In his new book, Feroze Varun Gandhi turns his gaze to India’s cities and their transport, housing and environment nightmares
Varun Gandhi
The other Gandhi, three-time member of parliament from Pilibhit and the author of four books, Feroze Varun Gandhi’s name is somewhat synonymous with political incorrectness. His new title, The Indian Metropolis: Deconstructing India’s Urban Spaces (Rupa Publications), sees the 42-year-old pick holes in the establishment’s attitude towards improving quality of life for India’s urban middle class.
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Gandhi hopes that policy makers will give as much priority to environment planning as they do to infrastructure, “with a push for including natural open spaces in a city’s development plan”. Speaking of a culture that promoted taking a dip in natural water bodies, he says most stretches of rivers that run through urban pockets are dead. “I look forward to the day when my daughter can swim without harm and health concerns in an urban river.”
In an exclusive interview to mid-day, Gandhi chooses to steer clear of political discussion, and talks about the cities that have left an impression on him and policy makers who are losing touch with reality.
Edited excerpts from the interview.
Why did you choose to focus on urban India?
After spending half a decade understanding and discussing rural India, writing a dense tome on how we live in India’s metros was a tall order. And yet, as I interacted with thousands of Indians who live in our cities, it became evident that city life was challenging. For the average urban Indian earning a salary of Rs 10,000- Rs 15,000, keeping up with inflation, braving the daily commute, fighting floods, bad air and heat waves wasn’t easy. Policymakers seem to have lost connect with those who do the daily grind. Our cities are becoming unlivable.
[I also wondered] that as we take our rightful place on the world stage, why do our cities look unmoored and removed from our civilisational heritage? We need a national conversation around these subjects.
You stress on the need to “rethink” how cities are managed and why local governments are playing catch-up. What do the states and Centre need to do to make urban areas future ready?
Every year, some or the other pocket of Mumbai’s priciest real estate sinks in the monsoon deluge. A similar plight awaits Gurugram. In particular, land use change, and the push for more infrastructure projects can have a grievous impact. Bengaluru and Hyderabad are seeing local lakes vanish, and Delhi has seen the Yamuna’s floodplain encroached. Going forward, India will see a higher frequency of high intensity rainfall. Poor urban planning coupled with climate change will mean that Indian cities are perennially under siege.
We need to pursue better economic integration within our cities. We need to fix transportation across urban centres; gone are the days when a bus service that ran infrequently was enough for a Tier 2 city. We have favoured a skew towards private transportation in urban centres. We have to shift focus to moving people instead of vehicles. We need to radically shift our urban realty markets towards provisioning for affordable housing; for too long, our developers and municipal governments have sought to increase the provision of high-end housing in the hope of profits and stamp fees. We need to consider the plight of the urban poor and their malnutrition—it’s is not an affliction that affects only rural India. We need greater focus on education and healthcare, making public services affordable.
In the past few budgets, the Centre’s focus has been on addressing the challenges posed by rapid urbanisation. Do you think the government has taken adequate measures to address the issue?
Historically, the Indian state has neglected its cities, not recognising their role in driving economic growth. While there has been some progress in the recent past, much remains to be done. Our cities have witnessed multiple transitions over the last century, with barely any time to recover and adapt. The British creation of three metropolitan port cities, combined with the rollout of the railway network transformed India’s urban landscape, relegating erstwhile prominent Mughal era towns like Surat and Patna into the provincial backwaters. The creation of hill stations in Northern India (over 80 were created in the colonial era) and the advent of the plantation economy, including tea and coffee, along with industrial townships like Jamshedpur, transformed trading networks. Finally, the creation of cantonments and civil line areas along with railway stations in our major cities, led to the haphazard growth of our urban areas away from bazaars and towards railway terminals. Transforming them into sustainable and organised urban spaces will not be easy.
Most Indian cities face the same set of problems.
Affordable housing for the urban poor continues to be a challenge, with a large percentage continuing to live in slums.
The government’s role in urban housing is that of facilitator and the creator of housing stock. We must first understand the nature of our housing market—migration within India is fundamentally cyclical, with migrants moving from rural to urban spaces and back again, depending on seasonality. Our affordable housing initiatives have focused only on permanent migrants to urban areas, while ignoring the millions who move with agricultural seasons. A focus on seasonal migrants will lead to policies that focus on low-rental accommodation better suited for this transient population.
In particular, we need to focus on affordable rental housing. Rent control laws that currently seem draconian need to be reconsidered in order to incentivise investment in the rental space. This should be done with better urban land use planning to ensure appropriate distances between affordable housing spaces and employment hubs, along with access to transportation and groceries. Slum creation is fundamentally the consequence of the lack of affordable rental housing. Optimum utilisation of land resources will keep real estate prices low in the long term.
How can we deal with the urban transport problem?
Our cities have neglected buses, and encouraged private transportation or in select cases, building a metro line. Beijing has about 30,000 buses for public transportation use; Delhi’s Transportation Corporation had 3,910 buses in August 2022. Heavy traffic routes should have a bus running every two minutes. Only then can we incentivise the public to move away from private vehicles.
This can be supported by demarcating dedicated bus lanes, priority signals, etc... all virtually absent in India. Where bus lanes have been designed, priority has not been enforced, providing little speed advantage to the buses. As buses get stuck in congestion, commuters look to buy their own vehicles, adding to the congestion. Policymakers could do well by shifting focus away from building flyovers to providing priority right of access to buses.
There needs to be better cooperation among the various transport agencies, particularly at the city level, to help improve the route, schedule and fare integration between different modes of public transport. This will also enable urban authorities to coordinate policies associated with land use, parking, suburban development, car use and non-motorised transport.
Which city has left the best impression on you?
I was quite impressed with how Indore and Surat have improved hygiene and public health standards, through citywide initiatives and cooperation from citizens. We must have more of this. Outside India, Bhutan’s approach to urbanisation is markedly different. You can see the difference when you cross the border from Jaigaon in West Bengal into Phuentsholing [town in Bhutan]. Order, hygiene and urban aesthetics reveal themselves naturally, despite an open border between the two countries. We must ask ourselves why this is.
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