…There are only two ways to keep people out of any space – prices and policing. In other words, the prices will automatically be higher in such cities – the notion that they will be low cost is flawed. Even if possible from a cost provision perspective, they cannot be low cost from a demand supply perspective. Even with high prices, the conventional laws in India will not enable us to exclude millions of poor Indians from enjoying the privileges of such great infrastructure. Hence the police will need to physically exclude people from such cities, and they will need a different set of laws from those operating in the rest of India for them to be able to do so. Creating special enclaves is the only method of doing so. And therefore GIFT is an SEZ and so will each of these 100 smart cities have to be. (excerpt from an article by Laveesh Bhandari, Founder and Chief Economist at Indicus Analytics Pvt Ltd)So let me get this right. The government will be used to empty land to build smart cities in the name of developing the country. It will be called “inclusive development”. And the smart cities built on this land will be for the rich – by design. And we are talking of a hundred cities, displacing god knows how many people. The police of the land will be used “on the tax payer’s money” (as these hotshots like to call it) to keep the poor out of these cities using laws OTHER THAN INDIAN LAWS. Am I the only one being reminded of Arundhati Roy’s infamous quote that earned her the anger of the oh-so-innocent middle classes? Here it is, if you don’t remember. And she said this in 2007.
We have a growing middle class, being reared on a diet of radical consumerism and aggressive greed. Unlike industrializing western countries which had colonies from which to plunder resources and generate slave labour to feed this process, we have to colonize ourselves, our own nether parts. We’ve begun to eat our own limbs. The greed that is being generated (and marketed as a value interchangeable with nationalism) can only be sated by grabbing land, water and resources from the vulnerable. What we’re witnessing is the most successful secessionist struggle ever waged in Independent India. The secession of the middle and upper classes from the rest of the country. ~ Arundhati RoyThis could be considered the impractical fantasy of rich men (albeit very rich men and sponsors of the ruling party behind this government), but the brochure also carries an introductory message from Shankar Aggarwal, IAS, Union Ministry of Urban Development, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, not to mention him being personally present there and meeting journalists on the sidelines to announce the Framework for 100 smart cities to be ready by February.
Vidyut
Founder at Aam Janata
Vidyut has a keen interest in mass psychology and using it as a lens to understand contemporary politics, social inequality and other dynamics of power within the country. She is also into Linux and internet applications and servers and has sees technology as an important area India lacks security in.
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Why dont you put up the entire brochure. It seems like the author has purposefully taken a para and placed it out of context.
The entire article is available in the attached pdf download along with the content of other relevant texts. Have you read it? The photo is of a quote that amply demonstrates the problem. I fail to see this “out of context” you speak of.
Apart from the usual fear mongering, this would be an excellent system. It is quite similar to China’s hukou system which doesn’t allow mostly poor people from coming into their cities. If this was followed by india, Mumbai wouldn’t have been the shithole that it is today. Development would have been faster, urban areas would have had the quality of life and less of our professionals would have migrated overseas. True it sounds alarming that poor people are excluded, but this actually fastracks development in the country and there is a far better chance that the poor people will be elevated out of poverty faster like what China has done. It will be a boon for newer cities if they can be planned perfectly without slums. Also when i say poor people are excluded it doesn’t mean the ones who can afford to buy a place in the new city and this place doesn’t have to be expensive, it could be low cost housing. On the face of it, it does seem cruel but nothing can make the development go faster and reach India’s poor than making our cities world class and attracting the talent and entrepreneurs which we are losing to emigration. With China reaching some 160 or so cities with more than a million population and the infrastructure in each city is just amazing, it can be seen how urbanisation is working there. Such fear mongering will lead us nowhere.
I think it is one paragraph in one brochure which has a misplaced idea. I highly doubt GIFT city is being developed with the intention of displacing low income people and including only wealthy people. Smart cities are being developed in order to address the need for basic infrastructure like land water shelter etc. It is to curb the crowding of our established big cities and thus a strain on their infrastructure.
The gujarat model is mainly used in the context of electricity. It is the only state to be self sufficient in power needs and have a positive financials in its distribution business. It has achieved this by implementing feeder separation in rural areas. While pure play agriculture will receive subsidized to free power the rural households will pay for power Creating a win win for all.
Again i highly doubt the concept of smart city has been created to keep poor out. That would be a little dramatic. Logically it can never work even if a few despotic individuals want it to happen.
Damn. I don’t know whether to be outraged at this or just accept the reality. Such things are so common these days that I’m not even surprised. Observing the Indian middle class’ mentality, I wouldn’t be shocked if they support this with all their might.
Would it be possible to request the journalist concerned to post a copy of the full text of the brochure, or Laveesh Bhandari’s speech/article.
I have requested, but she doesn’t seem to have the tools needed – it is a large brochure. The file linked for download has the relevant pages including full text of Laveesh Bhandari’s article.
The journalist’s name is Shruti Ravindran. That should have been mentioned if you’re using the photograph she took.
She had initially not wanted to be mentioned, which is why I had simply said “a journalist”. I spoke with her again and she is now attributed. Thank you for caring for correct attribution of sources.