THE road is big in America. Fast cars, freeways, motels are all an intrinsic part of American folklore. Yet some years ago at a seminar on urban planning in Mumbai, a participant talked about how something that is meant to connect can also disconnect. In US towns, he maintained, the arrival of the freeway facilitated movement into the suburbs. With people moving out, life no longer had the village feel with activities revolving around the post office; city centres became derelict and havens for criminals. In India we are on the verge of a road explosion. The new highways snaking through the country at this moment are matched in speed by the flyovers sprouting in various cities. Urban India is expanding in every direction with consequences that we have yet to experience. Alienation? Dislocation? Insecurity? It has been suggested that the severance of the urban Indian from his or her roots has had a significant role to play in the surge of religious chauvinism over the last two decades, for instance. And yet often things have a way of turning full circle. In Mumbai one of the unexpected but striking consequences of the violent and divisive 1993 riots was the emergence of various citizens’ initiatives. Mohallah committees sprang up in various localities comprising activists, residents from diverse religions and the police. Acting as bridging mechanisms between communities and between people and the authorities, mohallah committees have served to stave off trouble, notably in the post-Godhra period. Local citizens groups also emerged with a commitment to solving basic problems of hygiene and safety, often liaising with municipal and other authorities to do so. The other, less talked about but evolving, phenomenon has been the reclamation of public spaces. Over the last few years dumps and cracked pavements have been transformed into jogging parks and promenades. Chowpatty beach was cleaned up and now it is the turn of the Juhu beach. Specialty parks have come up such as the Nana-Nani Park off Marine Drive which is reserved for senior citizens and Marine Drive itself, a long unimaginative stretch of concrete, is slated for a makeover. The initiative and funding in all these cases came from a combination of sources: Shiv Sena leader Pramod Navalkar, former member of Parliament Shabana Azmi, corporates, urban planners, architects and so on. But the intended beneficiaries were common people. These are trends with a certain direction and the recently concluded Bandra Festival seems to underscore it further. Bandra, a Mumbai suburb, recently held a fortnight-long festival that brought together and showcased artists, writers, dancers, musicians and sportspeople from the area along with walks, food courts and so on. The events themselves — mostly non-ticketed — provided the possibility of an interface between the public and performers. The inspiration came from residents and the organisation was in the hands of local volunteers. Interestingly, the festival also used unusual spaces for its events. Apart from the promenades, parks and roads, an evening of reading and music was held in a building lawn; a writers’ meet in a bank and a fusion concert made use, for the first time, of an amphitheatre carved out of a hillside. Kala Ghoda has been promoting itself as Mumbai’s art district for some years now through an annual festival. But this is probably the first time an area in the city has attempted to define its contemporary identity so forcefully. So, on the one hand, the road makes its inexorable way in the city, connecting hitherto far flung places — Thane, Vashi, Borivli; on the other, we seem to feel the need to create new villages to live in. And what is the character of these new villages? In the age of the Internet, it would be unrealistic to expect the post office to be the hub; if at all the hub or hubs appear to be the common areas used by the public, the promenades and the parks where people gather. Recent years have witnessed a trend of ‘‘de-politicisation’’ in the city of an almost neutering proportion. State and city politics have vanished from newspapers, issues are never discussed and agitations usually make news in terms of the havoc they cause. So it is hardly surprising that so far the interaction has been at a cultural and social level. There is however a clear political statement inherent in the new phenomenon. It reflects, for instance, the growing strength of the middle class both in numbers and as a political force. It also reflects a move towards the politics of conciliation rather than confrontation. But whether it will move out of the realm of basic areas of cleanliness, safety and so on to play a more radical role remains to be seen.
