Pirate Modernity
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m L.' c or' m x3 g 2 :- .- 0 -m c .z .E 5 .2 9E LO'/,Ls g? 0 5 'EL US _ o? : L" 2 zn 2 2 C U u .-2 c n ," X>$ ue 2 .-rn .-rn g 5 < u ,5 ae .-0 L u s. c .z g 1 .g i -m m P E 5, Pirate Modernity Cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America are now increasingly shaped by technological networks. Low cost media have blurred the boundaries between technology, culture and everyday life for large urban populations. This media urbanism has come in the context of a long drawn crisis, rising inequality and accelerating social conflict. Unable to grapple with this scenario, modernist planning designs of the 1950s and postcolonial control models of the city now lie in disarray. Nowhere is this more apparent than contemporary Delhi, India's capital and one of the world's largest cities. Using Delhi's contemporary history as a site for reflection, Pirate Moderrr- ity moves from a detailed discussion of the technocratic design of the city by US planners in the 1950s, to the massive expansions after 1977, culminating in the urban crisis of the 1990s. As a practice, pirate modernity is an illicit form of urban globalization. Poorer urban populations increasingly inhabit , non-legal spheres (unauthorized neighborhoods, squatter camps) and bypass legal technological infrastructures (media, electricity). This pirate culture produces a significant enabling resource for subaltern populations unable to enter the legal city. Equally, this is an unstable world, bringing subaltern populations into the harsh glare of permanent technological visibility, and attacks by urban elites, courts and visceral media industries. The book examines contemporary Delhi froin some of these sites: the unmaking of the city's modernist planning design, new technological urban networks that bypass states and corporations, and the tragic experience of the road accident terrifyingly enhanced by technological culture. Pirute Moderrtily moves between past and present, along with debates in Asia, Africa and Latin America on urbanism, media culture, and everyday life. This pioneering book suggests cities have to be revisited afresh after proliferating media culture. Pirule Modernity boldly draws from urban and cultural theory to open a new agenda for a world after media urbanism. Ravi Sundararn is a Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi. In 2000 he founded CSDS' Sarai programme along with Ravi Vasudevan, Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. Sundaram has co-edited the critically acclaimed Sarai Reader series that includes The Cilies of Everyday Life (2002) and Frorltiers (2007). Post-conflict Heritage, Post-colonial Northern Territories, Asia-Pacific Tourism Regional Conflicts and the hand Pirate Modernity Culture, politics and development Experience at Angkor Untying the Kurillian knot Delhi's media urbanism Titri Witrrer Edited by Kitnie Hara atrd Geofiey Jrrkes Education and Reform in China Reconciling Indonesia Etrrily Harrti~orrutrd Alberr Park Grassroots agency for peace Birgir Briirrclrler Writing Okinawa Narrative acts of identity and resistance Singapore in the Malay World Du~~itrderL. Blro~~arrik Building and breaching regional bridges Lily Zubaidalr Rolri~ri Maid In China Ravi Sundaram Media, Mobility, and a New Semiotic Pirate Modernity of power Delhi's media urbanism Wat~t~itrgS~III Ravi S~~trdaratrr * Now available in paperback Crirical Asia11Sclrolarslrip Crirical Asiatr Sclrolarship is a series intended to showcase tlie ~llostimportant indi- vidual contributions to scholarship in Asian studies. Each of tlie volumes presents a leading Asian scholar addressing themes that are central to his or her most significant and lasting contribution to Asian studies. The series is committed to the rich variety of research and writing on Asia, and is not restricted to any particular discipline, theoretical approach or geographical expertise. Titles include: Southeast Asia The Chinese State in Ming Society A testament Tinrorl~yBrook George McZ Kahitr China, East Asia and the Global Economy Women and the Family in Chinese History Regional and historical perspectives Purricirc Brrckley Ebrey Takeslri Hat?iashira Edired by Mrtrk Seldet~utrd Litrda Grove China Unbound Evolving perspectives on the Chinese past The Global and Regional in China's Paul A. Colretr Nation-formation Prasetljir Drtarft China's Past, China's Future Energy, food, environment Vaclav Strril Routledge Taylor hFrancis Cmup LONDON AND NEWYORK Contents First published 2010 List ofJgures xii by Routledge Preface xiv 2 Park Square. Milton Park. Abingdon. Oxon OX14 4RN Aclcno~vledgmenls xvi Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 Rorrtledge is on i~~iprh~rojrhe Toylor 6- fiorlcis Gror~p, Introduction: after media (111 injorr~robwirless O 2010 kivi Sundaram 1 A city of order: the Masterplan Typeset in Times by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay. Sefilk 2 Media urbanism Printed and bound by MPG BooksGroup. UK All rights reserved. No part ofthis book may be reprinted or 3 The pirate kingdom reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented. including photocopying and recording, or in any 4 Death and the accident inrormation slorage or retrieval system, withou~permission in writing from the publishers. 5 Conclusion: An information city? British Librory Cot~rlog~rb~gir~Publicorior~ Dnlrr A catalogl~erecord for this book is available kom the British Library Librory oj Congress Corologing-ill-PublicorionDorn Notes Sundaram, Ravi Pirate modernity : Delhi's media urbanism 1 Ravi Sundaram. Bibliogruplly p. cm. Incle,~ I. Mass media and culture-India. 2. Piracy (Copyright)-India. 3. GlobalizationSoci;!l aspect+lndia. I.Title. P94.65.14SS6 2009 302.230954--dc22 2008054731 ISBNIO: 0415409667 (hbk) ISBNIO: 0-203-87542-7 (ebk) lSBNl3: 978-MI5409667 (hbk) ISBNI3: 978A203-87542-1 (ebk) Figures xiii 4.4 A Delhi State Transport Department notice Figures temporarily suspending private bus operators 4.5 Accident montage .5.1 Information society: the governmental drive 5.2 Information society: the computer scanner 5.3 Information society: the new ID card The colonial vision Connaught Place and surroundings in the colonial city Shahjehanabad view, pre-1857 "A typical slum" The regionalist design Masterplan Publicity Planning Pamphlet, 1957 From Slum to the Planned City Flyer of a private builder promoting a new neighborhood in the mid-1950s A Municipal Corporation of Delhi announcement An exhibit from Coordinates of Everyday Life Mandatory registration form A neighborhood monthly membership card Lajpat Rai market entrance Loaders in Lajpat Rai market Palika Bazaar map, with marked electronic shops Street computer vendor, Nehru Place Nehru Place side street Pirate CDs in Nehru Place alleyway The Pirate Surface, version one The Pirate Surface, version two The Media Surface Headline of the anti-piracy campaign Expansion of anti-piracy raids in Delhi's neighborhoods, 2002 and 2003 A Delhi bus shown running amok in a local comics series Montage of accident headlines, Mrityunjay Chatterjee Montage of accident headlines, Mrityunjay Chatterjee Preface xv residents are familiar. The migrant is now at home in the city, in a way that Preface only Delhi allows. It was in 1980s Delhi that I became part of the radical student movement, and entered what Giovanni Arrighi calls the "Marxist century". Since I989 and the collapse of Stalinism this relationship has loosened considerably. However, in light of the recent economic catastrophes in the capitalist world economy and the public bankruptcy of the neoliberal agenda, perhaps Marx, if not the Kingdom in his name, becomes accessible once again, albeit filtered through the disturbing lessons of the twentieth century. If Marxism did not jive up to its promise, and the neoliberal era ended in global collapse, then neither did the techno-social dreams of the US liberal planners of Delhi in the 1950s. This world began coming apart in the late During a conversation in 1997 with a colleague, who is India's best-known 1970s. and offered a productive site for the out-of-joint media urbanism critic of technology and Western modernity, came a frank admission. Even described in this book. he, my colleague said, could not keep away from the mundane, addictive pleasures of post-industrial techno-culture. This conversation threw light on a larger, more noticeable transformation. At some point in the late 1990s. the experience of living in India's cities became intertwined with technology in ways that could never be imagined earlier. Media technology has played an important part in this. The consequences of this shift have been far-reaching, if not visceral and limitless. "Technology", once the preserve of planning and scientific debates, now seeped into the everyday lives of urban residents, their debates, their conflicts, their dreams and desires. With this, city life in India has never been quite the same, an experience that has reverberated all over Asia, if not the world. In Delhi, once seen as the dull city of political elites and former empires, this change has been particularly dramatic. "Media" now permeates not just the lives of Delhi's residents, but inflects political and cultural processes: court judgments, road deaths, video piracy, encounter deaths and terrorism, and the displacenlellt of the urban poor from river- front settlements. Public discourse is now technologically coded with refer- ence to air quality, electricity theft and transportation, privacy, polluting industries, and gated high-rise suburbs. The list is endless. In Pirate Modernity, I attempt to make sense of this significant shift in the experience of the urban. Rather than media analysis, it is the sensate proper- ties of the material world that I have been largely drawn to in this book. Instead of providing a new definition of technology or the technological, I have searched for archival fragments, media surfaces, maps, experimental cultural practices and residues from planner's files - all in the effort to find clues to this process.