The hullabaloo over Smart Cities

Whether the Government’s recent proposal for 100 smart cities should be totally new green field projects or improvements of existing towns or a combination of both can be debated and contested vociferously. But I strongly contest it to be used as a medium for fear mongering about smart city being morally and socially indefensible as argued by Janaki Nair piece “In pursuit of smartness”.  

The author in undue haste claims smart cities as scaling up of gated community vision to city level. Contrarily, the gated communities prop up for the reason that urban local bodies are unable to provide minimum basic services in an equitable manner to all citizens. Such gated communities largely attempt to create alternative water supply, sewerage and solid waste systems and spaces for other social pursuits. The reason that our cities (big and small) are grappling with financial resources to invest in city systems and deliver basic acceptable levels of service, the relatively well off sections of population will continue to seek alternatives. This at times may also result in huddling based on caste or related economic activities.

While accusing nation to be short on just and humane urban vision, one needs to recognize such a situation is a result of utopian expectations of physical form delivering in absence of technical, financial and social resources that are bare essential to run our cities. Thus, before jumping to larger narratives, it is imperative to break down the fantasy of “humane urban vision” of the author in to clear indicators of various services and fix responsibility to the Institutions who will deliver this in a participative manner. Some dirty calculations may come in handy of how we plan to fund these ventures not only for capital cost but also for operational expenditures that will be needed to be raised from its users. The privileges of being on the “Activism” and “Always Oppose” mode should be toned down if they allow an escape without raising pertinent questions or providing ideas (if not a road map) to the contentious issues surrounding us. A rather good way of articulating concerns on the smart city hullaballoo is illustrated in editorial by Sunita Narain http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/how-smart-smart-city where she actually shares some ideas for being smart. It also lays down the argument for reinventing urban growth through smart thinking for water, sanitation and transportation. Such ideas convey real concern and challenges and help to think.

To quote from the Finance minister’s maiden budget speech: “The Prime Minister has a vision of developing 'one hundred Smart Cities', as satellite towns of larger cities and by modernizing the existing mid-sized cities”.[1] Thus the idea of modernizing existing small towns in not ruled out completely. While the framework for smart cities evolves and plans post JNNURM get concretized amidst highly opiniated stakeholders, it is important to offer realistic narratives to the collective urban vision. This is important at a time when JNNURM has left behind lessons of little role Centre can play in incentivizing real change through conditional funding. While some advocate for Centre loosening its control and allowing States to play the lead, the Centre can contribute by creating models for the States to look up to while planning their urban vision. The State or Cities by themselves have shown little interest to various reforms including enactment of community participation law, which was expected to create spaces for citizen’s participation and reduce the rabid arguments between various stakeholders.

Yes, the smart sensors and other Wi-Fi gadgets can advance comforts for those who can afford to pay, but lack of imagination and undue haste on Janaki Nair’s  part is evident when she fails to put forth ideas / possibilities to use techno babble for delivering more equitable services (or basic minimum services) to all sections of the population. In this debate, attributing markets as part of the problem, can lead us to situation where State alone is the provider of (affordable) housing and may end up with low quality (State Housing Board type solutions) housing layouts that lacks imagination and creativity. Read in conjunction with our poor performance on implementation of development projects, our city dwellers will have to wait endlessly to avail basic infrastructure. [2]

While land is largely used as a financing instrument in creative urban development ventures, the challenge over the years have been to demonstrate models that can be built / affordable for a larger section of population and do not end up as ivory castles for those who have the willingness to pay. Thus the energies of those who have an itching urge to detest the “smart brigade” need to concentrate on leveraging the technology to reduce costs and increase efficiency in service delivery for water, sanitation, transportation, health, education and safety to all its population.

Our lack of collective imagination is evident in the 7000+ census towns that cannot assure equity in service delivery to its urban population. Our Metros and the splurging small towns have one thing in common; they fail to achieve benchmarks for service delivery and exhibit huge variations and unreliability in the basic services they provide to various inhabitants of the cities. At times, such considerations are guided by technical barriers, at other times by social favoritism to certain wards of the cities. There is a scope to leverage the technology to narrate a more Indian version of smart ways to deliver urban services.  

Smart cities have technology infrastructure as one of the enabler, other two obvious but seldom emphasized are Institutional and Human enablers. Thus while technology can provide real time data and information to take fair decisions, it cannot substitute a clear conscience. The moral obligations from a city can be met through an articulated dialogue and an open mind that values transparency, efficiency of resources and participatory decision making in true sense. If the smart gadgets can open up a possibility to probe deeper in black boxes of the urban service delivery systems it should be a welcome move.  

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[1] http://ibnlive.in.com/news/full-text-finance-minister-arun-jaitleys-maiden-budget-speech/485007-3.html

[2] As reported in Pioneer “In what speaks volumes about poor performance of the housing schemes for urban slum dwellers under the UPA’s key flagship programme, JNNURM, just 8.15 lakhs out of the total 14.42 lakhs sanctioned houses constructed from 2005 to June 2014” accessed at http://www.dailypioneer.com/nation/poor-show-of-housing-plans-under-jnnurm-exposed.html

Queen - The Movie

Accuse me of writing off Kangana Ranaut as an average actor, whose films are most suited to occupy the slots in the year when star studded or intellectual cinema does not make an appearance in Bollywood. Not to mention, a sneak or two of a controversy that she manages to rake in the magazines constantly chasing her to cover a section of news which appears to particularly weird sections of the film fans. It is this image of petulant occupier in the medium budget film space (usually deserted by creative, socially conscious or meaningful scripts) that works to the advantage of Kangana as well as the film - Queen.

In the opening thirty minutes, you know not much to expect of the Rajouri Delhi girl who has spun her life around the wedding expectations which leaves her in a lurch immediately after the audience has settled down in their seats. You expect some sulking, drinking and driving with a song or two on a bike with her hair against the wind on the urbane streets, which is so expected of Kangana trademark. This coupled with some heavy moments in the dark locations, without much dialogue that reinforce her vulnerabilities and creates gloom associated with typical fall-outs of relationships calls for a mediocre bollywood script.

Instead, the cynical audience (in me) is disappointed by Rani taking up a mindless exploration immediately after a sulk or two. This, she terms as her “honeymoon” for which she has been diligently planning. The single honeymoon exploration to Amsterdam via Paris which she undertakes is slightly different than one usually attributed to scripts taking to outdoor locations. While she does that, the logical brain is totally cut off giving way to discovering new places and people, without being judgmental of them. In between are the moments, where she conveys her self-proclaimed theory of a single Rajouri girl, delivered with great poise, confidence and true to her beliefs. A streak or two of moments interspersed in the plot, where she takes her lonely pursuits that help her regain her confidence bit by bit.

This swift transition, builds towards the climax, where one is almost convinced of her deciding not to return back to the marriage and give back a solid refute. But, Rani seems to be in no hurry. She does it in her own stride. Gloom, disappointment is eventually shed off by her and she cannot be more grateful, that this actually happened to her.

So, what changed in the trip between India-Paris-Amsterdam is actually my belief that intellectual cinema is a craft attributed only to nuanced actors and a seasoned script? “Queen” is one of the rare scripts set in urban settings - unique in the sense that it raises an issue that attributes over importance to “tying the knot” ritual in urban India that unknowingly renders undue pressure on the women and makes them design their ideas of perfect lives around it.

The reason that Kangana has been able to do complete justice to the role of Rani, is probably due to label of mediocrity that she has been associated with. I doubt, this kind of an impact could have been rendered by her contemporaries like Kareena, Vidya Balan or for that matter Deepika Padukone, usually pigeonholed in strength, equality and revenge. Kangana’s underdog label brings an element of unknown surprise that completely dazes off the audience who has come to expect unmindful drinking and biking from the actor.

The colourful mosaic of Queen’s unapologetic appeal during the 146 minutes is held together by two sets of distinct and often contradictory beliefs - the beliefs that she gathered while growing up in the bounds of Rajouri (Delhi) and what she encounters on her single honeymoon venture. While doing so, Rani echoes the inherent contradictions of urban Indian women who attempt too hard to fit in to either stereotype.