Backed by thorough research, Varun Gandhi explores urban civic woes in his book, The Indian Metropolis

A new book, The Indian Metropolis, is written not by a planner, an architect, demographer or environmentalist, but a concerned politician. Feroze Varun Gandhi is no newcomer to the arena of public and urban woes of this country. A member of parliament from UP for three consecutive terms, doubtless the plight of cities is, for him, an ongoing catastrophe. In his book, he has chosen to attack it on all fronts. Unlike Western cities where leisure and pleasure, landscape public art, libraries etc. are woven into civic life, the Indian city is primarily a monument to incivility and urban misery: uglier when compared to London, poorer when pitted against Dhaka, unhealthier than Lahore, more crowded than Lagos, more miserly and uncouth than crime-infested Bogota. Among sister cities in South Asia, Delhi, Gurugram and Mumbai, are often used in case studies for what not to do in governance, urban policy and public health.

The Indian Metropolis, Feroze Varun Gandhi, Rupa Publications, 842 pages, Rs 1,500 (Source: Amazon.in)

Gandhi’s book is organised as a tripolar presentation, a mix of the good, the bad, and the possible; yes, the city clearly has problems, he writes, but the endgame invariably has an optimistic solution. Water scarcity, crime and policing, hospitals and public health and sanitation, transport and housing, all form the basis for his argument. Encyclopaedic in its breadth, the book is a useful informed resource for anyone concerned with the administration of Indian cities.

The depth of the research is so staggering that the author misses no topic connected even peripherally with civic life. The status of healthcare in a district hospital in small town Haldwani, innovations in urban transport in Gangtok and Mangalore with comparisons to electric-vehicle public transport in Norway and China, urban unemployment in large companies and micro firms, affordable housing, rental and construction markets in small town and metros, there is barely a topic that is out of reach for the book. And, yet, surprisingly, the chapters are loaded with human interest stories that cap the enormous statistical data, and provide readable value to the mountains of graphs and charts that illustrate the research. The writing follows an easy conversational pitch and lures the reader deeper into the civic domain. In cities that have exploded into demonic parasites, eating up their own boundaries, Gandhi turns the problems on their head, suggesting local potentials and possibilities.

Sadly, the real drawbacks of current civic design in India are the absence of urban imagination and bureaucratic will. With growing populations, a yawning gap between the old settled and newly arrived, the value of adding more and more civic amenities needs serious lateral rethinking. This may, in some places, require a complete reversal of urban policy, such as supporting new forms of urban living, provision of rental housing, promoting community over privacy, shared transport over private cars, assigning city space to social activity, reducing commerce, increasing common greens, abolishing gated communities, and converting road tarmacs to parks and walking tracks. Metropolis does not support such drastic measures but makes an active convincing case for local urban renewal.

At 800 pages and heavily footnoted, the book is doubtless meant for specialists, even though at some stage — if condensed into a smaller abridged paperback — it could get a much wider audience interested in Indian cities — a subject so glaringly critical, but sadly ignored by the professionals. Nonetheless, it is creditable that an active politician has chosen to tackle it so comprehensively.

(Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based architect and writer)