The horrible living conditions of the peripheral shanties of Shining India’s cities, so gut-wrenchingly depicted in Slumdog Millionaire which is wowing — instead of shaming — the great Indian middle class, is not an act of God, but the outcome of persistent amateurish planning.
For a start, municipal governments have no power to tax or enforce their writ. The 74th amendment to the Constitution, which promotes decentralisation, and has conferred power on municipal governments and ward committees to administer the chaos which typifies India’s urban habitats, has been sabotaged by venal state governments unwilling to let go bribes-generating civic planning and administration privileges. The consequence is the functioning anarchy, characteristic of the country’s collapsing cities.
Yet it’s not only state governments who are to blame. Ministers, top bureaucrats, judges and notables who occupy sprawling bungalows and offices apart, even the much admired defence services are complicit in the great land-grab which has spiralled urban real estate prices to dizzy heights.
A case in point is the once-upon-a-time garden city of Bangalore, recently conferred the new nomenclature of Bengaluru. Currently the armed forces — Indian Army and Indian Air Force in particular — are in possession of thousands of acres of prime real estate sited in the heart of the city. Vast tracts of valuable real estate are utilised not only for housing defence personnel, but also for field and combat training. Yet such is the sacred cow status of the defence forces, that the question of why they need to live and train on thousands of acres in the city centre, causing overcrowding and inconvenience to millions of civilian citizens, is neither posed nor answered.
Yet the public interest requires this question to be asked. The world over, and particularly in western democracies, defence training and residential facilities are far removed from urban habitations and tend to be sited deep in the country, where they have more room, fresh air, and space for training. In the circumstances, why are there large army and defence establishments in the heart of India’s major cities? And to what extent is this curious phenomenon connected with artificially boosted real estate prices in India’s metros? Even at the risk of a coup d’etat, this question needs to be posed.