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The “missing middle”: Participatory urban governance in Delhi’s unauthorized colonies
Charlotte Lemanski (University College London)*
Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal (CNRS-EHESS)
*Corresponding author: [email protected]
***DRAFT PAPER: DO NOT CITE WITHOUT CONTACTING AUTHOR***
Challenging Orthodoxies: Critical Governance Studies
University of Warwick, 13-14 December 2010
Abstract
This research challenges orthodox theories of class and urban governance, and is empirically
located in Delhi, India. The paper critiques orthodox theories of urban participatory
governance in the global South, which polarise urban citizens and their civic strategies into
the elite, typically understood as guilty of ‘capturing’ participatory structures, and the poor,
largely conceptualized as excluded from formal governance mechanisms but active in more
politicized forms of civic mobilization, arguing that these orthodox theories are incomplete.
This research identifies urban citizens who fit neither the ‘elite’ not ‘poor’ orthodox
conceptual binary, and explores how such citizens engage in participatory urban governance.
Empirically, research addresses Delhi’s unauthorized colonies (UCs), residential areas that
have evolved mostly on private land that is not classified “residential” in the Delhi Master
Plan. Housing roughly half of Delhi’s population and comprising a mix of class type, UCs
are technically illegal locations for residential development, and are consequently excluded
from Delhi’s network of basic urban services (water, roads, electricity) and face potential
eviction. Unauthorized colonies are conceptualised as representing India’s ‘missing middle’:
comprising the ‘real’ middle class; revealing the failure of orthodox binary concepts to
accurately describe participatory urban governance for those in ‘the middle’; and highlighting
how UCs’ invisibility (linked to their heterogeneity – i.e. their ‘middle-ness’) functions as
both an asset and a limitation in terms of participation in urban governance. The paper calls
for greater recognition in academic and policy debates regarding the nuances in everyday life
that are overlooked by orthodox governance binaries. As the Delhi case shows, a large
proportion of urban populations are neither ‘poor’ nor ‘elite’, and arguably a similar trend is
likely to exist in cities throughout the world where segments of populations demographically
in ‘the middle’ are ‘missing’ from academic and policy debates.
.I. Introduction
This paper analyses the relationship between socio-economic class and participatory practices
amongst residents of Delhi’s unauthorized colonies (UCs). Orthodox literature on urban
governance in the global South, which polarises urban citizens and their mobilization
strategies into the elite, typically understood as guilty of ‘capturing’ participatory structures;
and the poor, largely conceptualized as excluded from formal governance mechanisms but
active in more politicized forms of mobilization (e.g. Chatterjee, 2004; Harris, 2007; Holston,
2007) is challenged. As part of that critique, this research identifies urban citizens classified
as neither ‘elite’ nor ‘poor’, and explores how citizens who fall outside this orthdox
conceptual binary engage in participatory urban governance. More specifically, our research
1
considers the types of governance strategies employed as well as the issues around which
‘ordinary’ residents mobilize; comparing these to the orthodox literature in order to deepen
understanding of local democracy, urban citizenship and participatory governance.
This paper employs a broad understanding of urban citizenship as open to all urban residents,
regardless of class, gender, or ethnicity (thus contrasting Chatterjee’s (2004) notion of
citizenship as reserved for those demonstrating ‘proper’ behaviour within their legal rights
and responsibilities, and consequently a label concentrated amongst elites, excluding for
example the ‘illegal’ activities of the poor). Participatory urban governance is conceptualized
as comprising both spaces or platforms created by the state for urban citizens to ‘participate’
in decisions and information sharing about city governance ( e.g. ‘invited’ spaces of
participation) as well as more grass-roots-led forms of participatory urban governance (e.g.
‘invented’ spaces), typically demonstrating a combative approach to political action and urban
governance.
India, and more specifically Delhi, provides an ideal empirical context for exploring urban
participatory governance for at least two reasons. Firstly, the Bhagidari scheme, an urban
participatory device launched in 2000 by the Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dixit provides a
rich example of a clear political emphasis on participatory governance in urban management.
The scheme, defining itself as “a citizen–government partnership” (Bhagidari website)1 is
designed to facilitate concertation between residents and city administrators in order to
develop a localized form of participation that extends civic engagement beyond elections,
focusing primarily on the quality of urban services, and it has been subject to numerous
critical studies (e.g. Mawdsley, 2009; Tawa Lama-Rewal, 2007, Mehra, 2009). Secondly,
Indian cities in particular have inspired new theoretical developments regarding local
democracy that have informed international debates regarding urban citizenship and everyday
politics (e.g. Holston and Appadurai, 1996; Chatterjee 2004; Harriss 2007).
In terms of the empirical focus, unauthorized colonies (UCs) are a particularly heuristic object
on four grounds. Firstly, residents of UCs are neither exclusively poor nor elite, but comprise
a diverse mix of class type and hold an amorphous position in the city’s political and social
spaces, straddling the porous line between legality and illegality. Secondly, UCs possess a
clear and distinct issue around which residents can mobilize, i.e. the regularization of the land
on which occupants reside. Thirdly, previous research on mobilization and participatory
strategies in Indian cities has not considered the positionality or methods employed by UC
residents, instead focusing largely on ‘slum-dwellers’ and/or the elite ‘middle-classes’ as
analytical juxtapositions. And fourthly, UCs accommodate roughly 50% of urban dwellers in
Delhi2 and thus are the dominant residential experience for India’s capital city.
Fieldwork focused on a particular civic mobilizing structure: Resident Welfare Associations
(RWAs). In March-April 2009, a series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with
members of RWAs located in different types of UCs, which could be broadly described as
poor, middle and wealthy in terms of residents’ socio-economic status and each settlement’s
1
http://delhigovt.nic.in/bhagi.asp
The estimate of 50% was asserted by officials (e.g. MCD Chief Town Planner, 01/04/09), although accurate
data is absent. Furthermore, the MCD commissionner Rakesh Mehta, in a note submitted in 2004 to the
Nanavati commission on UCs, stated that “ a majority of constructions is unauthorised… the ratio between
unauthorised and regular colonies is 75-25 per cent” (The Indian Express, 01/01/2004) However this figure
probably conflates UCs with slums.
2
2
physical characteristics.3 The elected representatives of these residential areas (municipal
councillors and Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) of Delhi) were also
interviewed, representing the two dominant political parties, BJP and Congress.4 In addition,
interviews were undertaken with bureaucrats responsible for UCs in the Municipal
Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the Delhi government, and the Delhi Development Authority
(DDA), an agency of Central government, since all three levels of government are involved in
Delhi’s governance. Members of one NGO which has been very involved in fighting the
regularization of unauthorized colonies in court were interviewed. Finally five follow-up
interviews were conducted in November 2010 (with officials and RWA members) to provide
research continuity. Altogether 27 interviews were conducted,5 a small but representative
sample of the various actors involved in the everyday and institutional functioning of UCs,
particularly in relation to the process of regularization occurring at that time. Various
documents were also collected and analysed, including some very elusive data, such as the
official list of UCs, analysis of which highlights the concentration of unauthorized colonies on
the city outskirts.
The research findings qualify unauthorized colonies (UCs) as the “missing middle” (to
borrow the phrase of Mawdsley et al., 2009),6 both in empirical and theoretical terms.
Consequently, this paper argues that UCs are the location of Delhi’s ‘real’ middle (rather than
elite) class; that RWAs in UCs highlight the failure of orthodox binary concepts to accurately
describe participatory governance in cities; and that the relative invisibility of this huge
population, which is very much linked to its essential heterogeneity, is both an asset and a
limitation as far as mobilization is concerned.
The paper proceeds by firstly describing the empirical context of Resident Welfare
Associations in the context of Delhi’s Bhagidari scheme, as well as the physical and political
evolvement of unauthorized colonies, including the regularization drive launched in 2007.
Secondly, the research is framed around two orthodox theoretical debates, the relationship
between different modes of participatory urban governance on the one hand, and the
definition of middle class in India on the other. Thirdly, discussion and analysis of the
research findings, conceptualizing unauthorized colonies as representing India’s ‘missing
middle’ in terms of class, participatory governance hybridity, political/civic activism and
invisibility is presented; and the paper concludes by discussing the theoretical and empirical
consequences of being both “middle” and “missing”.
.II. The empirical context: Participation, land and class in contemporary Delhi
2.1 Participation in practice: Delhi’s Resident Welfare Associations
3
Interviews were undertaken with RWAs in ten UCs, spread geographically throughout the city, of which two
were wealthy, five were ‘middle’, and three poor (in relative terms).
4
It is worth noting that fieldwork was undertaken in the run-up to the 2009 general elections, and thus interviews
with some politicians were clearly affected by electioneering mantras.
5
Some interviews were with single individuals (e.g. officials), others were group interviews (e.g. office bearers
of a RWA). In total 35 people were interviewed, though this was not always in a planned manner, as people
sometimes joined group interviews in an ad-hoc fashion.
6
Mawdsley et al (2009) use the phrase ‘missing middle’ in a different context with a different meaning,
highlighting the failure of conservation discourse and policy to acknowledge the role played by the urban
middle-classes (e.g. as domestic visitors to India’s protected areas).
3
Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) are commonplace in India’s urban middle-class
neighbourhoods,7 and have existed in Delhi since the 1950s. In Delhi’s authorized colonies,
RWAs are linked to the occupation process following the construction and/or sale of plots by
the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).8 RWAs are non profit associations, funded via
monthly resident subscriptions, whose self proclaimed role is to represent the inhabitants of a
physical area; typically a colony, street, or building. Although the activities of RWAs vary
significantly, and some function primarily as management committees (especially in new
housing estates and apartment blocks), they are usually concerned with infrastructure and
basic services in the area: for example roads, parks, water, electricity, and solid waste
removal. They also generally promote local conviviality, through the celebration of festivals,
and sometimes through the creation of an informal assistance service. The strategies
employed by RWAs to secure and maintain services and infrastructure from municipalities
and other public authorities range from clientelist strategies of personal persuasion, to the
collective organization of demands and complaints (e.g. via petitions and marches),
depending on the class, education and connections of residents (Arabindoo, 2008). Although
RWAs exclusively prioritise the needs of residents within a small bounded physical area,
more recently RWAs in Delhi have extended these self-serving interests beyond
neighbourhood-level issues, promoting a middle-class agenda of ‘proper’ citizenship across
the city. The disproportional voice of RWAs in city politics is consequently criticized for
promoting an exclusive ‘middle class’ agenda as the sole vision of urban society. For
example, promoting the ‘greening’ of the city, to the exclusion of other potentially less
organized but often more numerous urban voices, such as the poor’s need for basic services
(e.g. Fernandes, 2004; Baviskar and Ray, 2009). This exclusion is justified by the RWA
normative vision of urban citizenship as restricted to ‘respectable’ and ‘tax-paying’ urbandwellers (i.e. the middle-classes), in contrast to ‘illegitimate’ and ‘burdensome’ urbandwellers (i.e. the poor).9
In Delhi, Bhagidari (meaning ‘partnership’ in Hindi) was established in 2000, officially for
“developing a democratic framework in which citizen groups can communicate and act in
partnership with government servants in order to solve simple, daily problems”,10 and the
scheme is almost exclusively channeled via RWAs from authorized colonies. The Bhagidari
scheme comprises regularly organized thematic workshops (usually lasting three days),
through which representatives of RWAs and the various administrations dealing with urban
services meet and debate, with the intention that they collaborate (rather than conflict) as
‘Team Delhi’ to resolve common problems by identifying “consensual propositions”, a key
notion of the scheme.
7
Although there are a handful of RWAs situated outside of middle-class neighbourhoods, e.g. in slums and
lower class neighbourhoods (Coelho and Venkat, 2009) the overwhelming majority are in middle-class areas.
8
DDA is an agency of the Central Government created in 1957 to prepare and implement the Master Plan in the
Capital. This process requires the creation of cooperative housing societies who subsequently applied for the
allocation of a vacant plot or building, with allocation ultimately conducted through a draw of lots among the list
of applicants. Typically, a few decades after the creation of the cooperative society, the residents of the plot no
longer coincide with the society´s original members, and consequently a RWA is formed, to voice the concerns
of actual residents (new owners, heirs or, albeit less often, tenants).
9
Of course, RWAs are not a homogenous group, and the ‘voice(s)’ of RWAs are easily usurped by a handful of
highly vocal RWA federations. Indeed, during the 2006 master plan debate in Delhi the differences between
RWA interests became evident, with more affluent RWAs supporting zoning, in contrast to a petition for mixedland-use amongst RWAs in more lower-middle-class colonies.
10
Delhi smiles (brochure of the Bhagidari scheme, Delhi government, 2007)
4
There is significant literature analysing the impact of the Bhagidari scheme on urban politics
and everyday life in Delhi (e.g. Tawa Lama-Rewal, 2007; Chakrabarti, 2009; Mawdsley,
2009). To summarise, Bhagidari has been largely captured by an elite (upper-middle and
middle-middle class); functions as a springboard for RWAs to transform themselves into an
interest group (e.g. through forming large federations) whose interests and voice extend
beyond localised ‘residential’ issues; and provides RWAs (rather than residents per se) with
significant influence and authority in urban governance via privileged access to the media and
courts (for example, RWAs were highly vocal in the conflict over land use that shook Delhi in
2006-2007). Thus, RWAs in Delhi can be understood as a powerful platform for defending
and promoting apparently middle-class agendas in city politics, often to the exclusion of
other, less powerful but often more numerous, voices. These Delhi-based developments
indicate the transition of RWAs from neutral mediums for channelling information between
government and neighbourhood-based citizens, to political actors in their own right (i.e.
separate from party politics),11 promoting a highly class-based vision of democracy for the
city as a whole.
These findings are reflected elsewhere in India, where there is widespread recognition in the
literature that despite the existence of a significant range of national and local strategies and
institutions promoting (at least officially) the decentralisation of democracy, in India’s cities,
participatory strategies are not only ‘captured’ by the elite to promote middle-class agendas,
but in practice serve to actively exclude the urban working poor (e.g. Harriss 2007, 2010;
Zerah, 2009). Harriss (2010:18) sums this neatly by commenting that: “democratic
decentralisation in India’s big cities is, quite simply, a sham”.
2.2 Unauthorised Colonies: Delhi’s ‘missing’ citizens
One major criticism of the Bhagidari scheme is that in requiring participation almost
exclusively via RWAs in authorized colonies, it essentially caters to a minority of residents.
Indeed, beside the approximately three million people living in squatter settlements
(commonly referred to as ‘slum dwellers’), it is estimated that about half of Delhi’s
population, up to six million people, live in roughly 163912 unauthorised colonies (UCs).
Consequently, the reliance on Bhagidari (and the accompanying insistence on RWAs in
authorised colonies as the sole method of involvement in the scheme) as Delhi’s primary
mechanism to achieve participatory urban governance is necessarily exclusionary.13
Furthermore, the dominance of theories juxtapositioning slum-dwellers against the elite in
conceptualising India’s participatory urban governance has lead to a major omission, ignoring
the role played by up to half of Delhi’s population, unauthorised colony residents.
UCs are residential areas that have evolved over many years mostly on private land14, largely
on the city outskirts (with a concentration in South West and Trans-Yamuna areas), where
land costs are lower. They are ‘unauthorised’ because the land on which they reside was not
classified “residential” in the Delhi Master Plan, largely due to the corrupt practices of
11
For example, RWA- (rather than party-) sponsored electoral candidates have appeared in Delhi (Harriss,
2010).
12
This figure is based on the number of applications for regularisation received in the 2007/08 regularisation
drive.
13
Although the Delhi government has recently announced its intention to extended RWAs beyond middle-class
colonies (Harriss, 2010), so far this has only been achieved in UCs rather than slums. Furthermore, middle-class
RWAs in authorised colonies continue to dominate the Bhagidari process.
14
A minority (about a quarter, according to the Nanavati report, 2005) of UCs are built on public land.
5
developers, contractors and officials of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).15 Over the
years, the DDA failed to provide adequate housing and/or sufficient land zoned residential to
meet the rapidly expanding population of Delhi, a failure that has primarily affected the poor,
but also has a profound impact on the residential locations and practices of the lower- and
middle-middle class, and even the rich in some cases. Therefore, a very centralized planning
policy has resulted in highly unplanned citizen-led forms of urban development as citizens
have purchased and/or built structures on land not officially residential. Thus while many
residents of UCs are the legal owners of their land/house16 and may have resided there for
several decades, their property is illegal from the perspective of planning authorities,17 and
consequently these colonies are not included in Delhi’s network of basic urban services (e.g.
water, roads, electricity, sanitation, sewerage).
The majority of UC inhabitants are lower-middle class. In some cases the physical
characteristics of the UC resemble a slum, while other UCs are occupied by the rich and wellconnected, who have built their own roads, secured water from private (illegal) wells and
electricity from private generators (with private installation and maintenance paid collectively
by residents). Most UCs have electricity and water (privately-provided), but the provision of
other services (e.g. cement roads, streetlights, sewers, drains, solid waste management) varies
significantly. Living in an UC (as opposed to an authorised colony) essentially means living
without legal access to basic urban services (although many UCs provide these services
privately and/or illegally),18 as well as the constant threat of demolition, particularly for
houses constructed after the most recent ‘cut off date’,19 and consequently also exposure to
extortion by corrupt policemen.20 The regularization of UCs is therefore much desired by all
UC residents regardless of socio-economic status or geographic location.
2.3 The regularization process: from unauthorized to ‘regularised’ colonies
Given the complexity of Delhi’s governance, the intricate details of repeated drives to
regularize Delhi’s UCs are beyond the scope of this paper, involving the Supreme Court, the
Delhi High Court, as well as the three scales of government (central, regional, municipal). We
simply mention that there have been three regularization drives in the past: 1961 (110
colonies), 1969 (101), and 1977 (567) (Mathur, 2006).21 These drives are closely linked to
15
DDA is the parastatal agency in charge of land acquisition and development in Delhi.
Legal in the sense that it was registered with the deeds office (with stamp duty paid) and/or they signed an
affidavit with the previous owner(s).
17
Although a court might uphold their right to ownership based on purchase and occupation.
18
Anecdotally, a further feature of UCs that we noted during fieldwork is their lack of open and/or collective
spaces, for example community centres, parks. Connected to this, it was evident, even in very wealthy UCs, that
the spaces in between houses were dilapidated, indicating a lack of care beyond the boundary of individual plots.
19
The ‘cut off date’ refers to the most recent High Court deadline for allowing construction in UCs, with any
construction after this date at risk of demolition and not eligible for regularisation. However, there is confusion
about this date. Initial interviews (March/April 2009) indicated 31 March 2002 as the cut off date, while more
recent interviews (November 2010) suggest that the 2002 cut-off date concerns only the boundaries of the UC,
while the cut-off date for individual constructions is 2007, i.e. the time when the regularization process was
announced. The lack of clarity amongst officials regarding the cut off date suggests broad acceptance that no UC
demolitions will occur and that ultimately services will be provided.
20
As one UC resident explained to us: “last year the Supreme Court ordered that all walls in Sainik Farm … had
to be lowered to 5ft … so we started to lower our wall. The police saw us and came and asked for a bribe
because we’re knocking a wall down and building [new construction is prohibited in UCs], even though they
know that the Supreme Court asked us to do this” (25/03/09, Forest Lane RWA)
21
It is important to note that ‘regularisation’ does not automatically turn an unauthorised colony into an
authorised colony (instead the settlement becomes a ‘regularised colony’), however, regularisation does mean
that services should now be provided by the state and also removes the threat of eviction.
16
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political elections, unsurprising given the potential electoral benefits of ‘regularising’ (or
being seen to ‘regularise’) the living contexts of approximately half of Delhi’s population.
Since 1993, a court case regarding the legality of regularisation is ongoing,22 and in 2006 the
Supreme Court ruled that services must be provided in UCs prior to regularisation. The
Court’s decision has proved a major obstacle to the previous politically-charged ease of
providing ‘regularisation’ without any commitment to accompanied service provision.
Nevertheless, regularisation remains a prominent electoral issue for both major parties.23
Thus, in December 2007, as the Delhi government prepared to face elections (in November
2008), it announced its intention to regularize a number of UCs.24 The regularization process
invited UCs to form RWAs that would then play a major role of liaison between residents and
authorities. Between December 2007 and March 2008, RWAs in UCs were invited, through
the press as well as by individual letters, to submit a number of documents (including layout
maps). Approximately 1639 applications for regularization were received. Concurrently, the
Bhagidari scheme was opened to UCs as a specific category, and four one-day workshops
were organized exclusively for RWAs in UCs in April 2008.
In August 2008 1228 UCs received, via a highly politicised and publicised ceremony,
“provisional certificates of regularization”, acknowledging that they had submitted all the
required documents and were eligible25 for regularization. These certificates were arguably an
election stunt intended to secure votes for the ruling party, and were criticized as such by the
opposition party, the BJP, who claimed that merely providing certificates did nothing to alter
the daily hardships faced by residents of UCs. However, possession of certificates was
implicitly interpreted by residents and local politicians as meaning that no demolition would
occur and also that services would start to be provided, and that politicians would now
actively engage with UCs.26
“The Delhi government keeps making announcements, but as you can see, the road is
just coming now because elections are here, but otherwise nothing happens ... The main
thing is that because there is a certificate we feel better, we feel recognised, but if after
one year nothing happens then we will feel very bad again. (18/03/09,, Defence Enclave
RWA)27
“We have got provisional certificates but we are still demanding basic amenities from
officials. It saves further demolitions though because we are provided with provisional
certificate” (27/03/09, Khanpur RWA)
22
This Court case was initiated by a Public Interest Litigation filed by the NGO Common Cause, who argue that
UCs should not be rewarded for their illegality by being regularised.
23
During fieldwork we were repeatedly told by representatives of both the major political parties, the BJP as
well as the Congress, that they have had this issue at their heart.
24
The regularisation drive is a joint project between the Delhi government and the central government (Ministry
of Urban Development).
25
UC were considered non-eligible for regularization whenever they encroached on forest land, the ridge, on
land administered by the Archeological Survey of India (e.g. proximate to a monument), or on land proposed for
major road/rail developments (DDA, 2008). In addition, affluent RWAs were also excluded from the
regularisation process (an UC is considered ‘affluent’ when at least 50% of its plots are larger than 350m sq,
Mathur, 2006:20), as were buildings used for non-residential purposes as well as UCs where more than 50% of
plots were unbuilt at the time of document submission (DDA, 2008).
26
And anecdotally, we did observe roads being built in several UCs (see Defence Enclave quotation, 18/03/09).
27
Interviews with RWAs are recorded by date and location, thus anonymising individual officer-bearers.
Interviews with public officials and politicians are also anonymised, although their official position at the time of
the interview is provided.
7
Sheila Dixit, the Chief Minister of Delhi, was elected for the third successive time in 2008, an
exceptional event in contemporary India, with many observers partly attributing this
unprecedented resistance to anti-incumbency to the relationship of trust that she has
established with the middle classes in the capital city. More specifically, it was estimated that
she mobilized the residents of authorized colonies in 2003 due to the Bhagidari scheme, and
those of UCs in 2008, thanks to the regularization process. However, once elections were
complete, almost overnight newspapers stopped reporting on the regularization process and it
became unclear whether the process was terminated or ongoing. It later became evident that a
period of 12 months was granted to “complete the formalities before formal regularisation”,
although this was later extended by another year, to October 2010.28
The officials we met at the MCD and DDA explained that they were now (April 2009)
checking documents and doing surveys (e.g. to check boundaries and extent of development
in UCs).29 The next phase would request inhabitants of UCs to pay development and land
charges30 in addition to penalties, before development is finalised. However, previous
regularization drives suggest that payment of charges is usually avoided (Mathur, 2006:35), a
fact also hinted by a top level MCD bureaucrat.31 At the same time, some services were being
installed ahead of regularisation (to UCs on private land). 32 Thus while the future of UCs in
terms of service provision and regularisation remains uncertain, the 2008 establishment of
RWAs in UCs seems likely to continue as a voice for this overlooked yet demographically
dominant sector of Delhi.
.III. The theoretical context: participatory urban governance amongst India’s urban
middle classes
3.1 A series of binary concepts
The theoretical framework comprises a series of binary concepts, all of which are the
orthodox approach in contemporary discussions regarding urban local democracy.
A thorough exploration of the mass of literature debating participation as either essential in
order to “put the last first” (Chambers, 1997) or a problematic “new tyranny” (Cooke and
Kothari, 2001) is beyond the scope of this paper (and has been completed elsewhere, Mohan,
2007). Instead, we focus on the distinction between ‘invited’ and ‘invented’ spaces of
participation (Cornwall, 2002a; Miraftab, 2004), a binary that is widely used in analysing
practices of political participation and mobilisation throughout the world. Invited spaces are
the dominant form of participation discussed in the literature (Sinwell, 2010), and are defined
by participative procedures that are externally established, for example by the state and/or
donors, and to which more grass-roots organisations and/or individuals are requested to
participate. They are suspected to pertain to a largely state-centred irenic vision of citizen
participation and urban management (Mitlin, 2004). In contrast, ‘invented spaces’ describe
more grassroots-led spaces of participation and political mobilisation that are largely
28
The Hindu, 21/08/2010.
Return interviews over 18 months later confirmed that officials were still finalising boundaries and the extent
of development, having had to return numerous incomplete and incorrect layout plans that RWAs had previously
submitted (Chief Town Planner, MCD, 01/11/10; DDA Deputy Director, 03/11/10)
30
Development charges are for the provision of communal facilities, land charges are only for UCs located on
government land.
31
MCD Chief Town Planner, 01/04/09
32
This is linked to the Supreme Court ruling requiring service installation prior to regularisation.
29
8
demonstrated by collective action that functions in confrontation (rather than concertation)
with authorities, and these spaces are perceived as focused on challenging (rather than
working alongside) dominant power relationships (Miraftab, 2004). Of course, the everyday
reality of participatory efforts are more complex and nuanced, and although the
invited/invented binary provides a useful shorthand for distinguishing between different types
of ‘participation’, particularly in understanding the role of the state, we recognise that practice
is often more ‘messy’ than theory allows for, and that many mobilisation strategies and civic
associations straddle both the invited and invented.
Drawn from empirical research based on India, two authors have famously theorized the
urban political scene in binary terms. John Harriss (2007:2717) underlines the difference
between the “old politics of political parties and their mass movements, especially trade
unions ... a politics forged primarily in and over workplaces” and the “new politics ... built up
around voluntary organisations in civil society rather than political parties, around new social
movements… rather than labour organizations, and … forged in communities rather than in
workplaces”. Similarly, Partha Chatterjee (2004) distinguishes between ‘civil’ and ‘political’
society in describing the political mobilisation strategies of different urban dwellers. While
civil society is comprised of “proper” law-abiding urban citizens (i.e. the middle class) who
exercise rights as enshrined by law and are organised around neighbourhood-based
associations, “political society” describes the mass of the urban poor who, living in
informality, can only access the state through local politicised arrangements and favours, in
which political parties (at various scales) manage the relationship between “populations” and
the “government”. Chatterjee, who underlines more than Harriss the social dimension of this
evolution, has been discussed and used by a large number of writings on urban governance
within and beyond the Indian context. Furthermore, although based on the Brazilian context,
James Holston’s (2007) distinction between the “insurgent”, fighting for land, housing and
tenure; and the “entrenched” in the city bears obvious similarities to both Harriss and
Chatterjee’s binary conceptualisations of urban everyday politics. His notion of ‘insurgent
citizenship’ (an oxymoron in Chatterjee’s terms), as the everyday practices of citizens
negotiating with the state and in doing so, disrupting the entrenched (i.e. invented
participation at its most active), has been widely adopted as a new way to understand and
analyse civic activism throughout the world (e.g. Friedmann, 2002; Miraftab, 2009; Meth,
2010).33
These three pairs of concepts essentially seek to explain urban political behaviour by
classifying residents and their collective action into two distinct categories. Implicitly, these
classifications are concentrated around issues of class: Harriss’ historical evolution of
democracy as shifting from labour-based political movements (i.e. working-class) to civil
society-based associations (i.e. middle-class) effectively re-labels Chatterjee’s division of
urban dwellers’ political strategies into the politicisation of the poor (political society or ‘old
politics’) versus the civic engagement of the elite (civil society, or ‘new politics’), while
Holston’s classification of urban citizens as insurgent (read dissatisfied poor) versus the
entrenched (read established middle-class) further demonstrates the underlying contrast
behind these concepts, comparing the political practices of the poor and middle class. This is
neatly summed by Harriss (2005:33), who argues that “civil society is the arena for middle33
The framework for analysis in this research relies more heavily on Harriss and Chatterjee’s theorisation of
urban participation which is rooted in the Indian context. Limits of space preclude a similar depth of analysis
with regards to Holston’s Brazil-based theorisation, though his framework is mentioned in order to highlight the
dominance of class-based urban governance binaries outside of the Indian context.
9
class activism ... whilst the urban poor engage in politics”. However, while the middleclasses are understood as active in choosing civil society, the poor are “left with politics”,
meaning that they are dependent on local ‘big-men’ (e.g. party leaders) and that their voice is
mediated through party political channels (Harriss 2010:6). At the same time, the middleclass remains a largely undefined and amorphous category,34 while consideration of those
citizens who fit neither label goes largely ignored.
3.2
The Indian middle class: an amorphous category
The growth of the Indian middle-class is an internationally recognized trend, evidenced by the
arrival of high-class shopping malls and IT facilities in India’s cities, as well as the
international travel habits of this new globalised elite. Despite fanfare surrounding their
emergence, the concept of middle-class in India is essentially ambiguous and highly
contested, with its definition the object of a large and ongoing debate among scholars (e.g.
Fernandes, 2004; Sridharan, 2004; Deshpande, 2006; Mawdsley, 2009).
As an empirical reality, the middle classes are usually defined in terms of income level
(Sridharan, 2004) and consumption patterns (Deshpande, 2006). Other, more contested
criteria include type of occupation (manual versus non-manual), education level (English
medium versus indigenous language), place of residence (rural versus urban), and
caste/religious identity (Hindu upper castes versus others) (Baviskar and Ray, 2009).
Depending on the criteria used, the middle classes are estimated to comprise between 6% and
26% of India’s total population (Sridharan, 2004:414).35 In other words, they constitute, in
strictly relative terms, the elite.36 Of course, as is confirmed through this research, the
‘middle class’ label implies a homogeneity that is absent from reality, masking the cultural
and socio-economic differentiation within this broad category (cf. Deshpande, 2006;
Fernandes, 2007).
Projecting the binary concepts of political participation onto India’s new class-based
landscape, Chatterjee’s (2004) ‘civil society’ essentially describes the middle-class vision of
the city and citizenship as being restricted to ‘proper’ and ‘rightful’ citizens (e.g. those who
pay tax and reside in houses in authorised colonies, i.e. the middle-class), demonstrated by the
actions of middle-class activists in ‘cleaning and greening’ the city, removing all signs of
‘dirt’ (both people and places). This highlights a major element of the new Indian middleclass, not just an empirical reality, but encompassing a normative vision of the future of
Indian society and acceptability. Indeed, Deshpande (2006) interprets the Indian middle
classes as an ideological project, comprising the new “moral majority”: even though they are
far from being the most numerous socio-economic category in India. In other words, they
occupy a hegemonic position insofar as they represent what India wants to be in the twenty
first century: educated, upwardly mobile, with a westernized consumption pattern (but not
necessarily westernized values). This idea of the new middle-class identity as emerging in the
context of India’s contemporary economic liberalisation, is exemplified in Leela Fernandes’
34
Although ‘the poor’ is also a very broad and ambiguous label to classify, there are at least very clear economic
indicators (e.g. income-based) and data sets available to quantify ‘the poor’.
35
Nijman (2006) also mentions the Centre for Industrial and Economic Research and the National Council for
Applied Economic Research, two research centres based in Delhi, who respectively estimate that 34% and 54%
of households belong to the middle class category.
36
The wide gap between these two figures underlines the ambiguousness of the notion of middle class in the
Indian context: if we refer to the top 6% (in terms of income level) of the population, then ‘the middle class’ is
clearly a euphemism for “the wealthy”; but if we refer to the top 26%, then the lower middle classes are also
included.
10
(2006) “consumer citizens”, actively demanding an Indian city that reflects their consumerist
interests.
.IV. Unauthorised Colonies: The “missing middle”
Based on the research presented below, we argue that residents of UCs constitute “the missing
middle” in three distinct ways: empirically, theoretically, and politically. This argument also
highlights the limitations of binary conceptualizations in understanding everyday practices of
local democracy and participatory governance, both within the Indian context, by highlighting
the multidimensional nature of UC residents’ issue-based discourses and mobilization
strategies, but also at a wider scale, indicating the ways in which the orthodox poor/elite
binary excludes large demographic communities and over-simplifies reality.
4.1 The ‘real’ middle class
UC residents are perhaps the only population in India whom one can design as truly middle
class, since they are both in the middle (in socio-economic terms), and comprise a majority in
Delhi. Indeed residents of these colonies are an essentially heterogeneous population,
comprising both the very rich and the very poor, although the majority are lowermiddle/middle-middle class. According to the wife of a BJP MLA who herself is an attorney
at High Court, “people like us live there [in UCs]” (19/03/09), a sentiment confirmed by
RWAs in UCs.
“Most of the people here are employees in private companies – airport, IT, call centres.
It’s total [sic] middle class”(20/03/09, Raj Nagar RWA)
“People from lower class cannot afford to buy here and people from upper class are in
posh colonies ... Here it is more middle middle class and lower middle class because
land here is much cheaper than in posh colonies” (27/03/09, Khanpur RWA)
“This is a colony where generally the middle class try to come. The upper middle-class
never come here because they can afford the authorised areas. But for those who want
their own house, they have no choice – so they take a chance and buy in an unauthorised
colony” (20/03/09, Vasent Kunj RWA)
“People living here are ... not the very poor, but not wealthy” (18/03/09, Defence
Enclave RWA)
Thus, UCs are arguably the location of India’s urban ‘middle’ citizens: situated in between the
poor and the elite37 in terms of both socio-economics (e.g. income and jobs) and their legal
position in the city. For while slum-dwellers living in informal and un-serviced areas face
ongoing demolition (and occasionally re-settlement), and the elites and middle-classes in
authorised colonies enjoy complete security of tenure and service provision, residents of UCs
encounter a mixed security of tenure (e.g. demolitions do occur, but there are no mass
evictions, and all pre-2007 structures are protected), as well as a mixed experience of service
provision (e.g. many UCs have private water and electricity, but other services are mixed).
37
Although there are a handful of UCs accommodating wealthy residents, these are on the whole not the elite of
Delhi, who, by the very nature of their ‘elite’ status (in socio-political rather than financial terms alone), reside in
authorised colonies. Nonetheless there are a very small number of elites (e.g. top army personnel and politicians)
residing in specific UCs for historic reasons (e.g. Sainik farms was originally awarded to army officials).
11
UCs are thus situated in between the poor and the wealthy, representing the demographic
‘middle’ of India’s cities.
4.2
Invented and invited spaces of participation
RWAs in UCs challenge the binary thinking that is orthodox in contemporary research on
participation because they are both invented and invited spaces of participation. While the
participation literature does acknowledge the possibility of groups using both invented and
invited forms of participation, the fluidity with which RWAs in UCs move between the two is
significant, providing further evidence of their essentially ‘middle’ positionality in both
empirical and theoretical terms. The hybrid nature of RWAs in UCs is evident from the
contrasted narratives provided when asking respondents to detail the raison d’être of the local
RWA. There emerged three rationales for their existence:
.i. To replace the state: for example when RWAs are created in order to organize and
maintain the private provision of services such as water, sewerage and roads.
“We collected funds for the road, got it made, called some constructors to get the road
done … so we tell our members, this will be the cost, so we collect the money and pay
the constructors” (26/03/09, Neb Valley RWA)
“[The] resident association on our road looks after the generator room, pays the men’s
salary – which makes our electricity, it pays the road sweepers too, and the chowkidars
[watchmen] … which comes from the money we pay to the RWA (25/03/09, Forest
Lane RWA)
“We are self-sufficient, we pool everyone – we did the road and sewer ourselves”
(18/03/09, K block RWA, Mahilpalpur ward)
.ii. To fight the state: for example when RWAs are created in order to resist demolitions
and/or demand services from the state.
“The DDA wanted to demolish these houses, so associations were created to fight
against the threat of demolition and protect people in unauthorised colonies. So we
formed these associations of householders in every colony. These are the associations
of the people and they have a legal right to represent citizens of unauthorised colonies
to the government of Delhi because they are registered with the Registrar of Societies.
Also we would go to the media to build up pressure on politicians” (18/03/09, K block
RWA, in Mahipalpur ward/zone)
“We formed this society and got it registered with the act. Then we started applying
for water, electricity, roads – things like that (26/03/09, Neb Valley RWA)
“[We set up the RWA] to fight with local authorities for regularisation, for electricity,
things like that” (20/03/09, Vasant Kunj RWA)
.iii. At the invitation of the state: for example when RWAs are created in order to apply for
regularization of the colony.
12
“[Our] RWA was created seven years ago – when some development had started
happening in this area. The association was created because it was needed to talk with
the government. The government wanted some information from the area about water,
electricity – so we had to form the association because the government won’t talk with
the people individually” (30/03/09, E block RWA, Sangam Vihar,)
A series of official reports on UCs reveal that RWAs are now deliberately encouraged by the
state. The Nanavati report, comparing the guidelines for regularization of UCs been issued in
1977, 2001 and 2004, shows a gradual change in official approaches towards RWAs: from the
1970s when there was no role for RWAs and the regularization process was entirely statedriven, towards an increased ‘invitation’ from the state for UCs to form RWAs from 2001
onwards, and ultimately to the contemporary position whereby formingan RWAs is a regularization requirement. For instance, while in 2001 layout plans were prepared by local
authorities working alongside RWAs, by 2004 these plans were prepared exclusively by
RWAs and then presented to the state.38 The shift, from ‘encouraging’ to ‘requiring’ RWAs
in UCs is equally clear from these two documents, completed only two years apart:
“The residents of these [unauthorized] colonies need to be encouraged to form
associations and get them registered as a society, so that there is a well defined body to
deal with regularization matters.” (Mathur, 2006:33-4, our emphasis)
“The residents of each unauthorized colony/habitation shall establish a registered
Residents Society … This shall be a pre-condition for considering the case for
regularization” (DDA, 2008:8, our emphasis)
Furthermore, it becomes clear that in encouraging RWAs, the state expects these invited
spaces of participation to function not merely as representatives in discussions between
authorities and residents, but also as government watchdogs: “RWAs … need to be activiated
to report unauthorized development and construction to the monitoring unit of the local
bodies” (Mathur, 2006:53), thus implying a state-centred vision of participation, in line with
critics of invited participation.
Therefore, while some RWAs in UCs have historically emerged as anti-participatory (.i. to
replace the state) and/or as spaces of invented participation (.ii. to fight the state), more
recently both new and pre-existing RWAs in UCs are functioning as invited spaces of
participation (.iii. at state’s behest). While invited and invented modes of participation are
often theorised as mutually exclusive, existing literature does indicate the possibility of
associations functioning with “fluidity” between invited and invented participation (Miraftab,
2004:1), though few empirical examples are offered. Thus, the multiple rationalities and
strategies of RWAs in UCs again highlights their essentially ‘middle’ nature, neither one
thing nor the other, but a composite of orthodox theoretical binaries.
4.3
‘Middle’ strategies of mobilization: political and civil society
Hybridity also defines the registers of discourse and repertoires of collective action used by
RWAs in UCs. UCs successfully employ discourses and strategies that are typically perceived
38
However, RWA preparation of layout plans has in practice been highly problematic as the absence of technical
precision and lack of uniformity between submitted plans has slowed official responses and resulted in layout
plans being rejected (MCD Chief Town Planner 01/11/10; DDA Deputy Director 03/11/10; K block RWA
Mahipalpur, 03/11/10).
13
as methods of the poor, for example engagement with political parties and claiming a basic
human right to services; in addition to reliance on typically ‘elite’ discourses and mobilization
strategies, for example claiming respectability based on tax-paying and ‘good’ citizenship,
forming neighborhood associations and blaming the state rather than self-interest for their
predicament. While party politics are traditionally understood as giving a ‘voice’ only to the
poor (albeit one mediated through corrupt and non-democratic practices), with civil society
(divorced from party politics) reserved for the middle-classes, the case of unauthorised colony
residents reveals the porous nature of these binaries. Consequently the orthodox binaries
shaping academic and popular debates on participation and governance in India’s cities do not
adequately explain the practices of UCs. For instance, an MLA declares:
“the party is more popular in unauthorised colonies [than in authorised colonies]
because they need more, so they are very active to contact us, [or to contact] any
government agency. So people in UCs are much more [politically] active than people in
authorised colonies.” (19/03/09, BJP MLA)
The role of party politics in associational life and collective organisation is paramount in
India’s cities. Surveys in Delhi reveal the importance of political parties in poor people’s
strategies to secure basic services (Harriss, 2006), revealing the way that the poor’s collective
organisations are entrenched in party-based politics and divided along party lines. In contrast,
middle-class collective organisations (e.g. RWAs in authorised colonies) have instead
withdrawn from party politics altogether, instead arguing for the importance of their voice
based on ‘respectibility’ and ‘proper citizenship’. Combining the strategies of both
approaches, RWAs in UCs utilise party-based political actors, whilst also claiming
respectability and ‘proper’ behaviour.
The old politics of political society
Although RWAs in UCs officially emphasise a non-political status (as in middle-class
authorised colonies), at the same time, a large number of RWA office-bearers in UCs are also
party workers, highlighting the blurred line between RWA (civil society) and party (political
society) activities. For example, the vice-president of the Neb Valley RWA admitted his
political role as editor of the Congress Party magazine and then later explained the utility of
this political position:
“I have a problem – if I look at the government plans for a highway over here then my
house is in that plan. Now obviously the man who drew that line for the highway he did
not know there were houses there [because the land is zoned non-residential in the Delhi
Master Plan]. So now I am going to pull a million strings to stop this. So they will be
pressured – they will get phone calls saying “no, don’t demolish Mr S----‘s house” so
they won’t want to get involved” (26/03/09, Neb Valley RWA).
This quotation in itself exemplifies the presence of a ‘political society’ system of clientalism
and patronage amongst UC RWAs, a strategy more typically associated with the poor than the
wealthy. Furthermore, this was not an isolated example: amongst the ten UC RWAs that were
interviewed, four acknowledged having office bearers who were also political party workers
(Neb Valley, S Block: Khirki extension, Khanpur, and Sangham Vihar), and when
interviewing a councillor in an additional ward that comprises UCs, he invited a local UC
RWA officer who was also a Congress party worker to join the interview (24/03/09, Kishan
Kunj RWA), and these interviews all revealed significant overlap between the RWA and
14
party roles. For example, a BJP ward president who was also president of a UC RWA
informed us that he communicates with residents in “my” UC primarily via party political
channels, thus excluding non-BJP party members from access to local information (25/03/09,
Khirki extension RWA). In addition, an RWA with both Congress and BJP party workers on
its board acknowledged that such political connections expedited their requests for support
from local politicians, thus highlighting the patronage-based ‘politicisation’ of UCs’
mobilisation strategies (27/03/09, Khanpur RWA). Finally, further evidence of the conflated
roles between the RWA and political party in UCs is revealed by the comments of the
president of an UC RWA who is also a Congress party worker: “the basic role of RWA is to
bring together people and parties, they are a linkage between the two” (30/03/09, Sangham
Vihar). This system of patronage is clearly linked to the electioneering of political parties,
with an obvious focus on mobilising UCs in order to secure votes:
“We have a big meeting and say we will only support the person who does help us – he
will get our vote” (18/03/03, K block RWA, Mahilpulpar)
“They think that because I’ve given that colony roads that hopefully they will vote for
me, and it’s true because if they help us we will support them” (26/03/09, Neb Valley
RWA)
This ties closely with Chatterjee’s (2004) argument that political society is not about altruistic
support for the poor, but primarily about banking votes for political parties. While Harriss
(2010:6) argues that the elite choose civil society associations, while the poor are “left with
politics”, having to negotiate their voice via party ‘big men’, UCs again reveal the ‘middle’
nature of mobilisation, combining both civil and political modes, so that the ‘big men’
themselves are representing both political party and RWA interests, ultimately to best serve
the needs of UC residents (themselves included) through whatever means necessary. A
further element of Chatterjee’s political society is not only that the poor rely on political
parties, but also that their demands are centred on basic needs and human rights rather than
consumerism or the protection of privileges (as with the middle-classes). A similar discourse
was evident in the demands of UC RWAs, who argued that “a man must have a house”
(25/03/09, Khirki extension RWA) and that “the road is a human right” (18/03/09, Defence
Enclave RWA), resonating strongly with the claims of slum-dwellers for basic service
provision. Thus, the label ‘political society’ and to a lesser extent the ‘old politics’ of the
working class can arguably be applied to UC residents, their mobilisation strategies and
discourses.
The new politics of civil society
The notion of ‘proper’ citizenship as the justification for involvement in participatory urban
governance is a central element of Chatterjee’s civil society. The middle-class role as the
city’s primary tax payers is a common rationalization amongst RWAs in authorized areas for
their disproportional (in demographic terms) influence, arguing that they are mobilizing to
“give the city back to its proper citizens” (Chatterjee, 2004:140). However, despite the fact
that UCs are technically illegal and their residents often vilified in official reports as
“unscrupulous persons” (Mathur, 2006:3), RWAs in UC equally utilize discourses of
respectability based on tax paying as a basis for demanding civic recognition and serviceprovision.39
39
Based on interviews with both UC residents and city officials, it appears that some UC residents pay property
tax, while others do not.
15
“Government provides us with nothing in Sainik Farm and yet we all pay property tax,
so we don’t understand … It’s politics, they will regularize the slum, which is on
government land and is totally illegal, but we have bought [our houses] and pay taxes
but we don’t get regularization – what kind of democracy is that? You can’t pick on
people because they are rich, but the slums are illegal” (25/03/09, Forest Lane RWA)
“They’re charging us every month, development charges for water, but they do not
provide [and] they do not clean it. But we are paying … 50% of the water bill they
charge for sewer, but they are not providing sewers! … When it comes to paying
income tax, development charges, we are first class, otherwise [when it comes to service
provision] we are second class” (25/03/09, Khirki extension RWA)
Thus the primary basis of elite justifications for dominating political discourse in the city, i.e.
their exclusive role as the city’s legitimate citizens based on legal occupation and tax-paying,
is partially quashed by claims from UC residents to the same tax-paying discourse. If we
accept the elite logic that those paying for the city should determine its course, then the voice
of UC residents demands recognition.
Another essential element of the middle-class civil society approach to participatory urban
governance is reliance on neighbourhood associations as the primary basis for activism (rather
than mobilizing via more politicized means). Although, as was shown earlier, residents of
UCs do function via political parties, at the same time, they stress a professional
neighbourhood-based approach to civic mobilization, in which the RWA operates as the
intermediary between government and residents, much like in authorized colonies.
“We’re applying for regularization through the association [RWA] – that way you have
a stronger case. So our association has done all the paperwork and we’re hoping it will
come through” (25/03/09, Forest Lane RWA)
Consequently, the professionalism and neutrality that RWAs in authorized colonies argue
offers them a monopoly on authentic non-politicised civil society in India’s cities, is a
discourse and strategy equally shared by RWAs in UCs. Although, as highlighted earlier,
RWAs in UCs operate in tandem with political parties, almost all UC RWAs were at great
pains to stress the non-politicised nature of their RWAs even though in many cases this was
clearly not the truth:
“The association doesn’t get involved in the election process – we don’t support that ...
We are not allowed to get involved with politics” (18/03/09, K block RWA, Mahilpalur)
“This is a non-political platform ... We don’t make things political because we are doing
the social work” (27/03/09, Khanpur RWA)
“[The] association is not interested in politics – we will have contact with different
politicians in charge of things, but don’t get involved in different parties” (30/03/09, E
block RWA, Sangham Vihar)40
40
The latter two of these quotations come from RWAs that elsewhere in the interview acknowledged having
party workers as office bearers.
16
The explicit reliance on RWAs to negotiate with the state in both authorized and unauthorized
colonies (even though implicitly in cases in the latter, they mask political parties) highlights a
parallel form of civil society. In fact, the reliance of RWAs in UCs on both RWA
professionalism and neutrality and the dynamism of political parties only further emphasizes
the hybrid ‘middle’ nature of RWAs in UCs.
In addition to the civil society ‘tax-paying’ discourse of respectability and financial
dominance, a further rationalizing discourse of middle-class RWAs in authorized colonies is
an emphasis on state rather than individual responsibility for creating (and consequently
solving) urban problems. For example, via court cases the city is blamed for ‘allowing’ the
poor to encroach on land, for ignoring the environmental needs of the city, and for the
declining service standard, with no recognition of any middle-class complicity. The same
tendency towards state (rather than personal) culpability is equally evident amongst UC
RWAs:
“So these places [unauthorized colonies] come up because the government failed to
provide us enough land, so we bought these plots but it was illegal … so we went to the
government to recognize us and as residents provide the same services as other
colonies” (26/03/09, Neb Valley RWA).
“The DDA only built houses for middle-class and upper-class so 70% could not afford
houses, so they came to these farmers … and bought land from the farmers to build their
houses, and this became the UCs – it was because of the basic need for housing”
(18/03/09, K block RWA, Mahipalpur ward)
“So it’s a fault of the government not the citizens that it is unauthorised because the
government refuses permission for houses” (25/03/09, Khirki extension RWA).
In line with the rationalization of UC residents as respectable tax-payers seeking to function
in an over-crowded and under-resourced city, they necessarily blame the government for their
precarious tenure in the city and consequent lack of services, because to admit culpability
would ultimately weaken their discourse of both ‘rights’ (political society) and ‘respectability’
(civil society).
RWAs in UCs occupy a hybrid space and identity, that is, hybrid between the activities of
movements in slums and in authorized colonies. To explain: RWAs in UCs share similar
goals to slum-dwellers in terms of service provision grounded in a discourse of ‘basic human
needs’, whilst also employing similar mobilisation strategies in terms of engaging with
political structures and parties. However, RWAs in UCs differ in explicitly emphasising the
distinction between RWAs and political parties, even if in reality their activities are blurred.
Furthermore, RWAs in UCs offer similarities to RWAs in authorised colonies in terms of a
discourse of ‘respectability’ and explicit reliance on civil society groups, but with a clear
difference in their relations with political parties. Therefore, RWAs in UCs highlight very
clearly the blurriness between Chatterjee’s political and civil society, mobilising in both ways.
As has been argued, the strategies employed by UC RWAs represent the ‘middle’ between
political and civil society (Chatterjee), between insurgent and entrenched (Holston) and
between the old and the new politics (Harriss). This highlights the problematic nature of
orthodox binaries in classifying complex political and everyday methods of mobilization.
17
Although Harriss (2010) has recently noted the existence of some organizations that
successfully mix ‘political’ and ‘civil’ society; i.e. organizations such as the Tamil Nadu Slum
Dwellers’ Rights Movement, which are founded by the middle-classes but in which poor
people are active participants (civil society) and consequently develop their own political
agency (political society); he identifies these as exceptions rather than the norm. However, in
the context of Delhi, where half the population reside in UCs, the blurring of political and
civil society is clearly the norm rather than the exception, thus bringing into question the
traditional binaries through which India’s urban associational life is currently understood.
Solomon Benjamin’s (2000) research in Bangalore provides some awareness of the blurring
between civil and political in collective action. Benjamin distinguishes between local
economies and corporate economies, arguing that the former represent the ways in which
most people live and work, accessing government via middle- and junior-level bureaucrats
and local political leaders to secure improved infrastructure and services, while the latter
represent the business and industry elite in society, able to shape the urban form via direct
access to high-ranking politicians and bureaucrats. His approach arguably ignores, extends
and distorts the contemporary political/civil society binary: i.e. it ignores the specific
economies of the poor by lumping all non-elites into the ‘local’ category; it extends the labels
by adding the ‘elite’ as a separate category from the middle-classes (though arguably
achieving this at the expense of the poor); and it distorts by suggesting that the elite use
primarily ‘political’ means to achieve their objectives, an approach largely understood as the
raison d’etre of the poor. Interestingly, his account of local economies could be a description
of the methods of most UC RWAs, often thwarted by the actions of corporate economies.
More recently, Coelho and Venkat’s (2009) research on neighbourhood associations in
Chennai alleges significant overlaps between political and civil society. They argue that,
contrary to popular academic discourse, there are slum-based associations (e.g. RWAs and
self-help groups) who favour civil society-esque professionalism and organization (e.g. bank
accounts, formal meetings with minutes), while middle-class associations often engage with
political channels in order to secure their needs. However, what their research also identifies
is that on the whole middle-class groups are apolitical, favouring reliance on officials and only
turning to politicians and party-based methods when other avenues are exhausted (i.e. civil
society remains the middle-class default mode), while the majority of slum-based groups
remain highly politicized, with a handful of emerging groups that desire political neutrality
but in reality are often forced into patronage and clientalist relations (i.e. political society
remains the primary option for the poor). Thus their research in fact largely confirms rather
than challenges Harriss and Chatterjee’s distinctions as the norm, but calls for recognition that
the universality of these binaries is questionable. Coelho and Venkat (2009) also arguably
reinforce the class-based arguments of both Harris and Chatterjee, by highlighting the
distinctions between lower and middle-class RWAs in their Chennai-based fieldwork, with
the former more reliant on political parties than the latter. In contrast, the findings of this
research reveal RWAs in both lower- and middle- middle-class areas that simultaneously
employ both political and civil society strategies, willing to use any method necessary to
achieve their goals.
4.4 An invisible majority? The missing middle of Delhi’s population
Given the data presented in this paper, highlighting the dominance of UCs in terms of a
demographic majority, but also a key political tool, the lack of academic research or thriving
political debate regarding the mobilization of UC residents is astounding. For example,
18
Chatterjee’s vision of the future Indian city is based on a traditional global city-esque division
between the propertied elites living in authorized colonies and working in managerial and
technocratic positions, and low-income informal workers situated in slums. Nowhere in this
vision is the position of those living in unauthorized colonies, the mass of people who straddle
between the two extremes functioning in the interstitial spaces between legality and illegality,
between political and civil society. Two possible explanations for the ‘invisibility’ of UCs are
offered.
Firstly, the ‘multipositionnality’ of key actors, for example many bureaucrats, politicians,
civil society activists and property dealers have personal stakes in UCs: a house; some
property; a business; a network of clients and/or a bank of voters. Thus many officials and
other stakeholders have vested property and political personal interests in maintaining UCs,
but due to their professional position in the city are potentially required to oppose their
presence, and thus the compromise is a quiet and tacit acceptance of UCs. During fieldwork
we met RWA office bearers in UCs who were also property dealers, civil servants and party
workers. Furthermore, several RWA representatives indicated the presence of government
officials (and in some cases) politicians as residents and/or owners in their UC:
“Most people here are in business … others are government servants, political people as
well … we have a Congress man here” (26/03/09, Neb Valley RWA).
Official reports (Nanavati and Mathur) repeatedly mention the ‘connivance’ of employees of
various concerned authorities, for example police officers and government officials, with
regards to UCs.41 Even a high level commission such as the Nanavati commission, which
was established in 2000 to investigate the growth of UCs since 1993, and in particular to
identify and apportion blame to responsible individuals, met with significant passive
resistance in its quest for precise information. Indeed, the fact that a commission intended as
a six month investigation took five years to complete, and that its report remains a highly
confidential document,42 hints at the collusion between officials and the ‘problem’ of
unauthorized colonies.43 This overlap between citizens as involved in both authorized and
unauthorized colonies was further confirmed by our interviews:
“15-20% of people are part of both authorized and unauthorized areas – so I have land
there [unauthorized colony] and here [authorized colony]” (26/03/09, Vasant Kunj
Enclave RWA).
41
For example: “The enforcement machinery of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), DDA and New
Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has been ineffective in checking the growth of unauthorized colonies on
account of connivance of the field staff of these bodies as well as political pressures.” (Mathur Committee
Report, 2006: 3)
42
Although we unofficially secured access to the Nanavati Commission report, we are not able to quote from it
(hence it does not appear in our reference list) as it is not a public document: it was never tabled for discussion in
parliament and previous attempts to secure the report via the ‘right to information’ act were unsuccessful, thus
highlighting the politically delicate nature of the UC topic.
43
Indeed, the follow-up fieldwork conducted in November 2010 (18 months after original fieldwork)
encountered problems accessing top government officials with regards to UCs, many of whom were simply
uncontactable, on long leave or had resigned following corruption allegations.
19
“The many empty plots [in this UC] belong to people who live in authorised colonies
and have used their extra money to buy land here, now they wait for the price of land to
go up, and then they sell” (30/03/09, Sangam Vihar)44
Secondly, UCs residents are an extremely heterogeneous population, ranging from the poor to
the elite, comprising all ethnic and caste groups, supporting different political parties,
physically dispersed across the city, and experiencing divergent access to services (some
colonies have cement roads, electricity, water and sanitation, while others lack all these basic
services) largely due to political connections, longevity and socio-economic status. This
absent collective identity prevents UCs from fully functioning in a political context where
identity is all important. Although the desire for regularization could provide a collective
objective around which to mobilize, the divergent socio-economic identities and experiences
of service-provision results in mistrust between different UCs and ensures that collective
mobilization occurs only within rather than across UCs. This is best demonstrated by the
absence of a federation of UC RWAs, when such federations are commonplace amongst
authorized colonies’ associations.
“All of us are on land that we own, bought from farmers – but there are other
[unauthorised] areas where people have taken land illegally, so we don’t want their
problems, so it’s not good for us to join a federation. (26/03/09, Neb Valley RWA)
Furthermore, the official distinction between affluent and non-affluent UCs (only the latter are
eligible for regularization) further fragments this fragile collective objective, as UCs are
unsurprisingly reticent to join with other RWAs that might potentially weaken their claim for
regularization. Thus, not only do UCs occupy the ‘middle’ ground in terms of class, mode of
participation and activist strategies, but their presence (despite significant numerical strength)
is rendered invisible by both the multipositionality and heterogeneity of UC residents and
owners. In other words, it is the middle nature of UCs that ultimately renders them ‘missing’.
. V. Conclusion
Concepts are designed to help uncover reality, not merely describe it; in this case the concept
pairs which form the orthodox approach to urban governance in India (and elsewhere) have
ultimately served to reveal an almost invisible category; thus proving their worth as
theoretical tools, despite failing to encompass reality. The orthodox concepts offered by
Chatterjee, Harriss and Holston are more heuristic if viewed as defining a bipolar situation,
thus suggesting that numerous people and practices fall in between the political and civil
society, the old and new politics, the insurgent and the entrenched. Indeed, this research is
not the first to note that binary conceptualizations of society as divided between the elite and
the poor omit a huge demographic sector and simplify the differentiation within such groups
(e.g. Mohan, 2001:160; Kamath and Vijayabaskar, 2009; Mawdsley et al, 2009:50); that
invited and invented spaces of participation can overlap (e.g. Cornwall 2002b:7; Miraftab,
2004:1); or that distinctions between political and civil society (or old/new politics, or
entrenched/insurgent) are overly-simplistic, failing to capture the reality of overlapping and
inter-linked processes (e.g. Mawdsley, 2009; Coelho and Venkat 2009). However, the
presence of multiple hybrids in the case of RWAs in UCs is particularly striking, and the
dominance of UCs in Delhi highlights the inadequacy of orthodox binary concepts for the
majority, not merely the handful who slip between categories.
44
This financial risk is historically merited: when colonies were regularised in previous drives (e.g. in 1977),
property and land values soared (MCD Chief Town Planner, 01/04/09).
20
To summarise, research grounded in Delhi has revealed the limitations of orthodox binary
theories, highlighting unauthorised colonies as the ‘missing middle’ in theoretical and
empirical terms. ‘Missing’ in terms of their absence from both policy and scholarly debates
about urban participatory governance in India, with this invisibility explained as a dual
consequence of complicit officials and UCs’ lack of collective identity. UCs are
conceptualised as ‘middle’ in functioning as a composite of multiple theories and realities in
three essential ways. Firstly, residents and settlements fall in the ‘middle’ between typical
‘poor’ and ‘elite’ characterisations, for example UCs operate with mixed tenure (in)security
and service provision that is neither the mass evictions of the slum, nor the full service
provision of the elites. Secondly, RWAs in UCs operate not only as spaces of both invited and
invented spaces of participation (as), but also as anti-participatory structures, operating in
order to replace the state in terms of service provision. These diverse participatory functions
do not operate in isolation, but rather function alongside one another so that UC RWAs
comprise composite ‘middle’ spaces of urban participation.
Thirdly, contemporary
understandings of Indian urban governance as divided between political and civil society are
challenged by the UC example. RWAs in UCs operate in the ‘middle’ reliant on both
political and civil society discourses and strategies, for example claiming respectability based
on tax-paying and involvement in a neural professional RWA to secure government
culpability (e.g. civil society), yet simultaneously employing political party connections and
claiming basic human rights (e.g. political society). Furthermore, going beyond the Indian
empirical context, this paper also argues for greater recognition in academic and policy
debates of the nuances in everyday life that are not accurately captured by neat binaries. As
the Delhi case has shown, a large proportion of the city can neither be categorized as ‘slum
dwellers’ (or the ‘poor’) nor the ‘elite’, and arguably a similar trend is likely to be evidenced
in cities throughout the world where a large proportion of populations are demographically in
‘the middle’ and are consequently ‘missing’ from academic and policy debates.
21
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