bombay/delhi again

the bombay delhi debate again and this time within the studio. not really a debate, more of a discussion, as the spa faculty and students are here for a week long exchange with our 3 semester masters students. arunav showed us the results of the concentration of power in the hands of a few in delhi. as national capital a national pride is summoned up as justification for the most gruesome evictions. first the asiad games, then the commonwealth and somewhere it is whispered the olympics are next. these events are used as reasons to clean up the city of everything that is seen as unwanted- or unaesthetic. today a slum along the river tomorrow a riverfront promenade. the master plan is the apparatus of planning the city. but it stays far above the everyday realities of the needs of the citizens. these have to find ‘illegal’ methods of finding space within the city. as long as it does not mar the unspoilt wide roads that separate more than connect the various fragments no one seems to bother. it is this distancing that i found so incredible. arunav said that as delhi wants to recreate itself as a global city it has to find ways to attract investment. but being so top heavy a system the only way it can do it is by top-down brutality. being so used to the insidious cunning of the developer lobby in mumbai i was pretty struck by that shameless brute force. Considering the difference between the two cities I cant help but believe that The spa course can afford its classical urban design bias while we in Mumbai absolutely cannot. but this is the kind of development that the middle classes seem to favour. this urge for a fascist dictator who will make everyone fall in line and create that simpler sweeter utopia where their children can run free and safe in green fields with butterflies. it is no wonder then that the hero of the middle classes is narendra modi. then there is the supreme court that seems to have decided it is the executive power in deciding the directions of development across the country- and for mumbai. first it was the mill land verdict, then the overturning of the 33/9 cess building case in favour of the builder, then it says that it is unrealistic to imagine sez’s (in spite of farmers complaining) only on non-fertile lands. according to today’s headlines it looks like it is heading to overturning the rights of slum dwellers in favour of the original property owners. the avenues of new delhi only seem far away from the slums of mumbai.