Building Green: Environmental Architects and the Struggle for Sustainability in Mumbai

by Anne Rademacher

  rather than the contours of the plan:

  Now what happened in the last 20 years is that the economy has gone into a big

  swing. Mil s have closed down, offices are coming up, the IT sector has grown only in this period. Services are growing, banking and everything. The complete character of society has changed from industrial areas to services. Now this 20 year plan, which was prepared 30 years back, actual y was prepared in 1989—so for 25 years the plan is valid, until 2014. In this 25 year period huge changes happened yet the plan was very rigid. If I have a factory and it’s closed down I can’t do anything with it—I don’t need a factory—my operations have closed and now I don’t want a factory; I want an office building. . . . That is not possible with the rigid development plan. So how do I make way for this? . . . The old structures which are not doing good business can’t be pulled down, and the old businesses can’t close.40

  Much of the energy of development plan-focused public events seemed to derive

  from assumptions that citizen awareness could produce action, and that action

  could influence Mumbai’s development trajectory toward a “greener” city. Yet the

  complex map of regulatory bodies, and the simultaneous involvement of central,

  state, and local governance regimes and dynamics certainly configured the agen-

  tive power of any mobilized public, to say nothing of urban professionals them-

  selves. To bring aspirations for urban ecology into Mumbai’s actual experience of

  development, then, would likely have to directly involve a host of bodies, jurisdictions, and political figures that were almost entirely absent from the pubic spec-

  tacles that encouraged reimagination.

  In a series of interviews, Dashmukh described her experience and knowledge

  of that administrative landscape. Sitting together in her office in the spring of 2012, we began by talking about how the Adarsha scandal, the same issue that had animated the newspapers on my earlier-mentioned “escape to nature” drive with my

  colleagues, reinvigorated public outrage over disconnections between develop-

  ment legislation and development practice. She began:

  For any construction project, people have to give consent. . . . When you apply for building permission, ideal y the building plans should go to the fire, water, electric, and sewage departments. . . . The engineers in these four departments have to give clearance for the proposal . . . and a fifth is the overall building permission for the structure. These are all under the BMC; this is a whol y elected body with its own administrative setup to give clearances, except for electric. . . . But what happens, as we understand, is that the building permission is given without (securing the clearances). Proposals are sent, but no comments are received, or comments are received and ignored. So BMC is approving projects without having undergone the approvals.

  So (consider) the scam of Adarsha: . . . no one bothered (to check the permissions), so a thirty-story building is constructed without the fire authority knowing. Or, he

  86 Rectifying Failure

  might have given his comments that (would have prevented) this (but they were

  ignored). So basical y most of the cases where building permissions are (granted) the actual required coordination and approvals doesn’t happen.41

  But perhaps as important, if not more so, than the dynamics of oversight and regu-

  lation, Dashmukh emphasized again the nested scales of authority that control

  urban development in Mumbai. Our conversation shifted toward public excite-

  ment about greening the city through a new development plan, to which she

  replied that the most powerful authority in decisions about urban planning was

  often situated at the state level. In important ways, then, regardless of the political will expressed at Mumbai’s municipal scale, it was the political climate in the state of Maharashtra that exercised the most concentrated power over the city’s future

  form. She explained:

  Look at Mumbai. You hardly find any green space. Everything is covered with slums

  or buildings or non-cessed old buildings. Whatever is happening as far as construction is all brownfield development: reconstruction of old buildings or construction of new buildings. This development has to be governed by a certain law, (which) is (the) Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act. This is overarching, applicable for

  (the) whole state of Maharashtra, including Mumbai. In it, development plans have

  to be prepared by a local body, but all the (related) permissions . . . are under the MRTP act. . . . So, if I am a city, if I prepare a development plan, that’s not the end of it. It has to be approved and stamped by the state government.42

  Invoking the example of Mumbai’s mill lands—those left unconverted to glittering

  mal s now famously mostly defunct, often dilapidated, and certainly located in

  parts of the city ripe for redevelopment, Dashmukh then turned to the problem

  of authority and autonomy at all levels. One outcome of bifurcated state and local power was that most development undertakings simply underlined and exacerbated tensions between local autonomy and other scales of bureaucratic authority.

  She continued,

  (So consider that the) mil s closed around 1987, following the strike that started in 1984. They were taken over by the central government, and the land and everything

  went to the textile corporation. Now the mil s are not running and the property is dead. The property belongs to the private sector or to National Textile Mil s. There was a move by private architects like (Charles) Correa to develop the mill lands into a single redevelopment, and they approached the (Maharashtra) Chief Minister. (They

  were trying to create) things needed in the city: open space, housing, and (new businesses). . . . They prepared a plan, (but it failed to look closely) at the actual owner-ship patterns. They made their plan and the government agreed at first that it was a good plan—justified and equitable.

  Then came clashes with the scale at which land was owned or could be claimed

  and controlled:

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  Rectifying Failure 87

  Now when they said we will develop (the mill lands) like this, all the stakeholders had different views: the mill owners said, “who are you to take away a third of my land for public housing and a third for open spaces and infrastructure, leaving me with (only) a third of my land?” They went to court. The court said they are the legal owners . . . and the government was pulled from all sides. 43

  Dashmukh described disputes between mill workers, owners, and affiliates with

  the Correa redevelopment plan, which eventual y went to the Indian Supreme

  Court; but in the process, and afterward, the specific policies and practices of the party then in power at the state level, the Bharatya Janata Party (BJP), framed what was actual y possible in practice. 44 Fiercely opposed to the political climate of that period, Dashmukh continued,

  (Those with) influence in government sent proposals and got permission. . . . Instead of fighting it out on the planning, philosophical, and land issues, what happened

  during the Shiv Sena Raj was that the Chief Minister himself was interested as a

  builder. So (often the lands) went into the hands of the builders; whoever could grab whatever lands from the mill owners . . . they tried to frame the rules. . . . (This was) not governed by any planning principles; the lands were simply handed over one by one without a comprehensive plan. So no housing, no infrastructure, no open spaces were built there. . . . For only five years they (the BJP) were in (power at the) state (level), but for 20 years they were in the municipal level, so everyone had an interest in land and development. . . . All the rules were changed by builders and made by

  builders in the absolute wrong way. . . . So all this is so messy. Even people like us {in the planning profession} had
to work hard to get to the bottom of this, (to figure out what was going on), and this has created a completely distorted mess of a city. And no one knows how to correct it. That is what we are trying to do. 45

  Regardless of one’s opinion about the BJP and this particular era in Maharashtra,

  it was clear that urban professionals—planners, architects, and urban develop-

  ment advocates like Dashmukh herself—were less powerful than the adminis-

  trative infrastructure and its lived-practice norms. Even planners whose names

  garner instant recognition, and even RSIEA admiration—Charles Correa—were

  ultimately powerless in the mill lands redevelopment scenario. For Dashmukh,

  the absence of any capacity to coordinate redevelopment coherence, or to simply

  advocate for infrastructure and services appropriate to a coherent redevelopment

  scenario, produced nothing short of “a completely distorted mess of a city.”

  Her assessment went even further to suggest that the kind of individualized and

  uneven empowerment evident in the mill lands scenario completely prevented

  any more democratic potential to advocate for what she considered “reasonable”

  redevelopment.

  When I asked about the relative power of large builders, Dashmukh dismissed

  the suggestion that they retain significant control in the redevelopment arena.

  Instead, she explained, with redevelopment in the hands of an uneven subset of

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  everyone, it was “out of the hands of anyone.” And yet, everyone could theoreti-

  cal y engage in practices that maximized their own material gain from a develop-

  ment-related transaction. She explained:

  The kind of mess (that has emerged in the past twenty years) now even the builders can’t help. Even the panwalla is demanding with an old building that is to be demolished . . . the illegal tenant who occupies it has a goonda. It’s very easy to say that builders have become the leeches who are taking the blood from the city, but now

  the small fries are also sucking blood from the builders. In huge numbers. The other day the commissioner was saying every small and big citizen of Mumbai has become

  a blackmailer, because he is in a position to take advantage of the legal system. . . .

  You’ll see the middle class people who are staying in buildings in Hindu Colony, not only do they want the free flats which have been given by law, they want parking and money to maintain it for next 20 years, and in addition to that they want money in huge amounts. Now you can manage that with 10–20 people. How do you manage

  it with 400–500 tenants? So I don’t think builders are very powerful . . . it was much easier to become powerful with the industrial properties because the owners were

  large owners. . . . Now there are thousands of tenants . . . so the economics don’t work for builders. . . . It doesn’t work. Even with the black money and all it doesn’t work.

  If I was a builder I would not touch any of the redevelopment properties. I would sit quietly. It’s out of the hands of anyone . . . that’s the worst thing.46

  I asked specifical y about the group in which I was most interested, architects.

  Dashmukh’s response resonated somewhat eerily with the account to which Rao

  al uded in his discussion of the 1930s, noted earlier in the chapter. I told her that most architects with whom I worked at RSIEA described a fraught institutional

  landscape, but claimed that they themselves never engaged in practices that would

  be considered corrupt. In fact, they made these claims with a sense of honor,

  invoking them as evidence that practical reform was simply in the hands of indi-

  viduals. Yet, I noted, they also often located the epicenter of “corrupt” or nefarious architectural practices at the level of the municipality. Dashmukh replied with a

  knowing smile:

  Yes, municipal architects. The old retired people. Every retired person becomes a

  consultant to a private builder because he (knows) so many things and people, he

  knows the clauses that can be twisted or used in a twisted form. They can also help bribe people in the right place at the right time. Most of the retired architects from the BMC . . . become consultants to the builders. They are not part of the BMC but their (contacts there) remain. “Municipal architects” is not real y accurate—to be employed by the municipality is one thing, and (some) might be building architects . . . and good designers. (The key is in who assigns their own) name when applying to the municipality for permissions. So I may prepare the drawings, but then I give everything to a “municipal architect.” He is the expert who will modify my plan to suit the municipal regulations. He will prepare a face to face drawing and manipu-late a few dimensions here and there, and he will sign the drawings as a municipal

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  Rectifying Failure 89

  architect. Assuming he is a licensed architect he will sign. If anything goes wrong, he will be made responsible . . . not the designer. . . . The “municipal architect” is acting only as a middle person between the municipality and the builder. . . . So this ensures that no single architect is responsible. If somebody is to be punished for wrongdoing this guy who signs the drawing will be punished. 47

  In our last interview, we returned to the Adarsha scandal, and more general y the

  scope for urban development reform. Is it in any way reasonable, I asked, to regard public interest in the open and green space events as something we might take

  seriously for its potential to actual y implement changes in Mumbai’s landscape?

  Again, the spheres of municipal and state power framed her response: her organi-

  zation had proposed clear reforms, she said, but once passed to the state level, they simply had to wait and see. She explained:

  Four years back we had a committee in this office (which) . . . prepared (a proposal for) a revised MRTP act. For four years it’s been lying at state level. It has to go through the state assembly because . . . the chief minister can’t take a decision. . . .

  Everyone agrees that (the act) needs to be changed, but it needs to happen at the

  state level. . . . (This) has become a big block. Now there is another change which is possible: . . . to revise the MCGM act and say that we don’t need to have consent from the state government to approve the development plan, and we, the municipality, will take all the responsibility of making (and) administering it. The (1992) 74th amendment says why should central government interfere with state government,

  and why should state interfere with local authority? Everything (planning, construction, development, environment) should (happen under) local authority, but (at the same time) no one wants (all that power) because people want to blame the other

  level of government when things go wrong. ”48

  Reform could happen, then, but the policy reform proposals that Dashmukh’s

  advocacy group had put forward—just as the exhibitions described above had also

  suggested and itemized—would have to yield to a present distribution of political

  power that pulled between the state and the city.

  As if on cue, at the time of these interviews, the then-Municipal Commissioner

  Subodh Kumar announced that no building permissions would be granted unless

  Right to Information (RTI) petitions could evidence that they had been granted

  in full and with accuracy. Permissions were denied and construction was stopped

  throughout the city. When I asked Dashmukh what had prompted this effort to

  stand up to builders and final y enforce the importance of legitimate permissions, she offered a singular reply: “Adarsh made the change,” she said, “and many other

  scams are there. ”49

  • • •

  This
chapter began with city spectacles, each predicated on aspirations to improve

  Mumbai’s social and environmental landscape through provisions of open and

  90 Rectifying Failure

  green spaces. The specific publics that assembled to be part of initiatives like

  Reimagining Mumbai, Open Mumbai, and Breathing Space may have differed in

  composition and focus, but their shared basis was an enthusiastic endorsement of

  expanding environmental spaces in the city. As the date for a new development

  plan approached, their mission was buoyed by the promise, or at least the hope,

  that a new city blueprint would reflect their vision of better Mumbai.

  A dual narrative of failure emboldened these events, focused in different ratios

  on the need to rectify the city’s socioeconomic asymmetries and the importance

  of sustaining environmental functions. Whether they mapped primarily onto

  poverty and inadequate shelter or the catastrophic floods, the idea of failure itself energized aspirations to imagine a reconfigured urban landscape.

  Yet no public exercise in imagining the future city offered a full and nuanced

  account of the institutional politics and dynamics suggested by the cal s for a

  greener, more open Mumbai. The mechanisms of change were in this sense remote

  from the events that declared that change to be possible. The many scales of authority and bureaucracy that held urban reconfiguration in their power stood notice-

  ably apart from the passionate, creative arenas in which the city was reimagined

  and redesigned.

  Cultivating civic green expertise, then, itself suffered from a certain kind of

  subtextual failure. Until the agents of aspiration met the agents of Dashmukh’s

  “mess,” the structural reformation needed to remake Mumbai’s urban landscape

  would remain unconnected and unresponsive to any “good design” ideal.

  With city-in-the-making spectacles in mind, and the bureaucratic landscape

  of power to make the city in the balance, let us sharpen the frame even further to focus on a specific case of urban open space advocacy, one curiously separate from the public spectacles described in this chapter. In the chapter to follow, I consider a moment when the cause of protecting and preserving an existing open space was