Series: A Tale of Two Cities
What makes a city function?
By Swagata Das
At first glance, the city of Gurugram might appear as a fragmented world where people live in deep segregation from each other in gated enclaves. One cannot help notice how each world is composed of its own logic to fulfil their needs and aspirations broadly termed here as enclave. However, a closer glance reveals certain points where these different worlds intersect highlighting a certain entanglement within the urban lives of the city.
Enclave of the Millennium City - Residents of DLF City
Thursday Dargah inside Gated Community (P.C.: Author)
The condominium culture brings to light a new way of living, mainly on accounts of security but also class. The spatial ordering of DLF city visibly brings in a new sense of time in the spaces created out of massive towers and residential apartments. These free-standing high rises has become the status symbol of the elites eager to be a part of the global world. There is a direct relation to the architectural language and the idea of being part of a global space. Apart from the built ‘aesthetics’, the spatial experience of totality that these spaces provide is the key to their allure. Even for the residents of the gated condominiums, their environment signifies being in a global space with a sense of security from the unruly habitants outside their gates. These gated apartments seem to imply that the residents deserve a better quality of life than those who cannot afford these condominiums.
Streetscape outside Thursday Dargah (P.C.: Author)
Enclave Two - Aspirations of Urban villagers for the Millennium City
Urban villages are what remained of the ‘village of the guru’ and it has retained its strong hold amidst the new identity of the city. The key principle of acquiring land from the villagers was to give enough compensation as well as providing them a chance to invest in their dreams. The residents of the former Gurgaon previously engaged in agriculture and related activities, had taken up new roles in the process. Sensing the opportunity to replace the dying practice of agriculture with the sale of their land, the urban villagers embraced roles in sustaining the blue-collar workers by providing them residence and employment opportunities, thereby maintaining their own existence in the urban world. With the acquired wealth and accessories, villagers now aspire to be a part of the elites of DLF city. For them, DLF city is a sign of the modern urban lifestyle which they desperately want to be a part of. And now with their acquired wealth and strong political foothold – being the only group with voting rights, the villagers aspire their future generation to be a part of modern India.
Enclave Three - The Migrant Blue-collar Workers
The rapid development in Gurugram has attracted a lot of workers from other states, especially Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal, Orissa and Rajasthan in search of a decent wage to sustain themselves and their families. Since language is not a barrier for Hindi-speakers, the capital Delhi and recently Gurugram has seen a wave of migrants from North India. While the city’s official population has increased 20-fold over the past 10 years, 8–10 lakh (0.8 - 1 million) population are unaccounted for. These migrants are sustained by the urban villagers by renting out cheap accommodations on the periphery of the villages. With time, they have become an indispensable part of the urban development of the city.
Simple livelihood shops on cycles (P.C.: Author)
Are these separate worlds indeed as segregated or do their social lives entangle at some point? An interesting exploration was undertaken by tracing the daily trajectories of the various actors mentioned and through personal encounters (illustrated further).
Three Enclaves - Intersections and Synergy
An urban villager spends his day at home with his family. He is in the process of extending his house and his new car is parked outside, speaking volumes of the new lifestyle adopted by the family.
The villager owns several shops and houses which he rents out. They provide cheap accommodation to both the middle class and blue-collar workers. Coming to the worker category, the city has no public space of interaction apart from the posh malls and pubs. Hence, these worker class spend the day in their place of work before heading back home.
Finally, the last social group of white-collar workers constitute an important part of the city because all the amenities of the city are built keeping them in mind. Although they live in their gated apartments with no direct relation with the urban villagers over whose land their houses are constructed, the other two social groups act as a link. Even in terms of services, these two social groups provide all services like security, domestic help, construction of their houses etc. to the elite of the city. In that sense the social entanglement of the different groups living in the city can be grasped.
Figure 1: A Schematic linking the different social groups of Gurugram
Mall workers having chai at a Tapri (P.C.: Author)
After Thoughts
The case of Gurugram brings forth Bhabha’s observation in his collection of essays in Location of culture. He emphasizes the need to think beyond the binaries. His argument to move away from the singularities of gender/class/identity revealed a critical issue in the designing of today’s cities- the need to focus on processes that are created in the midst of the transition that today’s cities are going through. Especially in a city like Gurugram which has sprung up in the last 25 years over agricultural fields, these processes are much more evident. The social entanglement illustrated brings out the underlying truth of how a city like Gurugram runs and the invisible actors involved in the making of the city. It is of prime importance that these processes and social practices be acknowledged. Only then we can attempt to better design the future cities of tomorrow.
References/ Further reading
Harvey, D. (1973). Social justice and the city. 1st ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Bhabha, H.K., 2012. The location of culture. Routledge.
Julka, H. (2011). IT firms looking beyond Gurgaon, Noida to other cities in north India. [online] The Economic Times. Cowan, T. (2015).
Fragmented Citizenships in Gurgaon. Economic & Political Weekly, 1(26,27).