Shaping Hostile Urban Landscape: Developing Delhi through the Eyes of Bourgeois

Introduction

The current trajectory of Delhi's urban landscape, marked by the proliferation of hostile designs driven by bourgeois anxieties, stands in stark contrast to the constitutional ideals of equity and fairness. This exclusionary trend, where Residents’ Welfare Associations (RWAs) often operate in legal grey zones to privatize public spaces, creates an urban fabric that actively marginalizes the city’s working classes, including its vital vendor communities. Seldom has a State, declaratively bound to the ideas of equity and fairness, allowed such blatant displays of marginalization to take place. The conscience of the “educated middle-class” being the driver of the removal of caste-based discriminations in the bygones today allows and in-fact encourages the perpetuation of such approach in their gated enclave “communities” against what they know to be the “urban under-classes” . These communities can be described as ‘...residential areas or a development that is fenced or walled-off from its surroundings, either prohibiting or controlling access to these areas by means of gates or booms…with restricted access so that use is restricted (other terms that may also mean gated communities include – security villages, fortress neighbourhoods, exclusive developments and so on)’. This is done under the garb of the perceived sense of security management largely believed to have failed to be undertaken by city administrations. Thereby the Government also tolerates them, given the state of affairs leaves no choice but to collaborate (bhagidari) with the concerned RWAs so formed which get the freedom to use the grey areas of law and lapse of territorial jurisdictions around these communities to organize their own enclosures beyond the privately procured lands. It has not been as noticeably documented as how the high-rise communities gate off public spaces. From the point of view of civic authorities, these are nothing more than unauthorized colonies, built illegally on agricultural lands. Yet, the same tag is never applied to these “farmhouse” dwellers, instead, it is rather attached to jhuggies and slum encroachments which this very group so actively wants to remove. Some of these include the Sainik Farms (south of Mehrauli-Badarpur road), Ruchi Vihar (behind Vasant Kunj) , Andheria Bagh (at the location of the ancient mango orchards of the same name, near Mehrauli). These gated communities actively participate in a form of urban cleansing, where RWAs, often operating in legal grey zones and emboldened by schemes like Bhagidari, assert control over  private properties as well as  public spaces adjoining their boundaries. In other words, it is rather the avoidance of poverty and poor infrastructure that drives these developments, not the fear or prevention of crime, which is the case for the proliferation of most hostile urban designs.

Psychological Panopticon

While gated communities themselves are not legal entities or derive any special status, local governments are often aware of and encourage such enclosures, thereby achieving:

1)   A sense of security for the middle-class civic community, often relieving part of their policing duty in favour of community-employed private security agencies.

2)  Major public infrastructure acquiring and maintenance initiatives, wherein part of the costs for building and maintaining of public roads and parks enclosed are often paid in parts or largely sponsored by the enclosing community members.

3) Modern city life, in the sense of being unburdened by lower-income households in colonies, bastis, or jhuggies (slum-dwellings) which symbolizes a failure on part of the Government to prevent illegal encroachment and provide the right to decent housing to all.

The traditional appendages of hostile designing are abound: barricades on entry to the artery streets, walls and spikes over them, lack of pavements and public benches on the streets to avoid pedestrian loitering and homeless vagabonds. The source of concern, however, is within a much more implicit design that pervades and blurs the distinction between private and public spaces while introducing and maintaining a divide between the members and non-members of the community once inside the “perceived” space of the community. The decadent of control herein lies not over the actual ownership of the land but the psychological conditions permeating from the panopticon of security surveillance they create. In such enclaves, the illusion of security is sustained not only by the imposing presence of physical fortifications like iron gates, surveillance cameras, private guards but also by an intricate socio-political design that seeks to manage, regulate, and ultimately exclude the urban under-classes from both view and access.

Streets that were once arteries of urban life become selectively sealed off, repurposed as extensions of the enclave itself lined with walls, spikes, and watchmen, devoid of benches or pavements, purposefully hostile to pedestrian presence or informal use by the poor and homeless. The management of the under-classes is not incidental but central: slum residents are labeled as "threats," laborers and domestic workers are subjected to intense scrutiny and segregation, and entire neighborhoods rally for slum demolitions under the guise of cleanliness and order. With legal restrictions on the Government over removal of encroachments after Olga Tellis, these communities represented by their respective RWAs stand a better chance to put such eviction to effect. That said, while such encroachment of public space is undoubtedly illegal, the physical barriers placed by the gated communities are also not necessarily legal, and it is clear as dawn to recognize a pattern of imbalanced enforcement of law.

The Telangana High Court in Ch. Hari Govinda Khorana Reddy, vs The State Of Telangana  also observed that, in contrast to open residential colonies, gated communities are characterized by restricted access for guests with permission. They are equipped with continuous surveillance, manned entry points, and trained security personnel, thereby offering heightened privacy, safety, a standardized lifestyle, and dedicated amenities for children and pedestrians. The same Court, however, had previously declared in Sri Sai Balaji Township Welfare Society vs Sree Sai Balaji Developers that developers cannot block public passages under the garb of gated communities. In effect, public spaces are enclosed and repurposed not just physically but ideologically, transformed into exclusive zones of middle-class respectability, where access is policed, movement is surveilled, and the very presence of the "other" is rendered anomalous. In Panchsheel Park, for example, drop-off vehicles are allowed entry, but no waiting or parking is permitted inside the premises of the park. The passengers must show proof of residence, highlighting a strict security protocol that limits casual access. So even if these gated communities cannot restrict the access of public to these enclosed areas, the resultant circumstances created by a combination of defensive designing of public spaces and bye-laws enforced by RWAs on members (thereby, obliging them to maintain this separation from non-members in lieu of the safety and security of the community as a whole), an overall restrictive environment is created preventing commercial vehicles, daily wage earners and even pedestrians from using the spaces rightfully belonging to all. Even within these enclaves, there exists a micro-regime of separation which calls for separate lifts for servants, tracking systems for daily workers, and suspicion toward those who do not “look” like they belong. Thus hostile urban designing cannot be seen with physical architecture in isolation; the entire psychological system so created is a part and parcel of hostile design.

Take the plight of mobile street vendors into consideration, who migrate to bigger, urban cities with their handcrafted produce. They cannot simply walk into a neighborhood, unannounced and market their goods anymore. However, Section 27 of the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 allows street vendors to exercise their rights under the aforementioned Act in accordance with the law and the terms & conditions of the certificate of his vending issued to them and shall not be harassed by police or any other authority exercising powers under any other law for the time being in force. Further, in case the Town Vending Committees (TVCs) declares a zone or a part of it a no-vending zone for any public purpose and relocate the street vendors in that area, a thirty days’ notice may be given to the vendors before evicting them. The Act ensures that denial of access to areas is not unfair and vendors can assert their right to livelihood and occupy space.

The Need for a Fundamental Shift

The reality about the urban planning of big cities like Delhi remains to segregate the city and minimize community interaction and let the rich and wealthy control access to public spaces. This results in isolating the urban poor to the perimeters of the city. A fundamental shift in urban planning philosophy can be noticed in cities like Barcelona, with its pioneering "superblock" model which divides the cities into grids, creating miniature 15-minute cities that eventually helped with the high-pollution levels. This allowed pedestrians, vendors, bikers to reclaim street public space from vehicular dominance. Similarly, Johannesburg has focused on reconfiguring its city to encourage social cohesion and community interaction by gentrifying the corners of the city that grappled with the apartheid-era segregation. The Maboneng Precinct and the expansion of the Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Transit are honest initiatives to create accessible public spaces.

Conclusion

Hostile urban architecture may provide a sense of control to the bourgeoisie through structures like RWAs; however, a truly progressive city is inclusive, encourages social interaction, and provides equitable access to public spaces for its citizens. Without a shift in urban planning at a psychological level, the city will continue to foster ‘gated’ communities at the cost of marginalizing  the poor.