The “missing middle”: Participatory urban governance in Delhi’s unauthorized colonies Charlotte Lemanski (University College London)* Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal (CNRS-EHESS) *Corresponding author: [email protected] ***DRAFT PAPER: DO NOT CITE WITHOUT CONTACTING AUTHOR*** Challenging Orthodoxies: Critical Governance Studies University of Warwick, 13-14 December 2010 Abstract This research challenges orthodox theories of class and urban governance, and is empirically located in Delhi, India. The paper critiques orthodox theories of urban participatory governance in the global South, which polarise urban citizens and their civic strategies into the elite, typically understood as guilty of ‘capturing’ participatory structures, and the poor, largely conceptualized as excluded from formal governance mechanisms but active in more politicized forms of civic mobilization, arguing that these orthodox theories are incomplete. This research identifies urban citizens who fit neither the ‘elite’ not ‘poor’ orthodox conceptual binary, and explores how such citizens engage in participatory urban governance. Empirically, research addresses Delhi’s unauthorized colonies (UCs), residential areas that have evolved mostly on private land that is not classified “residential” in the Delhi Master Plan. Housing roughly half of Delhi’s population and comprising a mix of class type, UCs are technically illegal locations for residential development, and are consequently excluded from Delhi’s network of basic urban services (water, roads, electricity) and face potential eviction. Unauthorized colonies are conceptualised as representing India’s ‘missing middle’: comprising the ‘real’ middle class; revealing the failure of orthodox binary concepts to accurately describe participatory urban governance for those in ‘the middle’; and highlighting how UCs’ invisibility (linked to their heterogeneity – i.e. their ‘middle-ness’) functions as both an asset and a limitation in terms of participation in urban governance. The paper calls for greater recognition in academic and policy debates regarding the nuances in everyday life that are overlooked by orthodox governance binaries. As the Delhi case shows, a large proportion of urban populations are neither ‘poor’ nor ‘elite’, and arguably a similar trend is likely to exist in cities throughout the world where segments of populations demographically in ‘the middle’ are ‘missing’ from academic and policy debates. .I. Introduction This paper analyses the relationship between socio-economic class and participatory practices amongst residents of Delhi’s unauthorized colonies (UCs). Orthodox literature on urban governance in the global South, which polarises urban citizens and their mobilization strategies into the elite, typically understood as guilty of ‘capturing’ participatory structures; and the poor, largely conceptualized as excluded from formal governance mechanisms but active in more politicized forms of mobilization (e.g. Chatterjee, 2004; Harris, 2007; Holston, 2007) is challenged. As part of that critique, this research identifies urban citizens classified as neither ‘elite’ nor ‘poor’, and explores how citizens who fall outside this orthdox conceptual binary engage in participatory urban governance. More specifically, our research 1 considers the types of governance strategies employed as well as the issues around which ‘ordinary’ residents mobilize; comparing these to the orthodox literature in order to deepen understanding of local democracy, urban citizenship and participatory governance. This paper employs a broad understanding of urban citizenship as open to all urban residents, regardless of class, gender, or ethnicity (thus contrasting Chatterjee’s (2004) notion of citizenship as reserved for those demonstrating ‘proper’ behaviour within their legal rights and responsibilities, and consequently a label concentrated amongst elites, excluding for example the ‘illegal’ activities of the poor). Participatory urban governance is conceptualized as comprising both spaces or platforms created by the state for urban citizens to ‘participate’ in decisions and information sharing about city governance ( e.g. ‘invited’ spaces of participation) as well as more grass-roots-led forms of participatory urban governance (e.g. ‘invented’ spaces), typically demonstrating a combative approach to political action and urban governance. India, and more specifically Delhi, provides an ideal empirical context for exploring urban participatory governance for at least two reasons. Firstly, the Bhagidari scheme, an urban participatory device launched in 2000 by the Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dixit provides a rich example of a clear political emphasis on participatory governance in urban management. The scheme, defining itself as “a citizen–government partnership” (Bhagidari website)1 is designed to facilitate concertation between residents and city administrators in order to develop a localized form of participation that extends civic engagement beyond elections, focusing primarily on the quality of urban services, and it has been subject to numerous critical studies (e.g. Mawdsley, 2009; Tawa Lama-Rewal, 2007, Mehra, 2009). Secondly, Indian cities in particular have inspired new theoretical developments regarding local democracy that have informed international debates regarding urban citizenship and everyday politics (e.g. Holston and Appadurai, 1996; Chatterjee 2004; Harriss 2007). In terms of the empirical focus, unauthorized colonies (UCs) are a particularly heuristic object on four grounds. Firstly, residents of UCs are neither exclusively poor nor elite, but comprise a diverse mix of class type and hold an amorphous position in the city’s political and social spaces, straddling the porous line between legality and illegality. Secondly, UCs possess a clear and distinct issue around which residents can mobilize, i.e. the regularization of the land on which occupants reside. Thirdly, previous research on mobilization and participatory strategies in Indian cities has not considered the positionality or methods employed by UC residents, instead focusing largely on ‘slum-dwellers’ and/or the elite ‘middle-classes’ as analytical juxtapositions. And fourthly, UCs accommodate roughly 50% of urban dwellers in Delhi2 and thus are the dominant residential experience for India’s capital city. Fieldwork focused on a particular civic mobilizing structure: Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs). In March-April 2009, a series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of RWAs located in different types of UCs, which could be broadly described as poor, middle and wealthy in terms of residents’ socio-economic status and each settlement’s 1 http://delhigovt.nic.in/bhagi.asp 2 The estimate of 50% was asserted by officials (e.g. MCD Chief Town Planner, 01/04/09), although accurate data is absent. Furthermore, the MCD commissionner Rakesh Mehta, in a note submitted in 2004 to the Nanavati commission on UCs, stated that “ a majority of constructions is unauthorised… the ratio between unauthorised and regular colonies is 75-25 per cent” (The Indian Express, 01/01/2004) However this figure probably conflates UCs with slums. 2 physical characteristics.3 The elected representatives of these residential areas (municipal councillors and Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) of Delhi) were also interviewed, representing the two dominant political parties, BJP and Congress.4 In addition, interviews were undertaken with bureaucrats responsible for UCs in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the Delhi government, and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), an agency of Central government, since all three levels of government are involved in Delhi’s governance. Members of one NGO which has been very involved in fighting the regularization of unauthorized colonies in court were interviewed. Finally five follow-up interviews were conducted in November 2010 (with officials and RWA members) to provide research continuity. Altogether 27 interviews were conducted,5 a small but representative sample of the various actors involved in the everyday and institutional functioning of UCs, particularly in relation to the process of regularization occurring at that time. Various documents were also collected and analysed, including some very elusive data, such as the official list of UCs, analysis of which highlights the concentration of unauthorized colonies on the city outskirts. The research findings qualify unauthorized colonies (UCs) as the “missing middle” (to borrow the phrase of Mawdsley et al., 2009),6 both in empirical and theoretical terms. Consequently, this paper argues that UCs are the location of Delhi’s ‘real’ middle (rather than elite) class; that RWAs in UCs highlight the failure of orthodox binary concepts to accurately describe participatory governance in cities; and that the relative invisibility of this huge population, which is very much linked to its essential heterogeneity, is both an asset and a limitation as far as mobilization is concerned. The paper proceeds by firstly describing the empirical context of Resident Welfare Associations in the context of Delhi’s Bhagidari scheme, as well as the physical and political evolvement of unauthorized colonies, including the regularization drive launched in 2007. Secondly, the research is framed around two orthodox theoretical debates, the relationship between different modes of participatory urban governance on the one hand, and the definition of middle class in India