This ailment, where commons are increasingly blocked off in the name of security and/or construction, has spread also to where you and I live/lived. Gates on public roads with timings or permanently shut; guard cabins on pavements; playgrounds converted to decorational parks . . . the list goes on.
Never understood why you returned to Delhi - especially when some of us followed your early example and left Delhi.
Please re-visit the Konkan belt. Luckily most of the Indian Ocean is protected by the CRZ. A drive from, say, Goa to Malabar Coast, may rejuvenate you.
And persuade you to leave Delhi to the new inheritors.
My mind paints this picture (Definitely inspired by Animal Farm): Delhi (and other capital cities) is like a zoo/safari. The animals are behind barbed wires, prevented by the guard from approaching the visitors who zoom past in their mighty vehicles. They eat their cucumber sandwiches with morning coffee as the animals tear each other apart for their survival.
I thought renaming Rajpath was dopey thinking. The Raj is alive and kicking in Lutyens. The roadblocks are for keeping the riffraff away from Lutyens royalty.
Spot on piece, Mohit. Spatial segregation in Indian cities misses standard political analysis every time. When gated enclaves privatize power, water, and security, middle-class engagement with municipal governance completely breaks down. That civic retreat leaves surrounding neighborhoods to absorb public delivery failures alone, driving sharp voter polarization across metro corridors. Over at The Electoral Index, we map how these exact spatial delivery gaps alter urban constituency baselines. Standard polling flattens civic fragmentation into noise, but local infrastructure realities decide urban margins. Loved this reflection!
This brought to mind an empirical study of Section 144 in Delhi (by Vrinda Bhandari and Ors) about the gradual conversion of public space into administered and controlled space. (see here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4389147)
The researchers examined nearly 5,400 Section 144 orders issued in Delhi in 2021. Surprisingly, only 81 (about 1.5%) were the familiar kind prohibiting public assembly. Far more were used for everyday regulation: CCTV requirements, record-keeping by businesses, restrictions on various ordinary activities, etc.
Their phrase for it is the “normalisation of an extraordinary law” meaning emergency powers becoming part of the routine infrastructure of governing the city. It is not dramatic closure of public space, but a cumulative process of restriction, surveillance and exclusion.
And that is how dictatorships are born.
This ailment, where commons are increasingly blocked off in the name of security and/or construction, has spread also to where you and I live/lived. Gates on public roads with timings or permanently shut; guard cabins on pavements; playgrounds converted to decorational parks . . . the list goes on.
Never understood why you returned to Delhi - especially when some of us followed your early example and left Delhi.
Please re-visit the Konkan belt. Luckily most of the Indian Ocean is protected by the CRZ. A drive from, say, Goa to Malabar Coast, may rejuvenate you.
And persuade you to leave Delhi to the new inheritors.
Will do, thanks.
My mind paints this picture (Definitely inspired by Animal Farm): Delhi (and other capital cities) is like a zoo/safari. The animals are behind barbed wires, prevented by the guard from approaching the visitors who zoom past in their mighty vehicles. They eat their cucumber sandwiches with morning coffee as the animals tear each other apart for their survival.
Luckily, it hasn't yet got so brutal.
I thought renaming Rajpath was dopey thinking. The Raj is alive and kicking in Lutyens. The roadblocks are for keeping the riffraff away from Lutyens royalty.
The renaming also flips the roles. We have duties to the state, it underlines, but makes no commitments on the obligations it has to us.
Very well written. Such are the times that we are living in….,
Thanks, Ranjan.
As I write, the tendency is not new.
It has to be combated with an appeal to the common good.
Spot on piece, Mohit. Spatial segregation in Indian cities misses standard political analysis every time. When gated enclaves privatize power, water, and security, middle-class engagement with municipal governance completely breaks down. That civic retreat leaves surrounding neighborhoods to absorb public delivery failures alone, driving sharp voter polarization across metro corridors. Over at The Electoral Index, we map how these exact spatial delivery gaps alter urban constituency baselines. Standard polling flattens civic fragmentation into noise, but local infrastructure realities decide urban margins. Loved this reflection!
This brought to mind an empirical study of Section 144 in Delhi (by Vrinda Bhandari and Ors) about the gradual conversion of public space into administered and controlled space. (see here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4389147)
The researchers examined nearly 5,400 Section 144 orders issued in Delhi in 2021. Surprisingly, only 81 (about 1.5%) were the familiar kind prohibiting public assembly. Far more were used for everyday regulation: CCTV requirements, record-keeping by businesses, restrictions on various ordinary activities, etc.
Their phrase for it is the “normalisation of an extraordinary law” meaning emergency powers becoming part of the routine infrastructure of governing the city. It is not dramatic closure of public space, but a cumulative process of restriction, surveillance and exclusion.
This is very interesting, Prashant.
I will read this carefully, thanks.