redeveloped houses
TRANSCRIPT
Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
‘Redeveloped Houses’ Contextualizing the experiences of slum improvement in Nagpur within
global dynamics and local complexities
Febe De Geest
A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of
Arts in Oriental Languages and Cultures
2016
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Saartje Verbeke
Co-supervisor: Dr. Koenraad Bogaert
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To all beneficiaries living in new houses
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Preface
When I started studying architecture in 2009, I never expected to end up in India. After three
years of studying architecture, I quit my studies and did an internship for a heritage
organization in India. Being there, I became fascinated with the culture, the language and the
architecture, in particular private housing. This journey motivated me to finish my studies of
Eastern Languages and Cultures by writing a thesis about a subject that is close to my heart:
slum improvement projects in India. However, this thesis was a challenging and, sometimes,
difficult process, which I would not have been able to complete by myself without the help,
guidance and support of others. Therefore, I would like to thank everyone who helped,
enriched and supported me during this process.
In the first place I would like to thank all the slum inhabitants I met during my time of
research. In particular, I want to thank them for their warm welcome and for their
participation and enthusiasm.
Also, I would like to thank the staff of the Centre For Sustainable Development (CFSD) for
helping me through the fieldwork period. In particular I want to thank Prachi, who
accompanied me during field visits, guided me through Nagpur, welcomed me into her warm
family and became a very close and dear friend.
Thank you, CFSD staff, for trusting me. I hope this thesis will also be helpful for you
and your further projects. Dhanyavad!
Furthermore, I want to thank Deepika for helping me transcribe the interviews in Hindi.
Equally, I would like to thank my promoter Saartje Verbeke for giving me a lot of freedom
and for trusting in my abilities. Also, I would like to thank my co-promoter Koenraad
Bogaert, who guided me in gaining insights on slum upgrading and the broader context of
urban governance, neoliberalism and globalization.
Furthermore, I would like to thank professor Iris Verbeke and professor Peter Stevens for
providing guidance and suggestions on how to conduct sociological research.
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In addition, I would like to thank my family and dear friends. Not only for having (a lot of)
patience with me, but for being there for me. I want to thank you all for listening to me, for
your enthusiasm, for giving suggestions and for being involved in what I am doing. In
particular I want to thank Fons, Scott, Ayla, Adam and my mother for reading my thesis and
giving their comments.
Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to all beneficiaries living in new houses.
This thesis is mainly for you, written with a lot of love.
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Abstract
Key words: Slum improvement, everyday experiences, India, global dynamics, local complexities
In the discussion on changing urban governance regarding slum improvement in India, the
everyday experiences of slum inhabitants are missing. In order to fill this gap, fieldwork was
conducted in three slum improvement sites in the Central Indian city of Nagpur. This thesis
has two main goals. Firstly, it argues that within the discussion about suitable slum
improvement schemes in India, the everyday experiences and views of slum inhabitants on
slum improvement projects should be incorporated and examined. Secondly, this thesis shows
that these experiences, pertaining to the impact of slum improvement, should be
contextualized within global dynamics and local complexities. Since 1991, strategies of urban
governance in India have changed due to neoliberal development, which followed the
international sway of neoliberalism after the 1970s. The research of the everyday experiences
of slum inhabitants reveals how different local complexities, characterized by religion,
cultural values and slum history, result in different project needs for the beneficiaries.
Moreover, the study of slum improvement in Nagpur can be contextualized within global
dynamics, such as the implementation of neoliberal reforms in India and the following new
urban policies. By taking these global dynamics and local complexities into consideration,
new redevelopment projects could be developed and existing projects could be improved.
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Table of Contents
Preface ................................................................................................................................................. 4
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... 6
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................... 7
List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................... 10
List of Figures .................................................................................................................................. 11
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................... 11
Note on Transliteration and Translation .................................................................................. 12
Synopsis ............................................................................................................................................ 13 Research questions ................................................................................................................................... 14 A guide through this thesis ..................................................................................................................... 15
Chapter 1: Introduction on Slum Improvement in India ...................................................... 16 1.1 Introduction on slums and slum improvement ........................................................................ 16
1.1.1 Notion of a ‘slum’ ........................................................................................................................................ 16 1.1.2 State intervention, slum improvement and neoliberalism ............................................................... 17
1.2 Slum improvement throughout stages of state intervention ..................................................... 19 1.2.1 1956-1970s: A period of slum clearance .............................................................................................. 19 1.2.2 1970s-1991: In-situ slum upgrading and patronage politics .......................................................... 20
1.2.2.1 In-situ upgrading ..................................................................................................................................................... 20 1.2.2.2 Forced slum demolishment ................................................................................................................................. 22 1.2.2.3 Patronage system .................................................................................................................................................... 22
1.2.3 1991- now: the neoliberal (re-) development stage ........................................................................... 23 1.2.3.1 Neoliberal state interventions and urban governance ................................................................................. 23 Decentralization and centralization under neoliberal reforms ......................................................................... 24 Implementation of the JNNURM-scheme .............................................................................................................. 26 1.2.3.2 Slum redevelopment method under nationwide urban schemes (e.g. BSUP-scheme) ................... 28 1.2.3.3 State bureaucracies, NGOs and participatory process ............................................................................... 30
State bureaucracies ......................................................................................................................................................... 30 NGOs ................................................................................................................................................................................... 31 Participatory process ...................................................................................................................................................... 33
1.2.3.4 Unequal distribution, protest and negotiation ............................................................................................... 35 1.3 Problem statement and research questions .................................................................................. 37
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Chapter 2: Methodology ............................................................................................................... 39 2.1 Research context ................................................................................................................................. 39 2.2 Observational data ............................................................................................................................. 41 2.3 Semi-structured interviews .............................................................................................................. 42
2.3.1 Participants ...................................................................................................................................................... 42 2.3.2 Procedure ......................................................................................................................................................... 42 2.3.3 Data-analysis .................................................................................................................................................. 43 2.3.4 Ethical approval ............................................................................................................................................ 44 2.3.5 Position of the researcher ........................................................................................................................... 44
Chapter 3: Case Study Analysis .................................................................................................. 46 3.1 Observational data: slum improvement in Nagpur .................................................................... 46
3.1.1 Changing urban governance in Nagpur ................................................................................................. 46 3.1.2 Changing slum improvement under BSUP-scheme .......................................................................... 49
3.1.2.1 Previous slum improvement schemes .............................................................................................................. 49 3.1.2.2 BSUP-scheme in Nagpur ..................................................................................................................................... 50 3.1.2.3 Future? ....................................................................................................................................................................... 51
3.1.2 Implementation of three slum improvement projects ....................................................................... 51 3.1.2.1 Wanjara ...................................................................................................................................................................... 51 3.1.2.2 Jat Tarodi ................................................................................................................................................................... 55 3.1.2.3 Indira Nagar ............................................................................................................................................................. 57
3.2 Findings from semi-structured interviews .................................................................................... 60 3.2.1 Overarching themes in the three sites .................................................................................................... 60
3.2.1.1 Unstable participatory process ........................................................................................................................... 60 3.2.1.2 Messy and difficult transit facilities ................................................................................................................. 63 3.2.1.3 Dissatisfaction with quality of construction .................................................................................................. 67 3.2.1.4 Life change? ............................................................................................................................................................. 69
3.2.2 Different themes in three sites .................................................................................................................. 71 3.2.2.1 Wanjara: exclusion and deprivation of city life ........................................................................................... 71 3.2.2.2 Jat Tarodi: disillusion and inequality ............................................................................................................... 73 3.2.2.3 Jat Tarodi and Wanjara: deprivation of space ............................................................................................... 75 3.2.2.4 Indira Nagar: protest and making demands clear ........................................................................................ 76
Chapter 4: Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 80 4.1 Changes in slum improvement as a result of changes in urban governance ......................... 80 4.2 Slum improvement in the local context of Nagpur ..................................................................... 81 4.3 Experiences of slum inhabitants ..................................................................................................... 82 4.4 Suggestions for further research ..................................................................................................... 85
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Bibliography .................................................................................................................................... 86
Appendices ....................................................................................................................................... 90 Appendix 1: General questionnaire ...................................................................................................... 90 Appendix 2: List of interviewees ........................................................................................................... 92 Appendix 3: Code tree ............................................................................................................................. 93
Word Count: 24.352
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List of Abbreviations
BJP Bharatiya Janata Party
BSUP Basic Services to the Urban Poor
BUDP Bombay Upgrading Development Program
CBO Community Based Organization
CDP City Development Plan
CFSD Centre For Sustainable Development
CHF Cooperative Housing Foundation
DPR Detailed Project Report
IDSMT Integrated Development of Small and Medium Towns
IRDP Integrated Road Development Project
JNNURM Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission
MHADA Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority
MIHAN Multi-model International Hub Airport at Nagpur
MM Mahila Milan
MMRDA Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority
NAPM National Alliance of People’s Movements
NHHP National Housing and Habitat Policy
NIT Nagpur Improvement Trust
NMC Nagpur Municipal Corporation
NSDF National Slum Dwellers Federation
PMAY Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana
PMC Project Management Consultant
PPP Public Private Partnership
RAY Rajiv Awas Yojana
RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
SMT Small and Medium Towns
SPARC Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres
SRA Slum Rehabilitation Authority
SRD Slum Redevelopment Scheme
SRS Slum Rehabilitation Scheme
UIDSSMT Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns
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UIG Urban Infrastructure and Governance
ULB Urban Local Body
VAMBAY Valmiki Ambedkar Awaj Yojana
VHP Vishva Hindu Parishad
List of Figures Figure 1: Map Relocation from Mominpura to Wanjara ……………………………………52
Figure 2: Wanjara Before the BSUP-Scheme ……………………………...……………….54
Figure 3: Wanjara After the BSUP-Scheme ………………………………………………...54
Figure 4: Initial Plan for Slum Redevelopment in Jat Tarodi ……………………………….56
Figure 5: Proposed View Slum Redevelopment in Jat Tarodi ………………………………56
Figure 6: Architectural Plan for One Type of Individual Houses in Indira Nagar …………..58
Figure 7: Row Houses under Construction in Indira Nagar ………………...……………….59
Figure 8: Kitchen in One of the Houses of Indira Nagar ……………………………………59
Figure 9: Room in Transit House in Jat Tarodi .……………………..………………………66
Figure 10: ‘Left Over’ of the Transit House in Wanjara ……..……..……………………….66
Figure 11: Current View of Jat Tarodi …………………………………..………………….74
Figure 12: Remaining Slum Houses Located Behind the BSUP Flats ………………………74
Figure 13: Individual Houses in Indira Nagar …...…………………………...……………...77
List of Tables Table 1: Demographic Information of Jat Tarodi ……………………..……………………..55
Table 2: Demographic Information of Indira Nagar …………………………………………57
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Note on Transliteration and Translation This thesis contains names and, sporadically, terms in Hindi. Proper names (such as Prachi)
and place names (such as Nagpur) are written in this thesis without diacritical marks.
Whenever I use a transliteration of a Hindi word for the first time, I will write this word with
diacritical marks in footnote. An example of these transliterations is the term kutcha (coming
from the Hindi word kaccā) house, referring to a non-permanent house made of mud, wood
and stone. This term is commonly used by NGOs, such as the Centre For Sustainable
Development (CFSD), working in Indian slums.
Furthermore, all translations of the interviews, which I recorded during my fieldwork, are my
own. All of the interviews were conducted in Hindi. When beneficiaries sporadically spoke to
me in Marathi, the official language in Maharashtra, my colleague from the CFSD translated
this for me at the moment of the interview. Because most of my respondents spoke both Hindi
and Marathi, there were no restrictions from the fact that I don’t speak Marathi.
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Synopsis
Changing urban governance, in particular policies and projects pertaining to slum
improvement, is a widely discussed and relevant topic. Since 2000, fifty-five million new
slum dwellers have been added to the world’s population (UN Habitat n.d.). In order to tackle
housing problems, governments all over the world are implementing different schemes to
alleviate hardship in the lives of the urban poor.
During the last few decades, the approach to slum improvement has evolved alongside
changing neoliberal urban governance and state interventions (see Chatterjee 2009, 2014;
Desai 2006, 2012; Doshi 2012; Mahadevia 2002, 2011; Roy 2009). In the period of what is
generally called the ‘development state’, between 1950 and 1991, the main methods
employed by the government were slum demolishment and in-situ upgrading. Before the
1970s the main approach was the demolishment of slums (O’Hare, Abbott, and Barke
1998:277). In the period between 1970 and 1991, instead of demolishing slums, the preferred
method became in-situ slum upgrading (Doshi 2011:34).
This method changed again after 1991, which marked an important switch from a
development state of regulation and distribution towards a neoliberal (re-development) state
(ibid.:39). The Indian state became an apparatus of capital accumulation through facilitating
large-scale (urban) projects (ibid.:1). One of these nation-wide urban projects is the
Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The JNNURM was
developed in order to stimulate economic growth in cities by upgrading infrastructure
(Mahadevia 2006:3399). An important sub-mission of the JNNURM was the Basic Services
to the Urban Poor (BSUP) scheme. This aimed to redevelop slums as a part of the (re-)
development of cities. Under the BSUP-scheme different slum improvement projects were
implemented, however, slum inhabitants do not always benefit from these projects. The
process of slum improvement is more complex than simply a ‘way to help’ the urban poor;
slum improvement is often politically and economically motivated (cf. Bogaert 2011:711).
Several authors have criticized the impact of the JNNURM- and BSUP-scheme in India
(Mahadevia 2006; Banerjee-Guha 2009; Kundu and Samanta 2011; SPARC 2012; Patel
2013).
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Research questions In the discourse over the switch to neoliberal urban governance (Chatterjee 2009, 2014; Desai
2006, 2012; Doshi 2012; Mahadevia 2002, 2011; Roy 2009), the changing state interventions
towards slum improvement (Doshi 2011) and the critique on slum improvement under the
JNNURM and BSUP-scheme (Mahadevia 2006; Banerjee-Guha 2009; Kundu and Samanta
2011; Patel 2013; SPARC 2012), the experiences of beneficiaries are missing. The research of
these everyday experiences is necessary because they give insight on the impact and
complexity of slum improvement projects.
In order to fill this gap, and because there is more need for case study material, the
focus of this study is on how slum improvement projects (cf. BSUP-scheme) have been
implemented following shifts in urban governance, and how beneficiaries experience the
impact of these projects. This thesis has two main goals. Firstly, it argues that within the
discussion about adequate slum improvement schemes in India, the everyday experiences and
views of slum inhabitants on slum improvement projects should be incorporated and
examined, especially the experience of participation. Participation refers to the fact that
communities should be actively engaged on decisions influencing their livelihoods. Secondly,
it shows that these experiences of the impact of slum improvement projects could be
contextualized within both global dynamics and local complexities.
Consequently, three research questions are central in this thesis. The first research
question of this thesis is: “How did the process of slum improvement change under neoliberal
governance in India?” The second research question is: “How are slum improvement projects
implemented in practice?” The third research question asks: “How do beneficiaries
experience the impact of these projects on their lives?”
In order to answer these research questions, a case study has been selected in
Maharashtra: the city of Nagpur. Fieldwork has been conducted in November 2014 and from
August to September 2015 in three slum improvement sites in Nagpur: a redevelopment
project in a slum in Jat Tarodi, a relocation project in Wanjara and an in-situ project in a slum
in Indira Nagar. In this fieldwork two approaches have been used: a more anthropological
approach and a rather sociological approach. Through the more anthropological approach,
observational data about the implementation of slum improvement projects in the case of
Nagpur have been derived with methods such as observation, participation in meetings of
CFSD, participation in the office of CFSD, and additional study of unpublished government
documents. Through the rather sociological approach, the experiences of slum inhabitants
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have been investigated by conducting semi-structured interviews.
A guide through this thesis
In chapter 1, in order to contextualize the experiences of slum inhabitants in broader national
and global dynamics, an overview will be given on changing urban governance, specifically
focused on the city of Mumbai in the Western part of Maharashtra. Most of the studies done
on slum improvement in Maharashtra were done in Mumbai. From these studies I can observe
some greater tendencies of slum improvement that are also important for the case of Nagpur.
In the first section (1.1) of the first chapter, some important notions used in this thesis will be
shortly introduced and framed: slums, slum improvement and neoliberalism. In the second
section (1.2), the different phases of urban governance, in particular slum improvement in
India will be discussed. The main focus will be on recent (post 1991) neoliberal governance in
India, in particular Maharashtra, as this offers an important context for the research discussed
further in this thesis. Although I will also discuss some characteristics of urban governance
rooted in earlier developments. In the third section (1.3) a problem statement will be given. In
the second part (chapter 2 and 3) of this thesis, the experiences of slum inhabitants in slum
improvement projects will be discussed, by means of a case study in Nagpur.
In chapter 2, the fieldwork methodology will be described. In the first section (2.1) of
the chapter, a research context will be given. In the second section (2.2), the observational
data-collection will be discussed. This data-collection has been done through a rather
anthropological approach by using the methods of observation, participation, informal
interviews and additional study of government documents. The third section (2.3) will provide
clarification on data-collection methods and the conduction of semi-structured interviews, as
well as describing aspects of the research population, research procedure, data-analysis,
ethical approval and the position of the researcher.
In chapter 3, the results of the research will be discussed. In the first section (3.1), the
focus is mainly on urban governance and the process of slum improvement in Nagpur. In the
second section (3.2), the experiences of beneficiaries in slum improvement projects in Nagpur
will be discussed. A division will be made between overarching themes and themes that were
different in the three sites.
In Chapter 4, the conclusions will be given and suggestions for further research will be
made.
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Chapter 1: Introduction on Slum Improvement in India
This chapter discusses the evolution of slum improvement methods in the last three decades in
India. Before entering into a historical overview of the slum improvement process, important
notions such as slums, slum improvement, state interventions and neoliberalism will be
introduced in section 1.1. Section 1.2, then, gives an overview of the evolution of the slum
improvement methods in Maharashtra. In the last section (1.3), I will address a gap in the
current discussion on the process of slum improvement, which has consequently led to the
formation of my thesis’ research questions and its corresponding methodology.
1.1 Introduction on slums and slum improvement
1.1.1 Notion of a ‘slum’
According to the 2011 census, the population of India counts 1,210.98 million people, of
which 31.16 percent live in urban areas. One result of this urbanization is an increasing
amount of people living in informal settlements (Desai, Mishra, and Jajoo 2013:1). Several
authors consider the migration from rural areas to cities to find work as the main cause of
informal settlements (Asthana 1994:58; Mills-Tettey 1988:55). Apart from that, high land and
real estate prices in cities also contribute to the increase of informal settlements (Desai et al.
2013:1).
The description of these informal settlements is not standardized. For example, every
state government in India defines slums in a different way; a settlement assigned as a slum in
one state could not be defined as a slum in another state (Siddiqui 2007:15). The description
of slums has also evolved over time. Commonly, slums have been seen as metonyms for
underdevelopment, poverty and sickness (Roy 2011:224). An example of this way of
understanding is the definition given by the National Sample Survey Organization, a
governmental organization that conducts socio-economic surveys: they define a slum as a
compact area characterized by a group of badly constructed buildings, mostly temporary,
accompanied by inadequate sanitary and drinking facilities in unhygienic circumstances
(Nakamura 2014:4). In a similar way the Slum Area (Improvement and Clearance) Act of
1956 defines slums as:
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Areas where buildings are unfit for human habitation or; are by reason of dilapidation, overcrowding,
design of buildings, narrowness of streets, lack of ventilation, light or sanitary facilities or any
combination of these factors, detrimental to safety, health or morals (Sunil, Shigeo, and Hideki
2003:3575)
A more positive definition of informal settlements is given within the framework of subaltern1
urbanism. Subaltern urbanism describes slums as important self-organized, political
livelihoods (Roy 2011:233). Bayat (1993:62) for example describes how the quiet
encroachment of the subaltern becomes political. Roy (2011:231) criticizes the readings of
subaltern urbanism, because they “celebrate the habitus of ‘slumdog cities’ and assign unique
political agency to the mass of the subaltern.” Instead she puts emphasis on using concepts of
peripheries, zones of exceptions, informality and gray spaces for describing slums.
Other authors, such as Appadurai (2001) and Chatterjee (2004), focus more on agency2
within informal settlements (Doshi 2011:16). Both Appadurai (2001:23) and Chatterjee
(2004:4) understand movements in slums as questioning and changing current forms of
democracy. However, according to Doshi (2011:17) neither of them have demonstrated how
informal settlements have come up with transformations of state power and how slum
movements negotiate these governing practices. Drawing on Doshi (ibid.), in this thesis slums
are understood as political places, characterized by a form of agency that is important in the
process of changing neoliberal state interventions; slum inhabitants also contribute and
influence changes in urban governance.
1.1.2 State intervention, slum improvement and neoliberalism
The state interferes in informal settlements. In India, the governmental approach to slums has
evolved over time from slum upgrading, improving the existing houses, towards relocation,
referring to shifting slum inhabitants from their original place of livelihood to a different site
in the city. Three main approaches to ‘improve’ slums in India are: slum upgrading, slum
redevelopment and relocation and resettlement.
In-situ slum upgrading varies from minor improvements (street lightening, communal
water, taps etcetera) to major interventions, for example the building of schools and public 1 “Subalternity came to be seen [by Guha (1988:45)] as the condition of the people, those who did not and could not belong to the elite classes, a ‘general attribute of subordination’” (Roy 2011: 226). 2 Agency is here understood as the ability to act individually in order to make one’s own choices. By contrast is the principal (social class, religion and so on) that limits and influences the agents his or her own choices (Barker 2012: 241).
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places, giving the tenure to residents In order to make the upgrading of an existing slum
possible, recognition of the right of residents to live in that slum is essential (Patel 2013:178).
In-situ slum redevelopment has been mainly understood as demolishing the existing slum
houses and building new high-rises on the site (ibid.:184). The third way is relocation and
resettlement, through which beneficiaries are shifted from their original place of livelihood to
a different resettlement site in the city. In this resettlement site the beneficiaries receive new
houses. This approach has been accepted worldwide as having a negative impact on the lives
of beneficiaries because it deprives people of their original livelihood systems (Kapse, Pofale,
and Mathur 2012:638). Apart from these three approaches, I sometimes use the term ‘slum
improvement’ in this thesis. This term refers to the idea of improving slums in general,
without specifically referring to one of the three approaches.
These interventions cannot be seen as simply helping people. This thesis starts from the claim
that there is a clear political dimension involved in state interventions to slum improvements
(cf. Bogaert 2011:711). They take place in a broader context of changing neoliberal urban
governance in India. Three aspects of neoliberalism are important here, because they give a
framework to contextualize the changes of the slum improvement process in the last three
decades as part of a movement towards neoliberal globalization.
Firstly, neoliberalism is an ongoing, open-ended project, which has evolved through
different phases. Initially neoliberalism was born in western countries in the late 1970s
(Brenner and Theodore 2002:350; Smith 2002:9). At that time neoliberalism was introduced
as a solution for the financial crisis of the 1970s, which was characterized by a pattern of huge
inflation in the West. Neoliberalism has evolved over time and space, and has gone through
different phases. Peck and Tickell (2002:384) describe how neoliberalism evolved from “roll
back neoliberalism”, referring to a phase of the destruction of an earlier Keynesian welfarist
state, to a phase of “roll out neoliberalism” since 1990s. The latter refers to the construction of
“neoliberal state forms, modes of governance and regulatory relations” (ibid.). In this phase of
“roll out neoliberalism”, more authoritarian forms of government evolved (Bogaert
2011:710), and these new forms of government are justified according to market requirements
(Bogaert 2013:215).
Secondly, neoliberalism cannot be understood as a ‘one size fits all’ model (ibid.:216).
Brenner and Theodore (2002:351) suggest that there is a difference between the neoliberal
ideology, in which it is believed that market forces exist according to “immutable laws”
regardless of where neoliberalism is implemented, and “actually existing neoliberalism.”
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Actually existing neoliberalism, unlike the neoliberal ideology, refers to the fact that in
practice, neoliberal projects are implemented in “national, regional and local contexts.” These
local contexts are rooted into policy regimes, institutional frameworks, regulatory practices,
and political struggles (Brenner and Theodore 2002:351). This implies that there is a
difference between the ideology of neoliberalism and how it is implemented in practice. On
the one hand, neoliberal ideology aims to create free markets, detached from interventions of
the state. However, in practice it requires an intensification of disciplinary forms of state
intervention in order to impose market rule upon all aspects of social life (ibid.:352).
Thirdly, the ‘local’ is an important actor in the process of neoliberal globalization.
Globalization is often seen as a “natural process, very often with little reference to (local)
agency” (Bogaert 2013: 217). Massey (2005:101) emphasizes the need to include the agent
of the local in the analysis of globalization and neoliberalism (Bogaert 2013:226). Local
agencies should not be seen as just passive actors in the process of neoliberal globalization.
Instead their contribution to the development of neoliberal globalization should be analyzed.
1.2 Slum improvement throughout stages of state intervention
This section will illustrate the changing characteristics of slum improvement in India in the
last 30 years, along with and due to changing state interventions. The main focus in this
section is on urban governance from 1991 until 2014 (an unfinished stage described by Doshi
as the redevelopment state (2011:30)) in the state of Maharashtra. The methods of current
urban governance are rooted in earlier processes and thus these too will be described below.
1.2.1 1956-1970s: A period of slum clearance
Until the early 1970s, the principal policy for treating settlements was slum relocation and
resettlement (Doshi 2011:33). The traditional way to deal with slums was to demolish the old
houses and, to relocate and resettle slum inhabitants (O’Hare, Abbott, and Barke 1998:277).
As such, the Slum Clearance Scheme of 1956 was the first policy regarding slums; this policy
proposed demolishment of slums and public provision of resettlement housing. In practice,
these approaches were not working, because when slum dwellers were evicted, they simply
rebuilt their original huts or they encroached on land near their original living place (Burra
2005:69). In addition, resettlement almost never happened (Doshi 2011:34). At best, some of
those who were evicted received a plot, mostly unsuitable, in the suburbs, without being
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consulted about this and without any support (Burra 2005:70). Furthermore, according to
Doebele (1987:12) this strongly interventionist role of the state did not improve the situation
as the demolishment of slums is expensive, it decreases the available housing stock and it is
administratively difficult.
1.2.2 1970s-1991: In-situ slum upgrading and patronage politics
Between the 1970s and 1991 the main approach concerning slums was in-situ slum
upgrading. In this period, as a part of the shift to slum upgrading methods, a political
patronage system came into being. This political patronage system can be described as a
system through which slum inhabitants could exchange votes for government support. This
system formed the base of the rise of NGOs and social mobilizations, which play an important
role in slum improvement processes in the last two decades in various Indian cities, such as
Nagpur. Another catalyst for the rise of NGOs and social mobilizations is a sequence of
forced demolitions in the mid 1970s.
1.2.2.1 In-situ upgrading
Since the 1970s there has been a shift from slum demolishment towards the in-situ
distribution of public infrastructure and services (Doshi 2011:34) since slums began to be
regarded as ‘housing solutions’. Moreover, the awareness grew that when slum dwellers were
evicted, they would need a kind of resettlement (Burra 2005:70). One of the reasons for this
was the international critique of agencies and people, especially the British architect John
Turner, on the previous approaches towards informal settlements in countries such as India.
According to Turner, users should be the principal actors in the development of housing
(Doebele 1987:10; Nakamura 2014:2). Turner suggested deregulation of the decentralization
of housing production (Mukhija 2001:793). Another important reason for the switch to in-situ
upgrading was the fact that slum improvement is economically more advantageous than slum
demolishment, due to very low public expenditure. Furthermore, it enables the state to have
relaxed building codes, land acquisition and service provision (Doshi 2011:35). Therefore, the
state shifted to the upgrading of existing informal settlements by providing facilities and
services.
Two interventions marked the switch towards in-situ slum upgrading in the 1970s,
which took effect after a census of huts was conducted and “photo passes” were given to slum
21
inhabitants (Burra 2005:70). The first is the development of the Slum Improvement Program,
launched in 1970 in the whole of Maharashtra. This program sees slums not as
encroachments, but as sub-standard housing in need of provision services and improvement.
The second initiative was the Maharashtra Slum Areas Act of 1971. This was a legal
mechanism for making slums eligible for improvement funds. Through notifications, land was
declared as unsuitable for living. If the land was privately owned and not used, the owner was
forced to sign a no-objection certificate. By signing this certificate, the landowner gives his
consent for the implementation of slum improvement on that site (Doshi 2011:35). However,
the implementation of basic facilities mostly happened without the consultation of slum
dwellers and also, when the land was owned by the central government, they usually did not
allow these basic facilities to be implemented (Burra 2005:70).
By the end of the 1970s, these projects, already financially subsidized by the
government, received international financial assistance resulting in international frameworks
and parameters being implemented in these projects (Doshi 2011:35). Similarly, after 1980,
two other projects were introduced by the state with support of the World Bank: the Sites and
Services program, and the Slum Upgrading Program (under the Bombay Upgrading
Development Program (BUDP)) (Mukhija 2001:796). The Bombay Upgrading Development
Program (BUDP) in Mumbai, sponsored by the World Bank, reflects early stages of
neoliberalism, because the World Bank directed the process towards market-oriented growth
and minimal public expenditure (Doshi 2011:35). The involvement of multilateral aid
pressured the state, however, the state of Maharashtra coped with this in its own way. For
example, within the BUDP the World Bank pushed for neoliberal land reform policies. They
wanted to reformulate tax and repeal city rent control acts in Mumbai. However the
government of Maharashtra avoided these recommendations and didn’t implement these
instructions. This example shows that the state of Maharashtra was (and still is) not just a
passive recipient (ibid.:36). Thus, through the process of slum upgrading, the influence of
international financial assistance increased, which probably influenced the further evolution
of slum improvement in India. Using their financial involvement, international agencies
pushed through changes in urban policies regarding slum improvement, as I will further
explain in 1.2.3.1.
22
1.2.2.2 Forced slum demolishment
In the same period as the rise of the method of in-situ upgrading, there were numerous forced
slum demolitions, especially in the period of the political state of emergency between 1975-
1977. The circumstances generated under this state of emergency gave governments a chance
to enact violent mass slum demolition. A legal mechanism to evict people during the state of
emergency made this possible: the Maharashtra Land Vacant Act in 1975. From these events,
leaderships and slum organizations began to negotiate with the government (Doshi 2011:35).
An example of this is the National Slum Dweller Foundation (NSDF), an organization of
leaders and community groups living in slums, founded in mid 1970s. NSDF aims to
assemble the urban poor in order to make clear the problems they face and try to find
solutions for these problems (SPARC, 1991).
1.2.2.3 Patronage system
The implementation of in-situ projects formed the basis for the further development of a
political patronage system, which already existed in a less prominent way since the 1960s.
Also, politicians became more aware of the fact that slum inhabitants were an important
group for gaining votes and political support. Therefore, they started to negotiate with slum
dwellers. Not all slum inhabitants had access to this system of patronage. For example,
pavement dwellers were left out from this system (Doshi 2011:37). Due to these uneven
political inclusions, organizations like SPARC, an NGO working in slums in Mumbai, were
established. They put pressure on the state, and tried to change approaches towards the urban
poor (ibid.:38).
These patronage systems form an important base for the changing role of NGOs and
slum mobilizations, and therefore form a relevant aspect of our discussion. Furthermore, the
gaining importance of the Shiv Sena, its shift in politics, and its alliance with the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) since 1990, is also important for further developments regarding slum
upgrading in the last two decades, as will be further illustrated in 1.2.3.
23
1.2.3 1991- now: the neoliberal (re-) development stage
In this section, the changes of the slum improvement process in the last two decades will be
discussed. This context is important to understand the different aspects and its implementation
of slum improvement today in various Indian cities, such as Nagpur.
Firstly, (1.2.3.1) the changing role of the state and urban governance will be
illustrated. These changes of state intervention happened in different phases. Throughout
these different phases, the Indian state has become a facilitator of large-scale urban projects.
One of these projects is the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNRM).
Secondly (1.2.3.2), changes of slum improvement methods in particular will be clarified, with
a focus on the importance of private agencies in slum improvement and the switch to slum
redevelopment methods. Thirdly (1.2.3.3), attention will be drawn to how state bureaucracies
have more centralized control over slum improvement since 1991 and how NGOs and social
movements became intermediates between slum dwellers and the state in order to harness
beneficiaries for redevelopment projects. Fourthly (1.2.3.4), the unequal ways in which slum
improvement is distributed over different population groups will be analyzed, as well as the
reactions of the slum dwellers, such as struggle, negotiation and consent.
1.2.3.1 Neoliberal state interventions and urban governance
In the last two decades, the state has become a nation-wide apparatus for market-orientated
growth through facilitating large-scale (urban) projects (Doshi 2011:1). The focus in this
section is mainly on one of these large-scale urban projects, the Jawaharlal Nehru National
Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), and one of its sub-missions, the Basic Services to the
Urban Poor (BSUP) scheme.
1991 marks a change in state interventions and urban governance in India. Due to
transformations in the political economy there was a shift from protectionism and regulation
towards economic liberalization and market-orientated growth (ibid.:39). In order to facilitate
market-orientated growth, techniques of urban governance were developed in the last two
decades. Places were to be (re-) developed through strategies to generate capital. For example,
government schemes placed more emphasis on developing land commercially in order to
generate economic growth. Doshi (ibid.:40) describes these various attempts by the state to
redevelop spaces of global economic and elite consumption as the ‘urbanization of
neoliberalism’. These changes in urban governance happened in phases. A first phase was
24
characterized by attempts by the state to enable markets to grow by decentralizing certain
areas and centralizing other areas of state intervention. A second phase (a further development
of the first phase) of more centralizing state intervention, became clearer when the Jawaharlal
Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was launched. In this phase the Indian
state has become a facilitator of large-scale urban projects, such as the JNNURM and its sub-
mission the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP). The JNNURM marks a new territorial
dimension to the neoliberal process, because for the first time a scheme was implemented on a
national scale. Also, in national development agendas the (re-) development of cities was
even more prioritized and there were new pressures on local governments to instate neoliberal
reforms (Doshi 2011:40).
Decentralization and centralization under neoliberal reforms
The start of the first phase of neoliberal market based policies in India was ‘advised’ by
international agencies such as the World Bank and IMF (Chatterjee 2009:146). These
economic and political changes were also carried out in the urban sector. Since the 1980s and
1990s, international agencies led by the World Bank have instructed governments to abandon
previous policies, rely on market actors, and enable housing provisions through deregulation,
decentralization and demand development. The housing sector agencies in India concluded
that a reduction of involvement by the state and the inclusion of market actors would lead to
better results (Mukhija 2001:793). Therefore the World Bank created an important policy
document: Housing Enabling Markets to Work, written by Mayo and Angel in 1993, in which
the World Bank directed its borrowers to change their housing policies in order to allow
markets to function better and to tackle housing problems economically (ibid.:792). The
document of the World Bank opens with:
This paper articulates the housing policy of the World Bank as it has evolved during the 1980s and early
1990s and proposes a number of important new policy directions for both the Bank and its borrowers. It
advocates the reform of government policies, institutions, and regulations to enable housing markets to
work more efficiently, and a move away from the limited, project-based support of public agencies
engaged in the production and financing of housing (Mayo and Angel 1993:1).
In the context of these international instructions, the Indian state switched to a new liberal
policy concerning urban development. According to Chatterjee (2014:30) the switch towards
market orientated growth in urban governance is for the first time noticeable in the eighth
25
five-year plan (1992-1997)3, which focuses more on market-orientated growth through urban
development and stimulating privatization. Some of the consequences of this first phase of
neoliberal policies were: a push in urbanization, wealth accumulation, the aim to integrate
cities in the global economy and a squeeze in agricultural livelihoods.
However, these new forms of liberalization were not complete. Many subsidies
persisted and some industries and banks stayed public (Doshi 2011:39). Rather than a
decrease in state intervention since 1991, there was a change in state intervention
characterized by the paradox that a decentralization of certain areas was accompanied by a
centralization of others. For example by the 1990s, when the Slum Redevelopment Scheme
(SRD) was launched in Mumbai, the state found it crucial to limit its own interference and to
engage private investors and expertise. However, during this process of decentralization,
decentralized actors involved in slum redevelopment required some form of centralization of
state authority to enable project implementation. As a result, there was an agreement that the
Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), an authority established in 1995, would monitor and
co-ordinate the process of slum redevelopment projects (Mukhija 2001:802). Consequently, a
more centralized control of state authorities, especially over slum redevelopment and
evictions, developed in the following years.
Hindutva4 politics also contributed to the shift of the state towards market-orientated
growth based on capitalism and neoliberal strategies. The influence of Hindutva politics at a
local, national and transnational scale through party politics and political movements as the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) was important
for the first attempts of the state to implement neoliberalism. Neoliberal Hindutva politics
proclaimed an “Indian kind of participation into globalization” (Doshi 2011:43). These
cultural Hindutva politics became more embedded in the state political apparatus through the
oppositional politics of the Bharata Janata Party (BJP), because they gained support when
there were frustrations with the ruling Congress Party (ibid.).
3 After independence the Indian national government developed an economic policy that “combines market logic with socially redistributive politics” (Chatterjee 2014:29). This policy aims to be conscious of caste, class and regional inequalities. In this period five-year-plans were developed to provide social redistribution. These five-year plans had the goal to reduce interclass and intergroup inequalities. In the first five-year plan, the main focus was on rural development, because India was considered to be inherently an agricultural country. “With the acceptance of neoliberal policies, which are legally referred to as New Economic Policy, policies changed from social redistribution addressing social and spatial inequalities to a market logic of privatization for maximization” (ibid.:29–30). 4 Hindutva is a prevalent form of Hindu nationalism. The political party of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) uses sides with this kind of Hindu nationalism.
26
Implementation of the JNNURM-scheme
Since 2000, the central government has begun to implement centralized large-scale urban
schemes and policies, which marks the second phase of state interventions. An example of
these centralized urban policies is the National Housing and Habitat Policy (NHHP),
formulated in 1998. Under this policy a scheme was launched throughout India, the Valmiki
Ambedkar Awaj Yojana (VAMBAY)5, to supply housing for the urban poor (Siddiqui
2007:1). This scheme aimed to implement large-scale urban housing projects.
As a result of these large-scale urban schemes, a lot of slum evictions happened in
Mumbai between 2004 and 2005, when 300,000 families lost their homes. This major
sequence of demolishment has been called the Indian Tsunami. This demolishment happened
because of the Vision Mumbai Project (Roy 2009:175).
The role of the state as a facilitator of large-scale projects became even clearer when in 2005,
Manmohan Singh, the prime minister at that time, launched the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban
Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The main objective of the JNNURM was to (re-) develop cities
in India in order to generate economic growth (Mahadevia 2006: 3399). The JNNURM
introduced a new territorial dimension to the ‘urbanization of neoliberalism’, because it was a
new urban redevelopment initiative in order to ‘help’ cities all over India to modernize their
urban infrastructure in order to stimulate economic growth.
The JNNURM scheme was launched under the 10th five-year plan (2002-2007). In
order to make the scheme possible “the plan [the 10th Five-Year plan] actively pushed the
elimination of the Urban Land Ceiling Act, Land Reforms Act, the Land Revenue Act and the
Rent Control Act, which are viewed as hampering the availability of and for private capital”
(Chatterjee 2014:30). Further emphasis on the JNNURM was laid in the 11th five-year plan.
The JNNURM-scheme had been developed such that when cities wanted to apply for
financial support under this scheme, they had to provide city development plans (CDPs).
Once accepted by the government, cities received financial support for the plans. In the
JNNURM-scheme a distinction was made between mission cities and non-mission cities. The
latter refers to smaller cities and towns, SMTs (small and medium towns). For both non- 5 The government of India launched an important scheme to provide housing for the urban poor, the VAMBAY-scheme, in December 2001. It was a centrally sponsored scheme, of which State Government paid fifty percent and the central government financed fifty percent launched under the NHHP. The nodal agency for this scheme was the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA). The scheme has been coordinated and implemented by MHADA in 62 towns and cities in India. After 2005 the VAMBAY-scheme has been subsumed under the IHSDP mission under the JNNURM project (Siddiqui 2007:1).
27
mission cities and mission cities, programs have been developed. The sub-schemes for non-
mission cities are the Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small & Medium Towns
(UIDSSMT) and the Integrated Development of Small and Medium Towns (IDSMT). For the
mission cities, the sub-missions of the JNNURM were the Urban Infrastructure and
Governance (UIG) and the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) (Mahadevia 2011:58).
Under the JNNURM-scheme, the BSUP is directed towards the poor (Kundu and Samanta
2011:57). The BSUP-scheme focuses on the development of slums. One of the main
objectives of this scheme is (Anon. 2009:2):
Provision of Basic Services to Urban Poor including security of tenure at affordable prices, improved
housing, water supply, sanitation and ensuring delivery through convergence of other already existing
universal services of the Government for education, health and social security. Care will be taken to see
that the urban poor are provided housing near their place of occupation.
In order to access central funds under the BSUP-scheme, conditions were formulated by the
central government (Mahadevia 2006:3400). Cities that wanted to apply for funds under the
BSUP-scheme needed to accomplish some of the mandatory and some of the optional reforms
throughout the mission period. An example of a mandatory reform is the reform of property
tax (Anon. 2009:16). An example of an optional reform is the encouragement of Public
Private Partnerships (PPP) (ibid.:18).
Different forms of financing were used to implement the JNNURM. In addition to the
20 billion dollar funding from the central government the project also received additional
financial support from the World Bank, as well as support from other financial institutions
and firms. An important aspect of the financing of urban projects under the JNNURM was the
fact that governments started to ask user fees. For example, since then, some city
governments charged inhabitants a fee for water utility (Doshi 2011:40).
In some areas in India the approach of the JNNURM was not new. For example, in
Maharashtra, developers were already enabled to access slum land and real estate
development had already begun. However, unique to the JNNURM project were the national
scale of the project, the privileges of cities in national development agendas and “new
pressures and incentives for local governments to instate neoliberal development” (ibid.).
Different authors have criticized the JNNURM-scheme (Kundu and Samanta 2011;
Mahadevia 2006; Banerjee-Guha 2009). Firstly, the JNNURM-scheme has been criticized for
taking up a neoliberal reform path and forcing Urban Local Bodies (ULB) and state
governments to submit a uniform policy (Mahadevia 2006:3401). Banerjee-Guha (2009:96)
28
describes the JNNURM as an official carrier of neoliberal urbanism, stimulating the
remodeling of cities as “world-class” cities. Secondly, there is critique on the fact that under
the BSUP-scheme, private agencies are encouraged to implement slum redevelopment.
Private agencies generally rebuild slums as multi-story structures and private agencies can use
the ‘left-over’ land obtained from “housing for the poor”, to build houses for the non-poor
(Kundu and Samanta 2011:58). Thirdly, a prompt concern with the JNNURM-scheme is that
it could lead to numerous evictions of the poor (Mahadevia 2006:3402). A large number of
slums already needed to be removed because a cleaning drive was taken up in various cities
(with the aim to beautify them). Also, it remains a question whether all the poor who are
evicted under the JNNURM-scheme will receive a resettlement house. Fourthly, another area
of concern of the JNNURM is the introduction of user fees connected to the fact that the
JNNURM is based on a full cost recovery system by charging users for services. The
introduction of user fees could enhance difficulties faced by the urban poor (Kundu and
Samanta 2011:58).
1.2.3.2 Slum redevelopment method under nationwide urban schemes (e.g. BSUP-
scheme)
Along with changing urban governance – enabling market growth, cooperation with private
agencies and large-scale urban renewal projects – slum improvement methods have changed
in the last two decades.
Since 1991, due to changing state interventions, new housing projects have been encouraged
to be financed by private capital; these housing projects are referred to as Public Private
Partnership (PPP)-projects. It was expected that private developers would be attracted to
implement the PPP-projects because these projects would enable developers to receive land
free of cost. Private developers would build housing for slum dwellers and in return they
would be allowed to sell the ‘left-over’ land to higher-income groups (O’Hare et al.
1998:281). In Mumbai these projects were mainly implemented through the Slum
Rehabilitation Scheme (SRS) developed by the Shiv Sena, a right wing regional political
party in Maharashtra. In 1995, the Shiv Sena gained more support for the government
elections. After this, the party started to focus on real estate and infrastructure. The first pillar
of the Shiv Sena was the construction of roads and the second pillar was the redevelopment of
slums, for which they launched the SRS scheme. Within this scheme resettlement would be
29
done by PPP-models (Doshi 2011:47). One of the biggest difficulties in developing PPP-
projects was providing land tenure to slum families (O’Hare et al. 1998:280). Also, in these
projects there is a risk that slum inhabitants will sell their houses because the maintenance
costs are so high. Furthermore, it was difficult to attract private agencies that wanted to
cooperate in these projects, because of the lack of funding of the state, high development
costs and low potential profits in these projects (ibid.:281).
Since the beginning of 2000, more centralized schemes have been launched, such as the
VAMBAY-scheme. After 2005 most of the slum improvement projects, including the
VAMBAY-scheme, were covered under the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP), one of
the important sub-projects of the JNNURM. The BSUP-scheme aims to build housing for the
urban poor (Mahadevia 2011:60). This scheme was extended through the Rajiv Awas Yojana
(RAY), a government program that aims to provide affordable housing for slum dwellers,
which was announced in 2009. Through the RAY, governments could further improve the
situation in slums (Patel 2013:178). Because under the JNNURM-scheme more responsibility
is given to local bodies, the BSUP-scheme has had different outcomes in different cities. For
example in Ahmedabad, Surat and Hyderabad the urban poor have been forced to move to the
outskirts of the city. Differently, in Pune and in Nagpur, in-situ redevelopment is done
through the BSUP-scheme (Mahadevia 2011:60). Initially, the slum upgrading method was
instructed under the BSUP-scheme. This meant that slums would be improved in-situ through
implementing services in existing slums because most of the beneficiaries preferred the
upgrading of their house in the initial location. In practice however, mostly slum
redevelopment, which refers to the demolishment of slum houses and the rebuilding of a flat
scheme, was implemented rather than the slum upgrading method (Patel 2013:178).
Three major critiques came on the BSUP-scheme by Society for the Promotion of
Area Resource Centres (SPARC), an NGO working in slums in Mumbai. Firstly, the main
concern stemmed from the fact that instead of upgrading slums, the government opted to
provide government-funded contract-built housing (ibid.:181). For most governments it
remains difficult to make the shift towards in-situ upgrading since both their attitude and
practice would need to change. The governments first need to recognize that slums are
valuable, that inhabitants need to receive tenure rights and that upgrading is a good method.
Secondly, their practice needs to change. Now the government still implements housing
according to prior housing policies through the same bureaucracy, procedures and institutions
that used to be the norm (ibid.:182). Secondly, beneficiaries are generally dissatisfied with the
30
outcome: either they do not prefer to live in a flat scheme, their new flats are smaller than
their previous homes or their new houses are of poor quality (Patel 2013:184–185). Thirdly,
slum dwellers are not often included in the slum redevelopment process, due to the fact that
this might seem time consuming for governments, who focus mainly on quantitative outputs.
However, the government aims to make implementation easier and quicker by reducing the
community hostility (ibid.:188).
1.2.3.3 State bureaucracies, NGOs and participatory process
In the previous section, I described the switch to redevelopment methods in improving slums
since the start of a neoliberal process in 1991. In this section I describe the changing
relationship between slum dwellers and the state, the mediating role of NGOs and social
mobilizations in between the state and slum dwellers, and the growing inclusion of the poor in
the redevelopment process.
State bureaucracies
Because the state has become a facilitator of large-scale projects in order to generate market
growth, the control of state level bureaucracies over slum improvement has increased. These
state authorities have started to override local municipal bodies (Doshi 2011:4). This was
partly done because decentralization asks for other forms of centralization in order to
facilitate market-oriented growth. (Mukhija 2001:802). Apart from this, the control of state
authorities over slum improvement has increased in order to include slum areas into the
formal economy and market space (cf. Bogaert 2011:711). Consequently, slum dwellers no
longer had the possibility to negotiate with local politicians for government support and the
distribution of facilities (Doshi 2011:50).
Previously elected municipal corporations generally implemented urban projects, but
gradually the process of the implementation of urban projects has become more centralized.
An example of such centralization process can be seen since the mid 1990s in Maharashtra,
where the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), a large state bureaucracy, has gradually
gained control over slum improvement (ibid.:51). The SRA was established in 1995, partly
because decentralized actors demanded some kind of state intervention to make slum
improvement possible. The SRA has the goal to improve slums. Within the SRA a committee
was created to give advice on which slum improvement methods should be used (Slum
31
Rehabilitation Authority n.d.). In many cities, for example in the city studied in this thesis,
Nagpur, the SRA is the implementing agency.
Another example of a state bureaucracy, particularly in Mumbai, that has gained more
control over implementing urban projects is the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development
Authority (MMRDA). From 1975 until the 1990s, the main implementation had been done by
the municipal corporation in Mumbai (Doshi 2011:51), although the MMRDA had been
created in 1975 as a regional authority with the task of planning and implementing
development activities such as transport and environmental infrastructure. By the early 2000s
the MMRDA had become the principal development agency in the city (ibid.:52).
The consolidation of control by these new state bureaucracies shows a changing
configuration of the state towards slum dwellers in Maharashtra. These rather technocratic
state bureaucracies are less associated with political patronage and party-based systems,
which were inherent to earlier stages of slum improvement. However, it would be wrong to
assume that all the forms of political patronage systems have disappeared; rather, the role and
importance of political patronage systems have decreased (ibid.).
NGOs
The second important change is the fact that since the political patronage system has
decreased since 1991, NGOs have become important mediators between the state and slum
inhabitants in slum improvement projects. NGOs in Mumbai already established importance
since the 1970s because some slum inhabitants had little or no access to patronage politics.
Consequently, NGOs and social mobilizations developed in order to help these beneficiaries
in different places in India, in particular Maharashtra. In this thesis NGOs and social
mobilizations are seen, drawing on Doshi (2011:50) as political actors in slum improvement
processes.
An important example of an NGO in Mumbai is SPARC. SPARC and its slum-based
partner organizations, a coalition that is called The Alliance, gained a more important role in
slum improvement processes as political actors by mediating between slum inhabitants and
state actors in the 1990s and early 2000s (ibid.:35). Their work forms an example for a lot of
NGOs all over India.
The Alliance in Mumbai is a movement that is exemplary for a large number of NGOs
all over India. The Alliance is a coalition of three NGOs based in Mumbai: the Society for
Promotion of Area Resources (SPARC), Mahila Milan (MM), a network of women’s groups,
32
and the Natonal Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) (Roy 2009:161). SPARC has been
established to defend the rights of pavement dwellers, who did not have access to patronage
systems earlier (Doshi 2011:53). The second NGO in the Alliance, Mahila Milan (MM), was
created in 1986 as an organization for poor women. The main objective of MM is to work
with local savings groups among the poor, focusing on the needs of women in relation to
urban poverty. Saving groups form a basis for short and long-term individual and collective
planning and they are a critical part of everyday life (McFarlane 2004:893). The third
grassroots organization in the Alliance is the NSDF, a community based-organization (CBO)
that was set up in 1974 (Appadurai 2001:25). This CBO gained importance and started to
negotiate and have conflict with local governments in the sequence of slum demolitions in
Mumbai during the state of emergency (see 1.2.1) (Doshi 2011:35).
The Alliance can be seen as a political actor, a mediator between slum inhabitants and
state actors. On the one hand, the organization tries to reshape the governance strategies for
poverty reduction. They attempt to make the urban poor aware of their abilities (McFarlane
2004:892). For example, the organization aims to generate knowledge of slum improvement
through slum inhabitants by developing methods of self-enumeration. With these methods
they aim to show that squatters, slum dwellers and pavement dwellers can map and categorize
their own communities (Roy 2009:165). On the other hand, the Alliance works closely
together with state actors, and helps government agencies to harness and negotiate with the
poor in order to include them in development projects. To achieve negotiation with
government actors, the Alliance has a non-party alignment. This means that they work
together with whoever is in power (Appadurai 2001:29; McFarlane 2004:907).
Furthermore, they are regarded as political actors in slum improvement processes.
Other authors have described the work of the Alliance differently. Some authors describe the
work of this NGO as “top-down governance” or as “deep democracy” (Appadurai 2001:23).
Appadurai sees the work of the Alliance as deep democracy because it challenges and
changes current forms of democracy that are defected and need to be changed (ibid.:26).
Others are even more skeptical; Roy (2009:159) and McFarlane (2004) resist the idea of deep
democracy, mainly because SPARC accepts the idea of a slum free city and thus mainly
contributes according to the demands of state agencies. Roy (2009:159) rather, defines the
work of the Alliance as “civic-governmentality” and McFarlane (2004:911) describes it as
extending “subversive citizenship”.
33
Participatory process
Next to the important role of NGOs as mediators in slum improvement, the participatory
process has become more important since 2007. Due to the growing importance of
‘sanitizing’ cities since the 1990s in India, slums and squatters have been pushed out of the
city. In order to stop these exclusionary trends, the focus has been put on an “inclusive
agenda”, which refers to including the poor into processes of development (Kundu and
Samanta 2011:55). Also the process of participation has gained more importance in order to
avoid crisis and protests of slum dwellers and social mobilizations. Following the Indian
Tsunami, a period of slum demolitions in Mumbai between 2004 and 2005, there were many
protests led by the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) all over India between
2006 and 2007 against forced land encroachment by the state (Roy 2009:176).
A description of a participatory process has been given by SPARC (2012:14):
communities should be actively engaged on decisions influencing their livelihoods. Therefore
they should be involved in the design of settlements. Tools should be developed to involve the
community at all stages of the slum improvement project, ranging from collecting data on
slums to construction, monitoring and maintenance.
Several authors have criticized the emphasis of participation in urban renewal projects
(Desai 2012:51; Doshi 2012:99; Roy 2009:165). In many of these views, participation is
described as a neoliberal method to give the responsibility and accountability of a shrinking
welfare state into the hands of NGOs and community organizations (Doshi 2012:88). For
example, Das and Takahashi (2009:213) suggest that:
Neoliberal development policies, such as decentralization during the past quarter century have
significantly reshaped urban development and planning initiatives. In this changing context, concepts
such as good governance, community participation and public private partnership have gained in
currency and increased the involvement of citizens, civil society and the private sector in local urban
planning endeavors.
Others are positive about the participation of slum inhabitants (Appadurai 2001:23; Minnery
et al. 2013:13).
There are three major areas of concern with participatory processes. Firstly, according
to Doshi (2012:99), based on ethnographic research in Mumbai, the participatory process can
34
be positive, but it can also cause inequalities within slum communities. Some members of the
community, often the leaders with a more important role during the participation, negotiated
for a better resettlement place and sometimes they received first choice (Doshi 2012:98).
Secondly, the participation process also forms a way to instruct good moral behavior to slum
dwellers (ibid.:95). Doshi (ibid.:105) suggests:
We can see that political engagement of evictees was deeply shaped by neoliberal and gendered cultural
ideas of individual and gendered cultural ideas of individual and community responsibilities as well as
aspirations for modernization of the housing status.
Thirdly, another important concern is that the participatory process is often inconsistent
(ibid.:94). Particularly, beneficiaries were at times not informed sufficiently about what would
happen in the slum improvement project. This dysfunction of the inclusive process, a process
to actively include the participation and opinions of slum inhabitants in the development
process, has also been recognized by Desai (2012:49), who describes the changing attitude of
the state towards a participatory process throughout slum redevelopment. She calls this
shifting attitude, due to shifting state and market priorities, as “flexible governing”. One of
the possible reasons for an inconsistent participatory process in most of the cases is the fact
that for almost all municipalities and state bureaucracies, participation is regarded as simply
providing communications to the community in order to retrieve consent for implementation
of the scheme. In most of the cases participation remains a misunderstood approach, which
has sometimes rather negative consequences (SPARC 2012:12).
Concluding, because of neoliberal slum improvement agendas, slum dwellers face new
approaches and connections to the state, such as the control of state bureaucracies, the role of
NGOs and the process of inclusion. However, for slum dwelling citizens, the line between the
violence of evicting states and the inclusive, non-governmental state is thin and unstable. The
former evicts and the latter compensates in uneven ways (Doshi 2011:56). One of the goals of
this thesis is to research the experiences of the process of participation, which facilitates new
connections between the state and slum dwellers, by means of the specific case of Nagpur.
35
1.2.3.4 Unequal distribution, protest and negotiation
In Maharashtra, slum improvement is distributed in an unequal manner, and is sometimes
forced upon slum inhabitants, which result in processes of protest, struggle and negotiation.
As a consequence of the unequal manner in which slum redevelopment is implemented, the
process causes differentiated experiences and politics (Doshi 2011:2). These inequalities
generate diverse categories among slum dwellers, articulated with politicizations of ethnic
difference, and exclusionary notions of who belongs to the city and who does not. For
example, the greater part of uncompensated evictees since 2004 are poorer Muslims and
lower caste groups (ibid.:57). The politics of land politics of slum dwellers have been shaped
by how these slum dwellers are positioned in relation to state ‘redevelopmentalism’, and a
variety of social forces at play in the neighborhood. For example, occupancy urbanism is not
a political option for evictees, who find channels to the state through NGOs and social
movements (ibid.:55).
Because of the changing urban context, characterized by growing inequalities, there
have been signs of revolts worldwide through the last decades (Harvey 2008:12). Slum
inhabitants are important actors in the slum improvement process, because their struggles and
negotiations contribute in shaping state interventions. Thus, the agency of slum inhabitants is
an important aspect in these processes. An example of struggles over urban space in
Maharashtra is the protests after the Indian Tsunami, as mentioned in 1.2.3.1. Within these
processes of slum redevelopment, slum dwellers have different and sometimes contradictory
positions. They are challenging, enabling and reworking redevelopment interventions through
claims for space (Doshi 2011:3). But the way in which they are able to make their demands
clear depends on different factors such as citizenship and sites of entitlement.
Firstly, the understanding of citizenship influences how beneficiaries make claim to space.
The question of how citizens stake claim to urban space remains critical. The idioms, practices, and
fault lines of citizenship will play a crucial role in whether and how the urban poor will be able to
partake of an essential substantive component of democracy: freedom from poverty. (Doshi 2012:102)
36
The way slum dwellers express their demands depends on their perception of citizenship.
Therefore, to explain protest by the urban poor against the state, understanding the notion of
citizenship is important. “Citizenship can be broadly defined as membership of a political unit
(Marshall, 1950:28), where the unit is usually the nation state” (McFarlane 2004:894). In
India there is a big difference between substantive citizenship, referring to rights in practice,
and formal citizenship, rights someone has according to the Constitution. Citizenship of the
urban poor in India is unstable because in order to claim citizenship rights, citizens need to
have documents like ration cards or electricity bills and so on, which they often lack. Thus,
housing is related to citizenship in India (ibid.:895). When citizens question their rights or try
to extend the established notions of citizenship, these movements are called insurgent
citizenship (Holston, 1999) (McFarlane 2004:896).
Secondly, sites of entitlement define ways in which slum inhabitants make demands
clear. Sites of entitlement are defined as “the lived geographies of abstract claims to
universalists rights" (McFarlane and Desai 2015:2). Consequently, understanding sites of
entitlement is important because it is related to the ways slum inhabitants make claims to
change slum improvement schemes or to facilities.
McFarlane and Desai (ibid.:4) illustrate how these sites of entitlement are shaped by
everyday experiences and the state. For the construction of sites of entitlement the
understanding of moral economies is important. Moral economies are the collectively
informal regulation of expected behaviors together with the individual idea of what may and
may not be expected. These moral economies are a basis for claims; they affect how
entitlements are contested, conceived and claimed, together with other factors such as state
power. The relation between everyday life and moral economies is important, but it is not
often investigated. McFarlane and Desai researched these sites of entitlement by doing
fieldwork in two slums in Mumbai, one notified and one non-notified (ibid.).
McFarlane and Desai show how both the state and everyday life influence
entitlements. In the non-notified slum in Mumbai, the inhabitants had the support of a local
politician who gave the community toilet blocks. Thus, by negotiating with local politicians,
residents could exercise claims in political society. These negotiations have mixed results in
most cases. There were some successes, but not for all. Only the older part of the non-notified
slum received provisions of water. Families’ personal circumstances and network, as well as
negotiations with elected politicians shape the distribution of entitlement. For example, a
woman in the notified slum needed to negotiate with a politician for urban provisions,
although she was entitled to them (ibid.:7). Despite the unstable and political process of the
37
distribution of facilities, residents keep expecting that the state will provide facilities.
McFarlane and Desai (2015:9) also show how sites of entitlement are related to moral
economies, perceptions of what is and what is not allowed. Inhabitants of the non-notified
slum do not necessarily feel a sense of entitlement to state provided facilities, but they have a
keen sense that state provision is preferable.
Furthermore, McFarlane and Desai show how everyday experiences influence sites of
entitlement. An example that illustrates this are the caretakers of toilet blocks in Mumbai,
who define what is ok and what is not. For example, women and children can use the block
for free and others have to pay. Thus, sites of entitlement are formed through interactions
between men, women, caretakers and the notions of private/public (ibid.:10). Concluding,
sites of entitlement show how and why citizens make claims.
1.3 Problem statement and research questions
The previous sections have given an overview of changing urban governance, in particular
slum improvement, in India. The main focus was on the period after 1991, when urban
governance changed due to a neoliberal climate. Since then, the Indian state has become an
apparatus of capital accumulation through facilitating large-scale (urban) projects (Doshi
2011:1). One of the projects, on which this thesis focuses, is the JNNURM- scheme and its
sub-mission, the BSUP-scheme. Under the BSUP-scheme, different slum improvement
projects have been implemented. Several authors have criticized the outcome of the
JNNURM- and BSUP-scheme (Mahadevia 2006; Banerjee-Guha 2009; Kundu and Samanta
2011; Patel 2013; SPARC 2012).
Within the critiques and descriptions of urban schemes, in particular slum
improvement, the experiences of slum inhabitants are crucial for fully understanding the
implementation of these slum improvement projects. Nevertheless, few authors have studied
the experiences of slum inhabitants in slum improvement schemes such as the BSUP-scheme
(Patel 2013; SPARC 2012). Mostly, the experiences of slum inhabitants are used in critical,
political literature as examples to illustrate the difficulties of changing urban governance in
India (such as Doshi 2011; Chatterjee 2014, 2009 and Desai 2006). Consequently, a broader
sociological study on how beneficiaries experience the impact of slum improvement
processes is relevant. This study could unravel local complexities and different levels of
implementation in the slum improvement process. Moreover, gaining insight into the
38
experiences of slum inhabitants could contribute to the further development of slum
improvement methods.
Therefore this thesis researched the experiences of slum inhabitants in slum
improvement projects (cf. Basic Services for the Urban Poor), by means of a case study in
Nagpur. Three questions are central in this thesis: “How did the process of slum improvement
change under neoliberal urban governance in India, and how are slum improvement projects
implemented within a context of changing urban governance?” The third research question is:
“How do beneficiaries experience the impact of slum improvement processes?”
In order to answer these questions, a case study has been selected in Maharashtra: the
city of Nagpur. Nagpur is experiencing the same changing process of slum improvement as
described in this chapter. Firstly, Nagpur is one of the cities in India that has become part of a
bigger, nationwide flow of changing urban governance and changing slum improvement
methods (see 1.2). Secondly, in 2005 the JNNURM-scheme has been implemented in Nagpur.
Consequently, a sequence of urban development projects has been initiated in Nagpur since
2006. Under the JNNURM-scheme the BSUP-scheme has been implemented in Nagpur in
order to redevelop slums as a part of the (re-) development of the city. Under this scheme,
different slum improvement projects were conducted. Therefore the case of Nagpur offered
the opportunity to research the experiences of slum inhabitants living in slum improvement
schemes implemented under the BSUP. Thirdly, I chose Nagpur because an NGO is working
there, which is one of the aspects of the changing slum improvement process, discussed in
this chapter. Also, through the NGO it is easier to access research sites and collect
background information. Fourthly, the case of Nagpur offers the opportunity to do further
research in the future.
39
Chapter 2: Methodology In this chapter the methodology used in the case study of Nagpur will be described. In order
to answer the research questions, two methods were used. Firstly, observational data were
gathered through a more anthropological approach. These data refer to informal gathered case
material about slum improvement projects in Nagpur implemented since 2000. This method
consisted of doing field visits, informal interviews, participation in the office of the NGO, and
studying unpublished government documents. Secondly, a rather sociological approach was
used through conducting semi-structured interviews. In section 2.1 I will describe the research
context. Afterwards, in section 2.2, the methods for collecting observational data will be
discussed. In section 2.3 I will explain how I conducted and analyzed the semi-structured
interviews.
2.1 Research context
During November 2014 and from August until September 2015, I conducted fieldwork in
three slum improvement sites in Nagpur. In this fieldwork two main questions were asked:
“How are slum improvement projects implemented under the BSUP-scheme?” and “How do
beneficiaries experience the impact of slum improvement processes?” Because of the focus on
the experiences of slum inhabitants in slum improvement projects, a qualitative research
design was chosen. Qualitative research is a good approach for researching experiences and
perceptions (Boeije 2005:27) because it starts from the daily living world of the researched
group (Mortelmans 2011:22). Moreover, the methods chosen (such as participant observation
and interviews) are often used in research on slums and, urban projects and their impact (such
as Chatterjee 2009:144 and McFarlane and Desai 2015:3).
I selected three different slum improvement sites under the BSUP-scheme: a resettlement
project in Wanjara, an in-situ slum redevelopment project in Jat Tarodi, and an in-situ slum
upgrading project in Indira Nagar. By examining different sites in the same city, it is possible
to make a comparison. Through comparing three sites, I aim to show the local diversity of
slum improvement in the city of Nagpur. This choice to look at three different slum
improvement sites within one city is supported by the research on the provision of sanitation
40
in slums of McFarlane and Desai (2015). They also emphasize the importance of spatial
diversity within one city (McFarlane and Desai 2015:13):
Spatial diversity may be as strong within cities as it is between them, and we may find that particular
neighborhoods across different cities in different countries provide challenges in sanitation and water
that have more in common with one another than with other neighborhoods in the same city.
They also claim “neighborhoods generally allow for a manageable unit of analysis between
the multiple complexities of everyday life and the city more generally” (ibid.).
For the selection of these sites, I cooperated with an NGO called the Centre For
Sustainable Development (CFSD). CFSD is a non-profit organization, based in Nagpur,
which aims to contribute in facilitating “participatory and sustainable development” (Anon
2015a). Their mission statement is "to develop human settlements into equitable living
environment where the community has access to health, education, housing, basic
infrastructure and livelihood options irrespective of their social and economic status" (Anon
2015a). CFSD wants to improve the living conditions in slums by contributing to
development in the areas of education and health, urban environment, social and technical
infrastructure, and poverty alleviation. They believe that:
… For the success of any government programs for the urban poor involving slum communities,
especially women, in the planning and implementation of sustainable slum improvement measures are a
must. For a sustainable urban development concept, CFSD is committed to facilitate participatory
approach encompassing slum dwellers, government organizations, NGO`s and the private sector (Anon
2015a).
I approached the organization and asked for their help in my research project. Their support in
the careful selection of research sites and research populations provided me structural access
to the sites. Also, they gave me background information on the population, culture, religion,
way of living and slum history in the three sites.
The head of CFSD, Leena Buddhe, approached the community leader of every site and
informed him or her about the research. Also, CFSD asked participants if they were willing to
cooperate in the interviews and they announced my visits. Through these announcements
CFSD made clear that participating in the interviews was free and evidently not compulsory.
The NGO regarded these announcements as important because I was accompanied during my
41
fieldwork by a social worker from CFSD, Prachi.6 In order to be able to mediate between the
government and the beneficiaries, CFSD aims to maintain a good relationship with the slum
inhabitants of the three sites. Therefore, they didn’t want beneficiaries to feel obligated to
participate in my research because this could damage the relationship between the
beneficiaries and the NGO.
2.2 Observational data
The first approach in researching the case study was a rather anthropological one, using
informal observation consisting of field visits, informal conversations and group discussions,
being present in activities of CFSD, participating in the office of CFSD and the study of
unpublished government documents. The fieldwork lasted one month, from the sixteenth of
August to the sixteenth of September 2015. During this month I visited each research site
approximately eight times. Each time I spent a whole day or half a day at the site. During
these visits, formal interviews were conducted along with informal conversations and
meetings; occasionally I stayed a while in the house of respondents and ate with them or
drank chai with them. Furthermore, sometimes informal group discussions occurred. At other
times, inhabitants guided me around. These informal meetings enhanced trust from
respondents, and they also helped me to gain more insight in the complexities of each
research site. During this month, I attended two or three meetings of the CFSD with
beneficiaries. I attended these meetings as preparation for my more formal visits to the site. I
also participated to some degree in the office work of CFSD. Daily, before and after I went to
the field, I spent some time in their office. I attended their meetings, sometimes we ate
together and sometimes I helped them with drawing Autocad plans (a ‘left-over’ skill from
my architecture studies). Also, while participating in the office of CFSD, three (more formal)
in-depth interviews were conducted with Leena Buddhe, the head of CFSD. These had the
purpose to gain insight into the local complexities that influence the way beneficiaries
experience the outcome of a slum improvement project. Finally, I used additional literature,
mainly unpublished government documents, to understand urban governance and slum
improvement processes in Nagpur. I obtained these unpublished government files (such as
demographic reports, DPRs and architectural plans) from the CFSD7.
6 Prachi introduced me to people and sometimes she helped me conducting the interviews. 7 Most of these documents do not provide a reference about when, where and by whom they were created. In my thesis I refer to these documents as being a part of my observational data.
42
2.3 Semi-structured interviews
Next to observational data-collection, semi-structured interviews were conducted in three
slum improvement sites (cf. BSUP) in the case of Nagpur. Below I will describe how these
data were collected and analyzed.
2.3.1 Participants
In this research, it was obvious to choose participants who live in the slum improvement
scheme under the BSUP-scheme, and who actively experienced how the process of slum
improvement occurred. Furthermore, it was important to choose participants who would be
willing to talk about their experiences of the process of the slum improvement project. In
cooperation with Leena Buddhe, the head of CFSD, I chose my participants according to
these criteria. For example, in Wanjara I interviewed both the community leader, who was
aware of the project and had an insight on how the slum improvement project influenced the
community and was experienced by different beneficiaries, and someone who wasn’t very
aware of what happened during the slum improvement project. This allowed me to gain
insight in how the process of participation was experienced by different inhabitants.
Furthermore, primarily women of the same age group were interviewed, as they spend more
time in the new house and are therefore an interesting group to interview. An overview of the
research groups in each of the slum improvement projects is added in the appendix (appendix
2).
2.3.2 Procedure
Most of the information about the experiences and views of slum inhabitants on the impact of
slum improvement in the three slum improvement projects in Nagpur was derived from semi-
structured interviews with beneficiaries. This method of semi-structured interviews was
chosen because it provides the necessary flexibility to let the participants choose which
aspects they regard as important in describing the impact of the slum improvement project.
The first interviews (N=7) were conducted in November 2014 in the slum improvement site
in Jat Tarodi. Based on the analysis of these interviews, new questions and research interests
arose. Consequently, in August and September 2015 another sequence of interviews (N=31)
43
was conducted. In each of the slum improvement sites I conducted approximately ten
interviews. The basic topics of these interviews were the experiences of their old house, the
transit process, the current house and the participatory process. In the first interviews, I used a
fixed list of questions concerning these topics. In the last 10 interviews, conducted in Indira
Nagar, I hardly used these questions and consequently the conversations were more
spontaneous.
Apart from some exceptions, the interviews were conducted in Hindi. Because
Marathi is the mother tongue of most of the participants, the participants sometimes explained
difficult or more personal things in Marathi. At the moment of the interview, the social
worker from CFSD, Prachi, who accompanied me, translated these Marathi explanations into
Hindi.
Also, most of the interviews were conducted in the houses of the participants because
this was more intimate and respondents felt more comfortable in a familiar and intimate
space. During most of the interviews, other people sometimes joined or interrupted the
conversation for one or two questions and then left again. I refer in this thesis to these
additional answers as ‘informal conversations’.
2.3.3 Data-analysis
During the fieldwork, August and September 2015, all of the interviews (N=31) were
summarized, and a preliminary open coding was done on these summarizations. Due to the
limited time spent at the research sites – only one month – the summarization and the first
rough coding of the interview were done the same day as the interview, in order to
immediately change the questionnaires if necessary. Based on the findings from the
summarizations done during the fieldwork, eighteen interviews were selected for further
analysis (partly due to my time limit for writing this thesis8). I transcribed these eighteen
interviews (six in Wanjara, six in Jat Tarodi and six in Indira Nagar) in Hindi and coded on
this Hindi transcription. I chose not to transcribe and code the people who did not receive a
new house yet, such as renters in Wanjara and people who are still living in the transit house
in Jat Tarodi, although this information is important and I derived a lot of important
background information from these interviews. For the coding of the eighteen selected 8 Therefore I regard this paper as a work in progress and I hope I will find the possibility in the future to analyze the multitude of data I collected for this thesis more careful. For instance, for now, I didn’t select the Marathi interviews, because I am not familiar with the language and I would have had to depend on the translation of someone else.
44
interviews I used a code tree (appendix 3). This code tree helped me in structuring the
information I gathered through the interviews. Thereafter, the most important citations per
code were organized in an excel file, which helped me to keep an overview of who said what.
2.3.4 Ethical approval
In all three sites it was too difficult to ask the beneficiaries to sign an approval in which they
agreed to participate in the research, which is a common practice in qualitative research.
However, the community workers of CFSD ensured the people before my arrival that they
were completely free to choose whether or not they would want to participate. Also, before
every interview I asked the beneficiary if it would be ok if I recorded the interview (these
recordings were a significant help, because sometimes I did not understand the dialect of
Hindi fully). All the respondents agreed with this, however, when the recording was finished
they discussed more sensitive issues, in particular the intimate relationship between men and
women, and ‘bad’ behavior such as fights and violence. I mainly tried to make sure the
respondents felt at ease during the interview by emphasizing that they did not need to feel
compelled and that everything they could tell me was valuable to me.
2.3.5 Position of the researcher
It is important to expose how the research field influenced the researcher and how the
researcher influenced the research field. Here I will focus on the barrier between respondents
and researchers while conducting interviews. In this research, a few aspects influenced the
‘barrier’ between the respondent and me. These aspects are: the connection with the NGO,
ethnicity, age and gender of the researcher, knowledge of Hindi of the researcher and the
behavior of the researcher.
Firstly, the connection with the NGO and the fact that a CFSD worker, Prachi,
accompanied me, in some cases increased trust and in other cases caused distrust. On the one
hand, when people saw me entering in the site accompanied by a local, in some cases a
familiar person, this resulted in a warm welcome and an increase in trust and familiarity. In
other situations, the company of Prachi and my relation to CFSD caused distrust by people
who had more negative experiences with the NGO and the government, specifically in Indira
Nagar.
45
Secondly, my ethnicity influenced the way respondents interacted with me. Most of
the people saw me as a guest and tried to please me in a way. Few saw me as an intruder, and
still others expected that I would be able to help them improve their situation. This made me
aware of the unequal relationship between the beneficiaries and me.
Thirdly, the fact that I spoke Hindi clearly decreased the barrier between the
participants and me. People felt more familiar when I was talking in Hindi because they could
speak directly to me, instead of depending on a translator. Sometimes they whispered
something to me or they took me aside and told me some things in private. These more
intimate ways of conversation were possible because I spoke Hindi.
Fourthly, my age and gender, according to my perception, also decreased the barrier.
Older women saw me more as a daughter and younger women saw me more as a friend. The
few men I interviewed, although they were less easy to approach, regarded me as a female
youngster, they didn’t feel any threat and felt comfortable talking with me (although CFSD
warned me about ‘teasing,’ and the ‘dificult attitude’ of men in these areas).
Fifthly, the way I behaved was also important in gaining trust from the participants.
For example, Leena Buddhe instructed me to always sit on the floor with the respondents and
not accept their offer, which frequently happened, to give me a chair.
46
Chapter 3: Case Study Analysis
In the following chapter the observational data will be discussed (3.1) first. Through these
data urban renewal and slum improvement in the case of Nagpur will be described, and will
be illustrated with three slum improvement projects under the BSUP-scheme. Thereafter the
experiences of inhabitants in these three slum improvement projects will be discussed (3.2).
First, the overarching themes throughout the three research sites will be described and,
evidently, after this the dissimilar themes will be considered. By examining the case of
Nagpur, I reveal the tension in the process of slum improvement between its local context,
including the experience of its beneficiaries, and the broader national and global dynamics in
slum improvement.
3.1 Observational data: slum improvement in Nagpur
The Central Indian city of Nagpur has an advantageous geographical location, situated in the
eastern part of the state Maharashtra. The city, as the second capital of Maharashtra, is the
thirteenth largest urban agglomeration in India. In the years after 2000, Nagpur saw
noteworthy economic and industrial growth, which resulted in a significant population growth
(Chatterjee 2013:60). Today, Nagpur officially counts 2,405,665 inhabitants (Anon 2015b).
3.1.1 Changing urban governance in Nagpur
Within the context of a nationwide change in urban governance, and the increasing role of the
state as a facilitator of large-scale urban projects in India (Doshi 2011:1), urban governance in
Nagpur changed in the last one and a half decades. In particular, as a result of the construction
of new forms of neoliberal urban governance (Peck and Tickell 2002:146), such as the
implementation of the JNNURM, the control of the central government over urban
governance in Nagpur has increased.
Since 2000, a new boost of urban renewal has started in Nagpur. Some of the ministers
in Nagpur were elected in the central government, which enabled them to push through the
support of the central government for urban renewal in Nagpur.9 Two urban projects,
developed since 2000, illustrate the increased importance of urban renewal in Nagpur: the
9 Information derived from personal communication with Leena Buddhe, the head of CFSD, on April 23, 2016.
47
Integrated Road Development Project (IRDP) and the Multi-model International Hub Airport
at Nagpur (MIHAN) project. The Integrated Road Development Project (IRDP), running from
2000 until 2005, was developed in order to broaden and (re-) develop the existing roads in the
city. Through this project, the government supports the idea that “for the economic
development of the city, it is essential to have good quality of roads and a well developed
road network” (Nagpur Improvement Trust, 2015). Another important urban renewal project,
which marked the start of changes in urban governance in Nagpur, was the Multi-model
International Hub Airport at Nagpur (MIHAN) project. This project, approved in 2002, aims
at expanding the airport a 100 times, The main goal of the project is to enable the airport to
handle 100 jets instead of the current five (Giridharadas 2007). In the press, the IRDP and the
MIHAN are often described as an enhancement of the city, of which a lot of people will
benefit. Unfortunately, it does also affect some urban population groups negatively. Similar to
the situation in Mumbai after 1991, because of these urban renewal projects slum dwellers
were evicted. For example, as will become clear in section 3.1.2, a slum from Mominpura, in
the center of Nagpur, had been evicted to the outskirts of the city due to the IRDP project.
Another slum called Gondpura Tiger Gap was evicted, as it was an encroachment on a hockey
ground of the Women Hockey Association. There was a long legal battle and finally the court
ordered its eviction in the year 2002-03.10
An even bigger change of urban governance in Nagpur came when the JNNURM and
the BSUP-scheme were launched in 2005. Under these schemes, projects will still be going on
in Nagpur until 2017. Four major changes occurred after the implementation of the
JNNURM- and BSUP-scheme in Nagpur. Firstly, since the JNNURM-scheme, the central
government has gained more control over urban governance in Nagpur because the
JNNURM-scheme requires that for every urban renewal project a Detailed Project Report
(DPR), which describes the planning, design and implementation of the project, needs to be
developed in order to receive funds from the central government11. Consequently, final
decisions on urban governance are made by the central government. The requirement of
preparing a DPR also stimulates more competition between Nagpur and other cities.
Secondly, after the introduction of the JNNURM-scheme, a clear vision of city
development in Nagpur was developed and mediatized. For the JNNURM-scheme the Nagpur
Municipal Cooperation (NMC) developed a City Development Plan (CDP) in 2005, in which
the vision of the city became clear: “the Growth Nucleus of Central India”, “an Eco-city that 10 Information derived from personal communication with Leena Buddhe on April 2016, 23. 11 Information derived from personal communication with Leena Buddhe on May 2016, 27.
48
provides adequate, equitable, sustainable access to urban services for all citizens” and “a city
that is safe, livable and promotes growth of its citizens”. In order to achieve this vision, the
CDP of Nagpur focuses on IT, health care and the promotion of industrialization of its
hinterland. Next to that, the plan promotes education, culture and tourism (Anon 2006:10). As
a result, similar to the situation in other Indian cities, various infrastructure development
projects have been undertaken since 2006.
Thirdly, apart from the two already existing Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in Nagpur,
the Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) and the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), a third
ULB was created in 2004: the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), as a part of the
overarching SRA in Maharashtra. The SRA carries out development activities in slums with
funds they receive from the government. The SRA and the NMC were the two implementing
agencies for slum improvement projects under the BSUP-scheme. The Nagpur Municipal
Corporation (NMC) is the urban authority of Nagpur, which decides which slums are notified
and which are non-notified. This organization also organizes development activities. The
Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) prepares land layouts and monitors urban development12.
Fourthly, the role of NGOs and consultants has become more important in Nagpur
since the establishment of the BSUP-scheme, in order to make the implementation of urban
projects possible13. Interestingly, as opposed to the case in Mumbai, before the JNNURM-
scheme was launched in Nagpur there were no formal NGOs. Thus, the development of
formal NGOs as political actors (Doshi 2011:50) in urban renewal in Nagpur happened more
abruptly than in Mumbai, where the importance of NGOs developed in a gradual way and was
rooted in earlier patronage systems (see 1.2.2.3). Since the BSUP-scheme, according to
guidelines from the central government, NGOs and consultancies have become important
negotiators between the state and slum inhabitants. For example, the Cooperative Housing
Foundation (CHF), an international humanitarian organization has been an important
consultant in the last ten years for the government of Nagpur. At the moment, the local CFSD
is working as the main NGO and consultant in urban projects.
12 Information derived from personal communication with Leena Buddhe on November 2014, 7. 13 Information derived from personal communcation with Leena Buddhe on May 2016, 27.
49
3.1.2 Changing slum improvement under BSUP-scheme
In Nagpur 34,4 percent of the population lives in slums (Deshmukh 2013:35), mostly due to
migration from the nineteenth century onwards. Today there are 439 slums in the city, of
which 279 are notified and 142 are non-notified. The ownership percentage of these slums is
18 percent on private owned land, 34 percent on mixed land use and 48 percent on
governmental land (Kapse et al. 2012:641).
Unique to the slums in Nagpur, in comparison to Mumbai, is that most of the existing
housing structures in the slums are in good condition and have access to facilities. Namely, 70
percent of the houses in slums in Nagpur have pucca14 structures, 14 percent of the slums
have semi-pucca structures and 16 percent of the slums have kutcha15 structures. Furthermore,
70 percent of the households have a private toilet and 64 percent have access to garbage
disposal. Also, most of the slum houses have an area of 400 to 500 sq. ft. or in some cases
even 700 sq. ft. (G+1 or G+2)16 (SPARC 2012:49).
3.1.2.1 Previous slum improvement schemes
In order to solve housing problems in Nagpur, different slum improvement schemes have
been implemented in the past. The state government of Maharashtra launched most of these
schemes. An example of these is the Slum Improvement Program (1972-1994). Between
1990-2005 the National Slum Development Project was implemented in Nagpur and under
this project the Lok Awas Yojana and the VAMBAY-scheme (2000-2006) were
implemented. The VAMBAY-scheme provided housing structures with an area of 189 sq ft. It
was the most significant government program for providing housing for the urban poor in the
past years. The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) was the
nodal Agency for the VAMBAY-scheme in Maharashtra.17 The last scheme under which
recent slum improvement projects have been implemented in Nagpur is the BSUP-scheme,
introduced in chapter one (see 1.2.3.1).
14 The term pucca comes from the Hindi word pakkā, which literally means “ripe” or “cooked”. A pucca structure indicates a permanent and solid structure. The materials used in pucca structures are bricks, stones and concrete. 15 The term Kutcha comes from the Hindi word kaccā, which literally means “unripe" or “raw”. Kutcha houses are houses made of mud, stone, grass and bamboo. Therefore a kutcha structure is often described as a short-life structure. 16 ‘G+1’ refers to a two-storey building, a ground floor plus one upper floor. 17 Information derived from personal communication with Leena Buddhe on April 2015, 23.
50
3.1.2.2 BSUP-scheme in Nagpur
Since 2005, the BSUP-scheme has been implemented in Nagpur with the aim to (re-) develop
slums, as a part of the (re-) development of cities under the JNNURM. The initial plan under
the BSUP-scheme was to use the method of slum upgrading, through which existing slum
houses would be improved. In practice in Nagpur, as in various other cities in India, under the
BSUP-scheme mainly slum redevelopment projects were implemented, as this method is
more suitable to stimulate market-orientated growth. For example, in the process of slum
redevelopment, in which slum houses are demolished and a flat scheme is built, private
agencies (e.g. building companies) have more possibilities to cooperate. Also, slum
redevelopment can be done quicker and easier in comparison to slum upgrading. The nodal
agency for the implementation of the BSUP-scheme in Nagpur was the MHADA. The
implementing agencies were the SRA and the NMC (Chatterjee 2013:62). The main
consultants, who provided expert assistance to the NMC, were CHF International, Vistaar and
MM consultants (SPARC 2012:49).
In order to receive funds from the central government the development of DPRs was
necessary. Before developing DPRs in Nagpur, a survey was conducted by the consultants to
gain insight into the characteristics of slums in Nagpur, and afterwards they made a Slum
Atlas in 2008. This Slum Atlas gives an overview of the existing slums in Nagpur and shows
where they are geographically situated. Afterwards, slums were selected for the BSUP
scheme (ibid.). The criteria for the selection of a slum for (re-) development under the BSUP-
scheme were: the slum should have a sizeable population, the size of the huts should not be
more than 500 sq. ft. and the slum should be in a residential belt, since there the chance is
smaller that the slum dwellers would be evicted.18
Under the BSUP-scheme 23 slums were selected for in-situ upgrading and divided
into eight projects. For the BSUP-relocation 33 slums were selected and divided into five
projects (ibid.). CHF International prepared DPR’s for these slums. Unfortunately, although
the guidelines of the BSUP-scheme recommend participation, the beneficiaries in the slums
were not involved in the development of the DPRs (ibid.). Consequently, in most of the
BSUP-projects in Nagpur, slum redevelopment was implemented, despite beneficiaries’
preference for slum upgrading due to the good condition of most of the slum houses.
18 Information derived from an interview with Leena Buddhe on November 2014, 7.
51
3.1.2.3 Future?
The BSUP-scheme will be an ongoing project until 2017, although other schemes have
already started. Now the focus for slum development schemes is based on Public Private
Partnership (PPP) models under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) housing scheme.
Previously, PPPs have already been implemented in other Indian cities, such as Mumbai (see
1.2.3.2). The emphasis is to provide affordable housing and give loans to slum dwellers to
build their houses at a lower interest rate. The government of Nagpur and CFSD are also
active in the process of changing a few policies on giving tenure securities to slum dwellers in
the state of Maharashtra, wherein they will try to put in provisions for slum redevelopments
through formation of housing co-operatives while providing them individual tenures.
According to CFSD, this will surely stimulate better slum improvement in Nagpur.19
3.1.2 Implementation of three slum improvement projects
Three slum improvement projects in Nagpur, where the BSUP scheme was implemented,
were selected for this thesis. In the three sites an in-situ BSUP-project had been implemented,
but the context and project background is completely different in the three sites.
3.1.2.1 Wanjara
Wanjara is a relocation site on land owned by the NMC in the North-East of Nagpur; it is
located on the outskirts of the city where no basic facilities such as schools and hospitals are
available. 105 families came to live here after they were evicted in 2000 from Mominpura
(Croddack road) in the center of the city due to a road-widening project, the IRDP-project20.
The population had been living in Mominpura for four generations. This slum population
consists mainly of Muslim beneficiaries; most of the people are engaged as laborers with a
very low income (between 1000 and 1500 rupees.)21.
19 Information derived from personal communication with Leena Buddhe on April 2016, 23. 20 Information extracted from correspondence between CFSD and the NMC, derived from Leena Buddhe on April 2016, 23. 21 Information extracted from a demographic report on the site of Wanjara, derived from Leena Buddhe on September 2015, 17.
52
As a compensation for the relocation, the government provided a resettlement site in
Wanjara. Evicted slum dwellers from Mominpura were ‘allowed’ to come and live in
Wanjara. Unfortunately, at that time no basic facilities, such as houses or roads, were
provided in this site. In the absence of this provision, the slum dwellers from Mominpura
made their own temporary houses. Due to a lack of resources, these houses were very basic
and often insecure and unhygienic.
In 2006, four years after the relocation, a first housing scheme, the VAMBAY-scheme, was
implemented in Wanjara. Out of the 105 families, 71 families received low cost housing
under the VAMBAY-scheme. The VAMBAY-scheme was subsumed in 2006 under the new
Integrated Housing and Development Program22.
In 2006, the BSUP-scheme was launched in Nagpur. Initially the BSUP-scheme was
implemented in Wanjara to house the remaining 34 beneficiaries that did not receive housing
in the VAMBAY-scheme. In the year 2006, the Project Management Consultant (PMC)
prepared the DPR for the implementation of the BSUP-project. The houses provided in the
BSUP-scheme were bigger (269 sq. ft.) than the houses provided in the VAMBAY-scheme
22 Information extracted from correspondence between CFSD and the NMC, derived from Leena Buddhe on April 2016, 23.
Figure 1: Map Relocation from Mominpura to Wanjara
53
(189 sq. ft.) Because the houses in the BSUP-scheme were bigger and because the houses
earlier provided in the VAMBAY-scheme were already in a dilapidated state, the 71 families
living in the VAMBAY houses asked the SRA to provide them with houses in the BSUP-
project. First the housing secretary refused this demand, saying that no individual can be
benefited with two housing schemes. Later the government agreed that the inhabitants of the
VAMBAY-scheme in Wanjara would receive a new house in the BSUP-scheme, on a
condition that the beneficiaries would pay back the amount of 50000 rupees that the
government had spent on them to provide the VAMBAY houses23. For most of the
beneficiaries this is an enormous cost. Whether the 71 families will ever be able to pay off
their debt, remains uncertain.
23 Information derived from correspondence between CFSD and the NMC, derived from Leena Buddhe on April 2016, 23.
54
Figure 2: Wanjara Before the BSUP-Scheme (Credit: CFSD), Derived from CFSD on April 2016, 23.
Figure 3: Wanjara After the BSUP-Scheme, August 2015
55
3.1.2.2. Jat Tarodi
The second site, Jat Tarodi, is a slum situated in the South-West of Nagpur. People began
settling in Jat Tarodi since the mid 1960s, mainly coming from other states such as
Chhattisgarh in order to find work. Now the population of Jat Tarodi mainly consists of
people from Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. The number of households now living in the slum
is 279 (Chatterjee 2013:62). The population consists of mainly Hindu and Buddhist
beneficiaries:
54 percent of the men
work as laborers and
seven and a half percent
as rikshaw pullers. In
contrast to Wanjara,
where almost all women
are housewives, some of
the women work in Jat
Tarodi.
Thirteen percent of the women work as housemaids. Most of the people earn between 1400
and 1600 rupees per month, which is a little bit more than in Wanjara. Women also sell
vegetables in the site and do small tailoring jobs to generate additional income (Chatterjee
2013:64). Remarkably, most of the initial houses in Jat Tarodi are in quiet good shape. Eleven
percent of the households initially lived in pucca structures with approximately four rooms,
51 percent lived in semi-pucca houses with approximately three rooms and only 38 percent
lived in kutcha houses with two rooms24.
The DPR for Jat Tarodi had been developed in 2009. According to this DPR, all the
existing slum houses would be demolished and new flat schemes would be built (G+3
structures)25.
24 Information from a demographic report (2008) on Jat Tarodi, derived from Leena Buddhe on September 2015, 17. 25 Information from the DPR of Jat Tarodi, derived from Leena Buddhe on September 2015, 17.
Chapter 4 - BSUP Slum Redevelopment in Jat Trodi, Nagpur !
63!!
4.5.2 Community Profile
CHF International for the implementation of its SCALE-UP (Slum Communities Achieving Livable Environment with Urban Partners) project teamed up with Evangelical Social Action Forum (ESAF), a local NGO in Nagpur. ESAF prior to preparing DPR conducted a survey in the area to get background of the community. There were no directives or guidelines from BSUP or SRA with respect to data collection and survey. Hence only primary demographic details were collected.
There is no clear data on population break up, but children make a sizeable population at 23%. DPR mentions only consolidated figures. Majority of the families in the area are Hindus followed by Buddhists.
4.5.2a Livelihood
As per the survey results majority of the residents in the area are daily wage earners of whom 44% are laborers. In the absence of any data on literacy level it is difficult to understand the skill set of the population.
work force is low. There is no opportunity available to work from home in the community. One does not
know whether women do not work due to gender issues, lack of options or due to child care and rearing taking up most of their time.
Table 4.4 - Demographic Profile of the Jat Trodi Community
Total Population 1250 (approx)
Religious Background
Religion % Household
Hindu 56 Buddhist 43.5
Christian 0.5
Caste Background Caste % Household SC 43.5 ST 20 OBC 29.5
% of Male and Female
51% Male and 49% Female out of which 36% are Adult Males, 37% are Adult Females, 15% are Boys and 12% are Girls.
Children In the detailed survey conducted in 2006 and revised in 2008-9 there were a total 225 children (126 boys and 99 girls) in 279 families. Disaggregated age-wise data was not collected.
Source: Nagpur DPR
Table 4.5 - Livelihoods of the Jat Trodi Community Occupation of Men % Employed Occupation of
Women % Employed
Laborers 44 Labor 9 Rickshaw Pullers 8 Housewife 62 Private Service 3 Agarbatti Making 0 Government Service 1 Housemaid 13 Drivers 6
Source: Nagpur DPR
Shop Owners 3 Painters 3 Tailors 0 Hawkers 4 Retired 0
Table 1: Demographic Information of Jat Tarodi (Chatterjee 2013:63)
56
Figure 5: Proposed View Slum Redevelopment in Jat Tarodi, Figure, Derived from CFSD on September 2015, 17.
Figure 4: Initial Plan for Slum Redevelopment in Jat Tarodi, Derived from CFSD on September 2015, 17.
57
In order to implement this plan a transit house was built on land owned by the Nagpur
Improvement Trust (NIT) in order to provide temporary housing for the beneficiaries. After
building the transit house the demolishment and rebuilding of the flats happened cluster wise.
The first cluster of eleven family houses was demolished after the agreement of the
beneficiaries, and a year later the first apartment building (building A) was built. After this,
the second cluster of 22 family houses was demolished after receiving the consent of the
families. The people in the third cluster, initially 31 families, did not agree with living in the
flat scheme, because they had good pucca houses. However, because the government wanted
to implement the scheme as a whole, these 31 family houses were forcefully demolished26.
After the demolishing of the third cluster houses, the project was put on hold because
of a land dispute between two government agencies, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation
(NMC) and the Railway Authorities. The latter claimed that the land was theirs and wanted to
use it for commercial development. As of today, only a small part of the slum population has
received new housing, although according to the DPR the whole area should have been
redeveloped.27
3.1.2.3 Indira Nagar
Indira Nagar is a slum located in the North of Nagpur. Most of the inhabitants came from
other states to live here approximately twenty years ago. The number of households in this
slum is 390. The majority of the population is Buddhist.
52 percent of the men are engaged in
labor and eleven percent work as
rickshaw pullers. Notably, a big part of
the women work in comparison to the
women in Wanjara. Eighteen percent
work as laborers and nineteen percent
work as housemaids. The income of the
majority, 60 percent, of the
26 Information derived from personal communication with Leena Buddhe on November 2014, 21. 27 Information derived from personal communication with Leena Buddhe on November 2014, 7.
Total Population
Religion % HouseholdsBuddhist 81Hindu 15Other 4Caste % HouseholdsSC 81ST 6OBC 9Other 4
% of Male and Female 53 % is Male and 47 % is Female out of which 31% are Adult Males, 30% are Adult Females, 22 % are Male Children and 17 % are Female Children
Caste Background
Religious Background
1560 (approx)
Table 2: Demographic Information of Indira Nagar, Information Derived from CFSD on September 2015, 17.
58
beneficiaries is between 1000 and 2000 rupees every month. 25 percent of the households
have an income between 2000 and 3000 rupees, which is high compared to the income of the
households in Wanjara and Jat Tarodi. The majority, 86 percent, of the houses in Indira Nagar
were kutcha houses. Only a small part, 12 percent, were semi-pucca houses and only 2
percent were pucca houses28.
According to the initial DPR developed in 2009 under the BSUP-scheme, a flat
scheme would be implemented in Indira Nagar. The beneficiaries did not want to live in a flat
scheme; they wanted to live in individual houses instead of apartment buildings. Because of
this they protested by making the site unapproachable for anyone from the government
(literally by attacking an SRA-officer). Consequently, NMC revised the initial DPR, as they
didn’t have any other option. The major part of the beneficiaries received individual houses
on their original plots. A part of the slum, located near the river, was more congested and due
to space limitations, they will receive row houses.
28 Information based on a demographic report of Indira Nagar, derived from Leena Buddhe on September 2015, 17.
Figure 6: Architectural Plan for One Type of Individual Houses in Indira Nagar, Derived from CFSD on September 2015, 17.
59
Figure 7: Row Houses under Construction in Indira Nagar, September 2015
Figure 8: Kitchen in One of the Houses in Indira Nagar, September 2015
60
3.2 Findings from semi-structured interviews
In the previous section I illustrated how, within a context of changing urban governance
nationwide, three slum improvement projects were implemented under the BSUP-scheme. In
this section the important experiences of residents of these three slum improvement projects
(see 3.1.2) will be discussed. First the overarching themes throughout the three sites will be
discussed, after which the dissimilar experiences will be described.
3.2.1 Overarching themes in the three sites
3.2.1.1 Unstable participatory process
Despite attempts by the government and the project developers to include the beneficiaries in
the BSUP-projects, in none of the three sites did slum inhabitants experience a stable
participatory process. In the three sites, a local NGO, Centre For Sustainable Development
(CFSD), coordinated the slum redevelopment process by mobilizing slum inhabitants, helping
beneficiaries to form housing cooperates, and facilitating communication between inhabitants
and government officers. In spite of the efforts of the NGO, through all stages of the project
(planning, implementation and maintenance), beneficiaries were poorly informed and too
little involved in decisions on the slum improvement projects.
To begin with, beneficiaries were not involved in decisions during the planning stage,
such as the decision on what slum improvement method would be used. As a consequence,
the Detailed Project Reports (DPR) for the three sites, were not according to the needs of
beneficiaries. Most of the beneficiaries wanted in-situ slum upgrading, because their initial
houses were quite spacious and strong. However, according to the DPRs slum redevelopment
projects, the demolishment of the existing housing and the construction of a flat scheme as a
substitute, would be implemented. Only in one site, Indira Nagar, beneficiaries were able to
stop the implementation of the flat scheme (see 3.2.2.4). However, in the other two sites a
scheme was implemented that was unwanted by its inhabitants. Ramesh (M, 32, Jat Tarodi,
block C), for example, stated that:
61
We didn’t need a flat scheme. We wanted individual plots. We wanted individual plots so
that we could have made our house by ourselves. However, we didn’t have any choice in
the process. (September 2015, 3)29
This excerpt from the interviews exemplifies the critique of Patel (2013:188) that, generally,
no decent community participation was conducted under the BSUP-scheme.
In the second stage of the project, the implementation, the beneficiaries were still too
little involved in decisions. For example, some men in Jat Tarodi and Indira Nagar explained
to me how they were dissatisfied with the fact that they weren’t involved in choosing the
building materials for their houses. Also, too little information was given to the beneficiaries
during the implementation stage. In the interview with Anamika (F, 18, Jat Tarodi, Block B),
for instance, she described the commotion amongst the inhabitants previously living in slum
houses in Jat Tarodi:
Two to three women came, they told us everything. First they wrote down the names
of the children and then they gave us chocolates. After writing down all the names,
they went away again. (…) They told us that a notice would come, which would say
that the houses would be demolished within one or two years. After that everyone
understood that the houses were to be demolished. Afterwards, during a few years,
people [the beneficiaries of block B in Jat Tarodi] were talking about the
demolishment, but within two or three years the demolishment didn’t happen. In the
meanwhile there was a lot of commotion. Then a notice passed and immediately a
bulldozer came. Some people their pots were crushed, some people their money, their
gold, and their silver …everyone had problems at that time. (September 2015, 3)
Today, during the maintenance stage, there continues to be too little communication with and
participation by the inhabitants. After the construction of the houses, community work was
stopped in the three sites. Beneficiaries said in the interviews that there was not enough
follow-up, not enough help in establishing housing cooperatives, and insufficient support to
deal with problems caused by the projects. For example, some beneficiaries experienced
difficulties with setting up housing cooperatives, which are necessary to receive ownership
rights and with setting up bank loans. 29 I translated the interview excerpts from Hindi into English by myself. The transcripts of the interviews are available on request to the author.
62
According to Leena Buddhe, the head of CFSD and former employee of CHF, the explanation
for the poor and unstable participatory process is the switching attitude of the government.
Because at certain moments the government was not paying CFSD and CHF, they did not
have the official approval to work in the sites. Because of this, beneficiaries experienced
interruptions in the participatory process (personal communication, September 2015, 16).
However, Buddhe said, in an interview over Skype in March 2016, that although the NGO
was not paid at certain periods of the project, she stayed in touch with some people from the
communities, and tried to help them informally when they had a problem. CFSD sees itself as
a mediator between the government and slum dwellers (cf. Doshi 2011:3) and therefore they
aim to maintain a good relationship with beneficiaries.
SPARC gives another, more general, reason for the poor participation in BSUP-
projects. According to SPARC (2012:12), in a lot of cities where the BSUP-scheme was
implemented, there was little awareness of community participation in the scheme. The
reason for this is that governments view participation simply as providing information to
communities in order to obtain consent for implementation of the scheme. Thus, participation
remained an unclear and misunderstood term in all of the BSUP cities (ibid.).
As a consequence of the unstable participatory process, at times beneficiaries were
uninformed about what would happen to them. Also, beneficiaries felt they could not rely on
the local NGO or government, because sometimes they received information, assistance and
material support from them and sometimes not. Furthermore, the unstable participatory
process led to inequalities within the community (cf. Doshi 2012:99). During my interviews, I
observed different levels of interaction and agency between beneficiaries and the NGO or the
government, leading to unequal spread of information. The lack of information for some
beneficiaries evoked feelings of uncertainty and fear. The different attitude towards
information gathering can be illustrated by the following two interview excerpts recorded in
Indira Nagar.
The SRA didn’t give any help. We searched for solutions ourselves, like the transit
house. (…) The NGO also didn’t give any help. (Shubhangi, F, 50, Indira Nagar,
September 2015, 8)
63
In the beginning we had fear for eviction but afterwards it was not anymore like that.
We talked to Ramtek Sevak [an SRA officer] and asked him: “Will it be like that?
That you will demolish our houses and will not build new ones?” He told us that it
could not be like that; that in this scheme every house will be rebuilt again. He showed
us plans and photos on his laptop and we were reassured that we would receive new
houses. We didn’t have any fear anymore after this. (Lathika, F, 48, Indira Nagar,
September 2015, 9)
Thus, the case of Nagpur mirrors what Doshi (2012:94) describes as an inconsistent
participatory project as seen in Mumbai. An unstable participatory project has also been
explained as ‘flexible governing’ by Desai (2012:49), by which she refers to the ambivalent
and shifting approaches of state authorities towards the urban poor. Similarly, the government
of Nagpur sometimes stopped paying the NGO and consultant, due to changing priorities and
government interference to cut down expenses. Consequently, the cooperation with
beneficiaries was interrupted several times. This influenced how the beneficiaries participated
in the process and how they experienced a sense of ‘inclusion’ at all stages of the project.
3.2.1.2 Messy and difficult transit facilities
Although the transit facilities provided in the three sites were different, all interviewed
beneficiaries experienced a messy and difficult process between the demolishment of the slum
houses and the construction of the new house.
In Wanjara, Arisha (F, 35, Wanjara) told me about the absence of transit facilities after
the relocation.
When our house had been demolished, we all came together on a square nearby and
we stayed there for a while. There all our stuff was spread. Everything was spread
over the ground. There was no food for the children. We couldn’t make anything.
There was nothing. Because it was raining so hard, I left my children in a house of one
of her relatives. But the stuff was still lying there in the rain. Some stuff washed away
and some stuff was just wet. (September 2015, 14)
Six months after the houses of the beneficiaries were demolished, the beneficiaries received a
new plot in the relocation site of Wanjara. Most beneficiaries describe the site at that time as a
64
“jangle”. During the transit period, no houses were provided, so the beneficiaries were
obliged to build temporary houses by own means. Other basic infrastructure, such as
sanitation and schools were not provided during transition periods. The reachability for
vehicles was often mentioned as problematic. The overload of insects and mud also
contributed to the beneficiaries’ difficult existence at that time. The excerpt of the interview
with Aisha (F, 40, Wanjara) illustrates how beneficiaries needed to find solutions by their
own, such as building their own house.
The house that we made by ourselves when we arrived here was very small and there were
no gutter lines, no toilet, and no bathroom. We made a kutcha toilet near by the drainage,
but it was far away. There were a lot of problems, but we stayed, because we didn’t have
another place to go to. (August 2015, 25)
As mentioned earlier, after four years the government constructed the first infrastructure on
the site, the VAMBAY-scheme. Only a part of the beneficiaries received houses under this
scheme. However, because this scheme did not provide sufficient housing, the inhabitants
applied for a house in the BSUP-scheme. When the VAMBAY houses were demolished, the
beneficiaries received a transit house while they were waiting for their new housing. These
transit houses were not solid (leakages), they lacked basic facilities, such as electricity, and
were very congested. The genuine fear and despair experienced by beneficiaries during their
stay in the transit homes regularly surfaced during interviews:
The transit house was not good. There was so much water, rain … the water was flowing
into our house. There were snakes, worms and scorpions. There was no place to sleep. It
was only one room. I was very afraid when my husband was going to his work, because
when there would be a lot of wind and the house would collapse, who would rescue us?
There was no toilet, so we went in the field. The men went near the riverside. The women
needed to go by night. We couldn’t go during the day. Where would we go? The ladies?
Where would we go? (Eshal, F, 40, Wanjara, August 2015, 26)
In Jat Tarodi a transit house was built before the implementation of the BSUP-scheme. After
the houses were demolished, the beneficiaries were likewise shifted to the transit house. Most
of the beneficiaries experienced their stay in the transit house as a difficult period because of
insufficient sanitary facilities, decrepit housing and scarcity in living space.
65
There was no toilet, no water system, the roof consisted of thin sheds, and so in the
warm season it was too warm. There was a common latrine, where women and guys
went. Sometimes it was so dirty that I didn’t wanted to go, but I needed to go. After a
while we made a cooperation, we collected ten rupees every week to keep the toilets
clean. (Ramesh, M, 32, Jat Tarodi, September 2015, 3)
In Indira Nagar, similar to Jat Tarodi, the SRA built a transit house. However, at the time the
houses of the inhabitants of Indira Nagar were demolished, migrants from other cities already
occupied the transit house and consequently the beneficiaries had to provide their own transit
facilities in order to bridge the period they did not have a house. Most of the beneficiaries
rented another house in the slum.
I stayed in a rented house for two years. I received a new house after crying a lot. I
was thinking: “Make the new house very fast.” We lived in a rented [one]. I was
crying because we needed to give 2000 rupees every month during two years. They
took so much money from us! (Anjali, F, 36, Indira Nagar, September 2015, 4)
During one year (I lived in a rented house). The SRA didn’t give any money and they
didn’t give any help. We stayed in the rented house by ourselves and thereafter for two
to four months we didn’t had a place. In the meanwhile the work here was going on
and there was only very little space left. We looked at all the empty wooden spaces,
and then we rented something. So we didn’t receive any place to make a transit house
so that’s why we lived in a rented place. (Shubhangi, F, 35, Indira Nagar, September
2015, 8)
66
Figure 9: Room in Transit House in Jat Tarodi, November 2014
Figure 10: ‘Left Over’ of the Transit House in Wanjara, September 2015
67
3.2.1.3 Dissatisfaction with quality of construction
In the three sites, almost all beneficiaries that I interviewed felt dissatisfied about the quality
of construction. Beneficiaries complained about problems, ranging from cracks in the walls to
lack of electricity wires. Common problems in the three sites are: lack of drinking water,
cracks in the walls and leakages. Beneficiaries experience these problems as a burden.
Another problem are the drainage lines, because they choke up very fast. People who
are living on the ground floor have a lot of problems with this, because drainage lines
got stuck because they are so small. So everything is coming up … (Namya, F, 32,
Wanjara, August 2015, 25)
The bad thing here is that the walls are not strong enough. I will give you an example:
the cement is coming loose. We painted the wall two times since we came to live here,
but water is coming through the walls. Eventually more water will come through the
walls and this worries me. This troubles me. So what can I do? Since one month I’m
upset about this. They didn’t construct the walls in a good way, because if they
[building companies] had done it in a good way, this problem wouldn’t be there.
(Deepika, F, 30, Jat Tarodi, September 2015, 1)
There are cracks in the walls and from the door water is dripping, water is dripping
from the roof and comes inside. You’ve seen it yesterday, no? Yes, in the rain there
are a lot of problems here. We cannot sleep when it rains and how can I stall my stuff
here when there are so much water leakages? (Shubhangi, F, 50, Indira Nagar,
September 2015, 8)
In one of the buildings of the flat scheme in Wanjara, the beneficiaries do not have electricity
wires.
We still don’t have a meter and we don’t have electricity. So we have an illegal
connection from a colony further away. (Arisha, F, 35, Wanjara, September 2015, 14)
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Furthermore, in Indira Nagar and in Jat Tarodi some beneficiaries said that there is inequality
in the quality of construction between different buildings, which causes friction between
inhabitants. In Indira Nagar, a few people said that there is a difference in quality of the
structure due to the fact that contractors, the ones who build the buildings, took bribes from
beneficiaries in order to give them a better construction. For example, Leela (F, 27, Indira
Nagar) told me:
First the slum was one, now it became more divided because some of ours have a good
house and some of us their house is constructed in a bad way. If I would have given
the contractor 5000 rupees, if I would have given him some liquor, if I would have
given him some food, then he would have constructed a good house. The people who
are poor didn’t give any money and their house is less good. (September 2015, 9)
Leena Buddhe, the head of CFSD, confirmed the findings of insufficient building
constructions and inequality (personal communication, May 2016, 9). She says that she is also
dissatisfied with the building constructions in the three sites and she mentioned that a lot of
people are complaining about these things. Buddhe also blames an inequality between the
construction in Jat Tarodi and the other two sites to different contractors in Jat Tarodi. In her
opinion, the construction in Jat Tarodi was better, although this did not become clear in the
interviews; the beneficiaries of Jat Tarodi also mentioned dissatisfaction with the housing
construction.
The dissatisfaction of beneficiaries about the construction in the three slum
improvement projects in Nagpur is similar to other BSUP-projects in other cities (Desai et al.
2013:14; Patel 2013:184) Also, all of the three sites still did not have other physical and social
infrastructure such as a decent health center, courtyard, nursery, water provisions, roads and
community spaces, which is similar to what Desai (2013:28) described about the BSUP-
project in Nanded.
However, apart from the dissatisfactions mentioned above, most beneficiaries, especially the
beneficiaries who lived in a kutcha house before, also mentioned some overall improvements
in their life due to the construction of the new building. Most often, interviewees mentioned
that their current house is more hygienic and safe than their previous one.
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The current house is good, because of this we don’t live in a slum anymore and in the
slum we couldn’t make our own house. We couldn’t have made a house like this,
because we are not financial strong enough. That’s why the scheme is good for us. The
best thing in the current house is that it’s safer and the house is peaceful now. (Anjali,
F, 36, Indira Nagar, September 2015, 8)
3.2.1.4 Life change?
On the question “Did the project change your way of living?” most of the beneficiaries
answer that their lives did not change that much. On the contrary, they say that their life feels
the same. In particular in Wanjara, beneficiaries do not have the feeling that they experienced
a change in living style. Most inhabitants in Wanjara do not see it as an improvement or as a
solution to their previous problems:
We were poor in Mominpura and we are still poor, our situation is the same. (Aisha, F,
40, Wanjara, September 2015, 25)
No, there is not a lot of change. How we live now, that’s how we lived before. Before
it was good and now it is good. It’s a little bit better than before. (Ramesh, M, 32, Jat
Tarodi, September 2015, 3)
Nothing exactly changed in my lifestyle (…) Now I have the feeling that it’s new.
There are more facilities. Everything is more private and there are no problems.
(Rashmi, F, 36, Indira Nagar, September 2015, 8)
Only two things concerning ‘life style’ changed according to beneficiaries: their financial
situation and their feeling of identity. When talking about financial change in particular after
the project, most beneficiaries do emphasize that their lives have become more expensive
now.
Our expenses increased. In particular, our tax expenses have increased and the
electricity bill has increased. The maintenance of the new building also costs a lot of
money. Before we only had one fan and one light. Now there is light in four rooms.
Also, before we didn’t have a tap and a toilet and so on, so off course our expenses
were less. (Lathika, F, 48, Indira Nagar, September 2015, 9)
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Another aspect that most respondents mention is the experience of an identity change.
Beneficiaries have told me that they need to conduct ‘good’ behavior now, because they
received a new house from the government. Some interviewed inhabitants explained to me
that because of their new house, their ‘status’ has changed. Before, they were regarded as
slum dwellers and now they are regarded as people with a 'proper house'. Probably this is
connected to the, generally, negative status given to slums (see 1.1.1). Also, according to my
impression, the social workers of the NGO, who repeatedly emphasize the fact that slum
improvement can stimulate a way of upwards-social movement, strengthen the idea that
rehousing causes social mobilization (personal communication, September 2015). This
exemplifies the comment of Doshi (2012:95) that the participatory process also forms a way
to instruct good moral behavior to slum dwellers (see 1.2.3.3).
According to some female participants, the change in status can even influence gender
relations. Some women, more often in informal conversations, described that a change in
identity influenced the behavior of their husbands.
The father of my child was first very difficult. He became angry very soon (…) he
fought. Since we are living in the flat scheme, such problems don’t happen anymore.
(Deepika, F, 30, Jat Tarodi, September 2015, 1)
One woman, Lathika (F, 48, Indira Nagar), told me that because of the fact that they received
a new house, her daughter would find a better husband.
Because of this house my daughters will find a better husband to marry. For me that’s
the most important change. (September 2015, 9)
The two interview excerpts above imply that through rehousing a form of emancipation can
be achieved. However, in other cases, such as the site of Wanjara, a more difficult gender
relation came into being. Some women that I interviewed there told me that, after the
rehousing, they became more dependent on their husbands, as I will further explain in 3.2.2.1.
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3.2.2. Different themes in three sites
3.2.2.1. Wanjara: exclusion and deprivation of city life
In the site of Wanjara I observed that as a result of relocation, beneficiaries experienced some
degree of exclusion of city life, in addition to the experience of deprivation. Firstly, the site of
Wanjara illustrates how mainly Muslim beneficiaries were deprived from their original
livelihoods due to a relocation because of a road-widening project, the IRDP (see 3.1.1). In
my interviews, all beneficiaries say that they miss their previous house in Mominpura. Most
of them describe this house as good or better and almost all (except the community leader)
mention that if it would be possible to return to their house in Mominpura, they would
definitely return. This is different in the two other sites, there respondents answer negatively
on the question if they would ever return to their previous house. The main reason for the fact
that the residents of Wanjara want to return to their previous houses is the proximity of
Mominpura to the city centre. They had lived in Mominpura since birth and they felt a sense
of familiarity there. Also, there were more job opportunities in Mominpura and most of the
families still have relatives living there.
There [in Mominpura] I had a lot of work. I had my business and house there. I knew
what kind of business was necessary there. Now we came so far … I don’t know what
the wages are here, so I keep sitting in the house. (Arisha, F, 35, Wanjara, September
2015, 14)
I miss all the people from Mominpura. My family lives there, everyone. (Mohammed,
M, 58, Wanjara, August 2015, 27)
Secondly, along with the deprivation of livelihood, beneficiaries experience an increased
distance to the city center. In interviews almost all respondents in Wanjara mention that urban
facilities, such as schools, medical care, or shopping facilities, are too far away now, which
influences daily life and job opportunities.
The other problem that we have is that we need work here that we can do in the house.
Now if we want to work, we need to go too far away. Any job would be good. It’s just
that everything is so far away now. We need to go to the other side and come back. It’s
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really far away. The market is also far away now; it takes a lot of time to go there and
it causes trouble. So we can’t go. “ (Namya, F, 32, Wanjara, August 2015, 25)
The excerpt from the interview with Mohammed (M, 58, Wanjara) illustrates how the
distance to the city also causes financial difficulties for the inhabitants.
The fact that people say it’s more expensive to live here is related to the fact that the
distance to the bazaar is far. People need to go by rickshaw or motorcycle and this
costs money. (Mohammed, M, 58, Wanjara, August 2015, 27)
Interestingly, the experience of distance and exclusion from the city center is gendered. From
informal conversations it appears that women in Wanjara are generally housewives and that it
is uncommon for them to go far away unaccompanied. For example in Mominpura, they
could go to the mosque daily, but that is not possible anymore. Consequently, women depend
on their husbands to go to the market and the mosque.
I go back to Mominpura every day, because my work is there. I go with my bike, but
women can’t go there, because they can’t drive a bike. So we need to accompany
them. (…) In Mominpura all kinds of facilities were there, there was a market. The
men didn’t need to go somewhere for their women. Women could go by themselves.
(Aaban, M, 35, Wanjara, August 2015, 27)
One of the main consequences of the increased distance to the city center is that some
informants sell or rent their houses and use the money to return to Mominpura.
In order to find a solution for the problems of distance and exclusion from the city
center, some of the beneficiaries say that they need more facilities around the resettlement
site, such as schools, shops, a pharmacy, a mosque, a madrassa and a community hall.
We need a play garden. Now there are a lot of problems for the children. In their free
time the children play and run on the streets. Sometimes they cause troubles for the
neighbors. That’s why we need a playground for the children and a pharmacy. And we
also need a nursery for the children, because the nursery is very far away now. (…)
We also need a school here. There are 200 children living here, so a school here would
be a good solution. (Namya, F, 32, Wanjara, August 2015, 25)
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The situation in Wanjara is not unique in India. In other Indian cities, different authors
describe how the implementation of urban renewal projects cause evictions of poorer
inhabitants, like street vendors, pavement dwellers and slum dwellers (Banerjee-Guha
2009:97).
3.2.2.2. Jat Tarodi: Disillusion and inequality
The site of Jat Tarodi illustrates how land disputes, which often accompany slum
improvement projects, can have a negative impact on the implementation of housing schemes
and the equality among inhabitants. The fact that the project was only partly implemented
created a social division between people who received new housing and slum inhabitants that
did not. In the interviews respondents say that there is stronger social division and jealousy in
the area now. The excerpt of the interview with Anamika (F, 18, Jat Tarodi) illustrates how,
since the housing project, there is a division between youngsters.
First boys and girls were all one, we got along with each other, but now there is a rupture
between us. Now everyone is divided (…) I don’t know what’s the reason for this. I think
that these youngsters [the ones still living in the slum] misunderstand things. There are
misunderstandings between us. (September 2015, 3)
Thus the example of Jat Tarodi shows how land value, land accumulation and commercial
purposes supersede the need for providing housing for the urban poor.
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Figure 11: Current View of Jat Tarodi, November 2014
Figure 12: Remaining Slum Houses Located Behind the BSUP Flats, November 2014
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3.2.2.3 Jat Tarodi and Wanjara: deprivation of space
In Wanjara and Jat Tarodi, most of the beneficiaries experience a deprivation of space, and
along with this they experience an inability to extend their house.
Firstly, most respondents say that their current houses are too small, especially in
comparison to their previous ones. For example, in Jat Tarodi Deepika (F, 30, Jat Tarodi,
Block C) expressed to me:
They should make the house a little bit bigger, because the house now is very congested.
The problem is that there is no difference between the buildings. They are all the same,
but for us it is a little bit too small. (September 2015, 1)
One of the reasons for this is that most of the slum houses in Nagpur have an area between
400 and 500 sq. ft. (SPARC 2012:52), but the area of the houses in the BSUP-scheme is 269
sq. ft. (Desai et al. 2013:8).
Secondly, most beneficiaries experience a lack of the freedom to extend their houses, a
possibility they had before in their slum houses. The government explicitly prohibits the
extension of their houses (cf. BSUP). Another reason why house extensions are not possible
anymore is because the beneficiaries of Wanjara and Jat Tarodi live in a flat scheme now. The
flats are not suitable for a joint family system compared to the slum houses. Most of the slum
houses had two floors. Often, parents lived on the first floor and the grown up children lived
with their children on the ground floor. Also, each family only receives one flat under the
BSUP-schema and, this flat is designed for a, rather small, two-parent family. Therefore, the
inability to extend their houses causes difficulties when the family grows. A joined family
system is an important value in all three sites, as is illustrated with the following excerpts
from two interviews in Jat Tarodi.
Now my son in law and my daughter live in a different place. They [the government] gave
us a small place with only two rooms. My son in law, everyone is living in a different
place now. (…) In this house a joint family system is not possible anymore. How could
two families live in only one room? That’s the reason why this house is not good.
(Vishakha, F, 55, Jat Tarodi, September 2015, 3)
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In a good flat scheme they would give minimum two bedrooms so that if two brothers
would live here, there wouldn’t be any problems. How can one family live here? Only one
brother can live here, but where will the other brother live then? You need minimum two
bedrooms. The hall also needs to be a little bit bigger. The apartment needs to be around
600 sq. ft. If they [the government] want to make the scheme better, they need to make it
bigger. (Bikram, M, 26, Jat Tarodi, September 2015, 4)
In Indira Nagar, beneficiaries have a different usage of space; extending their houses is also
prohibited, but they extend them illegally.
We didn’t want a flat scheme because when you live in a flat scheme you cannot adjust
something to your house. You cannot extend it anymore. The family is so big. There is no
second floor in our house, so when we want we can easily make a second floor.
(Shivgopal, M, 32, Indira Nagar, September 2015, 8)
Because of this reason, the government, after a lot of complaints, tried to provide flats family-
wise in Jat Tarodi, which means they aimed to give two flats to bigger families. This is
similar to what happened in the BSUP-scheme in Nanded (Desai et al. 2013:22). However,
the provision of flats family-wise only happened to a limited extent, and according to
particular conditions. For example, only the families that were provided with two electricity
meters in their slum house, and therefore paid two electricity bills per month, received two
flats. Consequently, only a fraction of the beneficiaries in Jat Tarodi received two tenements.
3.2.2.4 Indira Nagar: protest and making demands clear
In all three cases, where formal grassroots organizations are absent, beneficiaries found ways
to make their demands clear and to change certain aspects of the slum improvement projects.
The way beneficiaries make their demands clear was very different in the three sites.
In the case of Indira Nagar, beneficiaries rejected the initial DPR through public
struggle and protest. As mentioned earlier (see 3.1.2.3), the initial plan of the NMC was to
implement a flat scheme in Indira Nagar, Jat Tarodi and Wanjara, although the beneficiaries
did not approve this flat scheme. In Indira Nagar beneficiaries made their disapproval of the
flat scheme clear by boycotting the project. They literally made the site unapproachable for
everyone related to the government. With the help of CFSD, mainly in communication, the
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DPR was revised and the SRA and NMC agreed to give the beneficiaries individual houses
according to their needs.
In my interviews, some beneficiaries from Indira Nagar say that these protests were necessary
and most of them are aware of their agency in the whole project. Protest is here regarded as
rather obvious due to the awareness of the beneficiaries that they have the right to receive a
house according to their needs.
We didn’t want a flatscheme, because it’s just better to live in individual houses. For
this reason there were a lot of protests. And look, we received a good project now.
(Lathika, F, 48, Indira Nagar, September 2015, 9)
Consequently, the beneficiaries feel that they were able to make choices regarding their own
housing. According to SPARC (2012:12), conflict and struggle are common in BSUP-
schemes.
This is different in the two other sites where the beneficiaries made their demands
clear through methods other than struggle and protest. They employed more subtle methods,
such as extending their houses illegally, approaching local politicians or moving out of their
Figure 13: Individual Houses in Indira Nagar, September 2015
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house. More inhabitants of the scheme in Jat Tarodi and Wanjara have the feeling that the
scheme was forced upon them.
In Jat Tarodi the experience of agency, choice and protest varies between the
beneficiaries. In block C, there was a forced demolishment, as mentioned earlier; therefore
inhabitants obviously did not experience a sense of choice. In block A and B some
interviewees said that they were forced, while others said that they were able to make choices
in the project.
It was not my wish to live here; we were forced to empty the house. (Anamika, F, 18,
Jat Tarodi, block B, September 2015, 3)
Madam, we agreed from the beginning. Based on what the NGO said, we agreed that it
would be good if we would receive something better. When we believed that we
would receive something better, we agreed. (Bikram, M, 26, Jat Tarodi, block A,
September 2015, 4)
A portion of the inhabitants of the third cluster refused to go and live in the flat scheme
because they wanted to live in individual houses instead of a flat scheme.
In Wanjara all the respondents said that they were forced to live in the resettlement
site. They feel they had no choice. Instead of protesting, a few beneficiaries said that they
should be grateful for what they received from the government and that it is for the sake of
urban renewal. The community leader, who is in close contact with CFSD, said:
Now the city is being developed and some of us need to lose something for that. If you
want your city to be developed, then a bit of loss should be tolerated. We have no
problems with that. (…) The government said that they needed space, so we cleared
the space and gave it to them. There were no riots, no fights. We gave it with a
lovingly attitude. Because of development our houses needed to be demolished. The
government asked us to clear the space. (Mohammed, M, 58, Wanjara, August 2015,
27)
Also, in Wanjara beneficiaries perceive protest as something that is inappropriate. I conclude
this from the silences in the formal interviews when the topic of fights is discussed. Someone
told me informally about a verbal conflict between two beneficiaries of Wanjara, and later on
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someone else recommended that I refrain from writing about this. In Indira Nagar, on the
contrary, the respondents talked more broadly in formal interviews about (verbal and
physical) conflict, struggle and fights. Moreover, a beneficiary in Wanjara described that the
community leader told the other beneficiaries not to protest, because protesting is ‘wrong’.
The BSUP building had already been made, but we couldn’t enter yet because we
didn’t have the permission. One day we were so desperate that we wanted to force the
locks of the new building. Eventually, we didn’t do this because Mohammed told us:
“don’t break the law with your own hands”. (Arisha, F, 35, Wanjara, September 2015,
14)
Consequently, in Wanjara beneficiaries do not have a sense of choice. In the two cases of
Wanjara and Jat Tarodi, the feelings the beneficiaries had of force had an influence on the
way they experienced the impact of the scheme. Respondents who mentioned in the interview
that they felt forced to live in the scheme, had a more negative overall feeling about their new
housing compared to, for example, beneficiaries in Indira Nagar who had the feeling they
were able to make choices for the scheme. However, this overall more positive feeling is also
related to the fact that in Indira Nagar more beneficiaries were living in kutcha houses before
and in the other two sites more beneficiaries had good slum houses previously.
Concluding, in the three sites beneficiaries had different perceptions of their rights and
of protest. Thus, drawing on the theory of McFarlane and Desai (2015:2), the sites of
entitlement, defined as the lived geographies of abstract claims for universal rights, of the
beneficiaries differed in the three cases. One might wonder if this is because beneficiaries
from the three sites have a different sense of citizenship. In Indira Nagar there is a stronger
sense of insurgent citizenship, referring to when citizens question their rights or try to extend
the established notions of citizenship (McFarlane 2004:896), than in Wanjara or Indira Nagar.
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Chapter 4: Conclusions
This thesis has studied the experiences of slum dwellers in slum improvement projects (cf.
Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) scheme) by means of a case study of three slum
improvement sites in Nagpur. In this thesis I aimed to show the importance of studying the
experiences of beneficiaries in slum improvement projects. I also tried to demonstrate how
these experiences, shaped by local complexities and different layers of the slum improvement
process, are situated within a broader project of neoliberal globalization. Therefore three
questions were central in this thesis: “How did the process of slum improvement in India
change under neoliberal urban governance? How are slum improvement projects (cf. BSUP-
scheme) implemented in local contexts? How do slum inhabitants experience the impact of
these slum improvement projects?” In this chapter, I will survey the main conclusions of the
study.
4.1 Changes in slum improvement as a result of changes in urban governance
Neoliberal urban governance has been implemented in India since 1991 (Chatterjee 2009;
Desai 2006; Doshi 2011). As part of the implementation of neoliberalism, instructed by
international organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank (Chatterjee 2009:146), new
forms of urban governance were constructed (Peck and Tickell 2002:384). In this process the
role of the state in India, previously a development state, changed into an apparatus of capital
accumulation by facilitating large-scale urban projects (Doshi 2011:1). Through these large-
scale projects the central state gained more nationwide control over urban governance in
cities, in particular over the process of slum improvement (see Doshi 2011). An example of
these large-scale urban projects, discussed in this thesis, is the Jawaharlal Nehru National
Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM)-scheme and its sub-mission, the Basic Services to the
Urban Poor-scheme (BSUP). The JNNURM-scheme has the goal to (re-) develop cities in
India in order to generate economic growth (Mahadevia 2006:3399). The BSUP-scheme, as a
sub-mission of the JNNURM, focuses on the development of slums. Under the BSUP-scheme
several slum improvement projects were implemented in order to include the urban poor in
urban renewal (cf. Bogaert 2011:721). Thus, since 1991 new forms of neoliberal urban
governance, such as the implementation of nationwide large-scale urban projects in order to
81
(re-) develop cities, have been carried out in India as part of the implementation of
neoliberalism.
Since the implementation of neoliberalism in India, the process of slum improvement has
changed: it has become part of neoliberal urban governance. The central government has
incorporated slum improvement in a broader plan to (re-) develop cities in order to stimulate
economic growth. In earlier decades (1970s-1990s), the preferred method of slum
improvement was slum upgrading (Doshi 2011:34), but since the 1990s the common method
shifted to slum redevelopment, because this method is more suitable for market growth. In the
process of slum redevelopment - in which the original slum houses are demolished and new
houses are rebuilt - private agencies (e.g. building companies) have more possibilities to
cooperate. Also, the process of slum improvement has become a means to include the urban
poor in the formal economy (cf. Bogaert 2011:721). In earlier decades the urban poor had the
ability to exchange votes for government compensation, such as urban facilities and housing
schemes. In the current situation this is not possible anymore because the state has a more
centralized role over improvement, through state bureaucracies (such as the Slum
Rehabilitation Authority (SRA)) and NGOs. Because the urban poor often need to be
incorporated into the ‘urban renewal plan’, the process of slum improvement has become a
process of consent, negotiation and struggle (Doshi, 2011:2-3). For example, conflict and
struggle are common in slum improvement projects under the BSUP-scheme (SPARC
2012:12).
4.2 Slum improvement in the local context of Nagpur My study shows that the implementation of neoliberal urban governance in Indian cities can
take different forms. The implementation of neoliberal urban governance, including slum
improvement projects, is influenced by local agency and specificities (Massey 2005:101; see
also Bogaert 2013:226). The case of Nagpur shows that, in comparison with Mumbai,
neoliberal urban governance was implemented differently and had different outcomes. Thus,
there are different forms of “actually existing neoliberalism” (Brenner and Theodore
2002:351) in India and therefore the way neoliberal urbanization happens and why it happens
cannot be generalized.
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As a consequence of this path-dependency, there are similarities and dissimilarities
between neoliberal reforms in Nagpur and in other places in Maharashtra such as the city of
Mumbai. As in Mumbai, urban renewal in Nagpur is gradually considered a way to generate
economic growth, since the 2000s. An outcome of this is the implementation of urban renewal
projects such as the Integrated Road Development Project (IRDP), developed in 2000 in order
to improve the road infrastructure in Nagpur. Another example is the implementation of the
JNNURM-scheme in 2006 in Nagpur. City development under the JNNURM-scheme was
expected to generate economic growth (Mahadevia 2006:3399). Also, under the BSUP-
scheme slum improvement methods changed according to neoliberal practices – a fast and
easy slum redevelopment process was preferred and the SRA was developed in Nagpur –
comparable to Mumbai. Unlike Mumbai, in Nagpur formal NGOs gained control in a rather
abrupt way in 2005, when the BSUP-scheme was implemented. These NGOs were needed as
mediators and mobilizers during the BSUP-scheme. In Mumbai, the role of NGOs increased
more gradually and organically. Apart from this, some other reforms that were implemented
in other cities such as the PPP-projects, developed in order to stimulate market-orientated
growth, were not implemented in Nagpur.
4.3 Experiences of slum inhabitants
A major asset of this thesis is that it considers the experiences of beneficiaries as a crucial
element in a successful implementation of urban planning schemes and slum upgrading. The
study shows that these experiences are not sufficiently explored in slum improvement projects
and should be part of future projects. Everyday experiences in the three slum improvement
sites reveal how different local complexities, characterized by religion, culture and slum
history, result in different project needs for the beneficiaries. Moreover, the experiences show
traces of the different levels of implementation - design, central government, state
government, city government, politicians, NGOs and beneficiaries - that are important in
understanding the impact of slum improvement projects. The thesis shows that the project
developers seem to have insufficiently studied these local complexities and the priorities and
concerns of the beneficiaries prior to the redevelopment process. In this study, three lessons
can be learned from the inclusion of the perspective of the beneficiaries.
Firstly, the experiences of slum inhabitants show a poor and messy implementation of the
original design under the BSUP-scheme.
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For example, although the guidelines of the BSUP-scheme require the provision of ‘improved
housing’ (Anon. 2009:2), most of the beneficiaries were dissatisfied with the quality of
construction of their new houses. In all three slum improvement sites in Nagpur there are
problems such as cracks, leakages and a lack of drinking water. Another example of a poor
implementation of the original design is the fact that the slum redevelopment project in Jat
Tarodi was only partially implemented because of a land dispute between two government
agencies. Due to this, only a small part of the slum inhabitants received new houses, which
caused a social divide in the community. A last example of poor implementation is the
experience of an unstable participatory process. In the three cases a consultant, CHF, in
cooperation with a local NGO, Centre For Sustainable Development (CFSD), coordinated the
slum redevelopment process by mobilizing slum inhabitants, helping beneficiaries to form
housing cooperates, and facilitating communication between inhabitants and government
officers. However, this process was interrupted several times due to the government’s
changing priorities and interference to cut down expenses. Consequently, at times,
beneficiaries were uninformed about what would happen to them.
Because of a poor and messy implementation, beneficiaries experienced feelings of
deprivation, inequality and dissatisfaction. For example in Wanjara beneficiaries feel deprived
from their original livelihoods and they feel excluded from the city center. Despite the fact
that the guidelines of the BSUP-scheme require the provision of housing for the urban poor
“near their place of occupation” (Anon 2009:2), Muslim beneficiaries were relocated eight
kilometers away from their original living place in the center of the city. The experiences of
deprivation, inequality and dissatisfaction imply that there was too little awareness of the
needs and experiences of slum inhabitants during the development and implementation stage
of the slum improvement projects.
Furthermore, a poor implementation, along with rather negative experiences of
beneficiaries, shows a disconnection between the different levels of implementation (design,
central government, state government, city government, building companies, politicians,
NGOs and beneficiaries). Somehow, what is decided on the level of the central government
has a different, rather negative, outcome on the level of the beneficiaries. In order to
understand the outcome on the level of beneficiaries, further study into the everyday
experiences after slum improvement is necessary.
84
Secondly, the everyday experiences of slum inhabitants show the importance of the agency of
beneficiaries in slum improvement processes.
In the three sites, there are examples of how beneficiaries contribute to the outcome of the
slum improvement process. For example, in Indira Nagar and in Jat Tarodi beneficiaries
explained how inhabitants bribed the building contractors in order to receive better houses.
Another example is the fact that, although it is prohibited according to the BSUP-scheme, in
Indira Nagar, beneficiaries extend their houses illegally. One more example is how the
inhabitants in the site of Indira Nagar made their demands clear through struggle, and this
resulted in a more positive outcome of the housing project. Initially a flat scheme project was
planned in Indira Nagar, but the beneficiaries wanted individual houses and rejected the idea
of living in a flat scheme. Therefore, they boycotted the slum redevelopment project by
literally making the site unapproachable for anyone related to the government. Thus, the three
slum improvement sites show how beneficiaries contribute to the outcome of the slum
improvement process in different ways such as struggle or the illegal extension of their
houses.
Thirdly, the experiences of beneficiaries show different local complexities, which are
important for understanding the outcome of the project and the way in which beneficiaries
experience a sense of agency.
In this thesis I identified these local complexities as characterized by culture, religion and
slum history. For example in the site of Wanjara the feeling of deprivation of city life is
gendered. Almost all Muslim women in Wanjara are housewives and culturally it is
unaccepted for them to go far away from the house unaccompanied. Consequently, after the
relocation, their dependency on their husbands increased, because they are now unable to go
to the mosque or market without their husbands. In the development of the BSUP-project
more attention should have been paid on this aspect of gender relations in the community of
Wanjara. One more example of local complexity is how the Muslim community reacts to the
relocation that happened to them in comparison with the reactions of the beneficiaries in
Indira Nagar. The beneficiaries of Wanjara experience the relocation as something obligatory
(some of them described it as “for the sake of the development of the city”) and they consider
protest and struggle as wrong. On the other hand, the inhabitants of Indira Nagar protested by
literally making the site unapproachable for anyone from the government. Most likely this
85
difference in agency and perception is related to aspects such as religion and slum
background.
In summary, this thesis has shown that with local complexities and global dynamics in mind,
new redevelopment projects should be implemented.
4.4 Suggestions for further research
To gain more insight in the outcome of slum improvement projects, further research is
necessary. My thesis generates some additional questions. To begin with, in future research,
the influence of the cooperation with an NGO in investigating slum improvement projects
should be incorporated and examined. Undoubtedly, the corporation with CFSD influenced
my research data. In order to identify the specific ways in which the cooperation with CFSD
impacted my case study analysis, further research is necessary.
Furthermore, future research should incorporate interviews with government agencies
and private companies that cooperated in the process. In this way, more insights would be
gained on the motivations of certain choices in the slum improvement process in Nagpur. It
would show the perception of government agencies and private companies on the slum
improvement project. Also, it could be relevant in future research to pay attention to
announcements, descriptions and depictions of slum improvement projects in the media and,
what role local government agencies and state bureaucracies play in the depiction of these
projects.
Additionally, my study revealed the importance of local complexities and how these
are related to the aspect of agency. These local complexities and its relation to agency should
be researched in detail. For example, a research could be conducted on which aspects of local
complexities influence agency in slum improvement projects.
Another aspect that is necessary to be incorporated in further research is the aspect of
everyday life and ‘feeling at home’. This research showed how aspects of everyday life and
how feeling at home played an important role for the outcome of slum improvement projects.
For example, because beneficiaries in Indira Nagar received individual houses on their
original plots, I had the impression that they feel more at home than in the other two sites,
where beneficiaries are living in flat schemes.
86
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Appendices
Appendix 1: General questionnaire30
• Introduction questions
o How is it to live here?
o How long do you already live in your new house?
• Transit questions
o What do you understand by a ‘good house’?
• Transit house/Transit process
o When did you come to Wanjara?
o Who told you about the relocation?
o What was your first reaction?
o How did the relocation change your life?
o Do you have the same work as before the relocation?
o Do you have the same friends as before the relocation?
o What did you think about the relocation?
o Where did you live after the relocation?
o When did you receive a new house?
o How was this house?
• New house
o What were the expectations when you came to live here?
o In what way were these expectations true?
o What are the good things about this house?
o What are the negative things?
o How do your children like living here?
o How do they deal with the changes?
o How did your family life change after the project?
o In which manner is this house different from the previous house?
30 Although the same themes were discussed in the three sites, to some extend this questionnaire differed in the three sites. In Wanjara, more questions were asked about the process of relocation.
91
• Safety and hygiene
o How do you experience safety in this house?
o In what way is this different from your previous house?
o Do you feel safe when you’re home alone?
o How do you experience hygiene in this house?
o Do you have an own toilet and bathroom? How was this before?
o How is your kitchen here? Is it more or less difficult to prepare the food?
o Where is the nearest hospital and school?
o How is the street here? Are there lights in the night?
• Womanhood
o Is there a place where you meet other women?
• Financial situation
o How did your financial situation change?
o How was your financial situation before?
o Which things are more expensive here?
o Which things are cheaper?
• Social life
o If yes, what’s the reason for that?
o How did your neighbors, friends react?
o How much contact do you have with your neighbors?
o How many times do you go to other parts in the city?
• Free time
o What do you do in your free time?
• Old house
o In what way is there a difference in living?
o Can you describe your previous house?
o What are the things of your previous house that you miss in this house?
o Would you want/be able to return to your previous house? Why not? Why yes?
• Conclusion
o Are there things you would like to say?
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Appendix 2: List of interviewees
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Appendix 3: Code Tree
• Parental code: Slum house
o Description
o Nostalgia?
• Parental code: process and transit
o Resettlement Process
§ Problems
§ Solutions
o Transit House
§ Problems
o Protest
• Parental code: BSUP (new house)
o Environment
o House
o Facilities
o Changes since BSUP
§ Financial
§ Social life
§ Family life
§ Identity
§ Ownership
o Needs
• Parental code: participatory Project
o Choice
o Information
o Support
o “Good citizen”