Small is Beautiful: The Garden Path to Development

One of the delights of Bangalore city is the campus of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). Occupying a full 440 acres of the city the Institute had the sense to plant a good number of trees on its campus early on so that it is today a research centre set in a garden. Attending a seminar at the Institute a few weeks ago, we were invited to check our email at the office of one of the organizers. “My office is just across the street from this auditorium” our kind host announced. In a flash it occurred to me when using the word street, he was comparing IISc to a city and invoking a certain kind of urban ideal. The idea of a city located in a green garden space. A city where one can walk to work from one’s residence. A genteel and refined space of gardens, singing birds, minimal automobiles and a citizenry committed to the pursuit of their individuals tasks.

This is an urban ideal shared by a good number of people across the globe, given that the beautiful picture that this ideal evokes is in fact an ecologically sustainable model for the most part. Privileging bipedal access to workspaces as well as other facilities of urban life, the model drastically reduces the consumption of petrol in commuting around different parts of the city. With it are reduced the ceaseless traffic and attendant smog that today constitutes a nightmare of most urban dwellers.

Unfortunately however this vision of the urban life is overwhelmingly privileged in favour of a more Corbusier-ian approach to the city. Where the city is divided up into single use spaces, either, residential, industrial, work, leisure or otherwise, and access to which is primarily through the petro-powered vehicle. The logic of this eminently disastrous model (take a look at the failure of Corbusier’s baby Chandigarh) can be seen also in the current move to set up IT Parks and SEZ in the State.

The problem with this logic is that in addition to building a civilization on a rapidly depleting and polluting resource like petrol, it leads to an isolation of development away from society. To illustrate this point, let me take you back to statement that inspired this column. If one’s work place were in fact across the street, what we would have in an IT company sitting quietly within a residential locality. The first benefit of this would be to ensure that valuable infrastructure follows this company and feeds into the entire neighbourhood. With the commercial activity happening within the neighbourhood, one has a larger number of people on the streets contributing to greater neighbourhood safety. Finally with similar such commercial and research initiatives sprouting up within neighbourhoods, it provides a direct incentive for local persons to be absorbed by the employment opportunity next door. What this mixed-use neighbourhood is producing therefore is a dynamic economy, producing networks of commerce and knowledge and necessarily in balance with the environment.

Entry into, and exit from, the IT Park or SEZ is restricted. It is powered by an exclusive logic, so that the infrastructure and resources flow toward these islands, rather than toward society at large. Similarly in this controlled environment the enterprise is not relating to society and can hardly be expected to cater to local youth. As such the flight of local youth outside the State will continue apace. Some local youth will no doubt get jobs, but the enterprise is- by its location within the island- not looking at persons from the local context but from a much wider context.

Being young myself, forced into exile from Goa and witness to the frustrations of my peer group similarly exiled for the lack of job opportunities in Goa, I am constantly on the look out for appropriate models of development. Models of development that build on our existing strengths and that cater to the local. Does the IT Park or SEZ model provide this opportunity? Sadly it doesn’t. Enterprise that willfully isolates itself from the community does not cater to the community. What we need is enterprise, of any sort, that by virtue of its location is in communion with the community, shaping and being shaped by its economy. What we require are cottage industrial enterprises, tiny but economically significant entities operating from within the quiet of our villages and towns, providing income to local youth. And these already exist in Goa. There are fashion designers, Info-tech companies, set design enterprises and the like operating outside of the industrial estates and in our villages with global clients. These are economies sensitive to the local economy and capable of negotiating their own terms with both the national and global economy. How are we and the State supporting these ventures? How are we making local and frustrated youth aware of these global possibilities literally in their backyard? If you insist that the Park-SEZ model is important, go ahead by all means, but can we evolve the networks and State support for this eminently desirable alternative?

(Published in the Gomantak Times 21st March 2007)

Dogs point the way to Nirvana

The media and the powers that be are all up in arms regarding the recent cases of children being bitten or mauled, in some cases to death, by the stray dogs that roam the streets of Bangalore city. The solution offered and accepted has been to cull, or kill, the stray dogs that populate the city. This way it is reasoned, we would finally rid ourselves of the nuisance that has continued to- pardon the pun- dog our urban environments for some time now. The decision in Bangalore is crucial since the past few years has seen public policy spread like wild fire across the country, based on similar such one-off incidents and knee-jerk responses. The ban on night life past 11 in the evening is a classic example of this case. It is because of these knee jerk responses becoming policy that we need to question whether killing these dogs addresses the issue at the root, or is merely dealing with the symptoms alone. I would like to forward the argument that it is the symptoms we are dealing with, without resolving the root from which these attacks emerge.

One objection to this decision has been to point out that the killing of dogs within the existing metropolis serves no purpose since the places left empty are only filled by the canine populations that are included by the rapidly expanding metropolis. The answer therefore does not lie in the immediate culling of dogs, since such a strategy should eventually require us to cull all dogs from all peri-urban areas as well. This strategy poses not just a logistical challenge, but a definitional one as well. The stray can exist only in the presence of a pet. Rural and peri-urban areas however do not share the distinctly bourgeoise understanding of pet. As such strays, in the sense we understand them do not exist. Dogs in these circumstances are merely domesticated animals that perform valuable functions of companionship, savenging and cleaing and guarding. To extend the distinctly located understanding of pet to these areas would in fact be to kill domesticated animals. That would prove to be a pickle!

But I do not wish to debate this issue around the impacts on animals or their rights. What I wish to draw attention to, is what I perceive to be the real problem, which is not being addressed at all, that of the nature of the urban environment we are creating.

To make flippant use of a popular phrase, ‘it’s a dog eat dog world’ captures exactly what is going on in Bangalore. With some notable exceptions, most of the victims in these cases have been the children of slum dwellers living in low-income (poverty-striken?) areas. The living conditions of these labourers as they build the fantasy worlds that generates Bangalore’s boom time are in fact not much better than the conditions animals live in. For all practical purposes, they are animals. Is it any wonder then that it is their children that are being attacked by dogs? Bangalore’s real estate market is spiralling out of control, even as we fail to provide decent lodgings for the labour force that actually builds and powers the city.

But it is not the law of the jungle in operation in the city. On the contrary, what we have is the generation of viciousness that is the result of the urban environment we have actively created. Even to this day the installation of the mast lights that turn vast areas of the urban night time into day time are heralded as progress. Unfortunately it is to this ‘progress’ that we can pehaps trace the violent behaviour of urban canines. Since the 80’s evidence has been building up of the existence and harmful impacts of a ‘light pollution’. Light pollution refers to the harmful impacts of over-illumination which distrupts natural biological cycles with some chilling side-effects. A range of studies suggest that excess light may induce loss in visual acuity, increased incidence of stress related disorders, the decrease in sexual capacities and greater possibilities of contracting cancers. Sleep deprivation resulting from this over-illumination is another serious impact of light pollution. If these are the impacts from the mere shining of street lights into our homes, imagine its impact on the animals living outside. Animals have often been credited with heralding the onset of natural disasters like earthquakes, even the recent tsunami. It would be wise to read the current viciousness of the dogs in Bangalore as symptoms of stress building up within urban inhabitants. A stress that needs to be addressed urgently.

While there are a number of ways in which one can reduce over-illumination in cities, it does not appear that there will be much movement on this front. Public illumination and the dispelling of natural darkness have unfortunately come to be associated too closely with progress. A progress toward a goal we will never achieve and yet nevertheless serves to beef up our negative national self-impression. But less esoterically, public illumination also provides a very real sense of security. Security from the criminals who lurk in the darkness and can be countered only through these campaigns of public illumination. However once again the question needs to be asked, is not the increase in this fear linked to the perceived increase in crime? Is this crime resultant from the wide gaps in income and expenditure within our society? While some indulge in orgiastic consumption within homes and malls, others starve outside while observing these orgies that democracy promises ought also to be theirs. Crime at one point was very simple, you gave up your goods and you kept your life. Today even that is not assured, as the pettiest of theft is accompanied by unnecessary aggression. Can we link it to the stresses building up within our society, induced by light or by increased deprivation?

Either ways there is something deeply wrong with the urban environment our new found wealth is generating. The ‘vicious’ dogs in Bangalore are only providing a warning we ought to heed. Will we?

(published in the Gomantak Times, 7th March 2007)

The Carnaval of Goa

A friend remarked a few days following her religious marriage ceremony, that the legal registration of the marriage notwithstanding, were it not for the rituals of the ceremony, she would not have felt married. In making that innocent remark about her wedding, she made a profound point on the importance of ceremonies, rites of passage and festivals in our lives. These rituals are not just meaningless remnants from the past. On the contrary by participating in them, they form us into different beings, give us different personas, sometimes temporarily, in the course of a festival- like the Carnaval; at times permanently, like the wedding ceremony of my friend.

The Carnaval is a great example of the power of the symbolic to transform us. The Carnaval having both pagan and Christian roots performed a vital societal function year after year. It allowed for a period when the normal was suspended and inverted. For five whole days the rules of the everyday were (and are suspended) to allow a general free-for-all normally unthinkable. In allowing for this possibility, not only does it allow for society to blow off steam, but at the same time underlines a single fact. These five days of Carnaval are the exception, not the norm, and it is because of the exception, that the norm is possible. In other words, the justices and injustices of every day life are made possible, primarily because of the existence of Carnaval when the normal is abandoned. It is the exception that proves the rule.

What happens then when the exception is transformed into the norm? Goa offers an excellent example, where the Carnaval that operated as an exception has been made the norm. Year after blessed year the theme of a Carnaval Goa was repeated at the Republic Day parade to the extent that when the definitely serious Film festival was brought to Goa, a second Carnaval was produced to lend an ‘authentic’ ‘Goan’ flavour to the event. The result? Goa is now seen as the land of the eternal Carnaval, where every day of the 365 is a holiday. This may have a certain immediate economic impact in terms of creating Goa as an instant holiday destination, but contemplate the more serious long term economic implications.

Almost a year ago, when I began this column I suggested that the Goa would never be able to develop a serious IT or other industry because of the seriously cultivated image for Goa as a holiday paradise. Imagine my horror when I lived through the following episode. A friend recently retired as CEO of a substantial financial company was offered by one of the larger American animation companies, the option of taking charge of the 20 odd acres of land they held in Goa to set up their Indian base of operations. Their logic was that they would be able to use the Goan environment and lifestyle to attract persons from across India and the globe in setting up their India base of operations. This idea was quickly shot down by this former CEO who pointed out that people go to Goa to relax and unwind. They did not and would not come to work. Two, the Goan is an entirely unreliable individual, given to merrymaking, s/he did not work either. Thus was shot down a very real chance of Goa hosting a serious technology industry thanks to its party image. An image that I am trying to indicate was mistakenly pulled out from being an exception to being the norm. He made another point though that those supporting the IT Parks in Goa should bear in mind. “You could” he told the company “have a centre where you have refresher courses for your employees”. In other words use Goa for what it is best used for, a chill out zone.

Carnaval played another crucial role it created the space and environment for the mob. A mob given to merry-making and not random acts of violence no doubt, but a mob nevertheless. In doing so, it also created the space for civil society, the opposite of the mob, the space for the conscious citizen where matters are discussed and debated.

Contemplate once more the environment created by the Film Festival as crowds and mobs are created through the street fair that is timed with the Film festival. What is the reason for a street carnaval timed at the exact moment of a serious film festival? First it befuddles the mind of the individual into thinking that they are participating in the film festival, when in fact they are doing nothing of the sort. What is being done to them is to dumb them down. The street party offered during the time of the Film festival is better suited to Carnaval time, which is the appropriate moment for the mob. Extending this Carnaval atmosphere to a time that should be devoted to the refinement of one’s aesthetics only serves to disprivilege this entire pursuit through which one broadens ones imagination to participate in public life more effectively.

But perhaps this is the intention of the State. A State that is more inclined to cultivate a mob that it can then unleash when it so requires. An electorate that has been conditioned to see State action as the effective and continuous provision of Carnaval. This could explain the sorry state of Goan politics. Finally the creation of a mob justifies greater State control and intrusion in our lives. With every passing year as the street fair outside grows louder and larger, the security within the Festival goes stricter and stricter. This is not a coincidence. The two exist only because of each other.

There is a time and place for everything we were advised when we were children. One is never too old to reflect on the wisdom of that idiom and perhaps it is not as yet too late to put Carnaval back into its true space and context and in doing so set things right again. Viva Carnaval!

(published in the Gomantak Times, 21 Feb 2007)

The Intellectual and the Foundation of the New Goan Century

A few weeks ago while making a case for the now scrapped Regional Plan, the Chairperson of the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry remarked how there was a need for such schemes as the increasingly discredited IT Park since there was a flight of the “intelligent class” away from Goa. In observing this flight from Goa Kunkolienkar does have a point. There is a massive flight of young and intelligent individuals from Goa primarily because they do not have the appropriate environment to flourish.

And yet, I am not going to turn this into an argument against the Government or indeed for the Regional Plan or such destructive plans like that of the supposed IT Park. We very often get the Government we deserve and my argument is that it is our society that does not value the intellectual enough. This lack of respect and value for the intellectual is what is creating the politically and socially state of affairs that Goa has been wallowing in for decades now.

The marginal position for the intellectual is clearly visible in the fate of that most glorious of Goan institutions, the Central Library. From its current location within the centre of Panjim, there are plans to shift the building to Patto. From a central location accessible with ease to all within and outside of the city, we are going to shift the library to a building that can be reached currently only with a good amount of difficulty. In this shoddy treatment to an institution that has moulded generations of Goans, we can gauge our society’s respect and recognition of the intellectual.

The library building will reportedly be from the first floor upwards, since the ground floor will be devoted to shops. Selling coconuts, rice and a variety of vernacular smut no doubt! The ease with which the powers that be decided to locate shops at the base of a fine intellectual institution is once again indicative of what exactly our society considers the fundamental basis for success in the world. Money, money, money. If Goa has been able to move, rather successfully, from being some sort of a feudal society to a modern society then due credit has to be given to its large middle class. Ignoring the problems with considering persons settled abroad as Goan, I will for the moment include them to count on the middle class (and even super-rich) Goan, as being spread throughout the globe. Goa made one leap with some ease. The next step, of inculcating a value for education for the sheer sake of producing knowledge and being able to examine an issue from a variety of perspectives has been by and large ignored.

It has become the flavour of the moment to call persons now settled comfortably in other parts of the world members of a Diaspora; Goa is no exception. And yet compare the Goan diaspora to the mother of all, indeed the original diaspora, the Jewish diaspora. The number of Jewish foundations flush with money and spending on intellectual and cultural innovation within (and outside of) the community is mind-boggling. Where, I would like to inquire do we find a similar investment by and for the Goan community? There are ofcourse a variety of Trusts set up by the ‘prominent’ families in Goa but any activity that would even mildly threaten to disturb the status quo receives no support. In addition, it appears that one is expected to be eternally grateful and beholden to the persons who created the endowment from which one is benefiting. Hardly the kind of environment for critical intellectual and cultural activity to take off.

There has been much enthusiasm in the wake of the apparent victory of the Save Goa Campaign over the Regional Plan. There have been well-intentioned cyber-Goenkars who have suggested, quite appropriately that they ought not to just sit around but support the activity taking place in Goa. And yet, this may not be quite the answer in the current environment when the campaign is the product of multiple and strange bed-fellows. Not all of whose credentials are either impeccable, nor their intentions bona fide. But rather than let a good idea go waste we need to figure out ways in which we can pour in diasporic money and encourage a flourishing of critical and questioning intellectual and cultural renaissance. We need foundations that will fund scholars young and old to locate themselves in Goa and add new insight into an already vibrant civil society. Funds that will assure Goan youth that Goa is a destination that encourages local talent to engage in intellectual exploration, giving them the financial and institutional strength to pursue intellectual trajectories and yet be rooted in Goa. We need funds that will award those who build new buildings respectful of its environs and our environment. We need foundations that will support young and upcoming artists and musicians. All of these will challenge the uneasy and delicate peace presided over by political bosses and business houses. And yet this will, like the churning of the Ocean of Milk, bring forth vibrance that can only come where the intellectual is valued and respected, not for the money s/he brings home, but the learning s/he generates. Now when are those dollars going to start pouring in?

(published in the Gomantak Times, 7th Feb 2007)

Responding to Kunkolienkar’s Defence of the Regional Plan

A fortnight ago the Navhind Times interviewed Nitin Kunkolienkar, President of the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry on his views on the opposition to and the demand for the denotification of the Regional Plan 2011. I would like to engage with some of his views since they represent the viewpoint of a number of influential persons within the State.

The first point he articulates is that the plan has been prepared by experts after reviewing a number of aspects like the infrastructural development of the state, new areas of growth that are likely to take place in view of economic liberalization and is not an individual document even though unfortunately some undesirable clauses had been incorporated into it at the last moment. These he argues can be rectified easily.

There are two issues here, one of the importance of process in a democracy under the rule of law, and the other, what sort of a democracy are we committed to? Justice, a famous legal maxim goes, must not only be done, but seen to have been done. It stresses the importance of procedure in the delivery of justice. In the case of the Regional Plan 2011, there was a violation of procedure on both the evolution of the plan, and the insertion of ‘individual’ requirements into the plan.

There was a less than appropriate involvement of the common person in the evolution of the Regional Plan. Notices were sent no doubt to invite comment on the plan, but who was going to explain the technical details it to the individual and community? If we are to take the Constitution’s mandate of decentralization seriously, then there is a need for a team of experts to visit each individual village, map out existing uses of the land, superimpose the proposed uses over it and list out the impacts of these. This process of planning envisages a just role for both expert and common person, where both can talk to each other, learn from each other; with opposition only serves to iron out existing tensions and faults within society and Plan. This form of planning is recognized as commonplace and required in various parts of the world and even the Central Government is slowly getting into this mode. In failing to organise the planning process in such a way the Regional Plan did not involve the common man and compromised the quality of expert advice. Given that there are procedural errors in the articulation of the plan, the Plan itself is the problem. Besides, without a process in place, and a process to identify the problems how on earth can one identify the problems that are to be pulled out? This is not merely a legalistic quibble but a necessary consequence of taking democracy seriously.

Kunkolienkar then went on to point out that if planning as represented by the Regional Plan is delayed Goa would be the loser in development. This would adversely affect our economic growth and make us ‘remain’ backward. This vision of doom is the oldest trick in the developmental book: the shame of being backward and the loss of goodies which are on offer for the moment alone. Once again it relegates process and debate to the backburner and privileges autocratic decision making. What such business plans do is create a platform for inequitable growth, where a minority grows rich on the exploitation of the general public and the environment. This service of a minority is a major reason why the proposed SEZ are also being opposed.

Everyone agrees that there are huge problems with tourism and the mining industry in Goa despite the huge amounts of revenue they bring into the State. And yet we are not talking about it. There is no serious and organized debate being organized about it. On the contrary we see the Regional Plan as being able to offer solutions without addressing the problems that already exist. Something like pushing dust under the carpet. We need to seriously take stock of the tourist and mining business in the State, ensure that it is more equitable, so that it will allow for greater and more equitable generation of internal revenue. Better working conditions and salaries could well allow for retention of Goans within Goa, as well as the investment of these revenues in new-economy business and intellectual endeavours. All of this requires pubic debate that leads to a Regional Plan, and this can only be done through the process outlined above.

There isn’t much space left to deal with Kunkolienkar’s opinion and so I will end by responding to his take on the inevitability of urbanization and the growth of the real-estate development business. He stated that “that rural areas have never remained rural in any part of the world and over a period of time urbanisation takes place.” It is a “pattern” that “just cannot be reversed. Goa, that is 50 per cent urbanised now, would have at least 65 per cent of its area in the urban zone over the next decade or so…”

This entire argument is based on an outdated understanding of rural and urban. Older urban studies defined the rural against the urban. As such, an aesthetic of concrete high-rises came to define the urban, as seen in Kunkolienkar’s argument. Others would argue, more appropriately in my opinion, that the distinction is itself flawed. The so called rural areas have had a relationship with the urban, and have therefore been urbanized for a long time now. Perhaps a better way would be to think of these places as having less than equitable access to resources and facilities. This in no way is tied to the aesthetic of highly concentrated high rise buildings is being pushed by Kunkolienkar. All over the world there is a new understanding of cities, wherein well-developed (for want of a better word) villages with a good proportion of greenery to built-form ration, of low-rise, high density structures are being considered as contemporary, relevant and ecologically sound. By this logic Goa’s villages have had an urban character for ages now and there is no reason why this should be bypassed as impractical. On the contrary they could serve as a planning model. Besides what Kunkolienkar does not tell us, that a good amount of the real estate development is fuelled by speculation, which not only does not cater to the local resident, but since not fuelled by need, is in the long run wasteful.

Kunkolienkar’s concern stems from a valid concern, but once he realizes that the implications of his solutions are essentially anti-democratic, perhaps he would see the other point of view?

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 31 January 2007)

On why Goa needs no SEZ

I’d like to address the issue of whether Goa needs Special Economic Zones (SEZ). For those who have not yet heard the news, there are a good number of SEZ planned for Goa. As of now we know for a fact that the Goa State has leased over 900 acres of land to four companies who have been approved as developers of SEZ. Let us concern ourselves with the extent of land as of now, even though there are other as important issues as well. For example that this amount of land, is even more than what the Central Board of Approval for SEZ had approved, and that much of the acquisition of land precedes even the approval of the SEZ.

What is the logic of the SEZ formula? The logic simply put is that India- and by that implication Goa- is a developing country and needs to catch up with the industrialized and developed west. Since it does not have the resources to invest in infrastructure all over the country, it provides a special area for a few industries, which then operate as the push factor, pulling up the surrounding regions along with them. India even before Independence has been imagined as this vast country, full of starving illiterate farmers, a country with little or no basic infrastructure. This is a serious national self-image problem, and one that has been internalized by its leaders and policy-makers. This allows then for the country to create such schemes that are designed to bring pieces of the West into India, to operate by their own laws, so that we can then emulate these islands of prosperity and be pushed into development. That this idea is wholly disrespectful of the intelligence and desires of the people we shall leave be for the moment. What I would like to draw attention to are the facts of Goa. Goa has a decent infrastructure and a rather high standard of living, even though there are pockets within it that need more attention. Goa in no way measures up to the image of a starving, infrastructure-less land. Quite clearly the economic and policy remedy for Goa is not the SEZ but something that is tailored to the local conditions.

The SEZ policy also rests on another logic; that the citizens are stupid and illiterate, have no idea of modernity and need the wisdom of some enlightened bureaucrat to help them get out of poverty and into modernity. Now quite clearly Goa does not fall into this category at all. If anything, Goa has the most vibrant civil society and political sphere in the country, where every issue is subjected to the minutest public analysis. Goa has had a system of Panchayat Raj (however restricted it may have been) since before the Constitution of India was in force. This has laid the foundation for the noisy and contested Gram Sabhas which though we may dislike them, are indicators of a conscious citizenry. In such is the case, why then do we need to have these Special Zones set up which disrespect entirely the demands of the Indian constitution that the local self Governments have a larger say in the administration of the country? The SEZ legislation envisages a single window clearance system for industries within these zones. What this translates to is a bureaucratic office over-eager to please and willing to disregard every law and regulation that has been set in place. The SEZ are also exempt for local taxes and fees. Take a look at the wealthy Panchayat of Sancoale. The source of its income is the industrial estate located on the hill above it. In the case of Sancoale, the Panchayat can take up matters of concern and also benefit economically from the location of industries within its jurisdiction. All of this because it has control over the land on which the estate is located. In the case of villages whose land will be annexed for the SEZ however, they can kiss any dreams of wealth from rightfully owed taxes goodbye. All they can hope for is the possibility of jobs that may or may not come to them.

And this is another issue that we need to address. The SEZ does not cater to existing local problems of unemployment or lack of industry. It caters to the interests of big capital and profit-making. As such, it is not going to be a carefully tailored solution to local crises, but create huge amount of jobs, that will require labour from outside the State. Goa and Goans are not closing the doors of their State, but surely we need to realize that what the SEZ policy is doing is merely displacing problems from one part of the country to another. This smacks of another type of internal colonialism, one of the country, by the country, for the interests of global capital.

No sir, Goa does not require the SEZ. While it requires more industry and employment opportunities t the method of achieving this must be one that respects not just the Goan citizen, but also the local dynamics of the problem. We already have a thriving tourist industry how do we internally regulate it to make it yield more to Goans so that they have a desirable job option within the State? How can we improve the local transport system so that we can have people move frequently within the State, creating not only jobs in transportation, but job options within the State? How can we invest in infrastructure that will improve quality of life for the local, and also have the local service this infrastructure? The solution to all of these lies not in the ill-conceived idea of the SEZ, but in a developmental policy that is genuinely dialogical and respectful of the local and one that can emerge out of the Panchayati Raj system which is perfectly suited to this objective.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 17 Jan 2007)

Travelling Bangalore...

Ok...so I'm in shock.

Ever the do-gooder I chanced upon a colleague who lives at the absolute other end of town and thought I'd be cute and give her a travel tip. "Do you know that there is a Volvo bus that leaves from Chandra Layout and goes right up to Indiranagar?" I beamed!

Uma, for that is her name, brought me right down to earth..."Yes" she smiles "but its very expensive..from Richmond Road to HAL it would cost me 25 rupees".

25 rupees! Now thats a lot of money, if she travelled on this bus everyday to work the poor woman would loose a good chunk of her salary.

My colleague Priya and I have been raving about the Volvo buses in Bangalore for a while now,
on how neat and efficient they are, how bright and beautiful, and how wonderful it would be if the entire fleet of public transport buses in Bangalore were Volva. Apparently however, this is not going to be very possible, since if we converted the entire fleet to Volvo's we would only have the rich and upper middle class travelling in these buses!

This entire episode has only confirmed a fear that I have had about the possibilities of a public transport system for India's urban spaces. One, there is no interest in such a system since hte rich and the upper middle class, and the middle class in busy imitation need to assert their difference from the rest of the population. Two, where efforts are made at public transportation, it will operate in a manner as to exclude the poor and the working class from its operation, reserving the swanky additions for the middle class. And so it will go on, India's pernicious caste system, taking new forms every day. While I was a student in Bangalore, you had the Pushpak buses which promised, thanks to a higher fare, that you did not have to stand with the stinky and smelly folk, and could travel in relative comfort. From the Pushpak to the Volvo not much has changed at all...

There have already been fears expressed that Bangalore's proposed Metro will be way to expensive for the working class who do not earn the fancy salaries that the techies do...but then perhaps thats what the Metro is intended for...the working class sods...let them find their own way!