources and achieve specific developmental and policy goals. The specific caste, cultural and community associations that these social and political networks grow out of differ from city to city – for example, in the case of Pune, the dominant middle class factions include rich landed farmers and highly educated professionals whereas in the case of Bangalore, the dominant groups comprise of a new ‘elite’ comprising particularly of those from the IT industry, and senior-level bureaucrats. As a result, the specific mechanisms and relations involved in coalition building will differ from one city to another, and often within the same city as well, depending on the groups involved. This dissertation focuses on Bangalore and Pune in the 17 post-liberalization period, examining how urban political power is exercised through urban coalitions in the context of urban governance and development. In order to show more directly what I mean, let us take an example from real estate development in Pune. The master plan for the city typically lays out the urban planning agenda (including among other things, urban development, development of water and sewer infrastructure, land use planning and transportation planning) for a specified length of time (typically 10 years). Although the master plan for Pune has been under consideration since 1987, the city government responsible for the planning process has been unable to move forward with plan implementation, partly as a result of delays in approval from the state legislature and in part because of the reactionary approach to development of the Pune city government.18 Moreover, as a result of delays in plan approval, the plan itself has become outdated necessitating updates and redrawing of the plan document and leading to even more delays in implementation. As interviews with government officials, developers and residents revealed, development of housing and infrastructure development have been affected by this delay. Projects delayed include a proposed ring road around Pune and the development of an Information Technology park on the outskirts of the city. On the other hand, several private developers have developed large mixed-use townships in Pune, offering IT companies the option of leasing or renting office space in the township, in addition to housing, commercial, retail and educational facilities either within the same development or very close to it. These private developers have also been able to provide infrastructure such as reliable, uninterrupted power supply, water and well-maintained roads within the 18 This sentiment was expressed to me multiple times by several interview respondents that included real estate developers, journalists and academics in Pune. According to these respondents, the Pune Municipal Corporation did not plan ahead for the future growth or development of Pune instead choosing to deal with urban planning and development issues on an ad-hoc basis, as the need arose. The proposed ring road around Pune is just one example. For more, see: Biswas, P. S. (2011) Pune civic body sits on 120 development projects. DNA. Web ed. Pune, Diligent Media Corporation Ltd; DNA (2011) Encroachments, illegal constructions plague Pune city. DNA. Web ed. Pune, Diligent Media Corporation Ltd; Nitnaware, H. & Times News Network (2011) Incomplete works cause problems in Somwar Peth. The Times of India. Web ed. Pune, Bennet, Coleman & Co. Ltd. 18 township, making these much more attractive locations as compared to the government-sponsored park. In order to do so, private developers have drawn on their personal social networks to gain access to state level government officials and politicians in order to obtain permissions and approvals for these township projects at a much faster rate than it would have otherwise taken to obtain permission from the city government through the formal planning process.19 Private developers in Pune therefore develop coalitions with specific individuals in the state and city government, using their networks within the local government in Pune as well as the state government of Maharashtra to successfully accomplish their development projects. This is a win-win situation for both the city government and the developers: developers get approval faster and are able to speed up development, while the government is able to provide infrastructure to particular sections of the city at almost no cost. One such township – Magarpatta City – is discussed in detail in Chapter 5. Most work on Indian politics either examines the working of the ‘state’ at a high level (Kohli, 1987; Kohli, 1990; Kundu, 2003; Aijaz, 2008) or emphasizes citylevel grassroots mobilization and people’s movements (Benjamin, 2000; Baviskar, 2003; Shaw, 2007b). However, these studies have left unexplained the details of how city government and the politics of development interact with and take advantage of higher-level changes that are key to understanding contemporary urbanization in India and beyond. Several scholars have examined the manner in which marginalized populations negotiate the political terrain of Indian urban development and build relationships with municipal level officials and community leaders at the neighbourhood scale (Roy, 2003; Chatterjee, 2004b; Benjamin et al., 2006; Benjamin, 2008; Chatterjee, 2008b). Less clearly 19 Although several developers eventually obtain the official permits required for construction of their projects, there are as many projects that proceed without official permission. There are also several that begin construction and even begin occupation before getting the official permits. This is true not only of Pune, but of several other Indian cities as well. One of the most prominent examples of unauthorized development is Delhi, where almost half the city’s developments were considered to be in violation of the master plan and built without governmental approval. For more, see: Singh, S. (2006), Delhi: Demolitions and Sealings. Outlook India, December 5, 2009, http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?232582; DNA (2011) Encroachments, illegal constructions plague Pune city. DNA. Web ed. Pune, Diligent Media Corporation Ltd. 19 understood are the modalities through which elite groups of actors exercise power. This study takes a step in that direction, by examining the role that power structures and political networks play in urban development and governance processes in India and how specific elite urban actors mobilize to take advantage of current economic and political conditions to attain particular goals. While these questions have been under-theorized in Indian urban studies, other scholars working in a variety of other contexts have extensively discussed similar issues, particularly in applications of regime theory and the growth machine thesis (Stone, 1989; Kirby and Abu-Rass, 1999; Fainstein, 2001; Zhang, 2002; Wood, 2004; Dahl, 2005; Kulcsar and Domokos, 2005; Strom, 2007; Yang and Chang, 2007; Shatkin, 2008). Although regime theory has not been used explicitly in published work in the Indian context, there have been some studies in recent years that examine the dynamics of contemporary urban politics in India, focusing on specific political actors in Indian cities (For example, see Kamath, 2006; Weinstein, 2008; Weinstein, 2009; Ghertner, 2011). Frameworks used by the growth machine thesis and regime theory can therefore provide a useful though somewhat unusual starting point for understanding these changes in India.20 Both regime theory and the growth machine thesis raise questions about urban development and governance that are very relevant to contemporary Indian urbanization. The growth machine thesis as suggested by Logan and Molotch (Logan, 1976; Molotch, 1976; Logan and Molotch, 1987) focuses on urban land: its control, development and transfer, and on those actors concerned intimately with land. Drawing on studies of urbanization in the US, the growth machine thesis raises questions not only about ‘who governs’ but also ‘for what’. Its adherents claim that local politics revolve around land and its development; and that this politics is dominated by a pro-growth coalition of key urban actors, which 20 I present a brief overview of the urban political theory literature here but also discuss it in detail in Chapter 2. 20 ultimately shapes urban future through its transformation of local policy (Logan et al., 1999). Urban regime theory takes a broader approach and addresses issues of social power and the role that coalitions comprised of interested parties play in the development and governing of cities, of which control over land is but one issue (Stone, 1989; Fainstein, 1995; Lauria, 1999). Regime theorists are interested in the question of who makes up the governing coalition, how they came together and with what consequences (Stone, 1989). It focuses largely on the relationship between those that wield economic power (usually large corporations) and those in government. Regime theory also situates cities within a larger global framework, acknowledging the impact that processes of globalization and worldwide economic restructuring have on the social order within cities (Fainstein, 1995). I explore the idea of coalitions and the notion of social power borrowed from the growth machine thesis and urban regime theory, using them as a starting point to examine power structures and the role that stakeholders play in Indian cities. While these ideas provide a useful starting point to examine power structures and the role that stakeholders play in Indian cities, the conclusions that emerge from the Indian urban experience are distinct. Local politics in Indian cities too revolve largely around issues related to land, its use and development. Moreover, as discussed by regime theory in the US context, local politics in India are also closely linked to issues of urban governance and development and coalitions in Indian cities are built as much around urban governance and policy issue as around land development. However, while in US cities, these coalitions often have roots in business or political (i.e. governmental) networks, I argue that in the Indian case, these coalitions build on a variety of caste, class and community networks. Specific individuals draw on their different personal social networks (for example, fellow students at school, family associates and friends) 21 and form coalitions across these networks in order to help them to accomplish particular developmental or governance-related goals. Growth coalitions as discussed in these theories are usually a result of a partnership between powerful local economic actors, represented by city businesses and governmental authority in the form of an elected mayor. Both growth machine and regime theory assume considerable local agency on the part of the mayor as well as local businesses in mobilizing regimes around a specific shared development agenda. However, the case in India is somewhat different: although cities do have mayors, they often lack the power to actually mobilize coalitions. The lack of a center of power in Indian cities makes it necessary for actors interested in urban development to bring together various individuals or groups in a coalition that could then leverage their combined strengths in order to achieve development goals. Coalition members in India are typically elite urban actors who share longstanding social relationships with each other. As opportunities arise, urban actors build on these personal relationships to create ad-hoc coalitions with specific goals in mind. These goals could vary from successfully accomplishing a real estate development project to changing the urban governance policy in the city. Local actors leverage their personal relationships with other influential actors building on individual social networks that have their roots in caste, kinship and class associations. Since these associations vary from city to city in India, the nature of the coalitions does as well. Also, unlike in these theories that argue for a single governing coalition or a growth machine, in Indian cities, there could be multiple coalitions functioning at any particular point. In part, this is the outcome of a pluralist politics in India. In addition, power in urban India is fragmented: there is no single interest group or center of political power that controls enough resources (financial, political or 22 governmental) to be the driving force in a single coalition.21 The nature of urban political power in India therefore almost requires numerous coalitions that reflect that various power groups in the city. There are several interest groups in Indian cities that wield significant influence and power, and this is reflected in the multiplicity of coalitions. To begin to develop a theory of power in Indian urban politics, this study examines the role that coalitions play in urban development, how urban coalitions in India mobilize and function, what gives their members access to power and how government is responding to these changes.22 I find that urban coalitions in India are emerging as a response to highly fragmented political power in Indian cities. The diffused nature of power in Indian cities makes it necessary for stakeholders to combine their influence with that of others to get things done, prompting such coalition formation and opportunistic behaviour on the part of various stakeholders, both within and outside government. Reflecting a change in the roles of both public and private sectors in India, these coalitions are formed by groups of individuals that have access to a set of key political, social and financial resources. Such resources that allow individuals to exert their influence grow out of shared social networks. Recent work on social networks in developing countries more broadly, and in India specifically, has focused on a wide range of issues from the impact of caste and class on education choices (Munshi and Rosenzweig, 2006), marital and employment choices (Luke et al., 2004; Munshi and Rosenzweig, 2009) to the role that social networks play in local politics (Munshi and Rosenzweig, 2007). In this dissertation, I examine the resources that are available to members of these social networks (whether caste and community associations, business networks 21 Fragmentation of municipal and regional level power is not unique to India. However, what is different is that as a result of this fragmentation, we see the emergence of multiple small coalitions directed towards very specific goals rather that one large overarching coalition that has total control over urban development and governance. 22 For the purposes of this study, I define ‘power’ as the ability or capacity (official or unofficial) to exercise control. 23 or alumni associations from elite educational institutions) that allow them to build coalitions across these networks in order to achieve specific development goals. Social networks can include caste and class based networks (for example, in the case of the farmers in Pune, caste and kinship relations accounted for significant social cohesion within the community that provided the basis for the development coalition that eventually emerged); ties to critical elite institutions like universities (for instance, several members on Bangalore’s urban taskforces are associated with prominent educational institutions in the city); or shared economic interests around land (like those shared by information technology business leaders and real estate developers in Bangalore or the collective economic interest of the farmers in Pune in developing their land). The catalyst that converts a social network into a coalition is the ability of one or two key individuals like the leader of this particular farmer community in Pune, Mr. Magar, to recognize or sometimes create an opportunity out of emerging circumstances and consequently form a coalition of key individuals with access to specific resources. These individuals need not be central controlling figures of authority like a mayor or a prominent corporate leader. Although socially and politically well connected, Mr. Magar is not politically active himself and neither was he among the leading entrepreneurs in Pune until he successfully developed Magarpatta City. His success lies in the fact that he was able to leverage his personal connections to form several small alliances or coalitions that allowed him and his community to successfully develop their land. He drew on associations with friends and associates from his undergraduate days, family associations with politicians and bureaucrats as well as business relations in addition to leveraging the strong kinship network that existed within the Magar community in Pune. Mr. Magar was at the center of several overlapping social networks that he was able to bring together into a successful, cohesive development coalition. His role as a key figure that was able to tap effectively into these multiple networks to achieve specific goals (such as the consolidation of land, obtaining development permissions and raising finance) is a characteristic 24 of urban coalitions in India as well as an outcome of fragmented power bases in Indian cities. 2. Methods: The aim of this dissertation is to develop a framework that helps us understand how urban stakeholders are adapting, reacting and taking advantage of economic and social changes in post-liberalization India. The study focuses on the kinds of power and modalities of politics involved in these processes, the relationships between particular stakeholders and their strategies, including small groups of individuals who are collectively shaping urban India. More specifically, I was interested in examining the manner in which elite groups in Indian cities were able to exercise their influence and power in the context of urban redevelopment. It was also important to locate this question of power within the larger changing economic, political and social environment in India. Moreover, it would involve raising questions about causes of contemporary phenomena, drawing on multiple sources of evidence, and it would not be easy to separate the specific set of events (urban redevelopment and governance issues) being studied from the larger context of political and economic change in India. Given these constraints, a case study approach emerged as the most suitable methodology for this project (Yin, 1994; Campbell, 2003). The data for this dissertation comprise of primary and secondary data collected between 20082010 in India.23 Research began with two rounds of preliminary fieldwork in the summers of 2006 and 2007. During this time, I visited several Indian cities and conducted a series of initial interviews with governmental officials, architects, planners, developers and NGO leaders. The aim of this exercise was to start identifying key players involved in urban development in India. I began by determining specific 23 Some of the data were collected prior to the 2009 economic crisis and may not reflect recent changes. In general, however, Indian cities (especially the smaller ones) have witnessed a slowdown in the rates of urban development and returns that investors are earning on investments in real estate. There has also been a sharp reduction in international funds investing in urban development projects in Indian cities. 25 governmental institutions and officials in each city so as to get a clear picture of government responses to the changing urban environment in India. I also identified and met with authorities (academics, investigative journalists and senior government researchers) on urban studies in India (especially in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore). I relied on initial interviews and informants in each city to point me towards other potential respondents. Based on my early fieldwork, I was able to identify specific cities and redevelopment initiatives in these cities that offered the opportunity to study power structures and the relationships between various players involved in these efforts. Moreover, as a result of these preliminary field trips, I broadened my study to include specific urban governance reform initiatives that were crucial to a better understanding of urban development processes. I chose to focus on Pune and Bangalore since both cities offer the opportunity to study urban coalitions around governance and redevelopment efforts with roots in very different social networks and yet are examples of successful coalition building, as I discuss in more detail in the following section. Further fieldwork was undertaken beginning in May 2008 and was conducted over five subsequent trips, each lasting two to three months, in Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai. Initial fieldwork in each city involved identifying and making contact with key players such as developers, planners, former and present government officials and leaders of citizens’ groups, involved in urban development and governance. I drew on key informants that I had established a working relationship with during my earlier visits to get this process started. Most of the data collected for this dissertation comprise of primary data in the form of semistructured personal interviews and non-participant observation. In addition, I also documented the process of development in Pune and Bangalore through photographs. Valuable secondary data were collected in the form of newspaper articles, government reports, reports from various consulting firms and working papers, collected on site in India as well as through various library services offered by the University of Michigan. 26 While collecting primary data through interviews, I used a set of questions to guide the interview process but respondents were free to direct the conversation towards their respective areas of expertise and knowledge. Drawing on Fainstein’s methodology in The City Builders (2001), I used a reputational method to identify respondents, relying on them to point me to others who would be potentially valuable informants. In total, about 40 interviews were conducted across three cities: Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai. The length of the interviews ranged from 30 minutes to two hours. A few of the respondents were interviewed more than once. Several respondents requested anonymity and are therefore not identified directly. Questions asked targeted a variety of subjects ranging from real estate development to urban governance issues. I asked questions about who had initiated the project; where the financing had come from; what the process of land acquisition had been like; what had influenced the design of the project; what role governmental agencies had played and to what extent different stakeholders were involved in particular aspects of the project. I also asked questions about the urban governance structure in each city as well as the role of the state government and its agencies in the planning and development of both Bangalore and Pune to see how individuals understood and interacted with the formal governance structure. To understand how local actors were involved in urban governance efforts, I met with and interviewed several individuals – from the government as well as people from the corporate sector, academics, journalists and members of NGOs who were involved in particular initiatives in Pune and Bangalore. I asked them how they had become involved in these alliances, what role they played and what role the group played in planning processes in each city. A more detailed list of questions is attached in Appendix I. 27 3. Meet the cases: Introducing Bangalore and Pune 0 150 300 ¯ Legend Coastline Map made by Neha Sami January 2012 Source: National Geographic; Cloudmade Downloads Case Sites Figure 2: Situating Pune and Bangalore geographically on the national map. Source: National Geographic; Cloudmade Downloads 28 600 Miles This dissertation focuses on the transformation in urban India since economic liberalization. Therefore, while conducting preliminary research in 2006-07, I focused on cities that had experienced urban growth since and possibly as a result of economic liberalization. Over the summer of 2006, I visited several cities in India that fell into this category including New Delhi – Gurgaon (the National Capital Region or NCR), Jaipur, Bhopal, Pune, and Bangalore. In each of these cities, I met with a wide variety of urban actors including real estate developers, governmental officials, NGO leaders, academics, urban planners and architects. Based on initial interviews, I prepared a shortlist of cities that included Bangalore, the NCR, Kolkata (Calcutta) and Pune. All of these cities are facing challenges as a result of urban expansion. Gurgaon, for example, has grown almost exponentially in the last two decades: it has grown from a sleepy suburb of the capital to being home to several international and domestic technology companies, and to real estate giants like Unitech and DLF.24 However, Bangalore and Pune represented a variety of characteristics that made them appropriate for this study that I discuss in detail below. I focus on two key aspects in Bangalore and Pune. First, I examine urban governance initiatives that have had considerable influence on the planning process in both cities. Second, I look at the real estate development process in each city, focusing on one large mixed-use project in each city. I use both these aspects as a means to understand how local elite actors are leveraging their existing social networks, power relations and financial capital to form specific goal-directed coalitions to take advantage of opportunities that have emerged after economic liberalization. Coalitions in Bangalore and Pune reflect historical relationships and power structures. However, the social networks that these coalitions are built upon are distinct and particular to each city. The primary social networks in Pune are based on shared caste and community ties – the Magar farming community discussed in Chapter 5 has very strong kinship 24 Unitech (http://www.unitechgroup.com/index-next.asp) and DLF (http://www.dlf.in/dlf/wcm/connect/DLF_Common/DLF_SITE/HOME) are among the largest national-level real estate development companies in India. 29 networks that were vital to the successful formation of the development coalition that developed Magarpatta City. On the other hand, the social networks that drive coalition building in Bangalore are based on shared social class characteristics, comprising primarily of members of an emerging ‘new’ elite such as leaders from the IT industry, financial consultants, senior bureaucrats and academics. This allowed me to compare the coalitions that had their roots in very different social characteristics but were similar in intent (focused on urban development and governance). Category Pune Bangalore Population 5,518,688 8,474,000 Economic growth rate 7.4% 10.3% Area 450 sq. kms Agriculture and agro-based industry, IT, Biotech, Education, Manufacturing - specifically: auto, electric goods, consumer goods 741 sq. kms IT and ITES, Education, Manufacturing: textile, heavy engineering, defense Key industries Table 1: Comparing Pune and Bangalore. Sources: http://bbmp.gov.in/; http://www.punecorporation.org/pmcwebn/index.aspx; http://puneonline.in/Profile/Economy/ The two cases chosen in this thesis each represent a different type of Indian city: one is already a major national and global player, while the other is a smaller, regional center. Both Bangalore and Pune share similarities: both cities are centers of education, have largely middle-class populations, are home to large military cantonments, and were significantly impacted by economic liberalization processes. Both cities were and continue to be centers for more traditional sectors like industrial engineering, manufacturing and textile. However, for the purposes of this dissertation, both cities also exhibit very different types of social and political networks that their members are leveraging to achieve specific goals. This thesis examines how various elite groups in each of these cities are dealing with and adapting to a changing economic environment and the outcomes that this change is creating in their urban form: both physically and politically. Each of the groups discussed in the cases to follow were best 30 positioned to take advantage of opportunities afforded by economic liberalization by capitalizing on their existing networks and access to resources. Road map for the thesis: The next chapter will situate this work in the context of larger bodies of literature that this thesis draws on, including: • Theories of globalization and its impact on cities, especially those that focus on global-local interactions; • Historical and contemporary urban studies from developing countries, particularly South Asia, especially those examining socio-political issues. • Western urban political theory, particularly regime theory and growth machines/coalitions. Chapter 3 will lay out in detail each group or stakeholder involved in the process. The aim is to paint a clear picture of the role that each of these groups has played and is now playing in Indian cities. The focus will be on coalitions at two specific scales: the first being real estate development and the other, the broader scale of urban governance and policy. This chapter will examine evolving institutional frameworks and also act as an introduction to the next two chapters that focus on specific examples. Chapters 4 and 5 analyze the data that were collected during fieldwork. Chapter 4 examines transformations in urban governance and policy that are being implemented by city and state governments in each city. For example, in the case of Pune, the government is being led to implement change by specific instances and cases of development (for example, the township act that was created after Magarpatta; also, changes in the master plan in Pune as a result of NGO protests). In the case of Bangalore, however, the government is itself attempting to lead change in the way development transactions take place and also regulate who is able to participate in these transactions. The focus here is on the emergence of a coalition between corporate leaders (IT/biotech), NGOs and an educated middle class. Emerging urban governance policy in Indian cities 31 aims to decentralize urban governance and grant a stronger role to local political actors. There are growing attempts to create a public-private relationship that is enduring – lasting across political and electoral boundaries. Chapter 5 focuses on land development: examine how developers and government in each city have reacted differently to similar stimuli: influx of IT, increase in demand for housing and office space. Analysis will focus on one large development project in each city: Magarpatta township in Pune and Shantiniketan in Bangalore. The focus is on land, and who gets to use it, in what capacity. Specific groups of people come together to promote the development of certain parcels of land – more of a business arrangement. This is essentially a private sector arrangement that uses government to serve its purpose. The difference in the particular way in which development in Pune takes place as compared to Bangalore is an indicator of how specific groups in each city have capitalized on their assets to take advantage of economic opportunities. It also shows the different ways in which real estate development functions in both cities. Finally, in conclusion, Chapter 6 assesses the lessons learnt from the analyses of the preceding chapters. It examines the implications for theory, in particular, reflecting on whether or not aspects of theories like regime theory are useful for studying the Indian context. It also considers the significance that this study has for future urban policy in India. 32 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Introduction: In the last two decades, Indian cities have experienced economic, physical, social and political change that is unprecedented in the rate at which it is taking place as well as in its scale (Shaw, 2007b; Chatterjee, 2008b). The Indian economy has grown on average by about 6 per cent per annum from 1990-2010 with a significant proportion of this growth concentrated in urban areas (Just et al., 2006; Allen et al., 2011). During this time, the price of urban land has been steadily increasing (Mathur, 2005; Jones Lang LaSalle, 2006; Just et al., 2006). New forms of urban development like large mixed-use townships with high quality infrastructure are emerging on urban peripheries. Private sector involvement in infrastructure provision has also grown, and the national government has implemented urban policy reforms requiring greater decentralization (Government of India, 1992; Mathur, 2005; Dupont, 2011). And as the ‘middle class’ in Indian cities grows richer, more vocal and influential, significant urban populations are becoming increasingly marginalized (Fernandes, 2000; Baviskar, 2003; Fernandes, 2004; Ghosh, 2005; Chatterjee, 2008a). All of these factors have changed the dynamics of politics in Indian cities. As Chatterjee (2008b: 53) has argued, “The new conditions under which global flows of capital, commodities, information and people are now regulated – a complex set of phenomena generally clubbed under the category of globalization – have created both new opportunities and new obstacles for the Indian ruling 33 classes.” However, we still know little about how these larger global flows are impacting and influencing the actions of the “ruling classes” as well as those being ruled. How do existing power structures respond to national and international level changes? What does the entry of international players like foreign institutional investors and real estate developers mean for local networks between landowners, farmers, and government bureaucrats? How do existing social relationships and alliances mediate the impact of large-scale forces of change? While the state was and continues to be the most dominant mediating apparatus in India today, the extent of its authority has reduced significantly (Mathur, 2005; Chatterjee, 2008b). As the Indian economy continues to open up, non-state actors are gaining importance and playing a more active role in shaping urban development and governance in India. Regional and city level governments as well as individual politicians are courting private sector investment – both domestic and foreign (Jenkins, 1999; Ahluwalia, 2000; Rudolph and Rudolph, 2006; Singh and Srinivasan, 2006; Chatterjee, 2008b). Moreover, as local governments struggle to come to terms with a changing urban landscape, they also have to juggle various competing interests: on the one hand, governments are trying to entice domestic and foreign private capital to locate in their particular region; on the other, they are struggling to provide basic infrastructure and governance services, mobilize local resources as well as continuing to provide planning and deliver services at the local level to an ever-growing urban population (Human Settlements Division UNESCAP, 2002; Kamath, 2006). This has created the perfect opportunity for non-state actors like corporate leaders, real estate developers, members of NGOs and citizens’ welfare groups, landowners and farmers to push for an increased role in urban development and governance processes. The aim of this chapter is to provide a theoretical framework, the scaffolding on which to build the structure of this dissertation’s argument. Responding to calls 34 for a distinct urban theory of the global south for the global south, I take the first steps towards building a theory of urban politics in India that is simultaneously grounded in the Indian experience while locating Indian cities in the larger global economic context (Roy, 2009a; Robinson, 2010). While the following chapters use empirical research to examine urban politics in India, this chapter will explore the theoretical foundations for such an endeavor and locate it within the broader literature. Despite the growing interest in contemporary Indian cities (Roy, 2009a) and recent engagement with issues of power and politics (Chatterjee, 2004b; Benjamin, 2006; Benjamin, 2008; Roy, 2009a; Weinstein, 2009; Berland Kaul, 2010; Ghertner, 2011), we still know little about how elite groups of actors in urban India today are able to assert themselves. Recent work (for example, see: Benjamin [2008], Fernandes [2004, 2006, 2009], Kamath [2006], and Weinstein [2010]) shows that elite actors in contemporary India (ranging from corporate leaders and financial consultants to the newly returned NRI or non-resident Indian and leaders of non-profit organizations) wield considerable power and are able to exert their influence on urban development and governance processes in Indian cities, although how precisely they are able to assert themselves is not yet well understood. In this dissertation, I argue that because power in Indian cities is by nature diffused and fragmented, there is no single individual or group, within government or outside it, that is able to singlehandedly effect change. However, due to a fragmented power base, it is possible for individuals and groups that hold specific resources to come together in coalitions that can then harness these resources to achieve particular goals. These coalitions are ad-hoc and opportunistic, often temporary in nature, emerging to take advantage of the changing economic environment of post-liberalization India. Specific individuals build coalitions from their existing social networks that draw on shared associations such as shared business interests, community, kinship and caste 35 networks, and ties to elite educational institutions. This chapter builds on research on globalization theory and its impacts, urbanization in India as well as urban political theory to develop a framework within which to situate the empirical work of the following chapters. I begin by examining the nature of power in Indian cities, and then locate this within the extensive body of work on globalization theory and its impacts. I also draw on insights from urban regime theory and the growth machine thesis to begin building a theory that can be used to understand the politics and power of the elite in Indian cities. To appreciate the transformations that Indian urban politics is experiencing, it is important to locate Indian cities within the broader framework of globalization and economic change. Before the sweeping economic reforms of 1990-91 and the enthusiastic move towards neoliberalism, post-independence Indian cities were limited in their exposure to international economic forces and movements of global capital.25 In the last two decades, this exposure has considerably increased: several Indian cities (Mumbai, Delhi and the National Capital Region, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune, to name a few) have emerged as attractive investment and service destinations for multinational corporations; a growing number of international architects, planning consultants and real estate firms are involved in public and private urban development (Chaudhary, 2007; Jha, 2007; Menon, 2007; PTI, 2007b; Khaleej Times, 2011); and international consulting firms like McKinsey & Company, Jones Lang LaSalle, and SCE Creocean are advising and assisting city and state governments on issues of urban planning and development.26 It is therefore clear that the Indian urban 25 While India has historically always been very closely integrated with the global economy, after independence in 1947, the new Indian government focused on an import-substitution, heavy industry economic strategy. From then until the economy opened up in the 1990s, very few international players were allowed into the Indian economy and those that were, were heavily regulated. The discussion of globalization and liberalization of the Indian economy in this dissertation focuses on the period since the economic reforms of 1990-91. 26 McKinsey and Company (http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/india/), Jones Lang LaSalle (http://www.joneslanglasalle.co.in), and SCE Creocean (http://www.sce.co.in/corp/) are among an increasing number of international consulting firms that have a growing presence in India. Consulting firms like these provide services ranging from real estate advice, urban planning and design, technical expertise (such as the creation of Geographic Information Systems or GIS) and financial advice to governments, private sector firms as well as non-profit organizations. Examples of projects undertaken include the Bombay First report (McKinsey and Company) and the Bangalore Comprehensive Development Plan (SCE Creocean). 36 scene is no longer restricted to only domestic players. However, to develop a nuanced understanding of contemporary Indian urbanization, it is equally important to recognize the peculiar local characteristics of cities and regions that mediate these larger-scale forces. Globalized forms of production and global flows of capital create outcomes that are products of local culture, however hybridized they may be (King, 2000). It is therefore essential to build a theoretical framework that situates local politics within the rubric of higher-level changes. The remainder of this chapter is dedicated to creating an approach to understanding the changing dynamic of Indian urban politics in a manner that takes into account larger changes while locating them appropriately within the local context of Indian cities. It weaves together a reading of the literature on globalization, focusing particularly on work that examines the impact of global forces on cities that do not rank high in the ‘global city’ hierarchy or “the alpha – beta – gamma worldwide rankings” (Roy, 2009a: 821) with discussions of regime theory and the growth machine.27 It then locates this discussion within contemporary debates on the Indian city. 2. Locating the Indian City: “The city, or more properly ‘the urban’, has had a fugitive existence in the political, cultural, and sociological imaginations of modern India” (Nair, 2005: 1). Writing on the urbanization of Bangalore, Nair (2005) documents how the Indian village dominated the visions of politicians, planners and academics alike in the early years of Indian independence. The first major impetus for urban studies in India came in the 1950s when the Planning Commission sponsored profiles of 20 major cities (Ramachandran, 1989; Nair, 2005). These were mostly descriptive, 27 The ‘alpha-beta-gamma’ ranking system refers to the hierarchical ranking of world cities produced by researchers at the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Research Network (http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/), that ranks various cities based on their level of integration into the world city network, measured by the extent to which multinational corporations and international institutions were present in these cities. The exact methods are explained in more detail here: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/rb/rb300.html 37 largely demographic reports and were typically conducted by geographers. These were followed in the 1960s-70s by a few detailed studies, mainly of the ‘Presidency’ cities like Bombay and Calcutta (Ramachandran, 1989; Nair, 2005). However, there has not been a more enthusiastic reception of urban studies in the social sciences in India (Nair, 2005), confirmed by the fact that a recent (2007) volume on change in urban India is the first collection of this kind since the late 1970s (Shaw, 2007a).28 In the last decade or so, a number of studies on specific Indian cities have been published (for example, Neild, 1999; Hansen, 2001; Srinivas, 2001; Roy, 2003; Heitzman, 2004; Chattopadhyay, 2005; Hosagrahar, 2005; Nair, 2005; Shaw, 2007b). Some have focused on a historical account of their city of choice like Neild’s account of the development of colonial Madras or Nair’s book on Bangalore in the 20th century. Others are specific social, cultural, economic or political narratives like Hansen’s (2001) work on right-wing politics in Bombay, Srinivas’s (2001) narrative on religious traditions that shape the urban form of Bangalore or Roy’s (2003) account of poverty and gender politics in Calcutta. Although each has a different focus, there are common themes that run through these works. Some of these studies deal at least partially with Indian urbanization in a post-liberalization environment and with the changing nature of Indian cities. A familiar theme that also emerges is that of social justice and equity in the Indian city, focusing specifically on marginalized groups such as the urban poor and women. Another issue of almost universal concern is that of unplanned growth of cities and inadequate service provision where city governments are unable to keep up with the pace of urban development, resulting in deteriorating urban conditions. More recent studies have also focused on specific aspects of 28 For more detailed information on studies conducted on urban India, see Bose, A. & Demographic Research Centre (India). Urban Section. (1970) Urbanization in India; an inventory of source materials, Bombay,, Academic Books.. In addition to these studies, there were also several other instances in which the Indian government engaged with the urban (the design and development of Chandigarh), the founding of some urban studies programs such as the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), Delhi and the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT), Ahmedabad (funded by the government of India and the Ford Foundation). However, the argument that I make here is that, these efforts notwithstanding, social scientists in India as well as governmental programs have focused largely on rural India, leading to a neglect of urban studies. 38 suburban or peripheral growth in India or on specific interest groups (Benjamin, 2000). The focus has been on industrial and economic development, particularly as an outcome of economic liberalization (Kennedy, 2007) and on urban governance and resource allocation issues (Baud and Dhanalakshmi, 2007; Dupont, 2007; Ruet et al., 2007; Zerah, 2007a). Engaging with writing on post-liberalization urban India, this dissertation adds to the literature by examining politics and power structures that are emerging in this new environment, focusing particularly on elite actors and the manner in which they exert their influence in urban development and governance issues. I study how urban development projects are accomplished through the formation of coalitions of elite actors, made possible by the fragmented nature of power in Indian cities and based in social networks and relationships that form around shared characteristics such as community, caste, and common economic and business interests. In this section, I examine the fragmented nature of power in Indian cities, within government and outside it. Until recently, urban India never featured very prominently in national or regional governmental policy. Municipal governments have historically been weak, functioning primarily as service-delivery agencies of the state government as colonial governments retained most of the authority over urban decision-making processes (Weinstein, 2009). Although local self-government played a very important role during the independence movement, it faded from prominence in post-independence India. As Corbridge and Harriss (2000) and Weinstein (2009) have argued, leaders of the independence movement such as Nehru, Patel and Ambedkar believed that the political system would be more democratic if it were less local and free from the petty politics that they believed influenced municipal government (Corbridge and Harriss, 2000; Weinstein, 2009). As I discuss more in later chapters, the decision to not vest power in local authorities was therefore a deliberate one, stemming from a clear anti-local bias at the national level. Nehru’s idea of grassroots democracy, of having the people participate in India’s 39 development, was and continues to be absent from the urban arena, in the planning and development of Indian cities (Bannerjee, 2005). This bias is prevalent especially in contemporary state (regional) governments in India as they tend to view local (city) governments at competitors rather than collaborators (Weinstein, 2009). In spite of legislation that requires decentralization of governmental authority at the local level, state governments, and the parastatal bodies that they appoint, continue to control most of the decision-making processes with little or no input from municipal governments (Baud and de Wit, 2008). After independence, those who worked in the Indian civil service preferred positions in the Centre and State governments over those in municipal governmental institutions (Buch, 1987b). Consequently, it tended to be that those who were rejected for higher offices applied to posts in local government, leading to deterioration, over time, of the quality of municipal officials (Rosser, 1972; Buch, 1987b). A report on Indian urbanization undertaken for the Ford Foundation in the early 1970s also found that “the low prestige of local government service extends downwards from commissioners to all staff levels. The poor pay scales and service conditions have consistently failed to attract talented and qualified officers, and the vicious circle of low prestige, poor staff, high inefficiency has proved impossible to break” (Rosser, 1972: 71). The governmental reaction to a rapidly weakening municipal management structure was to attempt to find substitutes for municipal institutions, often in the form of development authorities (Buch, 1987b). Development authorities grew out of ‘Improvement Trusts’ that the British government had instituted. The Improvement Trusts were special bodies responsible for the planning and implementation of large-scale development projects, since the British believed that local self government in India, run by Indian politicians, could not be trusted with capital development projects (Rosser, 1972). In 1957-58, the Delhi Improvement Trust was transformed into the Delhi Development Authority, which 40 provided the model for the creation of other development authorities in the country (Rosser, 1972; Buch, 1987a). As a result, Rosser (1972) argues, there was a historical separation of functions with the development aspects becoming the responsibility of statutory bodies appointed by state governments and maintenance and service provision left to the elected municipal councils. The planning and development of local infrastructure and services such as transportation, water supply and waste management, housing and electricity were under the purview of separate development authorities or agencies, a practice that continues in contemporary Indian cities. Each of these agencies operated in an insular fashion, leading not only to the weakening of local government but also fragmented decision making (M. Bhattacharya quoted in Rosser, 1972: 81-82), which remains an issue in urban government in India today (see, for example, Pinto, 2008).29 In addition, the planned approach to development that India adopted at independence largely ignored urban requirements. While there was significant emphasis on agricultural and industrial development, their spatial implications were not given much consideration. Urbanization, particularly in relation to industrial development, was first given attention in the Third Five Year plan, resulting in a model town planning act (Ramachandran, 1989). It also provided financial support for the creation of master plans in major Indian cities. Subsequent plans continued to pay some attention to urban development and policy although it ranked low in priority and most efforts undertaken were piecemeal in nature (Ramachandran, 1989). Moreover, since the Five Year plans had a sectoral outlook, the little that was granted to urban development was lost in the cracks between different sectors (Sivaramakrishnan, 1978).30 The Five 29 I also found this to be the case while conducting fieldwork in Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai. I discuss this fragmentation of administrative power and governance with respect to Bangalore and Pune in more detail in the following chapter. 30 The Five Year plans were framed around economic sectors and outlined specific measures that government could undertake to promote these areas of the Indian economy. Agriculture and heavy industry formed a significant proportion of the earlier plans Corbridge, S. & Harriss, J. (2000) Reinventing India: liberalization, Hindu nationalism and popular democracy, Cambridge, UK Malden, MA, Polity Press ; Blackwell.. 41 Year plans typically limited themselves to advising the state governments on urbanization, stopping short of actually mandating reforms (Ramachandran, 1989). The Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India lists local governments along with “the constitution and powers of municipal corporations, improvement trusts, districts boards, mining settlement authorities and other local authorities for the purpose of local self- government or village administration” in the state list, giving the power over these functions to state governments (Buch, 1987a; Ministry of Law and Justice (Legislative department), 2007: 322). As a result, the role and functions of local government essentially draw from the powers that the state government grants it. The recent urban governance reforms in the 74th Amendment also leave the extent and range of powers that are to be decentralized to local bodies to the discretion of the state governments (Government of India, 1992). State governments therefore continue to control urban planning through various nominated bodies like the development authorities discussed above. However, as the Indian economy becomes increasingly integrated into global markets, power structures within state (regional) and city governments are changing the manner in which they engage with various existing and emerging stakeholders in Indian cities (Chatterjee, 2004c; Chatterjee, 2004a; Weinstein, 2009). New arrangements of state power have emerged partly as a result of this process of economic integration and globalization with clear implications on how governments in India function. For example, with liberalization, the central government has considerably reduced the degree of control it has over state governments, encouraging greater state-level initiatives, especially with respect to attracting investment (Ahluwalia, 2000): specific examples of entrepreneurial state leaders who took advantage of this situation include the former chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh (Chandrababu Naidu) (Rudolph and Rudolph, 2006) and Karnataka (S.M. Krishna) (Ghosh, 2005).31 Regional governments and 31 This has not been uniform over all of India: some states have been more successful than others at being entrepreneurial. For more see, for example: Ahluwalia, M. S. (2000) Economic Performance of States in the Post-Reforms Period. Economic and Political Weekly, 35 (19), 1637-48; Aghion, P., Burgess, R., Redding, 42 political regimes have gained in importance nationally. This is evident from the relative decline in importance of national level political parties like the Congress or the right-wing Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and the simultaneously increasing role that regional political parties are playing not only in state governments but at the national level as well (Corbridge and Harriss, 2000; Jha and Sinha, 2007). There has also been an increased amount of private participation and authority at the local level in both land development as well as urban governance (Chatterjee, 2004a; Weinstein, 2009) accompanied by a rise in new forms of local democratic engagement. The urban political framework in the pre-liberalization era, particularly in the 1980s allowed a good deal of space for political bargaining by marginalized and disenfranchised groups, particularly the urban poor, as characterized by Chatterjee’s ‘political’ society, a popular politics that takes place in “the space where populations are governed and looked after, often by ignoring or violating civic norms (Chatterjee, 2008a: 91; Roy, 2011). As Chatterjee explains, the majority of India’s population occupies this ‘political society’: inhabitants who have at best a tenuous claim to citizenship and its rights but must continuously navigate the apparatus of several governmental agencies through a series of political relationships, which often circumvent or even violate existing laws and civic norms (Chatterjee, 2004b; Benjamin, 2008). This state of affairs was in keeping with the welfare state approach to development and governance that the Indian government took prior to liberalization (Kohli and Mullen, 2003; Chatterjee, 2004b). These population groups worked as a whole to “produce a local political consensus”(Chatterjee, 2004c: 66) that mobilized to channel governmental welfare programs towards themselves, applying pressure on key governmental mechanisms and capitalizing then, as they do now, on “vote bank politics” (Benjamin, 2008).32 S. & Zilibotti, F. (2008) The Unequal Effects of Liberalization: Evidence from Dismantling the License Raj in India. The American Economic Review, 98, 1397-1412. 32 Benjamin (2008) explains, “vote bank politics” as a process whereby poor groups lay claim to public investments in basic infrastructure and services in return for guaranteed access to election voter lists. The term “vote bank” was first coined by the sociologist M.N. Srinivas (1955, 1964) to explain the political 43 However, since liberalization, there has been a drastic shift in the attitudes of government and of those who govern with respect to those who are governed. It is not that there has been a dramatic transformation in the composition or role of ‘political’ society, but that ‘civil’ society or the ‘demographically limited’ “domain of associative life of citizens enjoying legally protected rights of freedom, equality and property” (Chatterjee, 2004b: 39; Chatterjee, 2008a: 91), personified by the urban middle class has become more vocal and increasingly demonstrative (Baviskar, 2003).33 While earlier the domain of urban politics was largely ignored by the urban middle class, the economic transformation that has accompanied liberalization has enabled and encouraged this group to demand “from the administration and the judiciary that laws and regulations for the proper use of land, public spaces, and thoroughfares be formulated and strictly adhered to” (Chatterjee, 2004a: 140). The emergence of the urban middle class and its renewed interest and participation in urban politics is indeed driving an agenda of “bourgeois urbanism” (Chatterjee, 2004a; Fernandes, 2004; Harriss, 2010; Ghertner, 2011: 505). However, as Ghertner (2011) persuasively argues, the emergence of the urban middle class and its increasing participation and influence in urban governance is also an outcome of new forms of governance (Benjamin, 2006). With increased public participation mandated by the 74th Constitutional Amendment, city governments are using middle class groups like Resident Welfare Associations (Harriss, 2010) or Advanced Locality Management Units (Zerah, 2007b) to encourage citizen participation. Another process in southern India whereby local politicians were able to mobilize voters during elections by offering access to specific resources such as basic infrastructure or entitlement to land in return for votes. Srinivas, M. N. & Béteille, A. (1964) 212. Networks in Indian Social Structure. Man, 64, 165-168; Weinstein, L. (2009) Redeveloping Dharavi: Toward A Political Economy Of Slums And Slum Redevelopment In Globalizing Mumbai. Department Of Sociology. Chicago, IL, The University of Chicago. 33 For specific examples on the growing participation of the urban middle class in Indian cities, see, among others: Baviskar, A. (2003) Between violence and desire: space, power, and identity in the making of metropolitan Delhi. International Social Science Journal, 55 (175), 89 - 98. Fernandes, L. (2004) The Politics of Forgetting: Class Politics, State Power and the Restructuring of Urban Space in India. Urban Studies, 41 (12), 2415-2430; Benjamin, S. (2007) Lifestyling India's metros: the elite's civic reform. IN Sudarshan, R. M. & Pande, S. (Eds.) Ensuring public accountability through community action: A case study in east Delhi. New Delhi, Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi; Zerah, M. H. (2007b) Middle class neighbourhood associations as political players in Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly, 42 (47), 61-68; Ghertner, D. A. (2011) Gentrifying the State, Gentrifying Participation: Elite Governance Programs in Delhi. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35 (3), 504-532. 44 mechanism through which the urban middle class is able to influence decisionmaking is through the involvement of non-profit organizations in urban governance, either through Ward Committees (Nainan and Baud, 2008) or through more informal means (Ghosh, 2005; Ghosh, 2006).3435 Power in Indian cities is therefore fragmented, making it difficult for any single group or individual whether in government or outside to dictate the direction of development and policy in Indian cities. The Indian governmental apparatus (at the national, regional and local levels) is currently incapable of meeting the demands of international capital and inter-city competition as well as those of urban residents, whether from civil or political society. The government response to this lack of capacity and its inability to keep pace with rapidly changing urban environments has been twofold: the first has been to adopt a carrot-and-stick approach to urban reform by tying financial assistance from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to the successful implementation of the reforms required by the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act; the second has been to invite private sector actors to participate in governance and development, for example, to complete specific infrastructure and development projects (Ministry of Finance, 2007; Gohain, 2011) or participate in planning and 34 I discuss one such instance in Chapter 4, using the example of Bangalore where a non-profit organization, Janaagraha, was one of the key participants of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) and was instrumental in advancing a specific middle-class agenda. For more on the role of Janaagraha in the BATF specifically, see: Kamath, L. (2006) Achieving global competitiveness and local poverty reduction? Examining the public-private partnering model of governance in Bangalore, India. Urban Planning and Policy Development. New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. 35 Ward Committees are a new level of local self-government mandated by the decentralization reforms of th the 74 Constitutional Amendment Act. They were intended to create a three-tier system of urban governance to mirror the already-existing three-tiered system of rural government. For more on Ward Committees and their performance in various Indian cities, see, for example: de Wit, J., Nainan, N. & Palnitkar, S. (2008) Urban decentralization in Indian cities: Assessing the performance of neighbourhood level Wards Committees. IN Baud, I. S. A. & de Wit, J. (Eds.) New forms of urban governance in India: shifts, models, networks & governance. First ed. New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, Calif; London; Singapore, Sage. Ghosh, A. & Mitra, M. (2008) Institutionalizing People's Participation in Urban Governance: An InterCity Perspective of Wards Committees in West Bengal. IN Baud, I. S. A. & de Wit, J. (Eds.) New forms of urban governance in India: shifts, models, networks & governance. First ed. New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, Calif; London; Singapore, Sage; Nainan, N. & Baud, I. S. A. (2008) Negotiating for Participation: Decentralisation and NGOs in Mumbai, India. IN Baud, I. S. A. & de Wit, J. (Eds.) New forms of urban governance in India: shifts, models, networks & governance. First ed. New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, Calif; London; Singapore, Sage. 45 governance processes (Ghosh, 2005; Kamath, 2006; Baud and de Wit, 2008).36 The Indian government is therefore creating spaces in which non-governmental actors can assert themselves and participate in urban governance and development processes. Governance and government in India is being transformed as a result of the multiplication of stakeholders, gradually moving towards a new framework of governance (Milbert, 2008). It is both in response to this emergence of new spaces in India as well as an outcome of diffused power in Indian cities that specific elite actors (real estate developers, corporate leaders, landowners, middle class activists) are forming ad-hoc urban coalitions targeting specific goals. Members of these coalitions hold access to key resources such as financial capital, administrative and governmental privileges, advanced technology and access to land. Individuals build on personal social networks to bring together specific actors with access to the necessary resources that will enable them to achieve goals that range from developing agricultural land to reforming urban governance policy. Although elite actors in Indian cities have always had access to key resources like financial capital and land, I argue that there is a unique set of circumstances in contemporary urban India prompting the formation of urban coalitions. The liberalization of the Indian economy in 1990-91 and the subsequent move towards privatization and influx of foreign investors and corporations has created opportunities for these elite actors in Indian cities to profitably leverage their existing resources. This has been complemented by policy changes that Indian government has undertaken, for example, the decentralization of government, which despite slow implementation has definitely provided elite actors an increased opportunity for participation. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that these opportunities for participation privilege particular sections of society 36 I discuss the JNNURM in more detail in the following chapter. Briefly, it is a central government initiative launched in December 2005 to implement urban reforms (governmental and infrastructural) in Indian cities. The Indian government plans to spend approximately $20 billion over a seven-year period through this initiative. The central government recently (2011) announced the second phase of the JNNURM to be implemented in 2012. 46 and will not necessarily mean uniform access for all members of urban society, especially marginalized urban populations (Milbert, 2008; Ghertner, 2011). I argue that urban coalitions are one example of the ways in which local actors are responding to the changes that global economic forces have brought to India. Moreover, as I discuss in the following section, the impact of globalization on India has not been to erode the role of national or sub-national governments but to enable the rescaling of power and authority within the nation by creating new “state spaces” and configurations of power (Brenner, 2004; Sridharan, 2008; Weinstein, 2009) in addition to providing economic opportunity to specific sections of urban society. 3. Theorizing Urban Politics: From the Global to the Local For the first four decades since independence, India remained a relatively closed economy (Kothari, 1997). The Indian government focused on a ”state-led importsubstitution industrialization” (Kohli and Mullen, 2003: 198) economic policy. A gradual process of opening up the Indian economy began in the 1980s with the first loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), following which markets were allowed a freer hand in the Indian economy (Kothari, 1997). However, the economic reforms implemented in 1990-91 were the most influential and wideranging. With these reforms, the Indian government began a process of dismantling the elaborate system of licenses and controls that had been put in place since independence (Kothari, 1997; Aghion et al., 2008) and began opening up key sectors of the Indian economy to foreign direct investment (FDI). Since these reforms were undertaken in the 1990s, the Indian economy has grown annually at an average of 6 per cent (Allen et al., 2011). The inward FDI stock for the country as a whole has risen from 1.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product or GDP in 1995 to 12.9 per cent of GDP in 2009 (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 2010). Real estate markets and investments in India are currently projected to be among the fastest growing in the Asia-Pacific region, second only to China (Jones Lang LaSalle, 2006). 47 The majority of these economic reforms were targeted at urban areas in India (Shaw, 2007b). While the four Indian metros – Mumbai (Bombay), Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta) and Chennai (Madras) – dominated the urban system for most of the 20th century, economic liberalization has fostered the growth of erstwhile secondary cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune (Shaw, 1999). From 19902008, the urban contribution to India’s GDP increased from 46 per cent of the national share to 58 per cent and is projected to rise to about 70 per cent by 2030 (Sankhe et al., 2010). In particular, real estate development has emerged as a key sector driving growth in Indian cities (Jones Lang LaSalle, 2006). Despite the global economic downturn in 2008-09, the Indian real estate sector has grown at an average of 10 per cent per annum since 2008 (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), 2011). This growth is attributed at least partially to the liberalization of the real estate sector in 2005, following which there has been a growing domestic as well as foreign interest in investing in Indian real estate (Galloway and DiRocco Jr., 2011).37 This has meant renewed pressure on already scarce urban land in Indian cities with several groups competing for access to land (Dupont, 2007). As Indian cities grow, there is a tension between creating a city that serves domestic and international businesses, an increasingly vocal and active urban middle class and their demands and a city that facilitates the “everyday social reproduction of working people” (Zukin, 2006: 135). In common with globalizing cities the world over, urban India is rapidly reconfiguring its space, catering increasingly to the demands of international and domestic capital (Benjamin, 2000; Chatterjee, 2004b; Benjamin, 2006).38 It has often been argued that as cities become more and more integrated into the global economy, there is a 37 I discuss real estate development more in Chapter 5, focusing particularly on two development projects in Bangalore and Pune. 38 Marcuse and van Kempen (2008: 263) use the term “globalizing cities to reflect two different points: that (almost) all cities are touched by the process of globalization and that involvement in that process is not a matter of being either at the top or the bottom of it, but rather of the nature and extent of influence of the process.” Marcuse, P. & Kempen, R. V. (2008) Conclusion: A Changed Spatial Order. IN Marcuse, P. & Kempen, R. V. (Eds.) Globalizing Cities. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 48 growing social polarization between a new emerging class of young professional workers and the older industrial and manufacturing workers and other low-wage employees, often immigrants (Friedmann, 1995; Sassen, 2006b; Sassen, 2006a). However, the manifestations of this inequity and its causes are diverse and are rooted in the specific historical, social and cultural contexts of each region (Shatkin, 2007). The ‘dualism’ in the economy of Indian cities is exemplified by the separation between their ‘local’ and ‘corporate economies’ (Benjamin, 2000: 35; Harriss, 2010).39 Benjamin (2000) explains the implications of these economies for urban planning, politics and governance. According to him, ‘local’ economies typically emerge in the grey areas that fall just beyond the purview of the city’s master plan, share a tenuous relationship with land occupancy and often illegally appropriate space for economic, residential and social needs. Those employed in these ‘local’ economies – typically the urban poor and low-income groups – interact with authority through municipal government: the Municipal Corporation, city councilors, and low-level bureaucracy (Benjamin, 2000: 35). Their relationships inhabit the space of Chatterjee’s political society (Chatterjee, 2004c). ‘Corporate’ economies exhibit almost diametrically opposite characteristics. Typically populated by “rights-bearing, enfranchised bourgeois citizens” (Roy, 2011: 227) exemplified by Chatterjee’s civil society (Chatterjee, 2004c), ‘corporate’ economies interact with authority through state, parastatal and national governments and their agencies that have little local representation but take most decisions that affect the planning and development of Indian cities. This leaves disenfranchised, poor groups at a tremendous disadvantage. This is an even more critical issue as Indian cities face pressure to compete for investment globally. As demands on land, infrastructure and urban services increase, “rigid land use controls in the expanding corporate enclave areas 39 Benjamin (2000) explains the difference between the terms as follows, using Bangalore as an example: for the most part, ‘local’ economies constitute the informal sector, providing the majority of the city’s population employment, particularly the urban poor; ‘corporate’ economies, on the other hand, comprise of the industrial, bureaucratic, and in the case of Bangalore, the IT, elite. 49 exclude most pro-poor economic activity and threaten poorer groups’ fragile claims to land. Poor groups suffer demolition, resettlement, increased land prices and a governance system in which their local representative structure has little power” (Benjamin, 2000: 35). In the last two decades, the role of private sector actors in urban planning and governance processes has increased, for example, through the creation of public private partnerships for infrastructure provision as well as governance reform (Kamath, 2006; Ministry of Finance, 2007; Mahalingam, 2010). As the participation of private sector actors or ‘corporate’ economies and other civil society actors in urban planning processes increases, it raises questions about the role of the state. Keil (1998: 622) has argued that with the move towards neoliberalism and greater integration with international markets, global capitalism ‘weakens’ the nation-state, thereby reducing its influence domestically as well as internationally. However, this dissertation rejects such simplistic analyses that point to erosion of the nation-state and highlight the importance of global processes and forces over those acting at the sub-national, i.e. regional and city levels. It emphasizes that the impact of globalization has not been to erode the role of national or sub-national governments but that it has enabled the rescaling of power and authority within the nation by creating new “state spaces” and configurations of power (Keil, 1998; Brenner, 2004; Weinstein, 2009). Economic liberalization and the move towards neoliberalism in India has resulted in a transition towards new forms of regulatory regimes (Roy, 2003: 142) although this has not meant the weakening of the Indian national government. On the contrary, the Indian government continues to perform its role as a regulator, albeit in concert with other non-governmental actors. The economic reform process in particular has conferred greater economic freedom on the state governments in India, allowing regional government leaders to be more entrepreneurial (Ahluwalia, 2000; Rudolph and Rudolph, 2006). As the Indian economic policy encouraged privatization, urban regions have emerged as key 50 sites for economic growth (Sankhe et al., 2010; Dupont, 2011). Simultaneously, by enacting urban policy reform, the Indian government has attempted to transfer governance functions to urban local bodies, thereby shifting the scale of state action as well, rendering local governments in particular more autonomous (Sridharan, 2008). Nevertheless, recent studies of the decentralization reforms have shown that the state’s attempts at rescaling governance have been fitful at best (National Institute of Urban Affairs (N.I.U.A.), 2005; Baud and de Wit, 2008; Harriss, 2010). A recent report conducted by the National Institute of Urban Affairs (N.I.U.A.) (2005) found that “some states have performed better than others. An important observation is that while there has been full compliance in respect of provisions, such as constitution of three types of ULBs (Urban Local Bodies), reservation of seats, and constitution of SFCs (State Finance Commissions), the same cannot be said for other provisions, namely constitution of Wards Committees, District Planning Committees and Metropolitan Planning Committees” (National Institute of Urban Affairs (N.I.U.A.), 2005: viii). The report also found that in most cases, decisions at the local level continued to be subject to the final approval of the regional (state) government. Therefore, state governments were complying with the reforms to the extent of creating a partial local governance institutional framework, but leaving it largely powerless when it came to actual decisionmaking and implementation capacities. Given that the Indian government has been slow to enact or perhaps, enforce, rescaling efforts, there has been a growing number of ‘civil society’ (Chatterjee, 2004b) actors that have begun to take the initiative in doing so. I argue that the urban coalitions that are the focus of this dissertation represent one such attempt. Elite actors in Indian cities are taking advantage of the opportunities that have emerged as a result of the economic and governance reforms that the Indian government has tried to implement. For example, as I discuss in Chapter 5, landowners in Pune, Maharashtra formed a coalition based on kinship 51 networks, social and political connections to profitably develop their erstwhile agricultural land into a large integrated township. However, this was also possible only as a result of several economic incentives that the Indian national government and the Maharashtra state government had implemented as a part of the overall liberalization program.40 Similarly, as I discuss in Chapter 4, several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been creating ‘participatory spaces’ (Sridharan, 2008: 293) and demanding the right to take part in urban governance processes. Indian cities today are therefore emerging as “key sites of contemporary state institutional and spatial restructuring” (Brenner, 2004: 2) The number of vocal stakeholders involved has increased, each of whom interacts with other urban actors in their own unique way. While some channel the power of ‘civil society’ to exert their influence, others use ‘vote-bank politics’ (Benjamin, 2008). Urban planning and development in India is therefore the site of continuous and constant conflict and upheaval (Baviskar, 2002; Bunsha, 2006; Fernandes, 2007; Berland Kaul, 2010). To begin theorizing this complex web of urban political change in India, I look to theories of urban politics that were developed to answer similar questions of power and politics in the context of a globalizing world, albeit in a different geographical milieu. While these questions have been under-theorized in Indian urban studies, other scholars working in a variety of other contexts have extensively discussed similar issues, particularly in applications of regime theory (Stone, 1989; Kirby and AbuRass, 1999; Fainstein, 2001; Zhang, 2002; Wood, 2004; Dahl, 2005; Kulcsar and Domokos, 2005; Strom, 2007; Yang and Chang, 2007; Shatkin, 2008). Although regime theory has not been used explicitly in published work in the Indian context, there have been some studies in recent years that examine the dynamics of contemporary urban politics in India, focusing on specific political 40 Interviews with bankers, lawyers and developers in Pune revealed that despite the fact that the national and state governments had enacted these reforms, the landowners in Pune were the first group in the city to actually take advantage of these. Several developers followed suit however. 52 actors in Indian cities (for example, see Kamath, 2006; Weinstein, 2008; Weinstein, 2009; Ghertner, 2011). Frameworks used by regime theory can therefore provide a useful though somewhat unusual starting point for understanding these changes in India. Regime theory raises questions about urban development and governance that are very relevant to contemporary Indian urbanization, addressing issues of social power and the role that coalitions between interested parties play in the development and governing of cities, of which land is but one issue (Stone, 1989; Fainstein, 1995; Lauria, 1999). It became a prominent means of analyzing urban politics following Clarence Stone’s work on Atlanta. According to Stone, a regime is “an informal yet relatively stable group with access to institutional resources that enable it to have a sustained role in making governing decisions” (Stone, quoted in Stoker, 1995: 58-59). It originates in a political economy perspective that rejects both pluralistic assumptions that governmental authority is adequate to form and implement policies as well as structuralist assumptions that economic forces determine policy (Stone in Mossberger and Stoker, 2001). Regime theory is interested in understanding “how and under what conditions do different types of governing coalitions emerge, consolidate and become hegemonic or devolve and transform” (Lauria, 1997: 1-2). Regime theory also provides a way of relating “local and extra-local forces” (Stone, 1998: 2) by locating cities within a larger global framework, examining how processes of globalization and worldwide economic restructuring impact the social order within cities (Fainstein, 1995). It also views “power as fragmented and regimes as the collaborative arrangements through which local governments and private actors assemble the capacity to govern” (Mossberger and Stoker, 2001: 812). Regime theorists assume that once elected, government officials must “govern in coalition with those private actors who have the resources to assist them in attaining their policy goals and personal ambitions” (Fainstein, 1995: 35). The effectiveness of government therefore depends on the 53 combination of state and non-state resources, and on the cooperation between those who hold access to these resources (Stone, 1993). Moreover, regime theorists do not view government officials as “disinterested technocrats, instead seeing them as political actors who can either promote or contest the dominance of capital by shaping the discourses that surround the implementation growthoriented politics” (Shatkin, 2007: 9). Although this theory was proposed to mainly understand and explain urbanization process in the United States, it has been used to study urban issues in the U.K., even though scholars have questioned the relevance of the theoretical framework arguing that the institutional structure and the mechanisms that lead to the formation of alliances are very different in the two countries (Davies, 2003). It has also been applied in the context of European, Australian, South American and Chinese cities (Fainstein, 1995; Lauria, 1997; Stoker, 1998; Stone, 1998; Fainstein, 2001; Zhang, 2002; Stone, 2004; Xu and Yeh, 2005; Zunino, 2006). The main concerns with applying regime theory to urban politics outside the United States stem from the assumptions that the theory makes about the socio-political context within which regimes operate. Regime theory assumes a liberal political economy where government officials are elected through an open and competitive process and the economy is guided largely by privately controlled investment decisions (Stone, 1993; Shatkin, 2007). Moreover, the American regime reflects “a distinct context of racial politics, post-Fordist urban development, liberalism, and localism” (Shatkin, 2007: 9). Therefore, when attempting to apply frameworks from regime theory to cities outside the US, it is essential to take into account the very different social, economic and political histories that shape power structures and the urban politics in these cities. The Indian context presents particular challenges for the applicability of regime theory. The basic assumptions of regime theory are the existence of a liberal political economy and the presence of a democratic electoral process. While India is a democracy at all levels of government, the Indian economy is only 54 gradually moving towards a more liberal, market-based structure, where the private sector is playing an increasingly important role. The Indian government at the national and state levels continues to remain a powerful regulatory authority and monitor the extent of private sector involvement in the economy. In addition, the extent of private sector involvement (while growing) is still limited to key sectors of the economy that have been deregulated and the government (through various public sector undertakings) is still a major economic player in India. Therefore, the assumption that government officials, once elected, must govern together with the private sector to achieve their policy goals is not entirely true in the case of India. It is only recently that the government has begun to tap into private sector resources to enable it to reach policy and planning goals (Ministry of Finance, 2007). Second, regime theory strongly emphasizes the importance and the role of local city governments, and especially the mayor, in mobilizing and sustaining a regime. There is little room for regional governments and the role that politicians and government officials acting at this level play in local city-level decisions. In Indian cities, for example, mayors are only figureheads, lacking any real power.41 There is very little ‘real’ power that is vested in local, municipal governments. The state (regional) government takes decisions regarding urban planning and governance in conjunction with various parastatal bodies (like development authorities), also controlled by regional governments. In fact, state government officials often consider city governments as competitors rather than collaborators and are concerned about loss of patronage networks to city government officials (Weinstein, 2009). In most cases, city governments have little say in the decision-making process, and are tasked only with the implementation of the final plan or policy (Weinstein, 2010).42 Any theory that attempts to explain urban 41 I discuss governmental structure, including the role and responsibilities of mayors and other officials, in more detail in the next chapter. 42 This also came across in various interviews that I conducted with government officials (both retired and present) in Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai. Recounting his frustration with the Karnataka State Ministry of Urban Development, one planning official at the Bangalore Development Authority explained to me that all plans created by city planning officials were subject to the approval of the state government that could and 55 politics in India will therefore have to take this state-local government relationship into account, especially because state government leaders often play a strong role in attracting private sector investment to urban regions within their states (Ahluwalia, 2000; Rudolph and Rudolph, 2006; Chatterjee, 2008b). Regime analysis also falls short in attempting to explain political issues that may not be related to economic development – such as those of identity and gender (Mossberger and Stoker, 2001). It does not take into account groups that may not be part of the ruling elite, for example, marginalized groups like farmers, women and the urban poor. These groups are important as well as vocal stakeholders in the process of urban development in Indian cities (Dupont, 2007). Moreover, these groups, which Partha Chatterjee has described as forming the core of India’s ‘political society’ (Chatterjee, 2004b), also play an important role in electoral politics, forming a large vote bank that most political parties are eager to tap (Benjamin, 2008). In addition, the theory suggests that regimes are formed on the basis of a formal power relationship between those that wield economic power (usually in the form of large corporations) and those in government (Stone, 1989). Urban coalitions in India however build on personal networks that are grounded not only in economic relations but also caste, community and kinship networks (Munshi and Rosenzweig, 2007). Actors, in this case, elite urban actors, draw on relationships based on personal associations whether based on kinship, community, caste, school ties or personal friendships to mobilize resources into a coalition. This considerably changes the dynamic that leads to the formation and dissolution of alliances. While issues of trust, cooperation and collaboration are vital to the formation and maintenance of regimes anywhere (Mossberger and Stoker, 2001), trust in urban coalitions in the Indian context is assured through modalities which differ from more formal, legally contractual forms that often did change up to 20 per cent of the plan document. He also mentioned that there was little that the city planners could do in response to these changes that the state government requested. 56 predominate elsewhere in the US or even the European context. Regimes or coalitions in the Indian context are also more transient; often dissolving after their specific goal has been achieved. Regime theory therefore points us to relevant questions about “socio-economic and political change in the global era: What political and economic interests do urban development outcomes represent? What alternative sources of power exist?” (Shatkin, 2007: 10) To paraphrase Strom (2007: 149), by placing the relationship between those who hold economic power and political power at the centre of urban analysis, regime theorists shed light on aspects of city development in India that are not well understood or documented. It also helps us locate these changes within the larger framework of economic globalization and liberalization that is currently taking place in India and understand the manner in which governmental and non-governmental actors form alliances to achieve specific goals (policy change, development goals or personal ambitions) and their constraints and opportunities (Shatkin, 2007). Although regime theory does not explicitly account for the specific types of social and political relationships particular to the Indian context, I argue that it is possible to ask similar questions about power and politics in a new context, examining, as regime theory suggests, the changing relationship between economic and political stakeholders. The following chapter examines economic and urban policy reforms that have taken place in India over the last two decades, since 1990. In particular, it focuses on the decentralization reforms mandated by the 74th Constitutional Amendment and the national urban renewal program tied to these reforms: the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Chapters 4 and 5 build on this chapter and the next, using empirical data to explain and analyze the changing nature of urban planning, development and governance in Bangalore and Pune. 57 CHAPTER III UNDERSTANDING URBAN INDIA: THE INSTITUTIONAL AND GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK 1. Introduction: To say that the nineties represent a watershed in Indian economic and political history would not be an exaggeration. The budget of 1990-91 ushered in the most comprehensive economic reforms that the country had seen since independence. These were different from the earlier incremental economic reforms of the 1980s in that they were based on a clear recognition that there was a greater need to integrate India with “the global economy through trade, investment and technology flows and…to create conditions which would give Indian entrepreneurs an environment broadly comparable to that in other developing countries” (Ahluwalia, 1995: 2). The 1990-91 reforms included a reduction of and a future cap on the Indian government’s fiscal deficit, removal of barriers to entry in industry (in particular, the abolishment of the complex system of licensing that governed Indian industry), government disinvestment of public sector industries, easing the regulations for foreign direct investment (FDI), liberalizing trade policy (especially dismantling the elaborate import control regime), tax reforms (such as reducing tax rates for businesses and individuals as well as reduction of excise and import duties), and banking sector reform 58 (allowing the entry of private banks and financial institutions) (Ahluwalia, 1995; Aghion et al., 2008). The gradual process of liberalizing the Indian economy has continued over the last two decades, with further sectors being opened up to private investment and encouraging greater international investment in India. A key sector that was deregulated was real estate (2005), prompting an increase in foreign and domestic investment in real estate as well as rapid urban development (Just et al., 2006; AFP, 2007; Chaudhary, 2007; Ganesh, 2007; Khaleej Times, 2011).43 Following on the heels of the economic reforms, several fundamental legislative changes were implemented particularly targeting urban regions. These included the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (1992) mandating the devolution of power to local governments and municipal authorities and the repeal of the Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act (ULCRA) that regulated the amount of land individuals were allowed to hold and develop in urban areas. Continuing this trend of urban reform, in December 2005, the Indian national government also launched the country’s most ambitious urban reform program: the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), committing to investing over USD 20 billion in India’s cities over a period of seven years. In May 2011, the Indian national government announced a second phase of the JNNURM to be launched in 2012, with plans to invest approximately an additional USD 25 billion in India’s cities. The changes that the country has witnessed over the course of the last two decades must be understood within the larger framework of the neoliberal project that the Indian government embraced with these reforms, leading to a greater involvement of “quasi- and non-state actors in a variety of state functions” like 43 The global financial crisis of 2008-09 did affect Indian real estate, particularly the collapse of several US financial institutions that had considerable investments in Indian real estate projects. This resulted in several projects being abandoned, while others were left incomplete. However, recent data (2011) from the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) shows that despite the slowdown, the Indian real estate sector has continued to grow since 2008 at an average rate of 10 per cent annually Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) (2011). Current State of Indian Economy, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). . 59 infrastructure provision, urban planning and governance (Roy, 2003: 142).44 Although the nation-state is still very important politically and national institutions continue to be vital to the formulation and implementation of policy, the principal level of political and economic coordination is shifting and being reconfigured as urban regions emerge as key sites in this process of rescaling (Jessop, 1994; Roy, 2003; Brenner, 2004). Liberalization reforms reduced the national government’s control over economic management at the state-level, leaving state governments more free to pursue their own economic and developmental goals, which have increasingly been concentrated around metropolitan economies in each state (Shaw, 1999; Ahluwalia, 2000).45 This has been complemented by simultaneous legislative reform empowering urban government and decentralizing power to urban local bodies. The actual process of empowering local-level government agencies, however, has been slow and varies widely from state to state in India. As a result, although decentralization reforms were passed almost two decades ago, the impacts of these reforms, in practice, is as yet indeterminate. Nonetheless, as state power begins to be reconfigured in postliberalization India, urban regions are emerging as “targets for a variety of farreaching institutional changes and policy realignments designed to enhance local economic growth capacities” (Brenner, 2004: 3). 44 According to Jessop (2002: 454), neoliberalism needs to be understood as both an economic and political project. As an economic project, it calls for “liberalization and deregulation of economic transactions not only within national borders but also…across these borders; the privatization of state-owned enterprises and state-provided services; the use of market proxies in the residual public sector; and the treatment of public welfare spending as a cost of international production, rather than as a source of domestic demand”; as a political project, it looks to “roll back routine forms of state intervention” typically associated with the Keynesian welfare state or with mixed economies while simultaneously encouraging state intervention in the establishment and creation of “new forms of governance (including state intervention) that are purportedly more suited to a market-driven (and, more recently, also allegedly knowledge-driven) globalizing economy” Jessop, B. (2002) Liberalism, Neoliberalism, and Urban Governance: A State–Theoretical Perspective. Antipode, 34 (3), 452-472.. It is in this sense that I use the terms ‘neoliberal’ and ‘neoliberalism’ 45 However, not all states in India have benefited equally from the economic reforms. Some states (like Gujarat and Maharashtra) have been much better at creating an economically attractive environment than states like Bihar and Orissa (which are also among the poorest states in India) Kothari, S. (1997) Whose Independence? The Social Impact of Economic Reform in India. Journal of International Affairs, 51 (1), 85(1); Shaw, A. (1999) Emerging patterns of urban growth in India. Economic and Political Weekly, 34 (1617), 969-978; Ahluwalia, M. S. (2000) Economic Performance of States in the Post-Reforms Period. Economic and Political Weekly, 35 (19), 1637-48. 60 While the coming chapters examine specific ways in which national economic and policy reforms have influenced particular Indian cities, this chapter takes a step back and examines the larger picture. It has two interrelated aims: the first is to situate Indian cities in the context of larger level economic, political and legislative changes that have been taking place nationally. I examine specific government initiatives and their impact on urban India. The second aim of this chapter is to position, compare and contrast Bangalore and Pune, the two case study cities, within this rubric and to understand how the changing circumstances have empowered certain social groups or actors over others in each city, giving them the ability to shape development and governance policy. In particular, I find that the decentralization reforms included in the 74th Constitutional Amendment have opened up avenues of participation for non-state actors in Bangalore and Pune. While the state governments of Karnataka and Maharashtra have been slow to devolve power to urban local bodies, non-state actors like corporate leaders, academics, and civic activists have used the existence of the decentralization reforms, particularly the requirement to increase public participation in planning processes, to demand a greater role in planning and governance in Bangalore and Pune. Although the emergence of various urban policy reforms is changing the urban political environment, personal networks continue to be important for non-state actors to form alliances and achieve specific developmental goals. This convergence of new formal mechanisms of governance and the existing, more informal, means of accomplishing urban development is creating a new hybrid urban politics in India where informal networks converge with formal governance mechanisms. In this new political environment, non-state actors are being coopted into more formal government processes through a variety of ways such as public-private partnerships, participatory models of planning and governance and as consultants to national, state and city governments. Whether the current more informal arrangement by which coalitions are formed and developmental goals 61 are achieved will eventually be replaced with more formal governance mechanisms is an open question. The first half of this chapter focuses on urban government in India, examining its evolution and functions under colonial rule as well as in independent India. Using this as context, I then focus on the recent urban policy reforms, specifically the decentralization reforms mandated by the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) and the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). In doing so, I draw on a variety of data sources, including the actual texts of the reform legislations, other government documents and reports, reports from independent researchers and consulting firms and newspaper articles. The second half of the chapter focuses on the two case sites: Bangalore and Pune. I examine the specific histories of urban governance and development in these cities and also the impact that the recent economic and legislative reforms have had on each city. For this, I draw on primary data sources (personal observations, interviews during fieldwork) as well as a variety of secondary data including government reports and newspaper articles. 2. Urban Local Government in India: The political legacy of colonial rule has played an important role in shaping contemporary Indian government. It has often been suggested that the political weakness of the Indian municipal system is a result of colonial legacies (Pinto, 2000; Fahim, 2009; Weinstein, 2009). The first instance of colonial municipal government in India dates back to the Madras (present-day Chennai) Municipal Corporation (1687), followed by similar municipal corporations in Bombay (Mumbai) and Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1726 (Pinto, 2000). The British had always relied on the local Indian population by recruiting them as civil servants and soldiers to help them establish control over the country, particularly in the early half of the nineteenth century (Corbridge and Harriss, 2000). However, after the revolt of 1857, to retain control over India, the colonial British government 62 needed to obtain at least a measure of support from the urban elites in India. As Corbridge and Harriss (2000: 7) explain, this led to a gradual and “limited introduction of local self-government”, beginning in 1861, when the first Provincial Councils were set up in Bengal, Madras and Bombay with mostly British members along with a handful of Indian ‘non-official’ nominated representatives. The declaration of Lord Mayo’s resolution in 1870 brought greater decentralization to Indian local governments, encouraging increased involvement of Indians in administration as well as introducing elected presidents at the municipal level (Pinto, 2000; Aijaz, 2008; Fahim, 2009). However, this form of local self-government was little more than an administrative mechanism for tax collection and to ensure the stability of British rule in India (Pinto, 2000). Substantial local governmental reform came to Indian cities with the declaration of Lord Ripon’s resolution of 1882. As Pinto (2000) writes, Lord Ripon advocated for the extension of local self-government to tap into local knowledge and interest to improve administration. Among other things, the resolution provided that no more than one-third of local officials would be nominated with the rest being directly elected by the people and that financial responsibility would be transferred to local government officials including control over taxes collected within the jurisdiction. However, the resolution met with considerable opposition from other senior British officials in India and was not implemented in its entirety (Pinto, 2000). Lord Ripon’s resolution was followed by the Morley-Minto reforms in 1909, the Montague-Chelmsford reforms in 1918, and the Government of India Act in 1919, that reinforced the notion and implementation of local self-government, bringing greater decentralization to colonial Indian municipal government (Corbridge and Harriss, 2000; Pinto, 2000). However, despite these reforms that brought some measure of democracy to local self-government in colonial India, the emphasis remained on “administrative efficiency” (Pinto, 2000: 60) and limited the extent of the involvement of Indian politicians, especially keeping them away from political 63 responsibilities that directly affected the interests of the colonial government such as “land-use powers and industrial policy that would directly impact the colonial economy” (Corbridge and Harriss, 2000; Weinstein, 2009:132). Although independent India did inherit a weak municipal governmental structure from the British, the lack of power at the local level in India is also an outcome of a deliberate decision taken by the Constituent Assembly of independent India: leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, and Vallabhbhai Patel believed power at the local level to be organized around communal and ethnic principles rather than democratic ones and that the less local the Indian governmental system, the more democratic it would be (Corbridge and Harriss, 2000; Weinstein, 2009). Therefore, although independent India was envisioned as a democratic, secular, federal republic, the application of the federalist principle in India is weak in practice (Stepan, 1999; Corbridge and Harriss, 2000).46 The Constituent Assembly and national leaders, like Nehru, Patel and B.R. Ambedkar, were concerned that a stronger federalist structure would weaken the overall unity of the union and make it more difficult for national governments to push for economic and social development (Stepan, 1999; Corbridge and Harriss, 2000). So, while the Indian government is structured along federalist lines, the Indian constitution only outlines powers for the central and state governments, leaving the three-tier federalist structure incomplete (Corbridge and Harriss, 2000; Weinstein, 2009). Local self-government is part of the state list in the Indian constitution, giving state governments considerable discretion over the role and powers of local bodies (Pinto, 2000; Ministry of Law and Justice (Legislative department), 2007). Moreover, although state 46 As Corbridge and Harriss (2000: 28) write, the application of the federalist principle in India is evident in the “Rajya Sabha (or the Council of States) at the Centre, in a division of powers, responsibilities and resources between the Centre and the States, and in the direct election of members to the lower houses of State parliaments”. Moreover, state governments are responsible for maintaining law and order and the provision of other services such as education, health, power, roads and urban development within their jurisdictions and have their own High Courts. State governments also have some degree of financial freedom in that they are permitted to raise their own funds through taxes and fees. Corbridge, S. & Harriss, J. (2000) Reinventing India: liberalization, Hindu nationalism and popular democracy, Cambridge, UK Malden, MA, Polity Press ; Blackwell. 64 governments may devolve power over urban development and planning (including housing, infrastructure and economic development) to local governments, most have chosen not to (Pinto, 2000; Weinstein, 2009). Since urban planning and development are listed under the State schedule of the Indian constitution, the Indian national government has little direct control over these issues (Shaw, 1996). However, as Shaw (1996) argues, since few state governments have actually exercised their ability to make urban policy, the Indian national government’s urban policy guidelines as laid out in the Five-Year plans have assumed a greater importance. As I briefly discussed in Chapter 2, there was little attention paid to urban areas in national planning until the Third FiveYear (1961-66) plan. The Third plan provided funds for the development of city master plans (to be prepared by state governments), the enactment of key legislation to facilitate this process, and also, the increase of government control over urban land, its use and development (Shaw, 1996). Consecutive plans put considerable emphasis on urban development: the Fourth plan (1969-74) saw the establishment of the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO), and the beginning of several large urban development projects such as the development of new state capitals like Gandhinagar, Chandigarh, Bhubaneshwar and Bhopal; the Fifth plan (1974-79) emphasized a need for urban land policy, building on the Third and Fourth plans, provided for financial assistance for metropolitan development and also saw the passage of the Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act (ULCRA) in 1976; the Sixth plan (198085) continued the funding provided for metropolitan development in earlier plans while also providing for the development of smaller towns through the establishment of the Integrated Development of Small and Medium Towns (IDSMT) scheme (Shaw, 1996). Interestingly, as Shaw (1996) demonstrates, while the 1960s and 1970s saw increasing centralization of urban management, especially financial management, there was also a continued rhetoric in the Five- 65 Year plans (beginning with the Third Plan) that emphasized decentralization of urban government. There were no concerted efforts undertaken to actually implement any form of decentralization until the mid-1980s, however. This was triggered in part by the growing realization at the time of the drawbacks of excessive centralization of urban growth and management of the 1960s and 1970s (Shaw, 1996: 224). The first serious attempt at decentralizing of power and resources to local governments as well granting them constitutional recognition was made in the Seventh Plan period (1985-90). In 1989, Rajiv Gandhi, the then-Prime Minister of India introduced a bill, the 65th Constitutional Amendment Act, in Parliament that would strengthen urban local bodies (Pinto, 2008). This bill included suggestions made by the National Commission on Urbanization (1988) and attempted to create an effective third-tier of government at the municipal level in Indian cities (Shaw, 1996). However, this bill did not pass mainly because it “eroded the domain and authority of the state governments” (Shaw, 1996; Corbridge and Harriss, 2000; Pinto, 2008: 54). A few opposition party politicians questioned the competence of Parliament to pass such a bill, claiming that it “altered the basic features of the constitution”, protesting that the bill was politically motivated, and that it bypassed the Chief Ministers of state governments (Pinto, 2008: 54). Urban local government in India therefore continued to be the “weakest link in the political fabric of the country” (Pinto, 2000: 61). This was partly an outcome of financial and technical shortcomings, and partly, as I discussed in Chapter 2, due to the lack of quality personnel. Often, municipal corporations in Indian cities lack the capacity or technical training to undertake planning and development functions, and responsibility for planning and development often lies largely with state government-appointed parastatal bodies like the development authorities (see, for instance, The Gazetteers Department, Maharashtra). Moreover, as others have argued, state-level politicians and bureaucrats have been unwilling to devolve power to their counterparts in municipal government although they 66 had the power to do so, tending to view municipal officials as competitors rather than collaborators (Corbridge and Harriss, 2000; Pinto, 2000; Weinstein, 2009; Weinstein, 2010). In 1992, therefore, the Indian national government made a second attempt at reforming urban governance through the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act. a) Reforming urban local government: The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) was drafted keeping in mind the issues that had jeopardized its forerunner, the 65th Amendment. As a result, although it specifically targeted the weakness in urban local government and mandated the transfer of strategic governance to urban local bodies and encouraged participatory democracy, it was careful to avoid the issue of state autonomy (Pinto, 2008; Fahim, 2009; Dupont, 2011). As a result, it considerably diluted the provisions by allocating significant discretion to the state governments in its implementation (Pinto, 2008; Harriss, 2010). The main aim of the 74th CAA was to decentralize government with the transfer decision-making and governance responsibilities to state and municipal level governments (Kennedy, 2007). It also promoted participation by a wider base of players at the local level, making room particularly for marginalized communities and underrepresented interest groups by reserving seats for these groups in urban local bodies (Mahadevia, 2003). The 74th CAA provides for changes in the “constitution, composition and functioning of urban local governments” (Aijaz, 2008: 132). Explicitly it: • • “Confers constitutional status on urban local bodies (such as Municipalities), which are provided with elected councils and constitute the third tier of government (the other two being the Central Government and the government of each state of the Union); Allows for the participation of women and the weaker sections of society through the reservation of seats (one third for women, and for the scheduled castes – i.e. former untouchables – and tribes, in proportion to their demographic weight in the population of the corresponding constituency); 67 • Transfers to urban local bodies the responsibility of urban development, in particular of providing urban infrastructure and services as well as mobilizing the required financial resources – through taxes, levying users’ costs and by attracting private national and foreign investments;” (Government of India, 1992; Dupont, 2007: 91) In a nutshell, the main changes that the 74th Constitutional Amendment provides for are: the formation of three types of municipalities, determined by the population of the urban area they were serving, thereby simplifying the structure of municipal government; the transfer of responsibility of urban development to urban local bodies; and granting local governments greater financial and functional responsibility with respect to their own jurisdictions (National Institute of Urban Affairs (N.I.U.A.), 2005; Harriss, 2010; Dupont, 2011).47 It is the first instance since independence where provision has been made in the Constitution to empower local urban government, particularly municipalities, with the aim of creating a third-tier of government in urban areas that would play a similar role as that of the Panchayats in rural government. Until the passage of the 74th Amendment Act, local governments in India were organized on the basis of the ‘ultra vires’ principle, which meant that the state governments could alter the functions of local governments through executive decisions without having to alter legislative provisions (National Institute of Urban Affairs (N.I.U.A.), 2005).48 However, since 1992, municipal governments are gradually being empowered to take on a more active role in local urban governance (Aijaz, 2008). These reforms have created opportunities for municipal governments to be more directly involved in developing strategies for urban development (Kennedy, 2007). 47 Prior to the implementation of the 1992 Act, urban local government was defined by the Municipal Corporations, Municipal Councils, Town Area Committees and Notified Area Councils/Committees. Hence, the structure and composition of municipalities varied considerably, with wide differences in definition and th structure between States. The three kinds of municipalities that the 74 Amendment Act created were: (i) Nagar Panchayats for areas in transition from a rural area to urban area; (ii) Municipal Councils for smaller urban areas (population over 25,000); and (iii) Municipal Corporations for larger urban areas (population over 3,00,000). Government of India (1992) The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act. ; National Informatics Centre (NIC) (2005a) National Portal of India. Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India. Accessed on August 8, 2011, http://www.india.gov.in/citizen/nagarpalika/nagarpalika.php 48 The ‘ultra vires’ principle ensures that any act that is carried out by an organization (in this case, the local government) that extends beyond its capacity or scope to act will be considered invalid. 68 The Amendment specifically lists the functions of urban local bodies, outlining their “planning, regulation and development powers” (Fahim, 2009: 3). Some of the more specific changes that it mandates include the provision of ‘Ward Committees’ in areas with population exceeding 300,000 people, as means of increasing local participation in decision-making processes (Harriss, 2010); the conducting of regular elections to urban local bodies such as the municipal council; the transfer of urban development functions to local government, including raising the necessary financial capital through a variety of public and private sources; and a division of power at the local level through elected and nominated officials (Fahim, 2009; Dupont, 2011). The successful implementation of these provisions would undoubtedly result in a significant rescaling of power at the state and municipal levels of government. At present, state-level politicians control urban governance and development through a complex network of local patronage politics. These reforms would significantly reduce the influence that both state governments and the parastatal bodies they control would have on local government and its decision-making processes (Harriss, 2010). The 74th CAA is modeled on the more ambitious 73rd Amendment, which deals exclusively with decentralization of rural government.49 However, while the 73rd Constitutional Amendment explicitly creates a three-tier regional-local government in rural areas, the 74th Amendment is less bold. Fearing that regional level politicians would yet again oppose the bill, the amendment gives a great amount of discretion to state governments over the manner in which governance powers are to be decentralized, in effect maintaining their current hold on urban policy and decision-making (Pinto, 2008). The main intention of the 74th CAA was to empower urban local governments by handing over decision-making authority to them, which unfortunately has not succeeded. The attempts to appease its 49 rd The 73 CAA mandates the decentralization of governmental power in rural India. It creates a three-tier system of local government comprising of gram (village) sabhas, gram Panchayats and zila (district) Panchayats, with separate elections for all three tiers, creating the potential for a much more vibrant democratic electorate, bringing politicians closer to the voters. de Wit, J., Nainan, N. & Palnitkar, S. (2008) Urban decentralization in Indian cities: Assessing the performance of neighbourhood level Wards Committees. IN Baud, I. S. A. & de Wit, J. (Eds.) New forms of urban governance in India: shifts, models, networks & governance. First ed. New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, Calif; London; Singapore, Sage. 69 opponents have left it a somewhat weaker reform than it could have been. Provisions in the 74th CAA have been criticized for being much too weak and open-ended, and critics point out that it almost seems as though these were added as “ an afterthought after the more ambitious 73rd CAA” (de Wit et al., 2008: 79). A recent report by the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA, 2005) evaluating the implementation of the 74th Amendment reforms states that there has been compliance in principle with most provisions of the Amendment Act. In practice, though, few of the 74th Amendment’s reforms have been implemented. This is largely due to the discretion granted to the state governments in deciding how these reforms are to be carried out. Although the Amendment Act does list the general functions that municipalities are expected to perform, it leaves the specific allocation of duties to the discretion of the state government (Fahim, 2009). It also specifies that local bodies should have the power and authority to perform these functions but leaves the decision of the extent of this authority to the state government. Since several of the specified municipal functions such as land use planning and urban development overlap with those of stategovernment controlled agencies, it is unlikely that these will be transferred to the local level soon. There has also been little success with the implementation of the Ward Committees.50 These Committees were designed to be the chief mechanism for delivering increased public participation and deliberative decision-making at the local level in urban areas with populations larger than 300,000 people (National Institute of Urban Affairs (N.I.U.A.), 2005; Harriss, 2010). However, as the NIUA report shows, Ward Committees have been organized in only eight states and 50 The ‘Ward Committees’ are urban local bodies situated below the level of municipal governments, with the intention of creating a two-tier structure in urban government and providing better local governance and improved service delivery to all urban residents. For more on the composition, functioning and evaluation of Ward Committees in Indian cities, see Ibid. 70 one Union Territory out of a total of 28 states and seven Union Territories.51 However, of the states in southern India where Committees have been formed, “they are functional in Tamil Nadu and in Kerala. In Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, they are practically not functional except in Hyderabad and in Bangalore municipal corporations. In the case of Bangalore, it is further learnt that they are neither meeting regularly, nor working effectively” (National Institute of Urban Affairs (N.I.U.A.), 2005: xiii). The northern states have a similar story to tell. In effect, therefore, the promise of taking local government to the urban populace has yet to be realized. As is evident, municipal governments continue to remain largely under the control of the state legislature with state governments deciding the extent to which the reforms will be implemented. Moreover, these changes that have taken place are largely on paper only, in practice, little has changed. The state governments continue to dominate local urban governance debates and decision-making. For example, not only does the state government appoint members to urban local bodies like Ward Committees but it also decides the composition, finances and the functions of these Committees, rendering decentralization pointless. The implementation of the 74th CAA has therefore been weak and arbitrary across the country and ranges widely from state to state. Despite the shortcomings in its implementation though, the 74th Amendment has had a few important outcomes. It has provided local populations with the legal right to demand greater public participation. Moreover, by requiring an increased presence of women and other marginalized groups in local government through affirmative action, the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) has opened up the playing field, encouraging the involvement of a variety of players – both public and private – in the urban arena. As a result of the amendment, state governments were required to decentralize certain functions to local government 51 The states where Ward Committees have been implemented include: Andhra Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal as well as the Union Territory of Delhi. National Institute of Urban Affairs (N.I.U.A.) (2005). Impact of the Constitution (74th Amendment) Act on the Working of Urban Local Bodies, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA). New Delhi 71 and grant local governmental bodies “administrative, political and fiscal autonomy” and enable them to “prepare long-term plans for their local administrative area” (Sridharan, 2008: 293). While decentralization of powers has yet to take effect, the impact of this requirement has been the creation of ‘invited spaces’ (Brenner, 2004) where the government actively seeks and encourages participation in governance and planning processes by the private corporate sector, as well as other urban actors including civil society leaders. Moreover, while state governments in India have been slow to implement reforms, non-state actors are taking advantage of the existence of the decentralization reforms to demand a more active role in planning and governance (for example, through Resident Welfare Associations and other nonprofit citizen groups). Consequently, a variety of non-state actors, ranging from corporate leaders to NGOs have emerged to take advantage of the ‘invited spaces’ that the state has created (Brenner, 2004; Sridharan, 2008). However, recent research on this issue has pointed to an “elite capture” of participatory governance processes (Kundu, 2011). While the new decentralization reforms emphasize increased public participation in governance processes, this process of participatory governance seems to be disenfranchising marginalized groups (Coelho et al., 2011). Several scholars have argued that rather than empowering all urban residents to participate, these reforms have targeted a very specific kind of ‘elite public’, namely middle-class residents, NGOs and Resident Welfare Associations, consultants, and corporate leaders who in turn are furthering a very particular development agenda (Benjamin, 2007; Zerah, 2007b; Harriss, 2010; Coelho et al., 2011; Kundu, 2011). While this particular ‘public’ is co-opted into governance and development processes, the urban poor and other marginalized groups are unable to express their opinions through a similar forum (Benjamin, 2007; Coelho et al., 2011; Kundu, 2011). I discuss specific examples that illustrate the growing role that elite non-state actors are playing in urban planning and governance in these two cities in the next chapter, i.e. the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) and the Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure and 72 Development Task Force (ABIDe) in Bangalore and the Green Pune Movement in Pune. The decentralization reforms laid out by the 74th Amendment have provided key individuals in Pune and Bangalore (and in other Indian cities as well) with the opportunity to successfully demand a greater role in urban planning. The implementation of the 74th CAA, although weak and arbitrary, has paved the way for rescaling and restructuring of state functions and capacities in India. “New geographies of governance” are emerging as a result of the “territorial and functional reorganization of state capacity” (Roy, 2003: 142). Urban regions in India are becoming centers for the transfer of governmental power and authority, as state capacities are “devolved to restructured local or regional levels of governance” (Jessop, 1994: 264). This devolution of power, however, has been not been uniform across India, with some state governments decentralizing more powers to urban local bodies than others. Meanwhile, the demands of a rapidly burgeoning urban population, an increasingly vocal middle class and the pressure to compete for a place in the national and global hierarchy compounded with the lack of clear leadership and urban policy reforms in flux have led to a political and power gap in Indian cities, although the extent to which this gap exists will differ from city to city. There is no single agency at the city level that actually controls future urban planning and development. In fact, this power is dispersed widely among several municipal and state-run agencies, often leading to contentious decision-making as jurisdictions and functions of the various agencies tend to overlap. Moreover, in the case of parastatal agencies like the developmental authorities, the officials involved in planning and governance are more often state-nominated bureaucrats rather than democratically elected local officials. This absence of a central font of power has been thrown into sharp relief by the legislative and economic reforms enacted in the last two decades. The legislative reforms have created a platform where non-governmental actors are able to actively participate 73 in decision-making at the city level. The privatization of the economy has opened up avenues of interaction and participation that were earlier inaccessible. One manner in which urban stakeholders are mobilizing to capitalize on emerging political and developmental opportunities is, as I have mentioned earlier, through the formation of ad-hoc coalitions. These coalitions draw on personal, social and political networks of their members, and are often temporary, short-term in nature. Urban actors use these as a means of accomplishing specific mutually beneficial developmental goals. The coalitions often cease to exist once this goal is achieved, although relationships between members endure. As we shall see in coming chapters, although these coalitions are often successful at accomplishing their goal (for example, a successful redevelopment project, or the revision of the comprehensive development plan for Pune), they lack democratic accountability.52 Coalitions also often pursue projects at the expense of comprehensive planning and coordinated service delivery.53 b) The ‘carrot and stick’ approach to urban reform: JNNURM In addition to legislative changes, the national government has also simultaneously implemented a series of urban development programs, some of which provide incentives to state governments to implement the reforms laid out in the 74th Constitutional Amendment.54 The most ambitious of these schemes is the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Although the some of specific cases discussed in the following chapters predate the 52 This has become a very contentious issue in Bangalore, especially with regards to the two urban taskforces set up by the Karnataka state government: the BATF and ABIDe. One of the main accusations that those opposed to the taskforces have raised is that both the BATF and ABIDe lack democratic accountability and are therefore unconstitutional. I discuss this more in Chapter 4. 53 I am indebted to Liza Weinstein for pointing this out. 54 The urban development programs implemented by the national government include: the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) the Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT), the Model Municipal Law (MML), the e-Governance Mission, Report Cards on Urban Services, Citizens’ Charter on Municipal Services, the Mayor-in-Council form of government, Municipal Accounting Reforms, Property Tax Reforms, issuance of tax-free Municipal Bonds, and schemes such as Pooled Finance Development (PFDS) and City Challenge Fund (CCF), promotion of private sector participation and community participation. Aijaz, R. (2008) Form of Urban Local Government in India. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 43 (2), 131-154. 74 establishment of the JNNURM (like the BATF, and earlier iterations of the Green Pune movement), it is nonetheless important to discuss is here, not only because it represents a considerably different governmental approach to urban development in India but also because one of the cases discussed in the next chapter, the BATF, was in a way the precursor to the JNNURM. Several members of the BATF were instrumental in the formulation of the JNNURM (mentioned below) and continue to be very active and influential at the national policy level. The JNNURM therefore demonstrates one manner in which coalitions formed at the local level evolve and reform, albeit at a different scale. The JNNURM was established in 2005 to “encourage reforms and fast track planned development of identified cities” (Ministry of Urban Development, 2005: 5). The JNNURM was shaped by a variety of individuals and institutions. The main responsibility of formulating and shaping the Mission lay with the national Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) with help from the Planning Commission and a few other agencies such as the National Institute for Urban Affairs (NIUA) and the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP). In addition, as Sivaramkrishnan (2011) writes, international development and financial agencies such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had a significant impact on the Mission, influencing the kinds of reforms and incentives that were to be provided (Kennedy and Zérah, 2008; Sivaramakrishnan, 2011). However, what is perhaps unusual about the JNNURM is the role that corporate leaders and civic activists played in its formation. In particular, several core members of the erstwhile Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) such as Nandan Nilekani and Ramesh Ramanathan leveraged their experience at the state-level to gain access to the national policy arena, moving to Delhi to undertake work on the JNNURM, using the collaborative (i.e. public-private partnership) model of the BATF as a blueprint for key reforms mandated by the JNNURM (Ghosh, 2005).55 55 In particular, these reforms include models of ‘elite’ citizen participation and fiscal reform similar to the ones the BATF tried to implement in Bangalore Ghosh, A. (2005), Public-private or a private public: Promised partnership of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force. Economic and Political Weekly, ; Goldman, M. 75 Benjamin (2007: 180; italics in original) has referred to the Mission as the “present and newer avatar” or incarnation of the BATF (Goldman, 2011). The initial program targeted 63 cities or urban agglomerations and will last seven years beginning in 2005-06. The main objectives of the program are to increase efficiency in urban infrastructure and service delivery mechanisms, increase community participation and improve the accountability of urban local bodies and parastatal agencies towards citizens. In May 2011, the Indian national government announced that a second phase of the JNNURM (called JNNURM Phase II) would be launched in 2012. The scope of the Mission, as announced in 2005, is two-fold and will be implemented by two sub-missions: the first focuses on Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) and is to be administered through the Ministry of Urban Development; the second will focus on urban poverty alleviation and the provision of Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BUSP) to be administered through the Ministry of Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation (Ministry of Urban Development, 2005; Mukhopadhyay, 2006; Dupont, 2011). Under the first submission on urban infrastructure (the UIG), projects eligible for financing include water supply and sanitation, sewerage, solid waste management, road network, urban transport and redevelopment of old city areas. Urban poverty alleviation programs eligible for financing under the second sub-mission (the BUSP) will focus largely on the integrated development of slums through projects for providing shelter, basic services and other related civic amenities for the urban poor. The national government aims to pump in over $20 billion into India’s cities through the JNNURM. However, in return for providing funding assistance with urban projects, the government has a set of reforms that state and city governments need to implement. At the level of urban local bodies and parastatal (2011) Speculative Urbanism and the Making of the Next World City. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35 (3), 555-581.. 76 agencies, mandated reforms include financial and accounting reforms, land reforms and the adoption of e-governance systems, particularly for tax collection. State governments also have to implement an additional set of reforms in order to make cities within their jurisdiction eligible for funding, including implementation of decentralization measures laid out in the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA), repealing the Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act (ULCRA), reforming Rent Control laws, a gradual transfer of planning functions to urban local bodies and programs to encourage community participation in government.56 The emergence of a large urban fund such as the JNNURM marks a shift in the financial practices in Indian government. Most government funds until this point were grants, while the JNNURM is an incentive-based fund, essentially promoting a carrot and stick approach to urban development in India. It makes central subsidies for development available contingent upon the implementation of a specific set of reforms, which is a marked departure from previous trends (Benjamin, 2007; Dupont, 2011). However, while the Mission is “encouraging municipalities to project themselves into the future and improve the productivity and efficiencies of cities, while simultaneously ensuring that they are equitable and inclusive” (Dupont, 2011: 5), critics have voiced considerable skepticism especially regarding the implementation of the sub-mission that targets the urban poor, questioning whether equity or inclusiveness will actually be a guiding factor in the overall reform process (Mahadevia, 2006; Mukhopadhyay, 2006; Dupont, 2011; Mahadevia, 2011). 56 The Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act or ULCRA was passed in 1976. The intention was to prevent the concentration of urban land in the hands of a few select individuals or groups and therefore reduce profiteering and land speculation. It prevented the development of large tracts of urban land, and was considered detrimental to urban development. It also led to significant amounts of corruption in government and the real estate sector, as developers resorted to bribery in order to gain permission to parcel together plots of land that would have been illegal under the ULCRA. One of the conditions to be eligible for funding under the JNNURM was the repeal of the ULCRA. Consequently, the act has now been abolished in most Indian states. However, considerable confusion remains over parceling together plots of land. 77 In addition, the JNNURM has come under significant criticism for a variety of other reasons as well, ranging from the suitability of an incentive-based approach for infrastructure development and governance reform to the use of technocratic planning tools like spatial master plans to identify appropriate projects (Mahadevia, 2006; Mukhopadhyay, 2006; Mahadevia, 2011). Incentive-based funds require government at various levels to adopt fiscal, policy and administrative changes, such as the ones outlined above (Benjamin, 2007). Moreover, Mukhopadhyay (2006) and Harriss (2010) point out that the inadequacies of urban infrastructure in Indian cities are merely symptoms of a lack of democratic urban governance, which the program does not really address. Below, I focus on three main issues with the JNNURM, beginning with the impact of the land reforms that the program mandates. The first step to obtaining approval and sanctioning of funds from the JNNURM is the preparation of a detailed City Development Plan or CDP. However, JNNURM does not explicitly require these plans to be made by urban local bodies like municipal corporations with the result that many local agencies, often lacking qualified technical professionals to undertake such a task, turn to international consulting firms (who often lack a localized knowledge of the city’s various populations and political dynamics) to prepare the CDP for them (Mahadevia, 2006; Kennedy and Zérah, 2008). The JNNURM toolkit for the preparation of CDPs has a list of empanelled consultants that city and state agencies may rely on, although this is not an exclusive list (Ministry of Urban Development, 2006). Mahadevia (2006) also raises the concern that plans prepared by consulting firms may not be required to solicit and incorporate public input. Few, if any, of these consultants engage in a public participatory process, using state and city government agencies instead as proxies for public opinion. This is somewhat ironic when one considers that one of the reforms that the JNNURM requires is increased democratic and deliberative decision-making at the local level. In laying out the future vision for cities and identifying potential projects eligible for JNNURM funds, CDPs have 78 emphasized projects and services that would largely benefit businesses and upper-middle class residents and often cause widespread displacement. The preparation of master plans, in this case, privileges a certain small section of the urban population, particularly the real estate development lobby and business interests, at the cost of the large low-income population. Harriss (2010) cites the example of the CDP for the Chennai Metropolitan Region that stresses the requirements of the IT economy in the city including services, such as housing development, that are needed for the growth of this sector. However, as Harriss (2010) points out, the sub-mission on Basic Services for the Urban Poor including low-income housing takes up only 11 per cent of the plan’s outlay. In addition to the CDP, the JNNURM requires the implementation of several land reforms. Chief among these is the repeal of the Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act (ULCRA). As I have discussed earlier in this chapter, the ULCRA was passed in 1976 to limit the size of plots of land that could be owned by private individuals. Any land held in excess of the ceiling could be taken over by the state governments to provide public housing on the vacant plots of land. The aim of this law therefore was to alleviate the demand for low-income housing in urban India and to allow the governments or their appointed agencies to provide lowcost housing to the urban poor. In fact, there were several loopholes in the Act that led to widespread governmental corruption and the Act was not strictly enforced. While the repeal of this act has been welcomed by developers and investors, it also has its share of critics (Mahadevia, 2006). Although flawed, the ULCRA was one of the only tools that was available for municipalities to legally obtain land at affordable prices for the urban poor. While the JNNURM does mention the issue of creating security of land tenure for the urban poor, it does not explicitly outline how this is to be made possible. There are no mechanisms in place in the program to make land affordable or to replace the Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act (ULCRA). The repeal of the Act has left nothing in its place, leading to a fear that housing rights as well as the security of land tenure for the poor may be under threat (Mahadevia, 2006). 79 The other land reforms required by the JNNURM include the simplification of legal and procedural frameworks for conversion of land from agricultural to nonagricultural uses; streamlining building approvals; and the computerization of property titling and land registration (Mahadevia, 2006; Mukhopadhyay, 2006). These tools are increasingly being used to benefit the large real estate lobby by making it easy for them to identify, acquire and develop land (Benjamin, 2007; Goldman, 2011). Simplifying the conversion from agricultural to non-agricultural land facilitates large-scale development on the peripheries, creating, in several instances (for example, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, and Kolkata) facilities like integrated townships, software parks, and international airports for ‘new’ economy service sector industries like Information Technology (IT). The JNNURM has been criticized as essentially being a subsidy for large project development under the rhetoric of ‘progressive urban development’ (Mahadevia, 2006; Benjamin, 2007). The second criticism of the JNNURM focuses on the implementation of the submission on the provision of Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BUSP). Mukhopadhyay (2006) objects to the manner in which the program itself has been organized, with one mission focusing on Urban Infrastructure and Governance and the other on Basic Services to the Urban Poor. He argues that this division indicates that the government does not recognize the poor “as an integral part of the urban economy” and reflects “the mindset that the rich need infrastructure and the poor need amelioration” (Mukhopadhyay, 2006: 3401). I do not agree entirely with this argument: the upgrading of urban infrastructure would arguably benefit most urban residents and moreover, the existence of a separate program focusing on the urban poor does not necessarily mean that the government does not consider them part of the urban economy. However, the division of financing between the two sub-missions does seem to favour urban infrastructure and governance. Mukhopadhyay (2006) points out 80 that little thought has been paid to designing the distribution of funds. The JNNURM awards a uniform share of the grant to all large cities (35 per cent) regardless of the population of urban poor, which ranges from over half of the total urban population in Mumbai to less than one per cent of the city’s population in Patna (Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, 2001; vom Hove, 2003).57 Moreover, as Mahadevia (2006: 3400) demonstrates, in megacities (defined by the Government of India as those with population over four million), the national government would contribute up to 35 per cent of the total cost for projects under the Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) submission and up to 50 per cent of cost under the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BUSP) sub-mission. In cities with population between one and four million, the national government will contribute up to 70 per cent of project costs under UIG but only 50 per cent of costs under BUSP whereas in all other urban areas, the national government will fund between 90 and 100 per cent of UIG projects while contributing between 80 to 90 per cent for BUSP projects. Overall, therefore, the financial assistance provided is skewed in favour of the UIG sub-mission. Moreover, according to the Housing and Poverty Alleviation minister, Kumari Selja, as of February 2011, less than 50 per cent of the money allocated to the BUSP sub-mission had been utilized (ENS Economic Bureau, 2011). The third issue, although not directly relevant to this dissertation but important nonetheless, deserves a brief mention here. Given the emphasis on infrastructure development and urban renewal, it is indeed surprising that the JNNURM all but omits to address urban environmental issues (Mukhopadhyay, 2006). This is all the more astonishing given the role that India as a country plays in global environmental debates, its increasing contribution to green house gas emissions, growing consumption, and the constant drain on the country’s natural resources. Beyond expressing that during the seven-year period of the JNNURM, “the Mission will seek to ensure sustainable development of select cities” 57 I have used data from the 2001 Census of India rather than the 2011 Census, since these data are not yet available as of August 2011. 81 (Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, 2005: 3), the JNNURM does little else. Urban policy in India has evolved over the last two decades, beginning with the decentralization reforms of the 74th Amendment and continuing with the recently announced Phase II of the JNNURM. The power and political dynamic in Indian cities has simultaneously changed in response to these policy initiatives. As Ghertner (2011) demonstrates, new forms of urban governance are emerging in Indian cities that are privileging an urban elite and in doing so, gentrifying the very process of urban governance. In particular, state and city governments are co-opting a variety of non-state actors and their agendas into the formal governmental planning processes. This renewed emphasis on increased public participation has indeed encouraged non-state actors to actively take part in a variety of governmental processes. However, since state governments continue to dictate the extent of this participation and the specific actors to whom this privilege is extended, marginalized groups and their representatives continue to be excluded from these discussions. Moreover, since the state governments also control the extent to which the reforms are implemented, the impact of the 74th Constitutional Amendment has been significantly different across India (Baud and de Wit, 2008). In the following section and in more detail in the next chapter, I show how this has played out very differently in Bangalore and Pune. In Bangalore, one of the main avenues of non-state participation was through the formation of government-appointed urban task forces like the BATF and ABIDe. In Pune, by contrast, the increasing non-state participation was a much more grassroots, bottom-up process. In each case, I argue that these differences are a result of the distinct social and political networks in Bangalore and Pune that the specific individuals involved were able to mobilize. 82 3. A Tale of Two Cities: Situating Bangalore and Pune For most of the twentieth century, the four metropolitan areas: Delhi, Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras) and Kolkata (Calcutta) dominated the urban system in India (Shaw, 1999). However, since the early 1990s, former ‘secondary’ cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune have emerged as centers of urban growth, partly as an outcome of rapid economic growth in India and partly in response to greater global economic forces and the liberalization of the Indian economy (Shaw, 1999; Shaw and Satish, 2007). During the last two decades, the economic and political environment in Indian cities has changed considerably as a result of and in response to economic liberalization and urban policy reforms. This dissertation examines the impacts of these changes in two cities in India: Bangalore, Karnataka and Pune, Maharashtra. I examine how elite groups in both cities are able to mobilize in the wake of economic changes and governance reforms to take advantage of emerging opportunities, focusing specifically on urban governance and development. This section has two aims: to discuss the urban governance and development histories of Bangalore and Pune and simultaneously to examine the social and political networks that are instrumental in shaping these cities. Located in two of India’s fastest growing states (Karnataka and Maharashtra) (Sankhe et al., 2010), Bangalore and Pune are good candidates to study how Indian cities have changed in the light of the economic, political and legislative changes of the last two decades. The population in both cities has grown rapidly in the last two decades following economic liberalization. The provisional data from the 2011 Census of India show that Bangalore has registered a population growth of almost 47 per cent in the last decade (2001-2011) to reach an estimated 9.5 million whereas Pune has grown by approximately 40 per cent in the same time, with an estimated population of 2.5 million. During this time (1990-present), the economies of both cities have also grown as Bangalore and Pune emerged as hubs for ‘new’ service sector economies like Information Technology (IT) and biotechnology with several domestic and international 83 corporations such as Wipro, Infosys, Microsoft and IBM locating offices there, attracted partly by the numerous academic institutions in both cities and the skilled workforce they produce (Kulabkar, 2002a; H. S. Sudhira et al., 2007). In addition to the new service sector industries, both Bangalore and Pune are also strongholds of domestic industries such as textile manufacturing (Bangalore) and heavy industry (Pune). However, there are two specific aspects that make Bangalore and Pune particularly relevant to this dissertation. The first is the tremendous urban development that is taking place within both cities as well as on their peripheries due to rapid economic and population growth. The second is the growing role that non-state actors have been playing in urban development and governance in both cities. Not only are both Pune and Bangalore home to a very active and vocal civil society that is playing an increasingly important role in the development of each city, but also have a wide range of other non-state actors such as corporate leaders, academics, farmers and large landholders influencing development decisions, as the next two chapters will show. Moreover, while the specific changes taking place in Pune and Bangalore are unique to each city, they are also representative of a political and economic shift that is taking place in urban areas all over India. As urban regions have emerged as key sites of economic development and political action, non-state actors are particularly eager to take advantage of this reconfiguration of political power to insert themselves into planning processes (Roy, 2003; Weinstein, 2009). One approach, I argue, is the formation of urban coalitions by powerful elite actors. These elite groups in Indian cities are well connected socially and politically. They tap into these networks, mobilizing their connections into urban coalitions to take advantage of the developmental opportunities that this economic and political rescaling has created. The different social networks and groups in Pune and Bangalore offer an opportunity to examine how specific individuals are able to leverage their unique social and political connections to achieve developmental goals. 84 a) From the Garden City to the Global City: The growth patterns of Bangalore and Pune in the colonial period were similar in many respects. Until the British conquered Pune and Bangalore, both had been the seats of powerful regional empires.58 Under colonial rule, both cities developed two distinct faces. One was that of the new city – the Cantonment – that initially grew as a military post for the British army, built according to European notions of military and city planning, with broad roads and large plots of land for European bungalows. The other face was that of the old city, tightly knit and densely packed with a variety of land uses situated next to each other. This pattern of separating the ‘white town’ from the ‘black town’ often by large stretches of public space such as parks and squares was a familiar pattern of colonial urban development (Chattopadhyay, 2005; Kamath, 2006). This separation between military and municipal spaces was also evident in local government – the municipal government for the Cantonment area was different from that of the old town. This practice continues to an extent today as well – the Cantonment in both Bangalore and Pune is now controlled by the Indian Army and has a separate planning and development division responsible for the administration of these areas in each city. After independence, Bangalore and Pune developed slightly different trajectories. This was partly the outcome of Bangalore emerging as the capital of the state of Karnataka, whereas Pune grew in the shadow of Mumbai. However, it was also a result of national-level planning policies. After independence, the Indian national government pursued a policy import-substitution industrialization, creating several large public sector corporations (Kohli and Mullen, 2003; Heitzman, 2004). As Heitzman (2004: 44-45) writes, this policy had a significant impact on Bangalore’s growth and development. With support from the national government, four public sector units (PSUs) were set up in Bangalore. Bangalore 58 Pune had been the seat of the Maratha Empire from the mid-seventeenth to the early nineteenth century when the British defeated the Marathas and established colonial rule. Bangalore had a succession of rulers from the Gowdas (1537-1638), the Marathas (1640-1690), Haider Ali and his son, Tipu Sultan (from 1759 to 1880) and, the Wodeyars (1690 – 1759, and again from 1880 – 1947, although Bangalore was under British administration by this time). 85 was attractive as a location for multiple reasons: state-sponsored industrialization, the temperate climate of the city, the presence of premier academic institutes that provided a technically skilled workforce, cheap power, and also Bangalore was beyond the range of potential Pakistani air raids (Heitzman, 2004: 45). The first was Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), which was founded during World War II and was employing close to 21,000 people by the early 1960s (Heitzman, 2004). Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) followed in 1948, set up as a collaborative enterprise between the Central ministry of transport and communication and the state of Mysore and employed close to 4,000 people (ibid). Bharat Heavy Electronics Limited (BHEL) was set up by the department of defense in 1954 and rapidly grew to be the second-largest manufacturer of electronic goods in India, after ITI, employing 3,300 people in Bangalore. The fourth PSU to be set up was Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) in 1995 as a collaborative project between the Indian national government’s heavy industries department and the Swiss company, Oerlikons to manufacture machines for grinding, drilling and cutting, employing 5,500 people in the city. The establishment of the four giant PSUs (HAL, ITI, BHEL and HMT) was a considerable influence on the development of Bangalore. In total, these industries added almost 30,000 new jobs to Bangalore, together with other related industries, the total number of new public sector jobs by the early 1960s was over 110,000 (Heitzman, 2004; Nair, 2005). The growth of public sector units as well as research and academic institutions in the city changed the demographic profile of the city, attracting a considerable middle-class, white collar workforce to Bangalore (Heitzman, 2004; Nair, 2005). In just two decades, the proportion of Bangalore’s workforce involved in the primary sector (agriculture and related activities) had fallen by almost 30 per cent (from 71 per cent in 1951 to 40 per cent in 1971) (Heitzman, 2004). By the end of the 1970s, the planning imaginary in Bangalore was dominated by the “middle class citizen”, which included the public sector worker (Nair, 2005: 130). By the 1990s, this 86 imaginary had expanded to include the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) and the IT worker. New extensions to the city in the form of ‘industrial suburbs’ were built in the late 1950s and early 1960s to accommodate these industries and their employees: HAL led the way by setting up the HAL sanitary board that was responsible for the housing of its employees, eventually building the first industrial township (Vimananagar, or Aircraft township) on the periphery of Bangalore that housed about 35 per cent of its workforce (Heitzman, 2004; Nair, 2005). The other PSUs followed suit – for example, ITI built accommodation (Duravaninagar or ‘Telephone City’) that housed half its employees (about 1,500), BHEL housed about 665 employees and HMT about 1,500 – all in industrial townships that these companies built and had administrative control over (Heitzman, 2004: 45). Most of these industrial townships were located on the northern and eastern edges of Bangalore, separated from the city itself by large tracts of open space and agricultural land. Forerunners of today’s gated communities, these townships were well planned, providing spaces for diverse land uses (educational institutions, recreational facilities and commercial space), and urban infrastructure such as sewerage, water provision and power. The public sector companies that built them also administered most of these townships. These companies also ran their own buses to transport employees to and from work. These townships were an attempt to curtail large-scale industrial production in a manner that would not impinge on Bangalore’s natural and financial resources (Nair, 2005). However, this accommodation fell considerably short of demand, prompting the city and state governments to develop additional ‘industrial housing’, like the then-suburb of Rajajinagar in west Bangalore as well as five ‘satellite’ towns (Nair, 2005: 128). Nevertheless, demand continued to outstrip the supply of housing, leading to a proliferation of illegal construction, especially on agricultural land (Nair, 2005). In fact, as Nair (2005) writes, the early years of Bangalore’s 87 City Improvement Trust Board were occupied with finding a solution to the housing needs of the city, focusing specifically on industrial workers and government bureaucrats. To accommodate growth, Bangalore grew out in the form of ‘layouts’ or planned neighbourhoods that the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) (the successor to the City Improvement Trust Board) developed and sold.59 New forms of providing housing also emerged in Bangalore in order to keep up with housing demand.60 As public sector entities struggled to keep pace with housing demand, there was a rise in the number of private builders in Bangalore by the 1970s (Nair, 2005). This considerably transformed urban development in the city in two important ways. First, there was a shift from the low-rise, horizontal development (consisting chiefly of single-family homes and the ‘bungalow’) that had characterized post-independence Bangalore as private developers built an increasing number of apartment buildings, creating an alternative “vision of city growth and housing” (Nair, 2005: 132). Second, Nair (2005) argues, was the growing involvement of private builders in providing group housing and office space. In particular, private development was increasingly attractive since these developers were able to offer residents amenities and basic infrastructure that was often lacking in public sector developments. Real estate development in Bangalore today is almost entirely privatized. Although the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) continues to develop layouts, a private developer or a sub-contractor more often than not completes the actual construction (as real estate developers and sub-contractors in Bangalore explained to me). In addition, since the real estate sector was opened up in 2005, there has been a 59 I discuss the urban governance structure of Bangalore in more detail in Chapter 4. Two of these were the ‘revenue layouts’ and the housing board cooperative societies (HBCS) ‘Revenue layouts’ were sites that groups of citizens or independent builders could develop as housing, subject to the permission of the BDA (and more recently, the newly-formed Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Development Authority or the BMRDA). HBCS were organizations formed by citizen groups in Bangalore (typically industrial workers, and government bureaucrats) to develop sites for housing, again, subject to BDA approval. 60 88 flurry of large development projects, both within the city of Bangalore as well as on its peripheries.61 The economic reforms of the 1990s marked two distinct changes in Bangalore: while the 1950s to the 1980s had been characterized by public sector investment in the city, the 1990s saw the growth of the private sector, particularly information technology (IT) and related industries. Companies like Texas Instruments, Infosys and Microsoft are constructing large campuses on the edge of the city – like the Whitefield IT Park located on the eastern edge of the city. To entice businesses to locate here, the state government of Karnataka is offering several land and tax incentives as well as building infrastructure like roads connecting these areas to the city and the airport, or ‘geobribes’ (Roy, 2009b).62 This rapid growth of new economic sectors in Bangalore has considerably boosted the prospects of the real estate industry, locally and regionally (Nair, 2005; Benjamin, 2006). I argue that the middle class forms the power elite in Bangalore. However, the middle class itself is far from uniform. It includes public sector workers, young private sector employees (especially in information technology and other emerging service sector industries), government bureaucrats and the corporate elite. Specific middle class actors therefore have particular agendas that they are interested in furthering. Contemporary planning and policy decisions in the city are influenced and shaped by the conflict between the demands of the academic, the retired government bureaucrat, the returning NRI and the corporate leaders of IT firms who are competing with each other to push their specific agendas. These urban actors come from common socio-economic backgrounds: some 61 I discuss the specific aspects of contemporary urban development in Bangalore in more detail in Chapter 5. 62 Roy (2009: 79) describes ‘geobribes’ as the “exceptional benefits” that state governments offer corporate investors in the context of global capitalism to entice them to locate within their jurisdictions. These often take the form of “exorbitant public subsidies that underwrite capital accumulation…near-free gifts of valuable land and tax subsidies” without any promised return in the form of employment or revenue generation. The purported argument that state governments make in favour of this practice is that without these ‘geobribes’, global capital will locate elsewhere to the detriment of the economic development of their region. 89 have attended school together, while others are members at the same elite clubs and still others build on old family associations. They draw on these networks in order to influence planning and development decisions in Bangalore in keeping with their specific developmental goals. The formation and working of Bangalore’s two urban taskforces: the BATF and ABIDe are a case in point. As we shall see in the next chapter, the formation of both taskforces relied on the social and political networks of a few key individuals who were able to mobilize these associations into a coalition of like-minded individuals with specific developmental goals. b) Developing Pune: The Indian national government’s focus on developing Indian industry also had an impact on Pune’s development. Another factor that was critical to Pune’s development as an industrial center was its proximity to Mumbai (Bombay). As industrial expansion in Mumbai was limited in the 1960s, Pune’s industry expanded (Bapat, 2004). Several industrial clusters were set up along the Mumbai-Pune highway (as well as along the Pune-Solapur and Pune-Satara highways), in part due to the incentives provided by the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) (Narkhede, 2008).63 However, by contrast with Bangalore, most of the industries that located in and around the city of Pune were private and not the large public sector units we saw in Bangalore. The first industrial group to locate in Pune was the Kirloskar Group, one of India’s largest engineering firms. Other manufacturing firms have followed. For example, several large automotive companies have set up manufacturing facilities on the peripheries of the city, particularly in Hadapsar (on the eastern edge of Pune) beginning in the 1960s. These include domestic firms like Tata Motors, Bajaj Motors, and Mahindra and Mahindra and more recently, in the 1990s, international firms like General Motors (GM), Volkswagen and DaimlerMercedes-Benz (Wilbur Smith Associates (WSA) and IL&FS Urban Infrastructure Services Ltd, 2008). Economic liberalization in the early 1990s and the adoption 63 These incentives included the provision of land to set up industrial facilities, infrastructure and financial benefits as well. 90 of specific incentive schemes that favored ‘new’ economic sectors like Information Technology (IT) and Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) by the government of Maharashtra have made Pune an attractive location for several domestic and international IT firms including Wipro, Infosys, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard (HP) and IBM (Kulabkar, 2002a; Government of Maharashtra, 2007). This has been complemented by the presence of several premier national academic institutions ranging from the University of Pune to engineering colleges and business administration institutes. In addition to manufacturing and service sector industries, Pune is an important regional agricultural centre. In addition to the active farming that takes place in and around the city, Pune is the regional wholesale market for food commodities and functions as a distributing centre for agricultural implements, fertilizers and forest products such as timber (Wilbur Smith Associates (WSA) and IL&FS Urban Infrastructure Services Ltd, 2008). It is also the home of one of the most successful agricultural cooperative movements in India: the sugar cooperatives (Chithelen, 1980/1981; Attwood, 1992; Lalvani, 2008). Not only was the sugar cooperative movement extremely successful, it was also very influential in local and state level politics. This was partly due to the important role that agriculture in general and sugar cultivation in particular played in the regional economy. As I discuss in more detail below, the agricultural community in Pune is very closely involved in local and regional politics and plays a prominent role in land development as well.64 Formal planning had been introduced in Pune under colonial rule in 1915 with the passage of the first Town Planning Act, resulting in low-rise, low-density development, “characterized by separation of residential, commercial and 64 The case study from Pune discussed in Chapter 5 examines the complex relationship that particular farmers in Pune have with politics and land in the Pune region specifically and in the state of Maharashtra more broadly. For more on the role that the farmers have played in Pune and Maharashtra politics, see Chithelen, I. (1980/1981) Sugar Cooperatives in Maharashtra. Social Scientist, 9 (5/6), 55-61; Attwood, D. W. (1992) Raising cane : the political economy of sugar in western India, Boulder, Westview Press; Lalvani, M. (2008) Sugar Co-operatives in Maharashtra: A Political Economy Perspective. Journal of Development Studies, 44 (10), 1474 - 1505. 91 industrial activities in specific zones” (Bapat, 2004: 8). Although this legislation was modified, first in 1954 and then again in 1966, to increase the area under its purview, the mode of planning remained unchanged (ibid). Being a regional industrial and agricultural centre, Pune has always been attractive to migrants, both low-wage labourers as well as the white-collar workers (Kulabkar, 2002a; Bapat, 2004). As the population of the city increased with industrialization and economic growth, Pune faced a severe housing shortage. Initially, in keeping with the national trend, the main urban local body in the city: the Pune Municipal Corporation or the PMC (established in 1950) was responsible for housing and building development (Bapat, 2004). In addition to migration and economic growth, there was one other important event that has significantly influenced urban development in Pune. In 1961, two dams on the Mutha river (one of two rivers that flows through Pune) collapsed, causing tremendous damage to buildings on the banks of the river, particularly destroying significant portions of the historic old city, leading to a spurt in new housing development in Pune’s suburbs, especially in the western part of the city (Bapat, 2004; Narkhede, 2008). By the early 1970s, it was abundantly clear that the PMC would not be able to meet the demand, thereby creating an opportunity for private builders to step in. With the entry of private developers, Pune’s development pattern, like Bangalore, changed from low-rise, single-family homes to apartment buildings and complexes. Most real estate development in Pune today is privately developed. Mr. Sanjay Deshpande (CEO, Sanjeevani Developers and committee member of the Pune Builders Association – CREDAI-Pune) describes the city’s development sector as homegrown. According to him, private development in Pune began in the late 1960s-early 1970s, in response to the PMC’s inability to provide adequate housing. Mr. Deshpande also characterizes the 1990s as an important phase in Pune’s development history. With the growth of IT and related industries, he claims that development in Pune has changed from relatively small apartments (one or two bedrooms) in two and three storey buildings to higher buildings and 92 bigger apartments (four to five bedrooms). Most of the developers in the city, he says, are local to Pune, either second and third generation migrants or former agriculturalists who are gradually making the move from agricultural occupations to non-agricultural ones, capitalizing on their most important asset: their land. They are also extremely well placed, politically, to capitalize on the rapid urbanization in Pune. Wealthy farmers, more specifically, the “sugar barons have constituted an important power structure in the state, and the sugar co-operatives have played a pivotal role in shaping the socioeconomic fabric of Maharashtra” (Lalvani, 2008: 1474-5). Lalvani (2008) argues that there is probably no other economic sector that is as well represented in the Maharashtra government as the sugar sector. This dominance is largely an outcome of the support that the state government provided the sugar cooperatives, acting as a mentor to the growing movement (particularly the Congress party). As the sugar cooperatives grew financially prosperous, the power associated with managerial positions such as the Director or Chairman of a specific cooperative also grew. Lalvani (2008) documents how individuals in these positions were able to exercise considerable influence on Maharashtra state politics: several of these individuals went on to hold positions of power at the state-level, including that of Chief Minister of the state. In recent years, allegations of corruption and the Congress party’s loss of power at the state level have somewhat weakened the hold that sugar cooperatives had on Maharashtra politics. However, as I shall show in Chapter 5, farmers are still powerful enough to leverage their social and political connections enabling them to achieve specific developmental goals. Processes of state restructuring that are taking place in contemporary urban India and the impacts that these processes have cannot be explained without understanding the particular political and socio-economic histories of Indian cities. In the case of both Bangalore and Pune, the groups that are benefiting from governmental and economic restructuring are those that have been 93 politically and economically dominant in both cities (working professionals in Bangalore and wealthy farmers in Pune). These elite power groups leverage their personal political, social and financial resources to further very specific developmental goals. Examining how they respond to and take advantage of emerging governmental and economic reforms is essential to understand how the cities themselves develop. This chapter aimed to lay out a broad overview of the changes that have taken place in India over the last two decades in order to provide a context for specific examples and cases discussed in the following chapters. The focus here was on using particular national-level legislative and policy reform to discuss broader trends in Indian government and politics. The second aim of this chapter was to provide an overarching context within which to situate the specific case sites in Bangalore and Pune. Both exemplify the ‘new’ Indian city that is emerging as a key location for the rescaling of state functions, as national and regional government reconfigures state power. The following chapters explore specific aspects of these changes. The next chapter examines the changing trends in urban governance and the growing involvement of ‘civil society’ as government invites a select few to participate while leaving out a vast majority. It discusses master planning processes in Pune and the growth of public-private partnerships as a form of governance in Bangalore. In both cases, it highlights the working of individual political and social networks as being instrumental in gaining the power to act. It also points to the growing role that ad-hoc coalitions between urban stakeholders are playing in the more formal processes of urban governance. Chapter 5 examines real estate in Bangalore and Pune, discussing two very different models of urban development. Once again, it points to the importance of political and social networks as well as the formation of temporary coalitions to successfully accomplish development. 94 CHAPTER IV POWER TO THE PEOPLE? URBAN GOVERNANCE AND COALITION BUILDING 1. Introduction: In July 2003, the Sunday edition of the Indian newspaper, the Times of India ran an article with the headline “If a CEO runs your city…”. The article discussed the findings of the Vision Mumbai report (2003) prepared by global consultants McKinsey & Company, stating that if Indian cities were to become “world-class”, they needed to be run by ‘CEOs’ (Chief Executive Officers) rather than bureaucrats and politicians (Sachdeva and Rajadhyaksha, 2003; Kamath, 2006: iv). This statement is illustrative of a change in Indian urban politics that has taken place over the last two decades. This transformation has been driven by a combination of factors, including a government that is increasingly assuming the role of facilitator rather than participant and financier, a growing multiplicity of urban actors, policy reforms that mandate increased public participation, decentralization and devolution of responsibility to local government and economic reforms that have made it easier to source and obtain financial capital. The passage of urban governance reforms and economic liberalization has created new spaces of participation in Indian urban politics and increased opportunities for elite non-state actors to participate in urban planning processes than were earlier available (Milbert, 2008; Sridharan, 2008). In addition, the combination of the lack of political power vested in local or citylevel governments as well as the fragmented nature of political and economic power in Indian cities has created a gap in leadership. As a result, new centers of 95 economic, political and discursive power are emerging in Indian cities as powerful economic and social groups maneuver to achieve their objectives. In particular, networks of elite actors are coming together to address issues that state and city governments are unable to address adequately (such as the development of urban infrastructure and housing), and in some cases, to take advantage of the dysfunction or weakness of the local state to pursue particular class, caste, or business interests. In some cases, these elite networks are very politically influential due to their ability to shape the economic fate of cities (as is the case with the IT corporate leaders in Bangalore), or because the elite networks overlap with networks of state power (for example, people in government and in private industry share family, caste or community links or other social links like membership in the same elite clubs or attendance of elite schools, as we shall see in the cases that follow in this chapter and the next). There are other instances where state actors like the Chief Minister, his/her cabinet and other government officials are deliberately mobilizing very powerful networks of elite actors to accentuate state power and pursue state goals (as in the case of the urban taskforces in Bangalore discussed in this chapter). In this chapter, I focus on two cases of non-state actors forming alliances with each other and with specific state actors to change the urban governance and policy agenda in Bangalore and Pune. The first case is a narrative of how the state government in Karnataka has created elite task forces comprising of high-profile individuals to shape the future development agenda for Bangalore. The formation of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) and its successor, the Agenda for Bangalore Infrastructure Development Task Force (ABIDe) was also a reaction to the growing pressure that the state government of Karnataka and the Bangalore city government were facing from the city’s growing corporate sector and an increasingly vocal middle class, demanding greater involvement in urban governance and development processes in Bangalore (Ghosh, 2005). In response, successive state governments of Karnataka invited well-known business leaders, leaders of 96 NGOs, and prominent citizens of Bangalore to participate in a series of taskforces designed to provide a roadmap to convert Bangalore into a ‘worldclass city’ (Ghosh, 2005). However, these taskforces and their actions have been at the center of much conflict and contentious debate. This chapter explores the formation and working of each of these taskforces and the impact that both groups had on urban governance and development in Bangalore. Using these taskforces as an example, I demonstrate how government officials (in this case, consecutive Chief Ministers of Karnataka) used personal social networks to mobilize powerful elite groups and their resources in a coalition to pursue specific government developmental goals (for example, to make Bangalore more attractive to foreign and domestic investment). Examining the BATF together with the taskforce that followed (ABIDe), I draw attention to a growing trend in urban government to rely on “flexible governance networks that involve not only entrepreneurial local state institutions but also various private actors and ‘thirdsector’ community based organizations” (Brenner, 2004: 216). The second case tells the story of the master plan process in Pune and how a loose, almost spontaneous coalition of NGO activists, environmentalists, journalists, municipal officials and citizens – the “Green Pune” movement – has repeatedly raised objections to particular aspects of government-developed city plans, often successfully demanding more equitable policies. Following the incorporation of 23 neighboring villages, a new master plan for Pune was created in the early 2000s that contradicted earlier urban policies, violated environmental norms by developing areas of the city reserved for open space and public recreation, and would have also displaced a significant proportion of Pune’s lowincome population. An alliance emerged between key community leaders, NGO activists, journalists and some governmental officials to revise this plan and propose an alternative, more inclusive form of development. However, this coalition has its roots in an older and long-running civil society campaign in Pune that has resurfaced at regular intervals to protest specific government plans for the city and has been largely successful in its endeavors. The Green Pune 97 movement illustrates a more grassroots-based, bottom-up approach to involving non-state actors in urban planning processes. In this case, a coalition of elite actors (academics, urban planners, journalists and civic activists) proposed an alternate plan for Pune’s development with broad public support. As a result, the Pune city government was compelled to rethink the existing plan. Two members of the Green Pune movement were subsequently invited to be on the committee that was tasked with revising the master plan document, thereby ensuring that their vision was represented in government discussions. Comparing the taskforces in Bangalore to the Green Pune movement, I find that, in both cases, non-state actors are becoming increasingly important in shaping urban policy, and that government is coming to rely on these actors to help it create more flexible urban governance networks (Brenner, 2004). I also find that informal networks and individual social and political connections are critical in the formation and the functioning of these groups. In both cases, the push for change and demand for greater public participation in governmental decision-making processes came from middle-class constituents that had access to key resources like financial capital and technical knowledge. Moreover, the nature and extent of the social networks in both Bangalore and Pune have a significant impact on the types of coalitions that have emerged in both cities. The historical political dominance of specific elite groups (such as sugarcane farmers and old Brahmin families in Pune and white-collar professionals in Bangalore) continues to endure in contemporary Bangalore and Pune as these groups translate the power of their social networks into political and economic influence. While the coalition that emerged in Bangalore was an attempt to bring together different elite networks to achieve a common goal, the coalitions in Pune are an example of how different elite networks (the government and the real estate lobby on the one hand and the Green Pune movement on the other) formed coalitions with contrary aims. This chapter will illustrate these processes of coalition formation and functioning in both cities using urban governance as a lens, while the next chapter will focus on similar processes in real estate development. 98 2. Reconfiguring Bangalore: The BATF and ABIDe: Governments in India at the national and state level often rely on various committees and task forces for assistance in governing and making policy decisions. While some committees are constituted as “Standing Committees” that are reelected or reappointed on a regular basis and whose work is more or less continuous from one term to the next, there are also several ad-hoc committees or task forces that are constituted with special aims in mind that cease to exist once their task has been completed (National Informatics Centre (NIC), 2005b). The taskforces discussed in this section fall in the latter category. Both the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) and the Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure and Development Task Force (ABIDe) were constituted through a government order sanctioned by the Chief Minister of the state of Karnataka with a broad mandate of improving Bangalore. Urban coalitions in Bangalore, in particular the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF), have attracted some media and academic interest in the last few years. Recent articles (Ghosh, 2005; Pani, 2006) as well as a dissertation thesis (Kamath, 2006) have examined the creation and working of the BATF in some detail. Kamath (2006) particularly focuses on the role of the BATF as an urban coalition and also briefly discusses the relevance of personal networks in the formation of this body. These authors have also raised relevant critiques of the taskforce, especially its exclusion of key (low-income, marginalized) populations in the city from its agenda. The discussion of the BATF in this section draws heavily on their work. In addition to these, I also draw on other secondary data sources like newspaper archives, the reports of the task forces themselves as well as by independent consultants. While several attempts were made to meet with former BATF members, not many of them were available for interviews. Most of the primary data on the BATF were therefore collected from government officials, journalists, academics and activists who had been engaging with the BATF. They also provided valuable information on ABIDe and how it differed from the BATF and where it did not. I was also able to meet with two of the four 99 members of ABIDe’s core functioning group who were very forthcoming and generous with their time, providing me with firsthand information on the working of the group. The creation and functioning of both the BATF and ABIDe has had a polarizing effect among government officials, politicians, urban researchers and activists in Bangalore. The task forces are not without their supporters, but there are also several groups both within government and in Bangalore’s civil society who were opposed to the BATF and are against ABIDe. I will discuss this dynamic, especially the opposition and the reasons for it in more detail below. Briefly, however, urban activists and civil society groups argue that the constitution and operation of both the BATF and ABIDe is unconstitutional, undemocratic and non-representative. The conflict between other non-governmental groups and the government-created taskforces is emerging as a conflict between the invited spaces created by governmental restructuring within which the two task forces operate versus the participatory spaces that these NGOs and activists have created for themselves (Sridharan, 2008).65 The conflict within government stems from overlapping jurisdictions, power sharing between various local and parastatal agencies and the role that these agencies have played, or rather, not played in both the BATF and ABIDe. The state government controls the governing and planning of Bangalore through a variety of parastatal agencies. Being the state capital, Bangalore also houses the governmental and administrative machinery needed for the functioning of the state, which further complicates matters with respect to sharing of governance powers between the state and city governments. The local (city) government has little autonomy in decision-making and what little there is, is hindered by political and bureaucratic hurdles. There are multiple agencies with similar functions 65 Sridharan (2008: 293) differentiates between ‘invited’ spaces and ‘participatory’ spaces. According to him, ‘invited’ spaces (a term that he borrows from Brenner [2004]) are created by government or state institutions where governments may invite other (non-state) actors to participate, for example by becoming providers and distributors of various services. ‘Participatory’ spaces are spaces that civil society groups create for themselves to function in. 100 acting at different levels in the city, often leading to a lack of coordination between agencies as well as a struggle to maintain control over individual jurisdictions (see Table 2). Few of these agencies, parastatal or local, had a presence on either of the taskforces. Moreover, members of both taskforces rarely involved or consulted with governmental officials from parastatal agencies like the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) or local bodies like the Greater Bangalore City Corporation (BBMP) but rather informed officials of decisions already taken that their agencies would have to then implement. This led to repeated conflict between the heads of these government agencies and the members of the taskforces. 101 Name of agency Level of government City government: key urban local body Jurisdiction (See map below) Greater Bangalore Region (yellow and green zones in the map below) 1 Bruhat Bengalooru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) or the Greater Bangalore City Corporation 2 Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) Parastatal agency Bangalore Metropolitan Area (yellow, green and blue zones in the map below) 3 Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) Parastatal agency 4 Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA) Parastatal agency Statewide agency. In Bangalore, jurisdiction overlaps with the BDA, but scope is limited to industrial areas only. Bangalore Metropolitan Region (comprising of Bangalore urban district as well as some rural areas: the BDA’s jurisdiction falls within that of the BMRDA) Functions Responsible for overall delivery of services – roads and road maintenance; solid waste management, education and health in all wards, storm water drains, construction of few Ring roads, flyovers and grade separators Land use zoning, planning and regulation within Bangalore Metropolitan Area; Construction of few Ring roads, flyovers and grade separators Land acquisition and development (including agricultural land) for private entities as well as for government infrastructure projects. Planning, coordinating and supervising the proper and orderly development of the areas within the Bangalore Metro Region. Table 2: Local and parastatal governance institutions in Bangalore. Source: (H. S. Sudhira et al., 2007; Karnataka Slum Clearance Board (KSCB), 2011) 102 Figure 3: Governance zones in the greater Bangalore region. Source: (H. S. Sudhira et al., 2007) a) The Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF): The Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) was an elite coalition of like-minded individuals who shared the vision of making Bangalore a more competitive city on an international stage, particularly to emerging service sector industries. The Chief Minister of Karnataka invited these individuals to be a part of the task force in 1999 with the aim of creating and implementing a specific developmental agenda for Bangalore. While the coalition was given the broad (and somewhat vague) mandate of making Bangalore “the best city in India” (Ghosh, 2005: 4916), the actual focus was much more narrow, focusing on land and infrastructure development within Bangalore, echoing the then Chief Minister’s (Mr. S.M. Krishna) vision for the city’s development. A new state government, formed by the Congress Party had been elected to power in Karnataka in 1999. Karnataka’s economy, at the time, was facing pressure from both industrial and agricultural sectors that were in decline (Kamath, 2006; Pani, 2006). This period in Bangalore’s economic development also coincided with the time when the city, 103 already a national centre for ‘new’ industries like information technology (IT), was facing serious competition from other cities (like Hyderabad) in its bid to remain the leader for emerging industries like IT and biotechnology. In an attempt to revitalize the state’s economy, the newly elected Congress government and its Chief Minister, Mr. S.M. Krishna emphasized the need to build a ‘modern’ state using ‘modern infrastructure’ (Pani, 2006). Towards this goal of modernizing Bangalore, nine taskforces (including the BATF) were formed.66 While the other taskforces were given a statewide mandate, the BATF was focused only on Bangalore city. The newly elected government’s aim was to use the BATF to tap into the vast pool of knowledge in the city to help transform Bangalore into a world class city (Ghosh, 2006). Members of the BATF included corporate leaders, financial experts, architects, an NGO leader, a retired academic, two government bureaucrats and a Member of Parliament, although there were no urban planners or experts on issues of urban infrastructure included nor any elected members from the local city government (Ghosh, 2005; Pani, 2006). The members of the BATF were clear that the group was not a nongovernmental organization (NGO) but an extra-constitutional civic body created by the state government that engaged actively with governmental institutions to promote urban reform. The taskforce saw its role as being twofold: on the one hand, it strove to improve supply-side service provision by working with specific government agencies; on the other, civil society organizations like Janaagraha (whose leader was a BATF member) created demand-side pressure through citizen advocacy (Ghosh, 2005). The BATF was intended to further a very specific development agenda. Mr. S.M. Krishna, the newly elected Chief Minister of Karnataka, looked towards Singapore as a model for Bangalore’s development (Nair, 2005; Pani, 2006). He 66 The remaining task forces addressed health and family welfare, education, IT in higher education, infrastructure, the revival of the Government Flying Training School, IT and biotechnology, emphasizing the state government’s commitment to fostering IT and biotechnology development in Bangalore specifically and Karnataka more broadly. 104 not only admired “the material aspects of Singapore” like its infrastructure and urban development plans, but also “the value systems adopted by the citizens of Singapore like accountability, civic sense and respect for law” and hoped to cultivate a similar ethos in Bangalore and other cities in the state as well (Pani, 2006: 247). In addition, there was a significant financial motivation to form an alliance with Singapore: several government-linked companies (GLCs) from Singapore as well as the government of Singapore itself were interested in investing in the Karnataka economy at the time (Pani, 2006). Moreover, in an attempt to attract and retain domestic and foreign investment in emerging technology sectors like Information Technology (IT) and biotechnology, the Karnataka state government was offering what Roy (2009) calls ‘geobribes’, i.e. several financial and other incentives (like easy and cheap access to prime urban land, uninterrupted power supply) to entice companies to move to and remain in Bangalore. The BATF was therefore intended to come up with policy recommendations to improve Bangalore’s infrastructure and development process to make the city more attractive specifically to IT and biotech companies. As Kamath (2006) writes, the idea of a public-private partnership (PPP) was one of the major pillars on which the Congress government in Karnataka was built. She argues that Mr. Krishna and several senior-level bureaucrats were in favor of the PPP model for several reasons: to use non-state actors to help reform what they perceived as corrupt and inefficient local (city) government politicians and bureaucrats, improving management practices in government and also signaling to corporations that the new government was serious about creating a favorable and welcoming business environment. The BATF, as a model PPP, was meant to be a vehicle through which non-state (especially corporate) actors were to be given the means to contribute to Bangalore’s urban reform. The BATF had three distinct components: a core five-person working group, a nine-member advisory group and seven civic agencies or ‘stakeholders’ (Ghosh, 2005; Kamath, 2006). In addition, there was a sizeable back-office staff that 105 implemented BATF projects, consisting of largely young professionals like planners, engineers and architects (Interview, BATF staff member, 2009). To head the BATF, Mr. S.M. Krishna turned to a personal friend, Mr. Nandan Nilekani, who was then in a senior position at Infosys, a very successful domestic IT corporation and an individual with a reputation for integrity and philanthropy.67 As multiple interview respondents in Bangalore explained to me, the rest of the task force was built through Mr. Nilekani’s social network and comprised of people that he was friendly with or knew as social acquaintances. Kamath (2006: 123) also corroborates this, saying that Mr. Nilekani had stated that he knew people who would be willing to “contribute to an effort like the BATF,” bringing two personal friends to the core working group: Mr. Naresh Narasimhan, a prominent Bangalore-based architect and Mr. S. Ravichander, the head of a local market-research firm. The two other members of the core group, Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan and Ms. Kalpana Kar were also social acquaintances. According to Kamath (2006) and as one of the members of the BATF core group told me, on hearing of the formation of the BATF, Mr. Ramanathan emailed Mr. Nilekani expressing interest in being involved and offering his experience as a financial analyst to the group.68 This led to an invitation to participate in initial BATF meetings and eventually being coopted into the core group. Ms. Kar, married to the CEO of a local IT company, was invited to be part of the BATF to draw on her experience in media and event management, working with NGOs and other pro bono work (Kamath, 2006). Personal social networks therefore played an important role in the formation of this core group and in the subsequent framing of the task force’s aims. It was this 67 Mr. Nilekani was then the Managing Director of Infosys and later went on to become its Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Infosys is one of a few homegrown IT companies that have become extremely successful and have come to epitomize India’s technological success and entrepreneurship. During field research, several respondents (academics, journalists and knowledgeable city residents) commented on the close relationship that Mr. Krishna and his family shared with the founders and senior officers at Infosys, which is common knowledge in Bangalore. Mr. Krishna and his wife had also been large shareholders in Infosys during his tenure as Chief Minister and the shares were sold the year after Mr. Krishna’s government was no longer in power Srinivasaraju, S. (2005a) How Many Shares? Outlook India. Web ed. Bangalore, India, Outlook Publishing.. 68 At the time, Mr. Ramanathan had newly returned from the US to India to contribute to improving public governance in Indian cities. He was also a friend of Mr. Narasimhan, another of the core group members. 106 core group that decided the agenda of the BATF and built on their personal social and political connections to implement projects. The BATF was different from other government taskforces because its members took upon themselves to not only recommend reforms to the government but also implement them. The core working group agreed that the BATF should not be contributing to the already large pile of reports filed with the government but rather act upon its recommendations by creating “best practice” examples building on their broader objectives (Kamath, 2006). This greater orientation towards action was largely made possible due to the financing structure that the BATF had set up for itself. The BATF and its activities were largely funded through an independent source of private capital that came from wealthy private sector individuals, in particular through the ‘Adhaar Trust’ that Mr. and Mrs. Nilekani set up with an undisclosed amount of personal funds (Kamath, 2006). This financial independence, argues Kamath (2006), enabled the BATF to support its own initiatives while other taskforces were dependent on state funding. Using these funds, the BATF implemented a series of short-term projects or what the core group called “owned projects” including building bus shelters, public toilets and the conversion of an out-of-use jail into a park. There were also a series of “non-owned” projects that the BATF core group facilitated and coordinated, but their final implementation was left to one of the civic stakeholder agencies. As Kamath (2006) writes, the other two components of the BATF (the advisory group and the seven civic stakeholder agencies) were not as powerful as the core working group. The nine-member advisory group comprised of prominent city residents that that state government selected and invited. This group only participated in the working of the BATF when the core group solicited its input but was otherwise absent. Finally, the BATF core group also identified seven governmental institutions or ‘stakeholders’ that it would partner with to accomplish its agenda. Almost all of these stakeholder institutions (Table 3) were 107 parastatal bodies, controlled by the state government. The selection of the seven stakeholder government institutions shows a bias towards urban infrastructure and development. Omissions from this list include social welfare departments such as education and health and also specific agencies that addressed the needs of the urban poor and low-income groups like the Karnataka Slum Clearance Board (KSCB). In particular, the KSCB was excluded from the list because the BATF considered it to be a “political cesspool” and did not want to “open that can of worms” (Ghosh, 2005: 4916). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Name of agency Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) Bangalore Water Supply and Sanitation Board (BWSSB) Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) Bangalore City Police Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (BMP) (Merged in 2007 into a new administrative body: the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike or the Greater Bangalore City Corporation,) Function Land development and planning Water supply, wastewater management, sewage treatment Power services Telecommunications services Public transportation and traffic management Enforcement of law and order Municipal budgeting Table 3: List of civic 'stakeholders' identified by the BATF. Source: (Ghosh, 2005) The state government (i.e. the Chief Minister and several senior-level government bureaucrats) laid out broad objectives for the BATF following informal conversations with the core working group (Kamath, 2006; Interview, BATF staff member, 2009). Labeled as the “Bangalore Forward” goals, these were (Kamath, 2006): (1) To stimulate private sector involvement in Bangalore through publicprivate partnerships, creating and maintaining (or funding) public amenities; (2) Developing an infrastructure plan for the city, especially focusing on better roads, flyovers, markets, plazas, etc.; (3) Improving capacity in the seven civic stakeholder agencies; 108 (4) Developing new and upgrading existing information systems, to improve decision-making abilities, focusing on new technologies like Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and information technology (IT). These objectives were perceived to be important in effecting Bangalore’s transformation into a world-class city and were operationalized by the BATF core group in consultation with the heads of the seven civic stakeholders (mostly senior-level bureaucrats). These objectives also clearly reflect the interests of the core working group members and their constituents. For example, as several journalists and academics pointed out to me, among the first infrastructure projects to be approved was a series of road and flyover construction projects that improved the connectivity of the IT hub on Bangalore’s periphery with the central city in a move to appease the growing new technology sector of the city.69 Another project that was given pre-eminence was the development of a new international airport for Bangalore, which was also considered important to attract and retain business to the city. The emphasis on using new technologies like GIS and IT in government also benefited the IT sector in the city by providing increasing business opportunities for local firms. The BATF also recommended the reform of urban governance in Bangalore as well as the adoption of better, more transparent planning processes and a move towards e-governance. The core group encouraged the adoption of Western methods of urban planning and facilitated the hire of a French planning consultancy firm to prepare a new master plan for Bangalore. In addition, the BATF financed and implemented several new urban management practices, for example, the new funding-based accounting system (FBAS) at the Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (now the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike or the BBMP). 69 A particularly telling example of this is Mr. Krishna’s reaction to Mr Azim Premji’s (CEO of Wipro another domestic IT giant) criticism of Bangalore’s infrastructure. Mr. Premji complained about the condition of the roads going to and from Wipro’s offices and the unreliable power supply in the area: three days later, Mr. Krishna had announced a special task force to address infrastructure issues specifically along the Sarjapur road, where Wipro is located. Rozario, C. (2004), Cyber Myths and the Rest who also live in Silicon valley Alternate Law Forum, September 21, 2011, http://www.altlawforum.org/globalisation/researchpublications/cyber-myths-and-the-rest-who-also-live-in-silicon-valley. 109 This emphasized centralized management of public funds, which would increase transparency in public finance. However, as Ghosh (2005) explains, this change was implemented without taking local councilors or elected officials into account. This is important because local councilors are directly responsible for the allocation and distribution of funds for specific projects at the neighborhood level (Ghosh, 2005). There were several other instances where reforms implemented by the BATF or related organizations like Janaagraha were integral to the functioning of locally elected representatives but bypassed them entirely.70 This was also directly related to the failure to include the urban poor in its agenda. As Benjamin (2000, 2008) shows, the urban poor and other marginalized groups in Bangalore typically interact with government through local level elected officials, using the bureaucratic-political system to safeguard their interests (especially in land). However, by not explicitly including these officials in their deliberations, the BATF also excluded a significant proportion of the population from its agenda. In addition, there were few BATF programs that explicitly targeted the urban poor. In fact, Mr. Nilekani later expressed regret for not having included any pro-poor programs in the BATF’s agenda (Ghosh, 2005). In addition, the ‘demand-side pressures’ that formed the counterpart to the BATF’s ‘supply-side reforms’ stemmed mainly from a non-profit organization called Janaagraha that served a largely middle-class constituency in Bangalore set up by Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan (who was also part of the core working group of the BATF) (Ghosh, 2005; Kamath, 2006; Coelho et al., 2011). As Coelho et al (2011: 18) explain, Janaagraha emerged as a result of two “perceived limitations of the BATF”: first, while the BATF could create mechanisms for public sector reform, it could not enforce or implement these; and second, since the BATF was a government-appointed body, it could not confront the Karnataka state government on “issues concerning power relations between actors within and 70 For more detailed information on the various programs that the BATF implemented, see Ghosh, A. (2005), Public-private or a private public: Promised partnership of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force. Economic and Political Weekly, ; Kamath, L. (2006) Achieving global competitiveness and local poverty reduction? Examining the public-private partnering model of governance in Bangalore, India. Urban Planning and Policy Development. New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. 110 outside the state”. This led to further concerns that the considerable power that the BATF wielded was being directed chiefly at serving a very specific middleclass constituency. Different groups access the institutional framework of government in different ways. The activities of the BATF focused largely on “corporate” economies and interacted with government largely through top-level officials and politicians in the state government (Benjamin, 2000). By constituting the BATF through a government order, the Chief Minister, Mr. Krishna, created a new form of engagement through which non-state actors could interact with government (Ghosh, 2005). The government order also ensured that the BATF reported directly to the Chief Minister, thereby bypassing all local governmental agencies and officials. However, the urban poor and other marginalized populations in Bangalore interact with government through “local” economy actors like locallevel municipal councilors and locally elected officials (Benjamin, 2000). The BATF and the networks through which its members operated provided new opportunities for upper and middle class residents to participate in urban governance but were out of reach for a significant proportion of Bangalore’s population: as researchers and activists working in Bangalore have pointed out, the reforms recommended and implemented by the BATF had the unfortunate effect of excluding certain (especially marginalized) populations of the city (Interviews with Bangalore-based activists and journalists, 2008-09; Ghosh, 2005; Benjamin, 2006; Pani, 2006; Benjamin, 2007). As Ghosh (2005: 4916) explains, the BATF’s agenda, supported by the initiatives of Mr. Krishna’s state government, promoted the development of physical infrastructure and provided techno-managerial solutions to urban problems in Bangalore “without comparable emphasis on social and economic requirements of the city.” Concerned activists and civil society leaders also raised the issue that the BATF was unconstitutional and unrepresentative (Rozario, 2004; Benjamin, 2005a). The chairman of the BATF and the core working group reported directly to the 111 Chief Minister of the state. There were few elected representatives that were invited to participate in the BATF’s deliberative processes with most of its meetings taking place behind closed doors. Rarely were decisions deliberated in public. Those government officials that did participate were senior bureaucrats from the various parastatal bodies that govern Bangalore. Local government officials and elected representatives were absent, partly because the state government and its officials regarded these agencies as corrupt and inefficient and were trying to use the BATF to ‘clean up’ local urban government (Kamath, 2006). Another concern was the close relationship between the IT industry, especially Infosys and the Karnataka state government. As Pani (2006) points out, the BATF was a mutually beneficial association for almost all of its members. Their close association with government officials brought the corporate heads at Infosys in closer contact with those who made investment decisions on behalf of large public sector mutual funds, one of which (Unit Trust of India) was found to have a significant investment in Infosys (Pani, 2006: 253-4). The role that Nilekani was playing at the BATF helped to boost the investor image of Infosys as a socially responsible corporation. Infosys also benefited from increased institutional investment: during the first two years of the Krishna government, when the BATF was most powerful, the government of Singapore became the third largest shareholder in Infosys. The Singapore government’s shareholding percentage in the company rose from 0.62 per cent on March 31, 1999 to 5.48 per cent on March 31, 2001 (Pani, 2006). The benefits were not limited to financial or monetary gains. Although the formal coalition ended with the end of Mr. Krishna’s term, the influence of its individual members did not. In the five years that the BATF had been in existence, the members of the group were able to make sufficient inroads into the government at the state and the national levels such that their reform agenda was being institutionalized (Ghosh, 2006). The BATF and its reform agenda have been 112 incorporated into urban policy at the national level in the form of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), which was framed by several former BATF members (Benjamin, 2007). For example, PROOF (Public Review of Operations and Finance), a Janaagraha program has grown into the Public Disclosure Law in the JNNURM; JNNURM’s Community Participation Law emerged out of Janaagraha’s work with model Area Sabbas in Bangalore and the BATF’s experiments with e-governance and asset mapping form the basis of the National E-governance Strategy (Coelho et al., 2011: 22). Moreover, Coelho et al (2011) quote a former BATF member who claims that Mr. Nilekani used his wide circle of connections to set up meetings with key national politicians and bureaucrats. As a result, three of the four individuals who were instrumental in shaping JNNURM were erstwhile BATF members. Mr. Nilekani, the former chairman of the BATF, continues to be involved in national policy and is now heading the Unique Identification (UID) project for the Indian national government while Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan and his organization, Janaagraha, are acting in advisory capacities to several state governments as well as the national government.71 The BATF was a coalition between key elite actors in Karnataka’s state government — the Chief Minister and several senior bureaucrats and important non-state actors like Mr. Nilekani and Mr. Ramanathan. The main motivation behind the formation of this coalition was to retain Bangalore’s position as an economic leader in information technology and other emerging industries, which was a mutually beneficial goal for the state government actors as well as the non-state actors that were part of the BATF. As I argued earlier, the centres of economic and political activity in India are being rescaled (Roy, 2003; Brenner, 2004) and urban regions are emerging as key sites within which this rescaling is taking place. In this context, regional level leadership is becoming increasingly 71 The Unique Identification (UID) project is a national-level policy initiative that aims to provide identification for each resident across the country. The UID would be used primarily as the basis for efficient delivery of welfare services. It would also act as a tool for effective monitoring of various programs and schemes of the Government (Unique Identification Authority of India (2011) Unique Identification Authority of India,. Planning Commision, Government of India. November 15, 2011, ) 113 important. Recognizing this, S.M. Krishna attempted to leverage his social and political networks to form a coalition that would harness economic and political resources in Karnataka to promote Bangalore’s economic development. b) The Agenda for Bangalore Infrastructure and Development Task Force (ABIDe): From 2004-2008, the state of Karnataka experienced considerable political instability. The political coalition that formed the state government in 2004 collapsed within two years because of disagreements between the various members of the coalition over transfer of power. Karnataka was then brought under President’s rule until the state assembly elections in 2008. Most state government activities, including urban development and planning activities in Bangalore, were at a standstill during this time. In May 2008, a new government led by the right-wing Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) was elected to power. The mandate of the new government was to break away from the practices of the previous governments, especially the Congress government led by Mr. Krishna. Bangalore was in as much need of urban reform in 2008 as it had been in the late 1990s. Although several former BATF members approached the new government with the aim of reviving the taskforce, the new BJP government decided against reviving the BATF to set up its own version. The Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure and Development Task Force (ABIDe) was set up in October 2008 with the new Chief Minister of Karnataka, Dr. B.S. Yeddyurappa as chairperson. ABIDe’s objective is to “revive and rebuild Bengaluru through a combination of comprehensive planning, improved municipal services and new investments into infrastructure” (Agenda For Bangalore Infrastructure Development (ABIDe), 2009). The taskforce will also “deliberate upon the challenges facing the city, develop blueprints for possible solutions to these, consult with city agencies, the public and other stakeholders, and provide recommendations for the way forward. Wherever needed, ABIDe will also facilitate the work of agencies and departments by resolving bottlenecks” 114 (Agenda For Bangalore Infrastructure Development (ABIDe), 2009). The taskforce focuses on four key areas within Bangalore: (1) governance, (2) road traffic management and transportation, (3) the urban poor, and (4) public security. The group has prepared draft reports, blueprints and action plans for each of these areas, setting a clear agenda and outlining what it expects to accomplish. While the BATF was formed around a clear economic agenda, ABIDe’s agenda is more political. The emphasis is on reforming urban governance and planning processes in Bangalore rather than catering to any specific economic agenda. ABIDe’s proposed governance reforms, as I explain in more detail below, continue the trend started by the BATF, of providing greater opportunities for middle and upper class residents to participate in planning processes in Bangalore while excluding low-income groups and other marginalized populations. ABIDe emerged from the idea that there needed to be a peer environment outside government where a separate space can be created for public administration to focus on specific agenda items and issues, since, as one of ABIDe’s core group members suggested, it is often easier to accomplish things outside the framework of government than from within. He and the others in this core group saw ABIDe as distinct from the government – an independent body that could facilitate urban reform. He added that it was like ABIDe had made a deal with the government where the government agreed to provide political cover and backing, ensuring that agencies would respond to initiatives and the members of ABIDe would provide outcomes. Officially, ABIDe has 23 members. In addition to the Chief Minister, it includes two Members of Parliament, several corporate leaders, present and retired government officials and bureaucrats, academics, members of the press and from Bangalore-based non-profit groups. Most of the members however act as advisors to a core group of four members, similar to the BATF. Interestingly, no former BATF members are part of ABIDe. Although this is partly due to 115 differences between the two political parties (the Congress and the BJP) and the new BJP government’s desire to establish a clear break with the earlier Congress government and everything that it stood for, it also stems from personal differences between former BATF members and current ABIDe members.72 While the Chief Minister officially chairs ABIDe, it is run and managed by the convener of the taskforce: Mr. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a Member of Parliament with close ties to the BJP.73 Mr. Chandrasekhar manages the daily working of the taskforce, acting as a liaison between the Chief Minister and the rest of the members. The members of ABIDe’s core working group were chosen and invited by Mr. Chandrasekhar, all of whom were part of his social or political circles. In addition to Mr. Chandrasekhar, the core group consists of three others: Mr. A. Ravindra (a retired senior bureaucrat and the former commissioner of the Bangalore Development Authority), Mr. R.K. Misra (a local entrepreneur and political activist) and Mr. Ashwin Mahesh (an academic and private entrepreneur).74 The remaining members that form the larger advisory body of ABIDe were either invited by the state government (i.e. the Chief Minister’s office or other senior bureaucrats) or were nominated by the core working group. 72 A person deeply involved in ABIDe told me that initially, several BATF members had expressed an interest in continuing their work in collaboration with the new BJP government. Mr. Ramanathan in particular had reached out to Mr. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the convener of ABIDe. In response, Mr. Chandrasekhar had invited him to attend initial ABIDe meetings. However, apparently Mr. Ramanathan and Mr. Chandrasekhar disagreed on how the new group should work and how power should be shared among members. As a result, Mr. Ramanathan withdrew his association with ABIDe and is no longer involved with the group. 73 He is also a successful entrepreneur who currently owns and manages Jupiter Capital, a venture capital firm in Bangalore Vincent, S. (2011), "Bangaloreans must demand to take their neighbourhoods back" Citizen Matters, Bangalore, March 7, 2011, http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/2679-rajeevchandrasekharinterview?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+citizenmatters%2Fbanga lore+%28Citizen+Matters+Bangalore+News%29.. 74 Both Mr. Ravindra and Mr. Misra are also closely affiliated with the BJP, the political party in power. Mr. Ravindra also runs a non-profit advocacy group in Bangalore called the Centre for Sustainable Development. Mr. Misra (http://rajendramisra.blogspot.com/) is a former Bangalore-based IT entrepreneur who is now an advocate for social entrepreneurship and good governance. He was also the winner of a popular national competition called Lead India run by the Times of India newspaper. Mr. Mahesh is a professor of Public Policy at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, one of the premier business schools in India. He is also a private entrepreneur and runs a firm called Mapunity that specializes in social technology applications (http://mapunity.in/). 116 While ABIDe has prepared several reports and action plans outlining recommendations in each of its four focal areas since its formation in late 2008, the main focus over the last three years has been the reform of urban governance and urban infrastructure in Bangalore. Mr. Ravindra, Mr. Misra and Mr. Mahesh have all set up organizations in Bangalore that provide services to government and non-government groups interested in implementing social advocacy and good governance practices. For example, Mr. Misra founded a group called SAHYOG that promotes public-private partnerships in Indian cities with a focus on public infrastructure provision; Mr. Mahesh runs Mapunity, a company that provides technological solutions to address social problems and development issues. ABIDe intends to implement urban governance reform in two related steps: the first is to pass the Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Governance Act (BMRGA), drafted by ABIDe members, which will then facilitate the next step: the implementation of ABIDe’s Plan Bengaluru 2020, a comprehensive development plan for the Greater Bangalore Region. The main aim of the Regional Governance Bill is to abolish the multitude of parastatal and local government agencies that currently manage and service Bangalore and replace it with a single large regional metropolitan administrative body as well as a directly elected Mayor with a five-year term.75 The bill simultaneously advocates for increased decentralization of local government through the creation of Neighborhood Area Committees (NACs) comprising of locally elected officials and neighborhood residents. However, it is ironic that in the preparation of the proposed bill, ABIDe has had very little input from local government officials. ABIDe’s Regional Governance Act and the new master plan were framed and written by ABIDe’s core group members. These documents were prepared without any input from related government agencies like the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) or the newly formed Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike (BBMP, the city corporation). There was also no public input either directly 75 The mayor is currently indirectly elected by members of the city council (who, in turn, are directly elected). 117 solicited or through various elected representatives. This violates the public participation mandate required by the recent urban governance reforms. Similar to the BATF, ABIDe is currently involved in techno-managerial decisionmaking for the government that is somewhat beyond its mandate as a taskforce. On several occasions, it has bypassed the very local governments that it is seeking to empower, especially the BBMP, arguing that ABIDe represents the public interest. ABIDe’s proposed plan and the Regional Governance Act have their merits: they promote greater decentralization and public involvement in the planning process. They also advocate for a more comprehensive approach to planning rather than focusing merely on land use and zoning in their master plan for Bangalore. However, it is unclear exactly how decentralization will work in the proposed reforms, since ABIDe simultaneously recommends the concentration of all planning decision-making in the hands of the Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (BMRDA), which is a parastatal body controlled by the state government (Daksh India, 2009). ABIDe has also refused to share any of these documents publicly until the state government has approved them despite several requests from urban activists and journalists, thereby discouraging any public debate on their content. While being interviewed for this dissertation, one ABIDe member defended their approach by saying that he and the other members were acting in their capacity as private individuals and were not liable or accountable to anyone other than the Chief Minister of the state. ABIDe members continue to insist however that these proposals are merely recommendations that the state government may or may not choose to implement. However, several infrastructure projects recommended by ABIDe have already been allocated funding in the BBMP’s budget for 201011, ensuring their implementation (Daksh India, 2009).76 In addition, ABIDe has 76 The projects that have been sanctioned in the budget include the development of signal-free corridors in the city to improve connectivity with the periphery, and particularly the new airport as well as improved bus connectivity for Bangalore’s central business district Daksh India (2009). Master Report on Review of Democracy and Performance of the Government of Karnataka, Daksh India. Bangalore. 118 successfully channeled funding from the JNNURM submission on Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) towards transportation-related improvements in Bangalore. The state government has also recently set up a one-man task force (comprising of ABIDe core group member, Dr. A. Ravindra) to prepare a draft Urban Development Policy for the state of Karnataka. ABIDe’s power comes largely from the close association that the core group members share with the ruling political party (the BJP). The BJP won the city elections held in 2010, giving ABIDe access to the newly elected city council as well. However, the BJP government has also been embroiled in several political and financial scandals in the last year (2010-11), prompting allegations of corruption against the Chief Minister. It is unclear what the impact of these allegations will be on ABIDe. While several ABIDe members have now been coopted into the formal government structure as advisors or independent consultants, it remains to be seen if their influence lasts beyond the next electoral cycle (the next state elections will be held in 2013). The task forces discussed in this section are noteworthy for a number of reasons. They represent a trend towards more flexible governance networks as the Indian government at the national and state levels comes to rely increasingly on nonstate actors to assist with urban policy and planning. The members of both the BATF and ABIDe had access to key resources such as financial capital and technology that the government wanted to mobilize. The state government, on the other hand, was able to provide task force members with access to governmental authority. The power that both the BATF and ABIDe had highlights the role the personal political and social networks and how they are being mobilized to achieve very specific political and developmental goals. As urban regions emerge as centers of political and economic power, these networks assume an added significance: the BATF and ABIDe were able to leverage their networks to develop “Brand Bangalore” as a competitive and attractive economic 119 destination and were also able (especially the BATF) to influence national urban policy. 3. Planning for Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is the main government agency responsible for the civic and infrastructure needs of the city, including the preparation and implementation of master plans for Pune, which it does in conjunction with the state’s urban development department (Kulabkar, 2002a). The PMC is typically concerned with the daily working of the city, taking a more reactive approach to planning and development: it regulates construction and new development, and manages infrastructure requirements as needed rather than actively planning for the future. Master planning in Pune has not been very successful. The last plan that was passed but only partially implemented was for a twenty-year period from 1987 to 2007 (Kulabkar, 2002b). Furthermore, subsequent plan proposals have been mired in controversy and have yet to be approved. Consequently, for the last three years when growth in Pune has been at its fastest, the city has been lacking a blueprint with which to plan for this growth. This section discusses how elite actors with contradictory goals formed separate coalitions to achieve them. On the one hand, there is the alliance between local (Pune-based) real estate developers and the PMC that is pushing for increased urban development on prime urban land currently reserved for public uses. CREDAI-Pune, formerly the Promoters and Builders Association of Pune (PBAP), largely represent the real estate sector in Pune. This is a group of over 300 Pune-based developers that constitute a very powerful lobby with political connections not only at the local (city-level) but also at the state-level. In addition to the group’s efforts, individual developers also have extensive political networks that they continually mobilize to reach their development goals.77 On the other 77 I discuss real estate development in Pune in more detail in Chapter 5, focusing on one particular project. 120 hand, there is a loose coalition of prominent citizens of Pune comprising of planners, environmentalists, journalists, civic activists and former government officials, now called the Green Pune movement, that has repeatedly come together to protest against plans and policies that the PMC has proposed, arguing that these plans largely favor the development lobby at the cost of the other residents of the city. The members of the Green Pune movement are also very well connected individuals, politically and socially. As we shall see below, they have successfully mobilized these networks to compel the PMC to rethink its proposed plans. The Green Pune movement emerged as a formal coalition in 2002, in response to proposed changes that the government intended to make in the new master plan or development plan for the city.78 As the name suggests, the members of the group are largely concerned with environmental issues, in particular, with the preservation of open space in Pune. However, they have also formed alliances with other interest groups, especially squatters on public land and various student groups, thereby broadening their support base. This is not the first time that the core members of the Green Pune movement have agitated against government plans: this alliance has a longer history and has been forming and reforming in various iterations with essentially the same core members since the late 1980s – early 1990s to draw attention to a variety of issues in Pune’s master plans. One of the major issues that the Green Pune movement has been lobbying for is the preservation of the hills that surround Pune. These hills form an important part of the city’s cultural, social and natural heritage. While most city residents use the hills for recreational purposes, several of these also hold religious significance for the city’s populations. Consequently, in most of the city plans thus far, the hills were reserved as public space with little, if any, development sanctioned on the hillsides (Kulabkar, 2002b). In addition, some of these hills are also home to a large section of the urban poor of the city who live in squatter settlements on the hillsides (Kulabkar, 2002b; Bapat, 2004). However, as the city 78 This plan would ideally have come into affect in 2007, when the last master plan’s mandate ended. 121 grew, local developers began to view the hills as prime real estate. A prominent case was that of a developer who bought a part of hill land in 1982 called Survey No. 44 in the then-draft plan (Kulabkar, 2002b). Although he made several attempts to get the land dereserved, i.e. get the zoning converted to urban land that would enable him to develop the land as private residences, this attempt was unsuccessful due to a public campaign against the proposed development of the hills through a partnership between journalists, environmentalists, government officials, academics, social activists and urban planners. This coalition was able to successfully petition the state and even the national governments to prevent the development of Survey No. 44 (Kulabkar, 2002b; Kulabkar, 2002a).79 The Green Pune movement was a reformation of this same group of people when the new development plan proposed similar changes. In 1997, 23 adjacent villages were incorporated into the city of Pune. As a result, the city needed to revise the existing master plan to include the newly incorporated villages. The PMC formed a committee that came up with a new development plan in 2002. Part of this new plan recommended opening up the hillsides to development. In earlier plans for the region, these had been reserved as protected areas and unavailable for development. However, these locations were also extremely attractive as potential development sites for luxury residences. The local developer lobby, led by CREDAI-Pune, successfully lobbied the city as well as state governments to dereserve a small percentage of the hills in order to enable development. In the new draft plan, the city government proposed that 4% of the hills would be dereserved and slated for development. When the plan was sent to the Maharashtra state government for approval, the state’s urban development department directed the city to permit not 4% but 20% of the hills to be slated for development. Following this decision, 79 Kulabkar has documented the detailed story and the politics of the implementation of the earlier plans in a series of papers. For more details on these, see Kulabkar, P. (2002a) NGOs and Urban Planning in India: The Case of Pune’s Development Plan. International Society for Third-Sector Research. Cape Town; Kulabkar, P. (2002b) The politics of implementing urban plans in India: The case of Pune's development plan. International development planning review, 24 (1), 77-103. 122 several local developers submitted proposals for development to the PMC that were approved. Shortly after, construction began. This was the catalyst that spurred the formation of the Green Pune movement as a formal coalition. Many of the individuals from the earlier protests of the 1980s and 1990s came together again. Several of these individuals were now in very different and in some cases, more powerful, positions. The core members of the Green Pune movement include Vandana Chavan, the former mayor of Pune and a municipal councilor; Aneeta Gokhale-Benninger, a prominent urban planner, environmentalist and the founder of the Centre for Development Studies; Vinita Deshmukh, a journalist who had formerly worked with the Express Citizens Forum (the local arm of a prominent English language daily, the Indian Express) during the earlier protests and now ran Intelligent Pune, a local newspaper; Sujit Patwardhan, a local architect and activist; Satish Khot, Vijay Kumbhar and Maj. Gen. Jatar (retired.), local civic activists. The core members come from a similar social background: some of them attended school together while others are old family friends. Several of the core members are also members of a few elite clubs in Pune, in particular a local jazz club.80 What began as a somewhat spontaneous alliance between friends grew into a larger citizens’ movement as the result of a strategic use of the resources that the group had at their disposal and an intelligent deployment of their political and social networks. The core members of the Green Pune movement adopted two strategies to make their case. First, they mounted a citizen awareness campaign. The key person in charge of this was Vinita Deshmukh. As a former journalist and now editor of her own newspaper, she had extensive connections in the local media. She drew on her professional network to disseminate information about the proposed development plan through local newspapers in English as well as Marathi (the 80 Another illustration of the closeness between the core members was the relationship between their families. For example, while being interviewed for this dissertation, the children of some of the core members referred to other core members as “mama” and “masi” (Meaning uncle [mother’s brother] and aunt [mother’s sister], respectively, in Marathi, the local language) 123 local language), ensuring wide circulation. In addition, local activists like Jatar, Khot and Kumbhar also mobilized citizen groups against the proposed plan. The movement was a huge success, with Green Pune collecting a total of 80,000 signatures protesting the proposed changes to the hills. Simultaneously, the rest of the group including Chavan, Gokhale-Benninger and Patwardhan examined the proposed plans and devised an appropriate strategy to register their protests and propose alternative solutions. In particular, they recommended that the city government continue to maintain the hills as open space, for public recreational purposes. They also requested that all sanctioned development projects on the hills be stayed until a final decision was taken. As a former mayor and councilor, Chavan had extensive connections within the city government. As a planner, teacher and activist, Gokhale-Benninger also had an extensive professional network. Moreover, she comes from a very well respected old Brahmin family that has been living in Pune for generations. This also gave her access to a substantial social network, which she mobilized as part of the public protest campaign. Together, they were able to lobby their contacts in the city government to stay development on the hills till an alternative more environmentally friendly plan had been considered (Interviews with Green Pune core members, 2008). This combined with the public campaigns to create significant pressure on the PMC, especially the Commissioner. This forced both the Maharashtra state and Pune city governments to reconsider their decision – the state government revoked its changes and a new planning committee was formed that included Aneeta Gokhale-Benninger as one of its members. Following the appointment of the planning committee, a new development plan was created with a stronger environmental focus. This ‘green’ plan preserved significantly larger portions of the hills as open space for public use, created a reservation of a biodiversity park that would connect key wildlife corridors in the region and also provided for various basic amenities like water and transportation infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and parks for the newly incorporated areas of the city. This plan was submitted to the city government for approval in 2005. The 124 general body of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) passed it after a contentious vote and sent it to the state government for final approval. This process took nearly three years. The state government however, favored the real estate lobby and revoked this plan, reinstating the earlier one and ordering the city to begin development on the hills. Not only was this a frustrating setback for the Green Pune movement, but as two of them mentioned to me, the core members also viewed this as a blatant disregard for public opinion on the part of the Maharashtra state government. In early 2008, the Green Pune movement reconvened. The core members launched another, more intense public campaign to demand that the city and state governments implement the 2005 ‘green’ development plan. The stakeholders involved in the campaign had grown – two youth organizations had joined forces with Green Pune in addition to the core group that was earlier part of the movement. One of these was a teenage youth organization while another was a group called Yuth-2-Yuth. The more experienced members of Green Pune prepared a letter of objection to the plans and a list of the Green Pune movement’s proposed changes and published them in various newspapers.81 The newspaper articles encouraged Pune residents to sign and send these to their local governmental officials. In addition to the media campaign, the two youth groups were instrumental in mobilizing a public signature campaign across the city. Members of the youth groups approached Pune residents in person asking them to sign the letter of objection and arranged to have them delivered to the city council. Chavan and Gokhale-Benninger also met repeatedly with the city government, especially the Municipal Commissioner, to petition the city council to reinstate the 2005 plan. The unexpected support that this movement got from the city government was perhaps the most unusual aspect of this entire campaign. 81 The letter of objection and the formal list of objections to the proposed plan are attached in the Appendix to this dissertation. 125 Voting across party lines, the general body of the municipal corporation upheld the new ‘green’ plan and rejected the verdict of the Maharashtra state government. This was unprecedented. The city government demanded an explanation from the state government for approving development on public space in Pune, when the plan prepared by the city’s representatives had clearly rejected it. Moreover, the corporators also raised allegations of corruption against a group of municipal councilors and ministers in the state government, accusing them of being in league with the real estate development lobby and sacrificing the ‘public interest’ of the city to short-term personal gain. As of the time of writing (March 2011), a decision on the fate of the Pune’s master plan is pending. The Green Pune movement had won this round. A coalition of various urban stakeholders had managed to carve a space out for themselves, and as a consequence, had been co-opted into the governance process. It is also clear that it was due to the unique set of resources that the members of the Green Pune movement had at their disposal that the campaign was able to attain the degree of success that it achieved. The campaign also raised important issues about the city’s environment and open space preservation. However, the Green Pune movement’s agenda was decidedly middle-class and somewhat elitist. There were few considerations given to low-income settlements on the hills. In fact, some real estate developers I spoke to claimed that the 2005 ‘green’ plan would also displace a significant proportion of low-income residents without providing them with alternative accommodation. When questioned about this issue, Green Pune members refuted this, arguing that the preservation of open space in Pune and the continued reservation of the hills was in the public interest and would benefit all city residents. 4. Conflicts and contestations In the case of both Bangalore and Pune, we have seen a growing involvement of non-state actors in urban governance debates. In both cases, stakeholders that have initiated the process and formed the core group of the coalition have come 126 from the elite upper middle-class group. However, in Pune and Bangalore, nonstate actors involved in the taskforces as well as in the Green Pune movement have insisted that they are not elitist but are undertaking these responsibilities on behalf of the larger public and for ‘the greater good’ of the city. One of the core members of ABIDe insists that any private citizen in Bangalore can accomplish as much by participation (Interview, ABIDe core group member, 2009). Similarly members of Green Pune have repeatedly refuted the claim that they are elitist and are ignoring more basic issues that the majority of Pune’s population is facing such as the provision of basic infrastructure and civic amenities (Interview, Green Pune core members, 2008). While it may be possible in theory in Bangalore and Pune for any individual to participate and influence government decision-making, it is not likely to be the case in practice. Those who are involved in the coalitions discussed in this chapter are extremely well connected individuals who have access to or constitute political power (like Mr. S.M. Krishna in Bangalore, or several members of the Green Pune movement) as well as financial capital. Without these resources at their disposal, it is unlikely that either coalition would have succeeded. In the case of Bangalore, there were clear distinctions between those groups that were selectively invited by the state government to participate in defining the city’s future and those that worked outside the rubric of government to demand a broader engagement. The government created a participation model, selectively inviting specific groups to participate, excluding others. Given the exclusive nature of both taskforces and their deep connections to party politics in Karnataka, it should come as no surprise that both the BATF and ABIDe have been the cause of severe conflict and contestation between various stakeholders in the city. There are three clear conflicts surrounding the taskforces that have emerged in Bangalore: the first is a power struggle between the members of the BATF and ABIDe; the second is a conflict between the local (city) government, its officials and the members of both taskforces; and finally, a fierce debate about the legitimacy of both ABIDe and the BATF has emerged between NGOs, citizen 127 groups and community-based organizations that have not been included in either taskforce on the one hand, and the members of the taskforce and the state government on the other. I will address each of these in turn. While ABIDe has tried very hard to differentiate itself from the BATF, the agenda of both groups remains much the same, as does the manner in which they function. Initially, after the state assembly elections in 2008, members of the BATF were trying to get the taskforce reinstated. However, after some negotiation, the new Chief Minister, Dr. B.S. Yeddyurappa, turned down this suggestion. Instead, he appointed his own taskforce, giving the chair, Mr. Chandrasekhar a free hand to select other members (Interview, ABIDe core group member, 2009). This in itself was a blow to the former BATF members who had not expected a new taskforce to be set up. Mr. Chandrasekhar invited some of the former BATF members to participate in the new taskforce. While several of them declined to do so, a few agreed, chief of these being Ramesh Ramanathan – the head of a local NGO, Janaagraha. Mr. Ramanathan had been an extremely vocal and visible member of the BATF and is now an influential personality in national urban governance policy debates (Ghosh, 2006; Kamath, 2006). Conversations with ABIDe members revealed that, before long, tensions arose between Mr. Chandrasekhar and Mr. Ramanathan over the management and running of ABIDe and Mr. Ramanathan finally stopped participating in ABIDe. In part, this is a result of party politics in Karnataka. Mr. Ramanathan and the BATF were very strongly allied with the Congress party that was defeated in the 2008 elections. The identity, power and control that the BATF had drew on this association with the Congress. The right-wing Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the new government in Karnataka in 2008. The new government was anxious to distinguish itself from the earlier Congress government and its associates. The BJP government and its affiliates were also concerned with retaining as much power and control (most of the members of ABIDe have very strong pro-BJP tendencies) and were not willing to share power with former BATF members with pro-Congress tendencies. Consequently, what could have 128 been a profitable association has now turned into a hostile relationship between prominent stakeholders in Bangalore. A second set of conflicts has emerged between ABIDe and the local (city) government officials. ABIDe and its core members have been obtaining permissions directly from the Chief Minister’s office and his aides to enable their agenda of urban reform. For example, core team members of ABIDe have been able to question the spending practices of city transportation agencies, examine their finances and recommend and implement changes to the expenditure plans of these local agencies. Local officials have resented this intrusion in their affairs on two counts. The first is that ABIDe is a taskforce and does not have the mandate to implement its recommendations, since there are no elected representatives on the task force and these reforms have been implemented at the sole discretion of task force members without any public participation. Since the passing of the 74th Constitutional Amendment, local urban bodies should be in control over decision-making processes within their jurisdictions. Moreover, ABIDe is bypassing the very local bodies that it claims to want to empower. Several local politicians have publicly spoken out against the practice of ABIDe members involving themselves in local government affairs, causing a political controversy in the state (Vincent, 2009b). There have also been instances of public disagreement between members of the Chief Minister’s cabinet and ABIDe, particularly over issues of power sharing and the implementation of reforms (Vincent, 2009a). Perhaps the most consistent protests against the taskforces have come from NGOs and community groups representing marginalized groups in the city as well as the larger ‘public interest’. Chief among these have been Hasiru Usiru, a spontaneous network of concerned Bangalore citizens and the Environmental Support Group (ESG) led by Leo Saldanha. These groups have repeatedly protested against the free reign that was given first to the BATF and now to ABIDe, to proceed beyond the mandate that was assigned to them as taskforces 129 and their attempts to implement their recommendations. Mr. Saldanha has been particularly outspoken against ABIDe. The opposition to the taskforces includes, among other issues, trouble with their lack of transparency and accountability and that the manner in which they function is both undemocratic and unconstitutional. In Pune, by contrast, the organization of coalitions took place almost entirely outside the framework of formal governmental structures. That said, the eventual support of the city government was essential to the success of the Green Pune movement. Coalitions between various stakeholders were formed in response to a specific situation created by the actions of the government. Informal coalitions were formed and these groups demanded to be allowed to participate and eventually succeeded. The Green Pune movement has been able to successfully mobilize its core team as well as its larger base with the help of the local print media and the support of various citizen groups like the youth groups discussed above. In Bangalore as well as Pune, we are seeing a growth of an active and vocal middle class, a trend observed by several scholars in other Indian cities as well (Baviskar, 2003; Chatterjee, 2004b; Fernandes and Heller, 2006; Benjamin, 2007; Ghertner, 2011). In Pune however, the movement was voluntary, and had a larger base, and was cast as being much more in the ‘public interest’. This was mainly because almost everyone in the vocal middle class in Pune was in favour of this change. In Bangalore, however, there are clear divisions within civil society. Those that have the ear of the government are considered to be in a privileged position by others (like ESG, for example) who don’t, partly because it was the government that initiated this participation. There are others, within the same socio-economic class that have been excluded and are therefore the loudest voices against these coalitions in Bangalore. In both cases, there is almost no representative from lower economic sections, although both groups (in 130 Bangalore and Pune) claim to be advocating on behalf of the entire city, ‘for the greater good’. This is a growing trend in Indian cities where a variety of civil society organizations are playing increasingly important roles in urban governance (Chatterjee, 2004a; Nainan and Baud, 2008). Governments have begun to use the ‘third force’ or civil society groups to negotiate the terrain between the formal and informal, and act as a liaison between various governmental agencies and other stakeholders (Heitzman, 2004). This is especially evident in the case of the two task forces in Bangalore where successive state governments co-opted key actors from the private sector into the governance and planning processes. The 74th Constitutional Amendment outlines a specific role for civil society organizations like community groups and NGOs as part of Ward Committees that have been discussed in the previous chapter. However, the incorporation of NGOs and other citizens’ groups into government are not in keeping with that policy. These associations are much more informal – groups of people are capitalizing on their individual resources like their personal social and political networks, taking advantage of opportunities that are becoming available to them to claim a space in the debate on urban futures in India. 131 CHAPTER V BUILDING UP: URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN BANGALORE AND PUNE 1. Introduction: The spatial transformation of Indian cities has perhaps been the most visible outcome of the economic liberalization program that began in the early 1990s. Rapid urban population growth, economic growth spurred by liberalization reforms and an influx of domestic and international capital have been accompanied by demands for improved infrastructure, better governance and a growing need for land and real estate development, making urban India a target for real estate-related domestic and foreign investments (Chaudhary, 2007; Menon, 2007; Chandrashekhar, 2010; Khaleej Times, 2011). This has been complemented by the Indian national government’s efforts to encourage domestic and international private sector involvement in urban development by relaxing the guidelines for private and foreign investment in real estate (Ministry of Commerce & Industry, 2002; Ministry of Finance, 2007). A change in the focus and priorities of the Indian government at the national and regional levels over the last two decades has coincided with and perhaps created an environment where urban stakeholders in India have much greater power and freedom to act than they have had before.82 In this chapter, I argue that as a result of these changes, networks of state and non-state actors in Indian cities are able to mobilize and form strategic alliances with other networks to achieve specific development goals (such as land assembly, deregulation of land or 82 Although this alone does not ensure that these stakeholders will actually be able to influence decisionmaking. 132 raising financial capital). Similar to urban coalitions discussed in Chapter 4, the alliances discussed in this chapter also have their roots in personal networks and are formed around the ability of various stakeholders to mobilize specific resources (such as access to land, government authority and financial capital) using their personal relations as bargaining tools. This chapter explores the evolving relationship between developers, landowners, politicians and planners in Indian cities, focusing on two successful examples of real estate development: one each in Bangalore and Pune. The first is the story of the development of a 400-acre township, Magarpatta City, on former farmland on the eastern periphery of Pune, Maharashtra. The second examines the development of a similar but smaller project, Prestige Shantiniketan, in the heart of Bangalore’s information technology (IT) corridor. While a favorable economic and political climate was essential to the success of both projects, the development of Magarpatta City and Prestige Shantiniketan additionally depended significantly on the strategic use of socio-political networks and personal connections of those involved. This chapter also examines the manner in which power over urban development in Indian cities is under going realignment. Using the two urban development projects as a lens, I explore how key actors in Indian cities are being empowered as centers of power and politics in Indian cities shift and adapt to a changing economic and political environment. 2. Understanding Indian urban development: On the southwest fringe of New Delhi, just across the Haryana state border in Gurgaon, stands DLF City. Sprawled over 3000 acres and almost a city in itself, it is one of Asia’s largest townships, being built by Delhi Land and Finance (DLF) Limited in five phases (DLF, 2007). Further south, on Bangalore’s periphery, RG Villas, an Italian themed community with luxury villas, an international school, malls, movie theatres, an equestrian and polo centre, swimming pools, a ‘village square’ and a Jack Nicklaus signature 18-hole golf course proclaims itself to be “India’s most exclusive gated community” ((Promotional material, Royal Garden 133 Villas, 2008). DLF City, RG Villas and similar developments are in various stages of construction on the peripheries of several Indian cities. They range from private enclaves or gated communities of 30 to 40 acres to large integrated townships spread over thousands of acres of land.83 Intended to be largely selfsufficient, these developments include large tracts of residential and office space as well as shopping and entertainment complexes, schools, hospitals and hotels. Some also provide physical infrastructure such as roads and dedicated water and power supply. The building of these projects in the Indian context is accompanied both in rhetoric and physical design, by the aspiration to become ‘global’ or ‘world-class’, echoing the sentiments of city and state governments (Times News Network, 2006; PTI, 2009b; The Hindu, 2010). These aspirations are also being given considerable governmental assistance in the form of financial incentives, easy availability of land, and a speedy approval and permitting process for such projects (Roy, 2009b). This form of urban development is not unique to India alone nor is it a recent phenomenon. Regions around the world are witnessing the development of similar mega-projects that include a variety of ‘complex components’ such as different types of homes (ranging from apartment buildings to stand-alone villas, for example), service industries (like information technology, tourism and leisure 83 Although specific definitions of what constitutes an ‘integrated township’ differs from state to state in India, this form of development is broadly understood to be a single large project, sometimes enclosed within a walled boundary. Integrated townships typically include a variety of land uses and services within the project boundaries such as housing, commercial premises, hotels, resorts, city and regional level urban infrastructure facilities such as roads and bridges, mass rapid transit systems. For more on integrated townships and the role that Indian national and state governments envision for these projects, see: Joshi, R. (2009) Integrated townships as a policy response to changing supply and demand dynamics of urban growth. IN Mohanty, N., Sarkar, R. & Pandey, A. (Eds.) India Infrastructure Report. New Delhi, India, 3iNetwork (India) & the Infrastructure Development Finance Company (India). For examples of more descriptive accounts of integrated townships and popular writing on the issue, see: PTI (2009a) Integrated townships new mantra for developers. DNA. Web ed. Mumbai, India, Diligent Media Corporation Ltd; Bari, P. & Savitha, R. (2010) Rush of integrated townships into Pune. The Economic Times. Web ed. Mumbai, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd; Chandrashekhar, V. (2010) As wealth rises in India, so do private towns. The Christian Science Monitor. Web ed. Boston, MA. Details of what constitutes an integrated township with respect to foreign direct investment may be found here: Ministry of Commerce & Industry, G. O. I. (2002) Guidelines for FDI in development of integrated township including housing and building material (Press Note No. 3 [2002 Series]), Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion. New Delhi, India Government of India For an example of a specific state government policy document on integrated townships, see: Government of Maharastra (2005) Notification: regarding regulations for development of townships in the area under Pune Regional Plan. Urban Development Department 134 industries), shared facilities like recreational spaces and infrastructure (such as roads and waste management facilities) and new transport facilities (Lungo, 2002; Orueta and Fainstein, 2008: 760). While there is little consensus on what is causing a proliferation of urban mega-projects globally, a few possible reasons have been suggested. Brenner and Theodore (2004) have argued that the development of urban mega-projects is part of the agenda of the neoliberal national state where the government prefers to act as a facilitator of projects rather than developer (Brenner, 2004; Orueta and Fainstein, 2008: 760). However, Orueta and Fainstein (2008) suggest that the motivations behind mega-project development are not the same in developing and developed countries. For example, they argue that mega-project development in cities in the developed world (especially those emerging from or engaged in economic revitalization efforts) is often a means of “confronting the threat of global competition” whereas similar projects in cities like Shanghai or Dubai from the developing world “are seen to symbolize their rise to power rather than being regarded as defensive actions” (Orueta and Fainstein, 2008: 761). In the Indian case, the development of large integrated townships like DLF City or luxury private enclaves like RG Villas constitutes a departure from the way Indian urban development has been taking place from independence to the early 1990s. Government agencies like the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and public sector companies like Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bangalore were very active in building housing in Indian cities. This was supplemented by local private sector developers, although few of them had a national presence or the ability to develop large parcels, usually restricting their activities to specific regions: for example, development companies such as DLF and Unitech were well established in northern India particularly around Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) but had a negligible presence outside that region. However, the demand for sanitized conditions, reliable infrastructure, and other amenities like schools and hospitals in close proximity have made gated communities and townships desirable residences (Joshi, 2009; PTI, 2009a; 135 Chandrashekhar, 2010; Interviews with real estate developers and contractors). The national and state-level governments also view integrated townships as a way of addressing the urban housing crisis (Joshi, 2009).84 To encourage a greater rate of township development, the Indian national government began to gradually liberalize the real estate sector in 2002 (Searle, 2010). The opening up of the real estate sector to domestic and international private sector investors and the simultaneous liberalization of the financial sector has impacted real estate developers and development in two important ways. First, the liberalization of the finance sector and easing of restrictions on investment have made it easier for developers to legally source capital with a variety of newly available financial instruments as well as a growing number of institutional investors such as mutual funds now available (Menon, 2007; The Economic Times, 2007; Khaleej Times, 2011). For example, with the recent changes governing foreign direct investment (FDI), FDI is now permitted in development and construction projects, without prior approval from the national government or the Reserve Bank of India; venture capital and mutual funds are allowed to invest in real estate projects; and banks (public and private sector) are increasingly offering loans for development and construction (Ministry of Commerce & Industry, 2002; Searle, 2010). A growing number of development firms have also issued Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), listing their assets on the Bombay Stock Exchange to raise capital (Table 4) while some real estate firms (such as K. Raheja, Hiranandani Constructions and Unitech) are also listed on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) (Searle, 2010). 84 The National Urban Housing Policy (2007) explicitly highlights the need to build integrated townships as a way of dealing with increasing urban population. Moreover, specific state governments (Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, for example) have formulated integrated township development policies to help the government with creation of urban infrastructure as well as housing development 3iNetwork (India) & Infrastructure Development Finance Company (India) (2009). India Infrastructure Report 2009: Land - A Critical Resource for Infrastructure, 3iNetwork (India) & the Infrastructure Development Finance Company (India). Oxford University Press, New Delhi, India. 136 Name of firm Sadbhav Engineering D.S. Kulkarni Developers, Ltd. Patel Engineering, Ltd. Parsvnath Developers Ltd. DLF Date of offer 2006 2006 2006 2006 2007 Amount (In Rs. crores) 53.65 133.65 425.0 1089.77 9187.5 Table 4: Selected real estate firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Source: (Searle, 2010) Second, the combination of increasing domestic and foreign investment as well as growing demand for housing, retail and office space have made it possible for real estate developers to expand their operations beyond their traditional strongholds. While developers earlier limited their activities to specific states or regions, domestic development companies are now emerging as national level players. For example, DLF has expanded from Gurgaon in northern India to become one of India’s largest real estate development companies with projects in most major Indian metro areas: the company’s profits have risen from about US $9.2 million (Rs. 46 crore) in 2004-05 to over US $1.6 billion (Rs. 78,500 million crore) in 2007-08 (Searle, 2010). As they expand nationally, private development companies have also amassed large tracts of land (or ‘landbanks’) that serve both as collateral for loans and to build the company’s asset base (Interviews with real estate developers in Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai). For example, according to Searle (2010), just prior to announcing their IPO in 2008, Emaar Properties had a landbank of almost 13,000 acres, most of which consisted of agricultural land (Rai, 2007). As real estate emerges as a growth sector for the Indian economy, it is also simultaneously shaping conflict and contestation around the issue of urban and peri-urban land (Dupont, 2007; The Economic Times, 2007; Benjamin, 2008). These conflicts are rooted in both the scarcity of land and the growing multiplicity of claims being placed on this land (Dupont, 2007). As the “state” in its various forms appropriates land in and around Indian cities, it sanctions certain developmental agendas over others. For example, state governments have been assisting large corporations to acquire large parcels of land on the urban 137 periphery for various uses ranging from developing Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and industrial plants to large integrated townships and business campuses (Searle, 2010). In response, there has been a growing dissidence from different interest groups who also have a stake in that land (such as farmers, agriculturalists, small landowners, fishing communities and others who depend on land for their livelihood). There have been a number of high profile cases recently where members of different marginalized impacted communities came together to protest against state-sponsored developments, indicating that alliances between these interest groups are of increasing importance. These protests also often have the support of opposition political parties giving them access to political power as well – for example, in the case of the Singur conflict, peasant groups were supported by opposition party leaders in West Bengal (Bunsha, 2006; Financial Express Bureau, 2008). In this chapter, I use two projects, one each in Pune and Bangalore, as a way of understanding the process by which specific types of projects, namely, large integrated townships and gated communities in Indian cities, are being developed as well as the power structures in each city entailed in this kind of development. I focus particularly on the roles that particular interest groups or individual actors play and how they use personal relationships and networks to enable them to successfully achieve their goals. I begin with a discussion of Magarpatta City in Pune, examining how individual social and political connections were key to the successful completion of this project. Studying Magarpatta City revealed fascinating connections between state-level politicians, bureaucrats and farmers in Pune. The second project is Prestige Shantiniketan in Bangalore’s information technology (IT) hub of Whitefield. Examining this project laid open a complex hierarchical network in Bangalore of developers, middlemen, real estate ‘agents’, large IT corporations, state-level politicians and government bureaucrats. In both cases, the developers and landowners used their personal social, political and business networks, leveraging connections within and outside government to achieve their developmental goals. These cases reflect a planning 138 regime in India that often seems to be antithetical to the very idea of planning (Roy, 2009b). 3. Building Magarpatta City: n tio Na ad Ahm H al wa igh ad Ahm r Ro naga r Ro naga ad ad y4 a -Muth Mula ersity Road nd Bu ar G ad Ro i Mu rpad Gho a ndhw d Ro a R Shivaji Ro ad Gh alib Ma rg Solapur Road Sola pur R oad Satara Road Til ak Mir za oad rv e Ka ad Ro Mahatma Gandhi Road Ja ng li Ma h ar a jR oa d Univ n de river ¯ 0 Legend Major roads 0.5 Map made by Neha Sami January 2012 Source: Open Streets; Cloudmade Downloads Magarpatta City Rivers Lakes Open space Figure 4: Location of Magarpatta City, on the eastern periphery of Pune. Image source: Open Street; Cloudmade Downloads 139 1 2 Miles Located in Hadapsar on the eastern periphery of Pune, (Figure 4), Magarpatta City stands on 400 acres of erstwhile farmland that has been owned by the Magar farming community for over 300 years.85 The Magar community is one of the many sub-groups that make up the elite Maratha-Kunbi caste in Western Maharashtra (Kumar, 2007). The members of this caste cluster are typically engaged in agriculture or related occupations and are “bound together through kin networks and behave as one large social continuum”, acting collectively (Jadhav, 2006: 5157). In the Magar community, for example, most of the farmer families have strong kinship ties through blood relations as well as through intermarriage within the group. Jadhav (2006: 5157) adds that although members of the Maratha-Kunbi caste seem to be somewhat socially homogenous, the group is “internally stratified on the basis of economic class, ranging from landlords to marginal peasants and landless labourers.” There was significant economic disparity in the Magarpatta farming community, reflected in the size of family landholdings: the smallest farmer owned less than half an acre of land while the largest owned over 150 acres (Interview, Staff (MTDCC), 2008). Hadapsar, the part of Pune where Magarpatta City is located, also houses a large industrial estate as well as several Information Technology (IT), Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) and biotechnology companies. Consequently there was and continues to be a great demand for housing space as well as commercial and retail establishments in the area. Moreover, the 1982 draft development plan for Pune identified this area of the city as being a potential location for increasing urban development (Dalal, 2008). Feeling the pressure of urbanization, the farmers in the region (small and medium landholders) were worried by the prospect of losing both their homes and livelihood if the area were to be developed as part of the city. Small farmers in the area had already begun to sell off their land (Dalal, 2008). As several 85 ‘Magar’ is the name of the clan that owns most of the land in the area, while ‘patta’ means land strip. The name ‘Magarpatta’ therefore means ‘the strip of land owned by the Magars’. 140 respondents associated with the Magarpatta Township Development and Construction Company (MTDCC) said during interviews, the Magar community knew that it would only be a matter of time before developers began to approach them to buy their property. Collectively, the community owned more than 400 acres of land. Taking advantage of the existing demand in the area, the farmers decided to pool their land together and develop it themselves instead of selling it to another developer. Pune’s farmers have been key players in the city’s real estate development industry. They are also an extremely powerful community, financially and politically as a consequence of their involvement in the region’s sugar cooperative movement.86 In addition to fostering a culture of cooperation and collaboration, the sugar cooperatives have also been extremely influential politically (Chithelen, 1980/1981; Lalvani, 2008). Farmers in Pune are therefore no strangers to politics. While land acquisition and development is highly politicized in Pune as in most Indian cities, what is unusual is the role that farmers play in the development process. They own a significant amount of land in and around Pune. They are also highly involved in politics at the local level. As a result, in Pune, the farmers, local politicians and the real estate lobby overlap to a large extent. Satish Magar (the founder of MTDCC) and his family are an example of this overlap: both his grandfather and uncle were prominent local and state-level politicians and also owned agricultural land that was actively being farmed. Magar’s father owned a civil engineering company that was involved in real estate development and construction projects. Satish Magar himself was trained at the agricultural college in Pune with the intent of pursuing agro-based occupations, but eventually turned to real estate development with the 86 A very successful co-operative movement, which began around the 1950s, controls sugarcane farming and the manufacture of sugar in Maharashtra. It was also very closely connected to local, regional and state level politics. At one time, the leaders of the sugar co-operatives influenced the state government very strongly. This led to serious issues of corruption and power grabbing. While the co-operatives are still in operation, their hold over state politics is somewhat diminished. For more see Chithelen, I. (1985) Origins of Co-operative Sugar Industry in Maharashtra. Economic and Political Weekly, 20 (14), 604-612; Lalvani, M. (2008) Sugar Co-operatives in Maharashtra: A Political Economy Perspective. Journal of Development Studies, 44 (10), 1474 - 1505. 141 development of Magarpatta City. There are several other examples of farmers who were involved in the sugar co-operatives moving on to play important roles in the state legislature, a couple of whom even rose to be Chief Minister (such as Sharad Pawar) (Lalvani, 2008) While not actively involved in real estate development, these farmer-turned-politicians continue to own property and have interests in urban development in the Pune region. Magarpatta City owes its success largely to three key factors: the favourable economic climate in Pune at the time, the entrepreneurial nature of the Magar community, and the coalitions that one of the farmers – Satish Magar – was able to mobilize, by leveraging his social networks. Satish Magar is not an ordinary farmer. He comes from a very influential local family, extremely well connected socially and politically. His grandfather was mayor of Pune. His uncle was a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the Maharashtra state government and later, also a Member of Parliament (MP) and was very influential especially in state politics (Dalal, 2008). As politicians, both his grandfather and uncle had very close ties with the Congress Party, which happened to be in power in the state government in the 1990s, when Magarpatta City was being conceived. Mr. Magar’s father was an engineer and ran his own civil construction firm. Satish Magar was therefore familiar with both politics and project development. Moreover, he and his family were the largest landholders in the Magar community. Of the 400 acres that collectively belonged to the Magar farming community, Satish Magar and his family owned about 150 acres. All of this added to the influence that Satish Magar had on the decision-making process within the farmer community. Mr. Magar and his social and political connections proved to be invaluable in the development of Magarpatta City. He leveraged his influence with the farmer community to encourage them to participate in the project. Several of the farmers in the community often looked to Satish Magar, or Satish ‘dada’ as he is fondly 142 known, for advice.87 As several interview respondents involved with the development project and close to Mr. Magar narrated to me, he met with the farmer families individually and as a group repeatedly, demonstrating the costs and benefits of the project. He particularly highlighted the fact that developing the land would ensure that the farmers continued to own their land while selling the land would be a one-time gain with unclear future prospects. This along with the reassurance that Satish Magar himself was going to be contributing all of his family’s land helped generate confidence in the project among the Magar community. Satish Magar also tapped into his vast personal social network to request advice and assistance from experts in a variety of fields as consultants to the project. Essentially two broad coalitions were formed, with Mr. Magar at the center of each. The first was an alliance that Mr. Magar formed with the farmer families in order to create the parcel of land on which the development was to take place. The second was actually a series of smaller alliances with specific individuals that came together as the board of directors of the company and in the form of various consultants to the project consisting of experts from different fields including information technology, education, finance and planning and design. I explain these in more detail below. The favorable economic climate in Maharashtra and Pune was another key factor that contributed to Magarpatta City’s success. Following economic liberalization, several multinational companies began to establish a presence in the Indian market (Clay, 2005; Business Standard staff, 2007). Pune with its proximity to Mumbai and ready pool of highly skilled labour emerged as an attractive location (Shaw, 1999; The Independent, 2008). As a result, the demand for residential and office space in Pune rose (Jones Lang LaSalle, 2006; Bajaj, 2011; Sinha and ET Bureau, 2011). As I discussed in Chapter 3, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has been unable to cope with this growth, providing the perfect 87 ‘Dada’ means ‘elder brother’ in Marathi, the local language. 143 opportunity for the private sector to fill the void. While several local developers jumped into the fray, Magarpatta City was one of the first integrated township projects to begin offering mixed-use development i.e. office, residential commercial and institutional space located in close physical proximity within the project boundary. There continues to be a spate of large project development in and around Pune, most of which has been built by various coalitions between mostly local (Pune-based) real estate developers and city and state level politicians (Bari and Savitha, 2010; Chandrashekhar, 2010; Interviews with Punebased developers and former government officials). What is unusual about Magarpatta City is that it was a very ambitious project born out of an alliance between the landowners, without any real estate developers being involved. The Magarpatta Township Development and Construction Company (MTDCC) was formed as a private limited company to oversee development and management of the project. Before forming the company, a variety of models were considered, including a co-operative approach. The co-operative approach was rejected partly based on the experiences of the sugar co-operative movement in Maharashtra but also because landholding sizes within the community varied immensely. A co-operative structure would have stressed equality rather than equity and might have dampened some of the enthusiasm and initiative that the families had. In addition, since landholding sizes ranged from one acre to 150 acres, giving equal importance to all landholders would have taken away the incentive the farmers had for pooling their land (Deshmukh, 2008; Ganguli, 2008) Mr. Prakash Deshmukh, the architect (i.e. the physical designer) of Magarpatta City, explained to me that the driving idea behind the formation of a private limited company was to put a structure in place that functioned efficiently but was also democratic, thereby giving the landowners a say in the running of the business. He added that the forming of the company was made easier by the fact that all the farmers, including Satish Magar, owned and farmed their own land. Each family got shares proportional to its landholding and has been made an equity shareholder. Each share is equal to one square 144 metre of land. The shares of the company may be held and traded among member families only and not publicly traded. The company is run by the managing director and the technical director in consultation with the board of directors, eight of whom come from the landholding families (Deshmukh, 2008; Ganguli, 2008). Drawing on a personal acquaintance, Satish Magar approached a prominent architect and designer from Mumbai, Hafeez Contractor, with the proposal to produce the initial master plan for the township. With the preliminary plan ready, Mr. Magar approached Mr. Sharad Pawar, the then Chief Minister of the state, with whom he had close personal ties, for assistance in getting governmental permissions.88 This was a particularly challenging undertaking since permission for urban development on agricultural land in India is notoriously difficult to obtain (Morris and Pandey, 2009). The recently retired Cabinet Secretary for the state of Maharashtra, Mr. B. G. Deshmukh, another acquaintance, was one of the consultants on the project. He introduced Mr. Magar to the Secretary for Urban Planning in Maharashtra at that time, Mr. D. T. Joseph, who took a personal interest in the project. These connections were vital to obtain project approval and building permissions from the government. Magarpatta City was one of the first projects of its kind to be proposed in the state of Maharashtra. There were several legal and regulatory constraints that were in place at the time that would have made the construction of such a project challenging, for example, the Urban Land Ceiling Regulation Act (ULCRA) that had been put in place to prevent a few individuals or entities from controlling large plots of land.89 Navigating government bureaucracy and obtaining the requisite permissions would have been close to impossible for a group of farmers without these political connections. 88 Mr. Pawar was then a very high-ranking leader in the Congress Party. He now heads his own political party: the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). He comes from a small village near Pune and is extremely influential in the region. He has a very close relationship with the sugar cooperatives and the farmers in the area. His daughter and nephew continue to be prominent in regional politics in Pune. Mr. Magar’s family knew him as a result of their political background. 89 Magarpatta City’s proposal to pool land together would have been in violation of this act. This act has since been repealed. 145 Another major obstacle to the development of Magarpatta City was the lack of financing. As farmers, the Magars did not have significant capital to invest in the development of the project. However, they did have one big advantage: since they as landowners were themselves developing the land, they did not have any land acquisition costs nor any displacement or resettlement issues. Given the regulatory structure for lending to real estate companies in India at that time, it was difficult to get bank loans for development projects.90 In addition, bankers and financiers did not consider the project to be feasible. During interviews with bankers at the Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) as well as with employees at MTDCC, respondents explained the bank’s reluctance in financing Magar’s proposal: a group of farmers with no prior knowledge or experience in real estate development did not inspire confidence in lenders. However, Satish Magar was well acquainted with the retired Deputy General Manager (DGM) of one of the leading development finance institutions in India – the Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC). On his advice, Mr. Magar approached the managing director of HDFC, Mr. Deepak Parekh and managed to obtain an initial loan of Rs. 2 crore (approximately USD 420,000) to help them start construction (Dalal, 2008).91 Moreover, Mr. Parekh shared a personal rapport with Mr. Magar and provided valuable guidance on the actual construction and marketing process (Dalal, 2008; Interviews, Banking officials (HDFC), 2009). HDFC also entered into a preferential lender agreement with MTDCC whereby it offered lower rates of interest for retail home loans to those interested in buying property in Magarpatta City (Interviews, Banking officials (HDFC), 2009) . The actual planning and design process was essentially managed and controlled by the board of directors. The time that it took to get the necessary clearances 90 Loans in India are typically granted for construction costs rather than land acquisition. Once the state or city government agency approves plans, the financial institution loans money on a phase-by-phase basis, requiring the simultaneous development of a revenue stream and the completion of one phase of construction prior to loaning more money. 91 USD 1 is approximately equal to Rs. 48 at the present exchange rate (2009). 146 from the government was used for capacity building. As I learned during interviews with MTDCC staff, the company promoted and encouraged entrepreneurship among the farmers by providing special training to develop particular skill sets relating to construction, development and associated services. At least one working member from each of the 120 farmer families was trained based on aptitude tests so that he would be able to assist with the actual construction of the project. Some farmers were sent to various construction sites across India to study how other projects were being executed while others were sent to learn construction management or other specific skills at local technical institutes. Satish Magar provided the funds for this initial training personally. As a result, the company had its own team trained by the time it was ready to start construction. This had a dual purpose: not only did it cut down on the cost of construction since most of the work was being done in-house; it also helped erstwhile farmers to gradually transition into alternative occupations ensuring that they were not unemployed when their land was put to non-agricultural uses. The farmers themselves did most of the actual construction work from laying bricks and shifting soil with their farming equipment to managing the construction project. The first phase of construction involved the simultaneous building of villas, a few apartment blocks, some commercial space as well as part of the IT Park. Magarpatta City targeted IT firms and their potential employees. The money that was generated by selling or leasing these developments funded further construction. Also, the company assured itself a constant revenue stream by not selling any of the commercial space in the IT Park (Figure 5) but only leasing it and also retaining control over the maintenance of the entire project. The construction process began in 2000: the first residential buildings (Figure 7) and part of the school (Figure 8) were ready by 2003 and the first phase of office space followed in 2004. As of 2008, Magarpatta City was about 80 per cent complete.92 A total of 7,500 apartments have been planned of which about 90 per 92 As a result of the global economic crisis in 2009, further development was halted with plans to complete the project once demand picked up. As of February 2010, construction was gradually being resumed. 147 cent have already been sold (Interview, Staff (MTDCC), 2008). In addition, there are single-family homes or ‘villas’ also being built (Figure 6).93 The total residential population, once development is complete, is anticipated to be around 100,000 people. The current residential population is 50,000 people and the working population is 6,500. Most of the people living in Magarpatta City (apart from the farmer families) are newer migrants to Pune who moved there to work in the IT or related industries. A large number of people living in Magarpatta City also work at companies located in the IT Park (Interview, Staff (MTDCC), 2008). Several employees of MTDCC also live on the premises. Figure 5: Office space, Magarpatta City. Source: Self 93 The master plan for Magarpatta City, as distributed by the company in promotional materials, is attached in the Appendix. 148 Figure 6: Single-family homes under construction, Magarpatta City. Source: Self Figure 7: Housing cluster (apartment buildings), Magarpatta City. Source: Self 149 Figure 8: Although the school was operational, parts were still under construction. Source: Self Figure 9: Magarpatta City under construction. Source: Self 150 Post-development, most of the families continue to stay on site and own either apartments or villas that they have bought with the money they made through the company. As shareholders in the Magarpatta Township Development and Construction Company (MTDCC), they continue to earn a proportion of the company’s profits. Moreover, a number of them have succeeded in renting out some of their property, creating yet another source of income. The land also continues to be registered in their name, maintaining ownership and giving them a sense of security. Farmer families have also managed to move beyond agriculture and into other occupations. Several spin-off subsidiary businesses have emerged such as local companies providing cable TV and broadband Internet, catering and food supply, laundry, landscaping and a local transport system. About 70 per cent of the families are now under tax audits, earning a minimum of Rs. 40 lakh (approximately USD 85,000) a year and paying a total of about Rs. 10-12 crores in taxes as a community (Dalal, 2008). Magarpatta City owes its success to the Magars’ ability to leverage their social networks and kinship ties to first build an informal working coalition and convert that into a more formal arrangement in the form of the development company. It has been heralded as a huge success by the media and the government (Financial Express Bureau, 2004; Arun, 2006; Ganguli, 2008; Shah, 2009; Nair and Ahluwalia, 2010). In part, this is due to sheer disbelief that something of this scale could be accomplished by a group of farmers. However, as with any large undertaking, it was not without its opponents, from both within the farming community and outside.94 Initially the farmers were unwilling to pool their land together because of the risks associated with the project and there were a few families that resisted and decided to go their own way. Local environmental groups and activists are not happy with Magarpatta City either. During interviews, 94 During fieldwork, it was very difficult to find anyone who would openly talk about any form of opposition to Magarpatta City. Despite several attempts, I was unable to talk to the farmer families that decided not to participate in the project. Extensive searches of newspaper archives (in English and the local language, Marathi) also yielded little by way of critiques of the development. Despite there being clear evidence of opposition to the project, it has not been vocalized very prominently. Most respondents during interviews downplayed their concerns and requested that they remained anonymous, citing Sharad Pawar’s involvement with the project as the reason. 151 several of them complained that Magarpatta City has begun a trend of using agricultural land in Pune to build large projects, raising food security threats. They also pointed to other areas around the city not being used for agriculture and were zoned for development in the proposed master plan but have not yet been developed. Another concern that social activists in Pune raised during interviews is that the success of Magarpatta City and similar developments has led to an increase in housing for higher income groups but little progress has been made in low-income or affordable housing projects. However, the opposition has not affected Magarpatta City much. The development is a success for the landowners and investors and the Magars are planning their next project, to be built a little outside Pune, along the same lines. The coalitions in this case used personal social and political networks to effectively accomplish the development of Magarpatta City. Conditions created by the globalizing of the Indian economy presented the Magar community with an unusual opportunity that they capitalized on by using their social and political networks. The Magar community and more specifically, Satish Magar recognized the potential in developing the land themselves. They began by building on the mutual cooperation and trust from years of farming in an agricultural cooperative. They also used their kinship ties and social networks to control relations within the coalition – Satish ‘dada’ is a prominent member of the community and emerged as the natural leader. He was able to create a coalition within the farmers that converted their social capital into a business relationship. However, merely developing a successful internal coalition would have been pointless without the second external coalition that the development company formed with city and state level actors like politicians, government bureaucrats and bankers. Had the farming community not forged these connections, this would have been yet another story of farmer displacement. Once again, these were networks that Satish Magar and his family had cultivated over three generations. He was able to draw on these networks to identify specific 152 individuals who came to be part of the company’s board of directors and act as independent consultants to the project. It is important to recognize here that most of the dealings took place outside the ‘formal’ governmental or business channels. This is due to the nature of the relationships and networks (informal, social, personal) that made the coalitions possible in the first place. Successful coalition building in this case therefore depended on three factors: the access to political and financial resources, strong cohesive leadership and the ability to recognize and capitalize on opportunity. In the case of Magarpatta City, Satish Magar proved to be a capable leader by uniting the larger community in a common goal. He also provided the necessary political resources as well as the initial financial capital. The farmer families complemented this by providing their labour, in addition, of course, to the initial investment of land. 4. The Bangalore story: Developing Shantiniketan: As I showed in Chapter 3, the most prominent player in Bangalore’s development post-independence was the public sector. Since Bangalore was home to several large public sector industries, large townships were built at the edge of the city to house their employees. Since the 1970s however, development has increasingly been in the private domain. The 1990s have seen a real estate boom – both in the central city and on the edges. The private corporate sector comprising of regional, national and international [primarily information technology (IT) and ITrelated] companies now drives real estate development in India (Nair, 2005; Padmanabhan, 2006). National and international players are also invested and involved in Bangalore’s real estate development (PTI, 2007a). Similar to what Fainstein discovered in her study of land markets and real estate development in New York and London (Fainstein, 2001), the driving force behind real estate in Bangalore is now the sector that has the closest ties to the global economy (information technology), apart from the real estate sector itself. 153 Most of the new development is taking place on the eastern and northern peripheries of Bangalore, which coincides with the location of most of the IT companies as well as the new airport. Most of the residential developments on the outskirts of Bangalore are typically high-density apartment buildings built in close proximity to other services like schools, retail establishments and offices (for example, Figure 10, Figure 11). The development on the peripheries also includes large-scale commercial projects such as office buildings, IT parks, shopping malls and entertainment centres, mostly targeting private sector employees and their families (PTI, 2007a; PTI, 2007b). Figure 10: New housing complexes on Bangalore's periphery. Source: Self 154 Figure 11: New housing complexes on Bangalore's periphery. Source: Self Bangalore’s real estate sector is a complex network of state and city level bureaucrats and politicians, developers, landowners, businessmen, multinational corporations, middlemen and real estate ‘agents’. While the development of Magarpatta City in Pune relied heavily on the personal social and political networks of the actors involved, the development of Shantiniketan relies on an intricate many-layered web of relationships that have been institutionalized in the city’s development practices. These relationships grow out of the professional and political networks of particular players in Bangalore’s real estate sector (like real estate ‘agents’, middlemen, developers and politicians) and are valuable resources that these players leverage on a daily basis to accomplish specific developmental goals. In order to understand how development takes place in Bangalore, it is necessary to unpack the relationships between the various players in this web and recognize how individual interests interact with one another. In part, these differences are a reflection of the scale at which development takes place in the two cities. Individual integrated township development projects in Pune are being built at a much larger scale than in Bangalore, for example, Magarpatta City is spread over a total area of 400 acres 155 as compared to approximately 100 acres for Prestige Shantiniketan.95 However, overall, Bangalore has a larger real estate development sector than Pune (Jones Lang LaSalle, 2006) leading to the formation of a more complex network of actors, each playing a specialized role in the development cycle. This is not meant to imply that the process in Bangalore is more complex than in Pune simply because Bangalore is a larger city. Similar connections do exist in Pune as well. However, the networks in Bangalore are more specialized and separated functionally, mainly because developers in Bangalore have to deal with multiple government agencies in order to obtain requisite permits and approvals, necessitating a many-layered network. In Pune, by contrast, there is a single government agency, the Municipal Corporation that deals with all permitting and approval processes, thereby making it an easier bureaucracy to navigate. One of the most difficult aspects of real estate development in Bangalore, as in most Indian cities, is land acquisition. Land titles in Indian cities are notoriously complicated with no single system of documenting and managing land ownership, sale and transfer. As a result, land acquisition for development projects, particularly large projects, is a murky process and a grey area legally speaking. Ownership is often disputed and court settlements of such cases may take several years. Few developers are willing to wade through the procedural red tape when a faster, albeit illegal, alternative is available, turning to local mobsters like Muthappa Rai who is a Bangalore-based real estate power broker and as Carney (2008: 2) describes him, a former ‘gangster’ wanted by the police for murder (Carney, 2008: 2, 5). People like Muthappa Rai play a very important role in this process and that real estate developers have strong ties with specific groups or operators in order to obtain the land required for their development 95 This is also due to greater parcels of contiguous land available in and around Pune than in Bangalore. Other examples of large township development projects in Pune include Amanora Park Town (400 acres, built by the City Development Corporation) located across the street from Magarpatta City in Hadapsar and Nanded City (spread over 700 acres being built by MTDCC). Staff (MTDCC) (2008) Personal interview. Magarpatta City, Pune, India; Bari, P. & Savitha, R. (2010) Rush of integrated townships into Pune. The Economic Times. Web ed. Mumbai, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. 156 (Carney, 2008).96 In an interview with Carney (2008), Muthappa Rai claims to have illegally obtained land in Bangalore for Indian conglomerates like Reliance Industries Limited as well as a few American firms. The attraction of obtaining land through people like Rai is that he ensures that the process is quick and that the land comes with a clean title. Information on illegal land markets and so-called “black market” dealings in India is hard to come by, especially since most evidence tends to be anecdotal and few individuals are willing to go on record.97 One of the few academic works on the subject is a recent (1999) book on the black economy of India by Professor Arun Kumar at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP) at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. In the book, he claims that about 40 per cent of land transactions typically take place in the black market (Kumar, 1999; Carney, 2008; Sinha and Singh, 2010). There are, of course, also other more legal means that developers use to obtain land. One that is becoming popular with developers in Bangalore to acquire land is by piggyback riding on the incentives that the Karnataka state government offered to IT (information technology) companies. A number of real estate developers have entered into agreements with specific companies where IT companies obtain cheap land from the government and hand it over to developers, ostensibly to develop housing for their employees: a much publicized recent case was that of domestic IT giant Infosys where the company has been using government incentives to build land banks for future development projects (Srinivasaraju, 2005b; Interviews with Bangalore-based developers, real estate agents & middlemen, and journalists). Yet another way is to use real estate ‘agents’ or middlemen who operate through informal networks. Individuals wanting to sell land get in touch with these agents who acquire the land, obtain a clean title and resell it to developers (using a 96 For a detailed description on the working of the land mafia in Bangalore, and more on Muthappa Rai specifically, see: Carney, S. (2008) The Godfather of Bangalore. Wired. Digital ed. San Francisco, CA, Conde Nast. 97 This was my experience while conducting fieldwork as well. Several respondents had stories and anecdotes about how land was acquired and developed in Bangalore and Pune. However, since there was little by way of verifiable evidence, I have not included these anecdotes in this dissertation. 157 variety of legal and illegal mechanisms, including threat of violence in some cases) (Carney, 2008; Interviews with Bangalore-based real estate brokers, middlemen and journalists). However, according to real estate developers, landowners, consultants and brokers that I interviewed in Bangalore, an increasingly popular means of acquiring land for development is the ‘joint venture’ model. Typically, individuals or small groups with a pre-assembled parcel of land approach a developer with a proposition. Either the landowner will sell the land outright for money or, what is more common, the landowner asks the developer to develop the plot and work out a mutually beneficial profit-sharing agreement, for example, in lieu of a certain share of the built-up land. The valuation of this transaction is done on the basis of two calculations: the present value of the land and the future value (projected value) once the development has been completed. Based on this valuation, a pre-arranged percentage of the completed development (either in cash or in the form of built-up property) is then returned to the landowner while the developer is allowed to sell the rest to recover his costs and make his profit on the development. This is convenient for both groups: the large companies don’t have to actually go through the process of acquiring land, parceling small bits together to get one large tract big enough or actually resorting to strong-arm tactics to force evacuations.98 98 This is usually taken care of by a complex network of middlemen employed by people like Muthappa Rai. Conversations with real estate brokers and middlemen in Bangalore revealed that these middlemen initially attempt to convince landowners to release the land for a fraction of the market price (usually in the 25-50 per cent range), failing which they adopt more coercive methods, sometimes resorting to violence. This is also corroborated by Carney’s (2008) article on the land mafia in Bangalore. 158 l Highway Nationa 207 gR Rin d ing r te Ou ad Ro Out er Roa rR as te Ou dr Ma Old d oa Nationa l Highway Ol sR 207 Road ra ad dM oad Outer Ring rr su Ho ad Ro NICE Road ng Ri d oa ter Ou y wa Ro ad d oa p Ex rR su Ho CE NI ss re oad gR Rin Sar jap ur NIC NICE Road E NIC d Ro a ¯ ER ing R o 0 ad 2.5 5 10 Miles Map made by Neha Sami January 2012 Legend Main roads Lakes Highways Open space Source: Open Streets; Cloudmade Downloads Prestige Shantiniketan Figure 12: Location of Prestige Shantiniketan. While the development is distantly located from both the central city and the new international airport (further north, not on map), it is located off Whitefield Road, in the heart of Bangalore’s IT corridor. The ITPL is located on the other side of Whitefield Road from Shantiniketan. Source: Open Streets; Cloudmade Downloads Prestige Shantiniketan is an example of this joint-venture approach to real estate development. It is located a stone’s throw from the International Tech Park (ITPL) 159 on the eastern periphery of Bangalore (Figure 12). Developed by prominent Bangalore-based real estate developer Prestige, Shantiniketan is a 105-acre mixed-use project. In addition to residential and office space, it will house commercial space including a five-star hotel to be built by the Radisson group as well as a mall. When complete, the entire project will spread over 13 million square feet of constructed area (Interviews, Construction engineers and management (Prestige Constructions), 2008-09). The majority of this will be residential space in the form of high-rise apartment buildings. A total of 3000 apartments are being built with sizes ranging from two to four bedrooms. The commercial space will be a total of 4 million square feet, including office space.99 As of 2008, this project was about 70 per cent complete with most of the apartments already sold though not occupied. The developers had also begun to receive tenants for the office and commercial spaces.100 Occupation was expected to begin in late 2009 (Interviews, Management (Prestige Constructions), 2008-09). The development of Shantiniketan was divided into two phases, as described to me by various individuals associated with Prestige Constructions.101 The first, more conceptual part of the development process took place within Prestige Constructions, with their in-house staff of project managers, architects, planners and engineers working on the plan and design of the project. The second phase, which involved the actual construction, was outsourced to various subcontractors. At each step, Prestige Constructions turned to various key 99 The master plan for Prestige Shantiniketan, as distributed by the company in promotional materials, is attached in the Appendix. 100 Like other real estate projects in India, Shantiniketan has also suffered as a result of the global economic downturn of 2009 as financial capital has dried up. However, the project has also experienced other setbacks: in October 2008, a portion of the roof one of the apartment buildings under construction collapsed, bringing down the entire building. Shortly after that, one of the security personnel was found dead from unknown causes near the construction site Rajendran, S. & Shivakumar, M. T. (2008) Four injured as Prestige group’s 15-storeyed structure collapses. The Hindu. Web ed. Bangalore, The Hindu group of publications; Times News Network (2008) Shantiniketan site collapses. The Times of India. Web ed. Bangalore, Bennet, Coleman & Co. Ltd.. Most recently, in June 2010, while I was conducting fieldwork in Bangalore, there was a huge fire in the apartment complex in which a few residents lost their cars although there were no casualties reported (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y04yfm-mqmg&feature=relmfu). 101 I met with and interviewed several respondents employed by Prestige Constructions, including on-site construction engineers and managers, the overall project manager as well as key individuals in the management of the company as well as sub-contractors who worked for Prestige. 160 individuals ranging from real estate brokers and middlemen to sub-contractors in order to successfully complete the project (Interviews, Management (Prestige Constructions), 2008-09). In conversations with senior management at Prestige, I was given to understand that this is more or less typical of the manner in which Prestige Constructions operates in most development projects. The real estate development process here is a complex web of symbiotic relationships that together function like a well-oiled machine. The smooth working of each of the cogs in the machine (or in this case, the individual actors) is essential to the efficient working of the larger development machine. I discuss the specifics of the development process by which Shantiniketan was developed. As I mentioned earlier, Prestige does not own the land on which Shantiniketan is built. It belongs to a local liquor baron, Mr. Adikesalu, who also owns several other properties in the area. Prestige has entered into a joint venture with Mr. Adikesalu to develop the 105-acre parcel. Under this agreement, Prestige is responsible for the construction of the apartment buildings, the office and commercial space. The five-star hotel will be built independently (not by Prestige) although it will form a part of the same complex. A pre-arranged percentage of the 3000 apartments will be handed over to Mr. Adikesalu in return for the land while Prestige will sell the remainder. The responsibility for raising financial capital rests with the developer, i.e. with Prestige (Interviews, Management (Prestige Constructions), 2008-09). It is interesting to note that Prestige were not the initial developers of this site but a small unknown developer from Chennai from whom Prestige took over the project. Based on information I gathered through interviews with local architects and developers, this is typical of how development takes place in Bangalore. For the most part, local developers, landowners or middlemen acquire land, parcel it together, start a project and then try and find a larger company to buy it up.102 Once land for development was acquired, Prestige’s in-house team of planners and architects prepared a master 102 One prominent example in Bangalore is the ‘South City’ project that is now being completed by Larsen & Toubro (L&T) development but was not originally an L&T undertaking (Interviews with Bangalore-based architects and journalists). 161 plan for the project. This plan was then sent it to various government agencies for approval, prior to beginning construction. However, Prestige staff was not involved in this process. Once the plan was ready, it was handed over to a group of middlemen or ‘agents’ whose only role was to help developers navigate the labyrinth of government bureaucracy. While the actual estimates of the total number of approvals required vary from project to project, developers and planning officials estimated these to be between 15 to 20 approvals on average per project. The requests for approval also need to be accompanied by specific supporting documents. In addition, as I briefly discussed in Chapter 3, there are several different agencies in Bangalore with overlapping responsibilities with respect to urban planning and development. It is therefore necessary to understand the nuts and bolts of dealing with each separate agency, its requirements (legal and otherwise) and the quirks of the bureaucrats employed by these agencies. Consequently, a vast complex hierarchical network of middlemen, subcontractors, ‘land agents’ and small-time developers has emerged to facilitate the development process. For example, one of the most important tasks that government agencies undertake is to supervise and approve the conversion of agricultural land to urban land, in order to enable development. In order to get this conversion approved, ministerial permission from the Karnataka state government is required. However, it is not possible for developers to directly approach specific ministers officially. The formal governmental procedure goes through several government bureaucrats before the plan is presented for approval to the respective ministers.103 Each real estate development company like Prestige has its own complex network of middlemen, bureaucrats, ‘agents’ and lower-level government officials that it employs to 103 According to some of the middlemen or ‘agents’ that I interviewed, the cost for conversion of land at the time (2008-09) was typically Rs. 2-3 lakh (USD 4,500 to 6,700) per acre of land being converted in addition to whatever amount needs to be paid in bribe to ministers as well as to the bureaucrats involved. The amount paid as a bribe increases as you move up the hierarchy. The bureaucrats’ share is therefore relatively small in comparison to what those higher up in the government demand. 162 coordinate between various state and city agencies to obtain the required permissions.104 Prestige, as the developer, is responsible not only for the construction but also for raising the financial capital for the project. In general, funding for real estate projects comes from money that has been raised through advance sales of property prior to construction for this or other projects that the developer might be building (Searle, 2010). As was evident in the case of Magarpatta City’s development, it is very difficult to raise finances for development in India.105 However, since Prestige is a large, well-established company, it was able to raise a moderate amount of money by way of loans from various financial institutions. Most of this capital was used for the construction of the commercial and office space in Shantiniketan. The residential development financed itself, as is typical with most private housing development projects. Before ground is broken, the company has a final plan and drawing prepared and possibly one model apartment, which they use to sell the project. Those who choose to buy in the project pay a booking fee upfront to the developer (usually about Rs. 30,000 to 50,000 or USD 650 to 1100), which incidentally is also what you have to pay to get a copy of the legal documents. Prestige began this process for Shantiniketan fairly early in 2005, and according to them, it was sold out in a very short time (Interviews, Management (Prestige Constructions), 2008-09). Senior management at Prestige Constructions explained to me that there are typically three kinds of buyers. The first are those who are buying it for themselves (individual buyers) who form the smallest fraction. Second, there are agents who buy up the bulk of the proposed development to resell at higher prices to individual buyers. The third group is the developers themselves, 104 This informal network does not restrict itself to a single developer. Each of these individuals works for and with several other developers as well as for individuals. (Interviews with architects, developers, real estate brokers and middle men) 105 While development is a major outlet for investment, it is typically a means to convert ‘black’ or illegally obtained money into ‘white’ or legal. Despite significant financial reforms, it is still not easy to obtain financing for real estate development in India. Loans are typically also easier to obtain for construction rather than land acquisition. Banking Officials (HDFC) (2009) Personal Interview. Pune, India. 163 Prestige held back about 10-15 per cent of the total units, to be sold at a later date usually at much higher rates. This enables the company to cover all costs and make their profit. The buyers pay the amount remaining after the booking fee is deducted in installments that are linked to the completion of certain construction-linked targets. That money is used to pay for construction and other expenses incurred. The company therefore does not need to resort to private equity or other sources of financing. However, the commercial space including the mall and office space were not financed in this manner. The group did take some loans and raise some private equity for this part of the project (Interviews, Management (Prestige Constructions), 2008-09) Until this point, Prestige developers carried out all project-related decisions inhouse. However, from this point onwards, all development-related activity is outsourced, marking the second phase of the development. The brief for the project, based on the master plan created in-house, is given to the external architects or the designers. Typically the master plan is conceptualized and developed by a famous architect (increasingly an internationally well-known firm or individual), which, in the case of Shantiniketan, was the RSP Group, based in Singapore. Although this architect continues to be a part of the project in a supervisory role, once the plan has been created and approved by the company, local (Bangalore-based) architects are responsible for the actual execution. Similarly, construction is outsourced to individual contractors, for example, for plumbing, electrical connections and other civil engineering. In a marked contrast from Pune where real estate developers have their own staff of architects, designers and engineers who undertake the actual work of development, most of the actual development work in Bangalore is outsourced to local level subcontractors (Interviews with local real estate contractors, architects & developers). In fact, some of the smaller local developers I interviewed in Bangalore often undertook contract work for larger development companies like Prestige. Prestige Developers however retain the management contract for the project, thereby assuring the firm a constant flow of income. 164 Large development companies like Prestige essentially function as project managers who undertake the more conceptual aspects of the development project and also the marketing and sales. To facilitate actual construction, Prestige has formed alliances with several sub-contractors, smaller developers and ‘agents’ or middlemen who specialize in particular aspects of the development process ranging from obtaining government approvals to completing the brickwork and wiring in project. These specialists (several of whom I interviewed) like sub-contractors and real estate ‘agents’ in their turn, have an established network of people, both within government and outside, to help them function efficiently. It is this alliance or coalition between the larger developer and the many smaller sub-agents that makes development in Bangalore possible. This coalition does not rely on community or kinship networks but on the various professional networks of key actors. This is similar to the way in which government agencies (at the city and state levels) have functioned for some time now. This represents a departure from earlier development practices in two ways. First, Bangalore’s rapid growth has attracted several regional (such as Sobha developers, the Mantri group and the Brigade group) and national (for example, DLF Ltd and Unitech) developers who now operate in the city. A simultaneous change has been that government agencies like the Bangalore Development Authority and other public sector agencies are no longer actively involved in development except as facilitators and regulators. Second, the scale at which development is taking place in Bangalore has increased exponentially. This has necessitated a more specialized network of individuals to facilitate urban development. The alliances being formed in this case are of a more permanent nature than the kind we saw in Pune. Although the importance of informal networks is no less important, the networks themselves are much more disconnected. For example, the developers at Prestige are not personally connected to the bureaucrats in the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) nor are their social networks crucial in 165 sourcing sub-contractors. However, Prestige developers and their connections were very important in obtaining access to the liquor baron, Mr. Adikesalu and consequently acquiring the rights to develop Shantiniketan. The sub-contractor network, however, is indispensable at another level. As a result, what we see is a complex web of development. The difference between Bangalore and Pune’s real estate development markets is not merely one of size of the market or of the city. It is also due to the particular governmental structure in each state and city. The fact that developers in Pune only have to deal with one agency at the city level (the Pune Municipal Corporation) and one at the state level (the Maharashtra State Town Planning Directorate) makes it easier for them to leverage their own individual networks without the need to develop a more complex hierarchy of various players. In Bangalore, on the other hand, there are at least 20 different governmental agencies (most of them managed by the state government) that developers have to deal with. Collectively, this group forms part of a grey market for urban services that often borders on the illegal. The existence of this group and its services allow larger developers to build big, high-profile projects without having to deal with the more mundane issues and also allow the larger firms to remain legal in their activities. Comparing the power dynamic in Bangalore and Pune, some key differences emerge. The scale at which the developments are taking place is one. As I briefly mentioned earlier, integrated township developments like Prestige Shantiniketan in Bangalore are being built at a smaller scale but in larger numbers than in Pune. As a result, a project like Prestige did not require the same kind of largescale mobilization of personal and political social networks in Bangalore, as did Magarpatta City in Pune. In addition to being conceived of at a smaller scale, compared to Magarpatta City, Shantiniketan is also not as significant in terms of other factors like land conversion and governmental regulations. Magarpatta City was the first project of its kind to be built in Pune, transforming the development 166 landscape in the city. The role that the farmer coalition played was instrumental in successfully pushing the project through. Development projects in Bangalore come to fruition through navigation of traditional bureaucratic channels and extralegal systems while in Pune, Magarpatta City represents a remarkable instance where a single coalition was able to push through a major, transformative redevelopment project. On the other hand, when we consider governance issues in Pune and Bangalore, a very different story emerges. Personal social and political networks were extremely important in creating urban governance coalitions like the BATF and ABIDe as well as in the case of the Green Pune movement. However, government-corporate partnerships like the BATF and ABIDe participate and influence urban planning decisions at a much larger scale in Bangalore than the Green Pune movement does. 167 CHAPTER VI CONCLUSION “It is possible that the absence of a plan – a moral map or imagined morphology – is not a bad thing. Perhaps that is how vernacular resistance to global designs ultimately succeeds. And yet, I worry about the capacity of unselfconscious local practice to beat back the challenges posed by the material as well as the imaginative forces of the new regime of globality.” (Chatterjee, 2004b: 147) In the above quote, Chatterjee goes on to suggest that rather than “unselfconscious local practice”, it is “gatherings of self-conscious people” (ibid: 148) that will provide clues to thinking through (or planning for) the future of Indian cities. However, it is unclear who these “self-conscious people” are, what groups they represent and what their agenda is. The data from this dissertation provide some answers to these questions. As the cases analyzed in this dissertation have shown, the direction of planning, policy, and development in Indian cities is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small group of elite actors that tend to focus largely on the interests of only a section of the urban population.106 The case studies have also shown how these elite actors rely on formal planning processes as well as more informal means of exerting influence and gaining access to power through personal community, caste and other social 106 This has also been documented in the work of several other scholars studying urban India, including Chatterjee (2004) himself. For example, see Benjamin, S. (2000) Governance, economic settings and poverty in Bangalore. Environment and Urbanization, 12 (1), 35-56; Benjamin, S. (2005a) The Lifestyle Advertisement and the Marxist Manifesto as Trojan Horses in a City of Stealth. Ensuring public accountability through community action Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi; Fernandes, L. & Heller, P. (2006) Hegemonic Aspirations. Critical Asian Studies, 38 (4), 495-522; Benjamin, S. (2007) Lifestyling India's metros: the elite's civic reform. IN Sudarshan, R. M. & Pande, S. (Eds.) Ensuring public accountability through community action: A case study in east Delhi. New Delhi, Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi; Weinstein, L. (2009) Redeveloping Dharavi: Toward A Political Economy Of Slums And Slum Redevelopment In Globalizing Mumbai. Department Of Sociology. Chicago, IL, The University of Chicago. 168 networks. Moreover, groups such as the farmers in Pune or the members of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) have successfully capitalized on the economic, developmental and political opportunities that have emerged as a result of India’s economic globalization and governmental decentralization program. In addition, their actions have been supported and given legitimacy by various national and state government policies that have ranged from legislative and policy changes to financial incentives. This dissertation focused on the study of power and politics in contemporary Indian cities in the context of recent economic and political reforms. It examined the changing dynamics of urban planning and governance in Bangalore and Pune, looking at how developers, landowners, business leaders, politicians, senior bureaucrats, citizen groups and civic activists mobilize and influence urban governance and development processes. Building on work on contemporary Indian cities, western urban political theory and the literature on globalizing cities as well as on data from field research, this study draws conclusions about how specific elite groups are reacting to the current economic and political reform process in India and in their turn, influencing urban planning and policy. Data from Bangalore and Pune show that the on-going decentralization reform program and its implementation by state governments is privileging the participation of (mostly elite) non-state actors that come from and serve the interests of a particular segment of urban residents, typically higherincome groups. Individuals from elite groups form formal or quasi-formal alliances with other elite actors to gain access to specific resources or to participate in planning and policy processes. Personal social networks of individual state and non-state actors are instrumental in helping elite groups to come together and form coalitions of actors focused on achieving specific developmental or governance goals. As a result, an urban planning approach is emerging in contemporary Indian cities where regional and municipal governments are coming to rely on non-state actors to provide flexible governance networks. Non-state actors like business leaders, citizen groups, 169 Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs), and civic activists are playing a growing role in providing expertise and specific services to government and urban residents alike. This final chapter ties together the data and analysis of the earlier chapters with a higher-level discussion of the contribution that this study makes to the literature on contemporary Indian urbanism and to writing on urban politics more broadly. In doing so, I also examine what we have learnt from the comparison between Bangalore and Pune specifically and the policy and planning implications that emerge from these examples. In particular, I try to answer questions about how the findings of this research relate to existing theory and practice, what policy and planning issues they raise, how different planning actors, whether in local or national government or civil society, could think about fostering a more progressive agenda in this context, and what can we learn from the cases about the circumstances under which more empowering outcomes can occur. 1. A changing urban planning paradigm: a) Urban governance: The aim of the Indian national government’s urban policy reform through the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) and the decentralization reforms that it mandates was to empower urban local government bodies while simultaneously increasing public participation in the governance process. However, (as I discussed in earlier chapters), the opportunities for participation created by the reforms have privileged a certain section of urban residents while disenfranchising others.107 As national and state governments come to rely on non-state actors to provide more flexible governance networks, a hybrid model of urban planning seems to be emerging in Indian cities: one where particular nonstate actors are playing an increasingly important role in the policy and planning decision-making process. 107 A recent paper by Coelho et al (2011) discusses this issue in relation to specific cases in various Indian cities including Chennai (Madras) and Bangalore. 170 This is a cause for concern at two levels. First, as government (at all levels) gradually withdraws from “capital investment and operation and maintenance of urban services” (Kundu, 2011: 23), various private sector players like Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) and other NGOs are taking on these functions, leveraging the decentralization reforms mandated by the 74th CAA to demand greater involvement in planning processes. As a consequence, the responsibility for the provision of municipal services is being passed on to middle-class resident organizations like RWAs, as increasing efforts are being made to institutionalize their participation, as we saw in the case of the two task forces in Bangalore or with the incorporation of members of the Green Pune movement into the planning committee in Pune (Ghertner, 2011; Kundu, 2011).108 Coalitions between non-state and state actors in the Indian context are not surprising in themselves. However, what is surprising is that these alliances are being formalized and legitimized by national and state governments through various policy and legislative measures. Secondly, with decentralization reforms, the local urban governance structure is undergoing a change and consequently, so is the manner in which urban residents, especially the urban poor, interact with governmental authority. Since low-income and marginalized urban communities typically interact with government through local leaders and municipal-level officials, there are concerns that, as elite actors and organizations are increasingly co-opted into urban local government, low-income groups lacking access to such means of activism will gradually become disenfranchised (Coelho et al., 2011; Kundu, 2011) The growing involvement of the private sector in government, however, is not unique to the Indian situation alone: there are examples from the developed and developing world where resource-constrained governments are turning to non- 108 The Bhagidari scheme in Delhi is an example of efforts being made to formalize the role that civil society plays in urban service provision and governance. For more on this see: Ghertner, D. A. (2011) Gentrifying the State, Gentrifying Participation: Elite Governance Programs in Delhi. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35 (3), 504-532. 171 state actors to provide key services (Brenner, 2004). While the future of this hybrid model of planning in India is as yet unclear, from a policy and planning perspective, this approach raises two key issues about urban government in India. First, as of now, the move to increase public participation in urban government and promote participatory development in Indian cities has provided opportunities that seem to be restricted to a few elite actors who have been able to leverage their networks and connections to gain access to planning and policy processes. Critics of this change have accused this selective participation as being unconstitutional, unrepresentative and undemocratic. For example, citizen groups in Bangalore have accused the BATF and ABIDe of not being transparent in their workings. Taskforce members have countered these accusations by saying that since the state government appointed them, they were not responsible to the larger public, but only to the government. This creates a larger debate about accountability in government and to whom such alliances of nonstate actors should be responsible. Moreover, unlike the government, civil society actors are not required to keep in mind the interests of the entire urban population rather than just those of a specific sub-section. Civil society groups in Indian cities typically tend to focus their attention on providing services and addressing the needs of their constituents, which, in this case are largely upperincome groups. The growing involvement of private sector groups and civil society organizations such as RWAs in the operation and delivery of urban services becomes a problem if these groups ignore large sections of the urban population. This is especially true in the case of both the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) and the Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure and Development Task Force (ABIDe) in Bangalore: both the BATF and ABIDe members came from higher income groups and the agenda of both taskforces has been concentrated on improving services for corporate enclaves (especially for information technology hubs in the city) and for upper income neighborhoods with little attention being paid to low-income communities in Bangalore. Pune, on the other 172 hand, has a slightly more inclusive approach to urban governance. Although the Green Pune movement comprised largely of elite actors, the movement also included members from low-income communities that were living in the affected areas. In addition to the overall environmental agenda of the movement, the Green Pune movement also emphasized the impact that the proposed master plan for Pune would have on the low-income population that lived in areas targeted for development in the plan. The Green Pune movement is more inclusive than Bangalore’s taskforces partly due to the nature of the organization and the manner in which it was formed. Key actors in the state government created both the taskforces in Bangalore who handpicked the members of the BATF and ABIDe. The Green Pune movement, on the other hand, was a more bottom-up movement that was formed by concerned citizens in protest of city government actions. Several founding members of the Green Pune movement are also prominent civic activists in the city and, through their activism, are aware of the issues that low-income communities face in Pune. As a result, they were able to form an alliance with community leaders that resulted in a win-win situation for both groups: the Green Pune movement gained another ally whereas the low-income communities gained access to city government officials. However, since the final verdict on the Pune master plan is yet to be announced, it remains to be seen if the low-income communities did indeed benefit from this alliance. In terms of planning process however, it offers an insight into creating more inclusive partnerships that could lead to more equitable outcomes. In the case of Pune, the Green Pune movement proposed a plan that would address both the environmental concerns that the middle-class residents in Pune had as well as the issue of displacing several low-income communities. b) Urban development: A similar trend is evident in the process of urban development, ranging from housing development to provision of urban infrastructure with private sector 173 actors playing a growing role. As we have seen, government agencies in India such as development authorities played a very prominent role in the planning and development of urban infrastructure and housing. Together with several public sector enterprises, these government agencies were especially important in providing housing to a variety of income groups (as in the case of Bangalore, discussed in Chapter 3). However, with the recent push towards increased privatization in the Indian economy, the opening up of the real estate sector to foreign direct investment, and increasingly constrained governmental resources, contemporary state and city governments in India increasingly prefer to act as facilitators and regulators of development, leaving the actual construction to private sector developers. However, since private sector developers are guided by economic incentives rather than welfare goals, most of the housing that is being developed in and around Indian cities today focuses on providing luxury homes for affluent urban residents like Indians returning from abroad or those working in well-paid jobs in information technology and other service sector industries, leaving the problem of affordable housing unaddressed. There have been a few recent private sector initiatives to provide more affordable housing as well as other amenities in close proximity to each other, drawing on the integrated township model (Subramanium, 2009; Srivastava, 2011). However, few of these have actually been implemented. The main problem seems to be the high cost of land and development in Indian cities and the low returns on investment that affordable housing projects offer. A recent development under construction on the outskirts of Mumbai (Bombay) by the Tata Housing group is one of the first few projects focusing exclusively on providing affordable housing. The national government has also recently announced Phase-I of a program called the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) to create “slum-free cities” in India with a corpus of Rs. 1000 crore (or 174 approximately USD 200 million).109 However, the impact of these initiatives is as yet unclear. In addition, the process of urban development, and the acquisition and transfer of land on the urban periphery is a complicated, expensive, and bureaucratic process. As land in and around Indian cities is acquired for development, there are serious issues of displacement and poor mitigation of impacts as well as of valuation of land. This especially impacts small and medium farmers and others on the urban periphery who depend on their land for employment as well as housing. Agricultural land is valued on the basis of its current land use, i.e. as agricultural land. However, this valuation does not reflect the true potential of the land, since once permission for land use conversion or non-agricultural use clearance (NAC) is granted, the value of land rises exponentially. However, strict constraints on who is granted the NAC, and when, determines who benefits from the increase in value, post-conversion. Typically, the original landowner or farmer is not allowed to apply for change of land use from agricultural to nonagricultural, if he plans to continue farming while simultaneously looking for a buyer for his land. Moreover, farmers cannot obtain the NAC unless they present a proposal for a specific non-agricultural use for the land. This was the provision that the developers of Magarpatta City used to obtain governmental permission to develop their farmland.110 Few farmers have the technical or financial resources or the capacity to devise and implement such a proposal. Part of the reason why it took almost a decade from plan to breaking ground for Magarpatta City was 109 Under the auspices of RAY, the central government will provide funding for a variety of slum upgrading projects and other affordable housing initiatives that will be undertaken by the State governments. The national government will provide up to 50 per cent of the total cost of the project. For more on RAY, see Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (2011) Rajiv Awas Yojana: Guidelines for slum-free city planning, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, G. O. I. New Delhi Government of India; PTI (2011) Rajiv Awas Yojana for slum dwellers approved. The Hindu. Web ed. New Delhi, The Hindu group of publications. 110 This provision was pointed out to Mr. Magar by one of his technical advisors in the early stages of the planning of Magarpatta City. However, since this provision had rarely, if ever, been used in the past, the Maharashtra state government was unsure of granting permission (Interviews with MTDCC staff and management). 175 that Satish Magar was trying to build a coalition of financial and technical advisors and raise the initial funding for the project. In addition to restrictions on using agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes, there are also constraints in place on the sale and transfer of agricultural land, which may only be sold to farmers. Farmers therefore, typically get compensated at the market rate for agricultural land, losing out on the value of developing the land for alternate uses even when there is no acquisition involved (Morris and Pandey, 2007; Morris and Pandey, 2009). The development of Magarpatta City is being showcased as a model for agricultural communities across the country but has yet to be successfully replicated anywhere else. Easy access to prime urban land and simplifying the process of acquisition is an important part of national and several state government incentive schemes for specific industries like information technology (IT) in Maharashtra and Karnataka. Government agencies are acting as facilitators of development, acquiring land for development projects through powers of eminent domain (a much publicized case was that of the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board and the state government of Karnataka acquiring peripheral land for Infosys and other IT companies). While government agencies are supposed to use eminent domain to acquire land for public projects or projects that will serve a public purpose, in the Indian context specifically, the scope of eminent domain is unclear. Powers of eminent domain have been much abused in the Indian context where governments and their agencies have acquired land for the private sector even in cases where there was no clear public benefit. Also, private sector actors like IT companies prefer to navigate the land market through governmental agencies rather than operating directly in the market for a number of reasons: it reduces lengthy approval and permitting procedures as well as transaction costs. Moreover, if land is acquired under eminent domain, the erstwhile landowner has no legal recourse to contest the act of acquisition itself, which reduces liability for the private sector. In addition, this often amounts to a state-regulated transfer of 176 wealth from the landowner to the purchaser, as explained below (Morris and Pandey, 2009). Government agencies like state industrial boards and development authorities acquire land for urban development from the farmer or landowner at the government-approved market price for agricultural land. However, once the land is approved for non-agricultural uses, its value increases exponentially. The farmer therefore loses out on the appreciation that takes place once the land has been approved for non-agricultural uses. That benefit accrues to the acquiring agency, which is typically passed on to the final consumer as an incentive. For example, several large corporations interested in developing SEZs on the peripheries of Indian cities were able to reap this benefit, since state government agencies acquired the land for these projects (Searle, 2010). Similar acquisition of land preceded the violent protests at Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal as well. The Indian national government has recently proposed a significant overhaul of the legislation that governs land acquisition, development as well as rehabilitation and resettlement measures through the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Bill, replacing the Land Acquisition Act of 1894. This bill aims to “ensure a humane, participatory, informed consultative and transparent process for land acquisition… with the least disturbance to the owners of the land and other affected families and provide just and fair compensation to the affected families… and make adequate provisions for such affected persons for their rehabilitation and resettlement thereof” (Government of India, 2011: 1). However, the LARR Bill has been heavily contested in Parliament and has yet to be approved.111 Of the two examples discussed in this dissertation, Pune offers a more inclusive approach to urban development as compared to Bangalore. While Magarpatta 111 The most current version of the LARR Bill may be found here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=Land+Acquisition+and+Rehabilitation+and+Resettlement+%28LA RR%29+Bill&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CEkQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Frural.nic.in%2Fsites%2Fdownload s%2Fgeneral%2FLS%2520Version%2520of%2520LARR%2520%2520Bill.pdf&ei=gO0iT_aQOYeBgweQxN 3iAg&usg=AFQjCNFZnpdmxN5djxOdSmRxx4xS8CPYPQ&cad=rja 177 City does not address the issue of affordable housing, it does offer an alternative model to mitigation of development impacts on the residents of the affected area. By involving the farmers who owned the land in the process of development, the development company was able to not only provide these farmers a successful transition to non-agricultural professions but also address the issue of displacement and loss of land. However, one of the key criticisms leveled at Magarpatta City by local civic activists and developers is the uniqueness of its situation and the difficulty of replicating it elsewhere under different circumstances. While it might not be possible to recreate every aspect of Magarpatta City’s development process, there are definitely aspects that could be incorporated into other development projects. For example, rather than attempting to merely buy out former residents, which would provide them with a short-term capital gain, it would perhaps be possible for developers to work together with residents to address the long-term needs of the community by providing them with alternative forms of employment. The developers of Magarpatta City are acting as consultants to several communities around the country and are also trying to replicate their successful development at a second larger location on the outskirts of Pune. 2. Building Theory: The cases examined in this dissertation have highlighted how elite groups gain access to and influence urban planning processes. I began this dissertation with questions borrowed from regime theory: who has access to power in Indian cities; how are local power groups responding to higher level changes; under what conditions do coalitions emerge; and what role do they play in urban planning and policy? In this section, I examine the theoretical insights that the case studies of Pune and Bangalore have offered. Asking questions about what groups were powerful and had access to or controlled urban planning and decision-making processes in Bangalore and Pune pointed me towards groups that had historically been important power groups in 178 both cities. In the case of Pune, the power still remains concentrated in the hands of large farmers and old Brahmin families, while in Bangalore, the upper middle class white collar professionals continue to influence urban policy decisions. However, unlike in regime theory, the power networks were not entirely governmental or business-related. In fact, several of these elite actors used their personal social networks, based on caste, community, and kinship ties, to gain access to and influence urban planning and policy. Satish Magar illustrates this well: he drew on old family ties, caste and kinship associations, and old school friends to help him realize his vision of building Magarpatta City. The manner in which coalitions and alliances are built in Indian urban politics, therefore, is very different than in the United States or Europe. For example, mutual trust and cooperation are key to the success of any regime in western urban politics, often established through formal economic relationships between business interests in the city and the local (city) government. While these are no less important in Indian urban politics, the modalities through which they are enforced are more informal and established long before the coalition itself emerged. The coalitions formed in Indian cities are also distinct from their American or European counterparts. Coalitions in Indian cities tend to be more short-term and transient, forming and reforming as the need arises. This is because of the nature of the relationships that underlie the coalitions: most members of Indian coalitions have long-standing personal relationships with each other. Coalitions are formed with the intention of achieving specific goals (like the completion of a specific development project). Although the coalition is often disbanded once the goal has been reached, the relationships between members endure and can easily be picked up to reform a coalition, should the need arise – as in the case of the Green Pune movement that consists of the same core group that has been forming alliances as the need for action emerged. Also, power (both in government and outside) in Indian cities is much more fragmented than in American cities, for example. There is rarely a single business or economic entity that controls or is heavily invested in urban development (like the Coca-Cola 179 company in Atlanta). Nor is there a single font of governmental power. Governmental authority, at the state level in India, for example, is distributed between the state government, largely comprising of elected politicians, and numerous parastatal agencies, run by high-level bureaucrats. Coalition formation in India is therefore necessitated by this spread of power: since no single group has all the power or resources to accomplish their goals, they need to form alliances with other like-minded individuals. Another point of difference with regime theory (already anticipated) was the strong role that regional or state governments play in urban planning and policy decision processes. Regime theory assumes a strong local government structure, especially a strong mayor. However, in Indian cities, local governments lack the same extent of power and autonomy as their American counterparts have. Regional governments and governmental agencies wield considerable power through state-level politicians and senior bureaucrats. In Bangalore, for example, local government is extremely fragmented, in part stemming from the historical structure of government in India. The powerful governmental actors were those who were politicians or bureaucrats in the state government – this was especially apparent in the formation and operation of the task forces in Bangalore. As I learned through interviews, these state-level politicians and senior bureaucrats in fact aimed to indirectly use the two task forces to ‘clean up’ local government and make it more efficient and less corrupt. The Indian government’s move towards neoliberalism, the decentralization reforms, and economic liberalization have created new avenues through which elite urban actors are able to exert their influence and participate in urban governance and development processes. However, these changes are not simply a narrative of capital becoming all-powerful. While, financial capital is certainly a significant motivator, especially as governments are increasingly strapped for resources, coalitions in Indian cities between elite actors draw and depend on social capital as well. In addition, these changes in urban policy and 180 legislation have not necessarily meant that government or the ‘state’ in India is being replaced by capital. On the contrary, the government in India at all levels continues to be extremely influential. Regime theory therefore provides a useful starting point for investigating power and politics in India. However, based on the analysis presented in this study, the answers to questions about power and politics in India lead to very different answers that are rooted in the specificity of the Indian historical, social and political context. 181 APPENDICES Appendix I: Sample list of questions used during fieldwork 1. Bangalore • Who are the different groups or people involved in the development of a particular residential project, like a large township or a gated community? • How do these different people come together to facilitate development of these townships? Who initiates the process and brings the various groups of people together? Is there a well-established system/procedure to do this? • What is the real estate development process like? For example, with respect to the development of large projects like townships – what are the various steps that a developer would go through from conception to completion? • How are these projects planned and designed? Does anyone besides the developer of the project have a say in this process? • Who is the target market for these developments? For example, do the former residents (if any) of these areas get housing in these? Are they being built for the employees of a particular company/industry? • How are these townships changing the social dynamic in these areas? What is the relationship between the old residents in the area (if any) and those associated with the development (developers, residents, etc.)? 182 • Who are the large property development consultants? Do they play any role in the development of large projects? • I’ve been told that the S.M. Krishna regime really changed the face of development in Bangalore. What was so different about it and how did it change the environment in the city? • What is the status of the BATF? What role did it play in facilitating the development of the city? • What is the role of the city and state governments in the process of real estate developments with respect to township building? • Where does the financing for these projects come from? Who are the major backers/financers of these projects? How much control do these people have over the design and planning of the project? Data-related questions: • Where can I get GIS/digital spatial data on Bangalore? • Is it possible to get the master plans of these townships? • Can I get a hold of reports on the real estate sector of Bangalore prepared by consultants? • Is there a list of the current projects going on the city? • Where can I get information on the planning process in Bangalore? 2. Pune: • Historically, how has Pune grown as a city? • What government agencies are involved in the governing and development of Pune? At what level – city, state, parastatal? • Are they/other governmental actors encouraging certain types of development over others, i.e. is it easier to get permission for some types of construction over others? • Who runs the real estate business in Pune? Are there any big developer companies that are local? 183 • Where did the idea for these projects come from – where is the ‘original’ concept of the gated community or private enclave from? How are these large projects conceived and designed? • Is there international involvement – either in the form of investors or designers? If yes, to what extent? • In the case of Magarpatta, who are the dominant players? Any studies already done on Magarpatta? • Is there a strong ‘global city’ rhetoric in Pune? Is the city trying to create and project a particular image? If yes: Why? What concrete steps have been taken to make it conform more to that image? • How do the politics of the city work? • How has the role of the city changed in urban development? • What role does the community play? Is there significant community involvement? • What libraries/agencies can I go to for information? • Is it possible to get copies of the master plans of these places/ the city? • At what levels do various players, local and extra-local, interact? • How does the existing government machinery help or hinder the development process? What role did the government (state as well as the city) play in this process? • How did the corporate sector in the city influence the design and development of each of these projects? • Where does the money come from? Who finances these projects? 184 Appendix II: Petition circulated by the Green Pune Movement Green Pune Movement To, 9th October 2008 Ms Sadhana Naik Deputy Director Town Planning Department Sahakarnagar, Pune-411009 Sub: Objections and suggestions for improvement to the Part of the Development Plan i.e. Sector 1 Baner/Balewadi under Sub Section (1) of Section 31 of the Maharashtra Regional & Town Planning Act, 1966 Ref: Your Notification TPS-1807/39/CR-1017(A)/07/UD-13 dated 18/09/2008 Sub Section (1) of Section 31 of the Maharashtra Regional & Town Planning Act, 1966 Dear Madam, We have studied the proposed DP for Planning Unit No1 for Baner-Balewadi. We strongly object to the reservations which have resulted in the deletion of several civic amenities. A few reservations which have been thrown open for residential constructions comprise land reserved for public gardens, access roads, gardens, playgrounds and market ottas. We also object to the haphazard manner in which this is done. Hence, in response to your notification referred to above, we are herewith submitting our objections and suggestions for improvement of the Part of the Development Plan for Baner, Balewadi area of Pune City entitled Planning Unit No. 1 of the 23 fringe villages in PMC limits. We also request a Personal Hearing (individually) in the matter and request you to please communicate a suitable time and date. We would also request that the communication should reach us at least 10 days in advance to facilitate participation in the process. Upon receipt of your invitation, we reserve the right to attend the formal hearing in person and/or through our duly authorized legal/technical representatives. We also expect that a certified true copy of the transcript of our say will be given to us after recording our statement on each objection and suggestion listed below. We also expect the entire process of hearing to be completely transparent and to be made available to all the other concerned citizens on demand under the Right to Information Act. Yours sincerely, 304, Narayan Peth, PUNE 411 030. Tel: 24441666/24441777. Email: [email protected] 185 Appendix III: Suggestions and objections raised by the Green Pune Movement Suggestion and Objections AMENITIES AND FACILITIES 1. The reservations meant for High School (HS-1), Primary School (PS-1), Hospital (H-1) and Home Guards (HG-1) in Survey no 4 Balewadi, should not be changed to Public Semi Public Zone. The earlier reservations should be retained. 2. High School reservations in S. no 216 Baner (HS-2), Primary School in S. no 203, 216 Baner (PS-15) and others if any sought to be modified to residential, should not be reduced or deleted. 3. Space earmarked for Civic Amenities and Facilities are a must and therefore the reservations for Fire Brigade at S. no 82 Baner (FB-1), Hot Mix Plant in S.nos 49,14,15 Baner (HMP-1), Ota Market at S.no 270 Baner (OM-13) and S. no.2 Balewadi (OM-2), Construction Material Yard at S. nos 28, 29 Balewadi (CMY-1) should not be removed and converted to Residential. x The information provided by the PMC to the state government in respect of Gunthewari constructions in some of the areas is incorrect and misleading. Hence their reservations in these areas should be retained x It is felt that the Hot Mix Plant may result in pollution and be a health hazard to the residents of the area; therefore the said plot should be converted to a Garden and/or Playground Reservation as the Planning Unit no. 1 of Baner-Balewadi already has a deficit in this behalf. This area could also be converted to a new reservation called ‘Nature Facilitation Centre’ or an ‘Urban Forest’ as envisaged in the XII th Schedule of the Constitution of India. 4. It had been resolved by the planning authority that a Primary School reservation in each unit be re-designated as a Rehabilitation Centre for Differently Challenged Children (Spastics and Handicapped). However, this has not been included in the present sanctioned DP. This is also very important in view of the provisions in the XII th Schedule of the Constitution of India. GARDEN AND PLAY GROUNDS 5. Garden reservation in S. no 35 Baner (G-3) , S.nos 34, 35 Balewadi (G1), S. no 28 Baner (G-2) should not be converted to residential but retained as Garden reservations 6. Reservations for Play grounds in S.no 291 Baner (PG-10), S. nos 67, 68, 69 Baner (PG-6) that are sought to be converted to residential area should not be changed and the reservation of play ground should be continued 186 CREMATORIUMS 7. It would be wrong to shift the Crematorium in S. nos 46, 47 Balewadi (CR-2) and S. nos 177, 178 Baner (CR-3) into the RPB (River Protection Belt) zone as their use would then become redundant. Slight shifting to ensure continuity for the adjoining road and use of crematorium all year round should be ensured and changes made accordingly. ROADS 8. The modification in respect of the 18 mts. Road which runs East West along S.nos 45, 39, 38, 17, 16, 15, 13, 12, 9, of Baner to be widened to 24 mts. and shifted to North into Survey no. 7, which is reserved as Bio Diversity Park, is strongly objected, as this would mean the blatant cutting of the hill. Therefore it should be retained in the original position. BIO-DIVERSITY PARK 9. Preserving the hills of Pune, designated as Bio Diversity Parks (BDP), is a matter close to the hearts of the Punekars and it is surprising that the decision in respect of the same has been kept in abeyance. We object to this, as it amounts to literally trying the patience of the Punekars. 10. The BDP reservation at S. no 1 Baner, sought to be converted to Residential is strongly objected. 11. The area reserved for Bio-Tech & Agri-Business Zone in S. no 51 Balewadi is sought to be modified to Residential. The said modification is objected.. HIGH LEVEL FACT-FINDING COMMITTEE The information and justification in respect of reserved lands, to be modified to residential, citing reason of Gunthewari or permissions sanctioned by the PMC to the buildings, is incorrect and misleading as the said lands are still open lands. Further, it is seen that even today, illegal constructions and cutting of hills is taking place in reserved areas before the DP is finalized and the PMC is not taking any action. 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