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In contrast, the
space of places is historically bound and specific, and is
also culturally plural — its dwellers having constructed a
meaningful, interacting space with a diversity of uses, and a wide
range of functions and expressions.
Viewing the scenario
in metropolitan India, one finds that several State Governments
seem to have realized the role which information technology is
going to play in the present globalized world. But instead of
relinquishing their stranglehold on the urban growth process,
these governments seem obsessed with building up their own
info-tech cities by either decongesting city centers, or taking up
'mega city' projects on the periphery of congested metropolitan
centers. They are availing huge loans either from international
funding agencies, or from the Central Government, to build
expressways, flyovers, modernized airports, or dedicated water and
electricity supply for corporate info-tech parks and housing, all
in creation of the so-called space of flows.
As part of a
'Mission Mumbai,' an all party delegation led by the Chief
Minister of Maharashtra recently met the Prime Minister to seek
annual aid of Rs. 2,000 crores for the next ten years for the
'make over' of Mumbai in the lines of Shanghai! Close on its heels
came a 'Vision Mumbai' report compiled by global consultancy firm
McKinsey, promoting a Rs. 200,000 crores re-development plan for
transforming Mumbai into a world-class city.
Flows
vs. Places
What seems illogical
is not so much the government interventions (that are still
essential in developing countries like India), but the lop-sided
priorities that seem to guide them. An obsession with creation of
spaces of flows is being undertaken at a willful neglect of
spaces of places, especially when 40 to 50 percent of
inhabitants of metropolitan cities live in slums lacking basic
facilities like water, electricity, roads, sewerage and schools.
Further, as Solomon
Benjamin (Bangalore-based Research Consultant and Economic Advisor
to International Agencies) points out, attempts at decongestion of
city cores by shifting wholesale trade to the peripheral areas, is
often done at the cost of local economies which run on ethnic and
kinship networks, and also provide a niche for survival to the
poor. Interestingly, these local economies provide the
basis for a more democratic municipal politics because their
constituent populace is a vote bank for the municipal councilors.
In comparison, the development authorities — constituted by
bureaucrats and state government appointees — have practically no
local level representation, and are often insensitive to the needs
of the majority. Similarly, the beneficiaries of mega
projects--members of 'enclaved' high-income neighborhoods — who
constitute a miniscule of any city's population, often view the
surrounding slums as festers that need to be eradicated.
In Conclusion…
No doubt, the niches of the space of flows created in
metropolitan Indian cities do indeed help in connecting them to
the global network of world cities. However, the space of flows
can neither disconnect itself from the space of places that
constitutes the major chunk of these metropolitan cities, nor can
it get disconnected from the surrounding poverty-stricken
hinterland. Cities like Mumbai stand out as islands of prosperity
and opportunities amidst the sea of deprivation and poverty which
constitutes rest of India. They will therefore continue to attract
streams of migrants notwithstanding the 'sons of the soil'
campaigns of regional political outfits. Similarly, the Chief
Minister of Andhra Pradesh may build a Cyberabad to attract
foreign investors and IT firms, which in turn may connect
Hyderabad intimately to the Silicon Valley, U.S.A via the cyber
superhighways. However, he will also have to contend with
simmering communal tensions in the stagnating southern parts of
Hyderabad, and with the recently revived movement for a separate
Telangana!
(kd@hss.iitb.ac.in)
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