Fearing the Unruly City: When Politics
and Economy contaminates Policy
in
‘The Politics and Economics of Land’ in The
Century Indian City: Developing and Agenda for Urbanization
in India March 23rd to 25th 2011, New Delhi
21st
Solomon Benjamin
National Institute for Advanced Study, Bangalore
Can we really ‘read’
the urban?
Are its constituent
elements and
spatialization beyond
the categories of
'Policy' Program?
Can it really be
mapped within the
‘Grid and the Law’
(Blomley), and to be
framed within
indicators of 'growth’
The Burdwan Pick-up Truck
Via an India-China connection
Illustration of
Ramannagaram's silk
cocoon local economy
(from BENJAMIN DELPHI 1998)
What looks like
‘ECONOMY’
shaped by
institutional of
multiple scalars
building politics
that re-works
loans forced by
multilateral
agencies
Radical Economies
Disrupting singular forms of property in patenting:
Not just ‘repair’ but Toil and Innovation!
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
“Shanzhai”: A metaphor to describe bandits who oppose and
evade the corrupted authority to perform deeds they see as
justified. One example of such bandits is the story of ‘Outlaws of
the Marsh’ (水浒传)
Chow to the US Senate: “..So far, however, China has done little
to stop the proliferation of fake mobile phones, which are even
advertised on late-night television infomercials with pitches
like "one-fifth the price, but the same function and look," or
patriotic appeals like "Buy shanzhai to show your love of our
country…”
THE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND INSTITUTIONAL
SUBSTANCE is intrinsic to opacity and fluidity
Diverse tenures that rework property surpluses from
both an intensity of real estate, and goods that
undisciplined by ‘the brand’
Transporting small batches of copper wire
stock locally via Cycle Rickshaws
Landscapes of Transformation
Thinking ‘CONNECTIONS’ beyond the
Nation State..
From ‘sampled filled Suitcases’ in
2005 to Briefcase - laptops &
courier based transactions in 2010
From Romila Thapar: Control
over the Empire’s ‘Margin’ /
Territory:
Remains problematic, unruly,
(perhaps ‘Hydra-like’(?): The
fear of ‘Guilds’, Corrupt
traders…)
Displacing the CentrePeriphery perspective:
Thinking ‘CONNECTIONS’
beyond maps to specific
places as Spaces:
Gaffar market not Delhi;
National Market not
Bangalore;
‘Burma Bazzar’ not Chennai
or Gangtok,
Lamington Road not Mumbai..
Boundaries transgress
those of the nation state
and city-village, and of
economies and
spatialities that link
locations in India and
China
Local Government mobilization
via land in the construction of a
Political Space shaping an
increasingly trans-national
economy
WHAT ARE THESE URBAN REALMS?
Urban India’s “China Bazaars”;
DougGaun’s anarchic landscapes;
Guangzhou’s and Delhi’s ‘Urban Villages’
A TRIAD OF:
LOCAL COUNCILS / ADMINISTRATIONS (opaque and fluid)
LAND REWORKING PROPERTY SURPLUSES (tenure
opacity)
ECONOMY DISRUPTING THE ‘BRAND’ (reverse
engineering, toil, mess, no patents, and beyond IPR)
Delhi;
URBAN REALMS inherently opaque and fluid
The Digitized RTC
post - 1969..
pre-1969
1875-76
An ethnography
especially of land
documents reveals the
diversity of claims, and
histories via tenure
forms
But to reading these as competing
‘Occupancy Urbanisms’ (OU is not just and
emancipatory ‘resistance’! )
And competing rationales mobilized to
occupy: ‘Planning’ norms, ‘customary’
forms … these emerge from contesting
genealogies …
The Karnataka Mulageni Athava Volamulageni Genidararige Malikathvavannu Pradhana Maduva
Vidheyaka, 2011 (giving ownership to tenants), are repugnant to two pieces of Central legislation
- the Registration Act, 1908 and the Transfer of Property Act, 1857. ….
.Bills were rushed through in both the Houses of the legislature in
January. With both the Houses in pandemonium most of the time, the
ruckus came in handy for the government to get bills passed without
debate. (DH)
Mulageni and Muli Rights
By Mohan Shenoy
It will be easier to understand the Mula rights and
Mulageni tenants, if we study the history of revenue
administration in the region. When Tipu Sultan got
killed in the Mysore War of 1799, the Kannada
(Kanara) areas and Sonda kingdom, both situated
north of Malabar and also Malabar situated north of
Travancore kingdom on the West Coast of India,
which areas were ruled by Tipu Sultan until then,
came under the Administration of East India
Company. The Company had its headquarters in
Madras. Therefore all these lands were included in the
Administrative block known as the Madras
Presidency. ....Sir Thomas Moore, a British officer,
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
FLUID IDENTIES Among Thigala-speaking Dalit Christian
communities in outlying villages such as Begur, Byrathi, Mestripalya
and Gottigere, Christmas practices are decidedly communitarian. ….
A few weeks before Christmas, a few Thigala families get together
and buy a cow or a goat and feed it till it is plump. On Christmas, the
animal is slaughtered and the meat distributed to everyone in the
village, irrespective of religion. There are also community feasts.
Mogaveera..
(Pre 1896, but still continues as a broad based ethnic
structuring)
Paduhoige
Gramsabha
Neereshwalya
Gramsabha
Bengare
Mahajan Sabha
The Federated Structure Of
Local Organizations In Tota
Bengare, Mangalore
The opaque, fluid,
Bureaucracy is
embedded in older
institutions..
(BMS) Post 1896
Shri Mahavishnu
Seshasayana Bhajana
Mandira
(Temple group)
BMS Ferry Service
Konkani Kharvi
Mahajanasabha
(Ethnic association)
Mangalore –Bengare
Mangalore –
Fishingwomen Coop Society
Veera
Bengare
Fishermen Coop.
Bharathi
Society
Sports Gymnasium
Clubs
Bengare
Mahila
Rani bale
(16 Nos)
Vidyarthi
Samaja
Funds
Veera
(Fishing co-op groups with
small boats)
Sangha
(Women
Hanuman
11 Nos.
’s
Gymnasium (Student
Group)
group)
Is there a single and knowable ‘agenda’
aimed to inform and discipline
urbanization via policy framed to deploy
developmentalism?
Call in the GIS experts, the finance consultants, and
most important, the ‘native informants’…
Does this inability to ‘read’ an opaque
territorialisation also disrupt the activist progressive academic?
And, their counter narrative to 'neoliberalization' that strive for 'authentic'
public consultations, the 'Rights'
framework, Participatory planning?
Is the activist academic also a native informant?
A close consideration of
the politics and economy
of land pose their
materiality beyond just a
passive stage set for
Meta forces to be acted
upon
Such a conceptual and
empirical move also
moves a perspective
beyond ‘policy’ to reveal
it’s rather fragile
underpinnings
Mega Territories: As
assumed by Planners,
Administrators, Global /
World city experts, and
Progressive Activists
An essential features is the
unsettling of singular forms
property in land and economy
-- this may lie in at the centre
of this displacement.
This unruly - undisciplined
urban, that refuses an easy
capture by what Blomley
terms as the 'violence of the
Grid and Law'.
The Map’s "power" is
often only Paper
thin..
A different genealogy to Violence?
Not just evictions but rather, the zeal to map, to generate and
deploy the native informant, to make ‘transparent’,
All this driven by the implicit acceptance of, and anxiety of
'the lack of complete and proper implementation' of the
‘Policy and the Plan’.
This representational politics is sought to be disciplined by its
projectification, and implicates both those concerned with
making cities globally competitive, but also the activist
academics whose narrative tacitly builds on those given
categories.
A different genealogy to Violence:
The police suspect that Swamy had been
searching for the records of three acres of
land acquired from him, and that he was
attempting to either steal or forge a copy of
the documents. The advocate's land was
acquired for aerospace and IT parks. The
investigation also revealed that Swamy had
visited the office several times in the past. He
was involved in helping farmers, who had
lost their lands to KIADB, to get
compensation from the board.