The just concluded election of panches and sarpanches for 17 of Chandigarh's villages has focused attention on the congestion and neglect that prevail in these remnants of the Union Territory's pre-1952 era. Seen from one angle, the villages are in crisis today but, taking the perspective of history, one may also say that they are poised to emerge from half a century of despair.It must be remembered that even before the construction of the city, these small rural communities had their problems. Before partition, many of these villages had substantial Muslim populations and old timers shudder at the recollection of violent incidents that took place in and around their villages. Those who came through the autumn of 1947 thought they'd seen enough disruption to last a lifetime but in fact the disruption was just beginning. The dust barely had time to settle before the villages came under the shadow of a small plane carrying the then Punjab chief architect P.N. Verma and his team who were surveying the terrain for a likely site for Punjab's new capital. The early `50s went into desperate resistence to the loss of their fields. The name Bajwada still clings to a portion of Sector 22-C and D; hundreds of Bajwada residents had to be bodily carried out of the path of bulldozers back in 1954. On the Sector 19 side of Madhya Marg stands a line of thaans that once marked the site of a villagecremation ground. Here and there throughout the city, centuries-old groves of mango trees persist. All these are reminders of a way of life that has vanished beneath the concrete.Until the late `70s, even villages falling squarely within sectors such as Attawa and Buterla had distinguishable boundaries but in the past 20 years they have been completely engulfed. Looking at these localities now, one can say that it would have been wise to take them over and reconstruct in the city pattern. Doing so now is still possible but it will be very difficult.In the `90s we have seen the engulfing process proceed at a fantastic rate in the case of Burail and Manimajra. Spotty improvements have come to these villages, but not system, order and cleanliness. The most glaring inadequacies are seen in the state of roads and drainage. The villages on the outskirts of the Union Territory have seen the least improvement and so would be the easiest ones to transform.Projects to renew these villages need not precisely mirror the look of Le Corbusier's Chandigarh. In the 50 years since the city was built planners have learned a few lessons and come up with new approaches and there is no reason why advances in planning and architecture should not be utilised. Renewal projects need not by-pass the democratically elected representatives of the villages - indeed the presence of panchayats should smooth the transformation process. It has to be realisted that within a few years villages like Hallomajra and Kishangarh are going to experience the same engulfing that overtook villages like Badheri and Khuda Lahora. Why not intervene now when it is still possible to direct the transformation?
