Smart Cities in India: The case of commodification of ‘smart’

The Smart Cities Mission (SCM) announced by the Government of India (GoI) in 2014 has been the government’s answer to the force of rapid urbanisation in the country at the start of the 2014-2019 term. As Prime minister Shri. Narendra Modi, leader of the Bharathiya Janta Party (BJP), famously claimed at the launch of the SCM in June 2016: 

Concomitantly the following claims were also made by the prime minister of India: 

India is a relatively new entrant in the Smart city (SC) field. The Modi government’s idea of development seems to lie in providing modern, information communication technology (ICT) solutions, along the lines of the global urbanisation trend of smart cities and new urbanism propelled by the neo-liberal thinking, to address the existing social-economic difficulties that Indian cities face. In the global scheme of things, smart cities raise concerns of privacy, autonomy of technology and data security; in the Indian milieu, one should be more interested in consequences like gentrification, privatization of government and dilution of democracy, (Kitchin, 2013; Hollands, 2008) before we can think about turning into a city like Bentham’s panopticon. With the BJP continuing to stay in power for the consecutive 2019-2023 term, they have proposed a likely extension of the SCM to all the 4000 cities in India (Khan, 2019; The Hindu, 2019a).This essay aims to focus on the incoherence between the way the GoI has defined the mission and the actual modes of implementation of the strategies. Rightly pointed out by Sampth, (2016) that “the problem with Indian cities is not that they are ‘unsmart’ but that they are dysfunctional”, a revamp of the definition of the word ‘smart’ becomes crucial before the extension of the mission. The inherent disjunction in the above-mentioned sets of quotes will be explored through the context of the commodification of smart cities in India. However, this essay does not try to redefine the word ‘smart’ but rather analyse the consequences the GoI’s definition of smart cities has caused and hence urge for such a reinterpretation. 

There has been a sizeable increase in urban population of India over the last few decades, from 17.96% in 1961 to 27.8% in 2001 and to 31.16% in 2011 - a 3.3% increase just in the last decade, 2001-2011 (Census of India, 2011). For the first time ever, India will have more of its population living in cities than in villages in five of its largest states (McKinsey & Company, 2019). The number of metropolitan cities has seen a dramatic increase from 35 in 2001 to 53 in 2011 (McKinsey & Company, 2019). Currently, 34% of India’s population lives in urban areas and this is only projected to increase (United Nations, 2019; The Hindu, 2019b). Further by 2030, it is estimated that Indian’s urban population will touch the 600 million mark. (McKinsey & Company, 2019) 

These staggering statistics further increase the pressure on the GoI to act on this dramatic urban transformation in the country. While the statics stated above cover the country in its entirety, the GoI’s solution seems to be narrow and restricts itself to just a few cities. The vision for 100 ‘smart’ cities had been put forth by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), GoI, in 2015, in the hope of achieving a status close to “Ramrajya” or a “good city” - a modern day version of utopia, giving hope for a better life (Datta, 2019). Throughout the history of India, in terms of post-colonial urban policies, one can see that the tabula rasa type of planning has been very popular. The answers to most of problems caused by rapid urbanisation were these top-down, neo-liberal agendas. The SCM was a very active part of the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party, 2014) albeit in the form of greenfield projects. Following up on a very postcolonial thought of urbanism, the BJP rooted its thoughts of development in mythology and used technology as a means of escape from the shackles of the past. As Datta also notes, it further helped the agenda that most of the citizens, belonging to the younger generation believe that “to be patriotic is to believe in the power of technology.” (Datta, 2019) 

The MoHUA has tried to be ‘smart’ by not providing the definition of a smart city. Instead the interpretation of the term ‘smart city’ is rather vague and is to be built around the guideline of improving the quality of life of its citizens by the city authorities and residents. (GoI, 2015) This kind of “definitional impreciseness” regarding the clarity of the word ‘smart’, has been addressed in detail by Hollands, (2008). This can be problematic and result in misleading city authorities about the approach to be taken. Global development companies like IBM, Cisco, BOSCH were among the first to capitalize on this ambiguity in India and put out their proposals for smart cities. Manipulating this fluid definition, the MNCs formulated blueprints for urban placemaking pivoting around ICT solutions (Praharaj & Han, 2019).  

The strategic components of the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) has been structured in a way to include models like “retrofitting, redevelopment, greenfield development and pan-city development” with the objective to “provide core infrastructure, decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘Smart’ Solutions” with the focus on “sustainable and inclusive environments”. It further goes on to state that the purpose of SCM is “enabling local area development and harnessing technology” that leads to “Smart outcomes” (Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India, 2016). Although these terms, definitions and approach of the mission read very well on paper, the reality is completely different as elaborated in this essay.  

Another point to be noted here is that while the MoHUA’s definition does not seem top-down in its approach - by not providing a universal vocabulary and instead allowing the state and local governments to define their own targets (GoI, 2015) – the introduction of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to implement the smart city projects dilutes the essence of democracy as elaborated below (Housing and Land Rights Network, 2018). Due to GoI’s inability to fund the entire project with the rhetoric goal of fast urbanism, it started encouraging participating cities to join hands with private companies through the creation of a SPV to execute SCM projects (GoI, 2015). The SPV, by definition, functions outside of the local municipal body and in most cases doesn’t constitute of any elected representatives. It is not mandatory on the part of a SPV to get the approval of the local body before sanction of any project. A direct violation of the Constitution (74th Amendment) Act 1992, the establishment of the SPV subverts the power and authority of a local governing body.  Also, questions regarding the credibility of the local representatives elected by the citizens and in turn the whole electoral process itself are raised. Being independent in nature and having members from the private sector in its board most often sets up the motive of “chasing the moolah” (Datta, 2015a; Watson, 2015).  

With the government’s realization that cites hold the promise of future, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has launched various schemes over the last decade following a policy of ‘fast urbanism’ (Datta, 2015b; Datta, 2017), the SCM being the latest one. They aim to address this problem by accelerating the process, turning a blind eye to the current inadequacies faced by other cities and towns and focusing on just providing immediate solutions, a method of “bypass urbanisation” (Graham & Marvin, 2001; Bhattacharya & Sanyal, 2011; Hoelscher, 2016). Upon detailed analysis of the Bhubaneshwar Smart City plan (SCp) by Praharaj, Han and Hawken, (2018), it has been found that the SCp’s observations of the city characteristics and corresponding project implementation have polarising views. Though the logical approch to the Area based Development (ABD) might have been to suggest a “peripheral district for guided compact land development for future urbanism”, upon observation of the existence of an urban sprawl, what has been proposed instead is the redevelopment of the already well-developed town center implying a tendency to select “easy to implement projects as future solutions, evading complex issues facing rapidly urbanising societies” (Praharaj, Han and Hawken, 2018) 

In the city of Chennai, one of the major projects under the SCM, is the development of a pedestrian plaza in T Nagar, situated in the heart of the city (Ministry of Urban Development, 2015). Being an ABD proposal in nature, it covers merely 4% area of the total city and is said to benefit a meager 3.4% of the urban population (Housing and Land Rights Network, 2018). Amidst this inequality comes the fact that even though Chennai has 1240 officially recognized slums as per the Census 2011, it has somehow disappeared from the city’s SWOT analysis in the SCp document (Housing and Land Rights Network, 2018). In an interview with Jessica Seddon in The Print’s What’s a smart city and why did Chennai succeed Raj Cherubal, CEO, Chennai Smart City (2019), CEO of the Chennai Smart city, Raj Cherubal, constantly references other mega cities like Singapore and Hong Kong and advocates that smart means “accelerating towards progress” which may call for “bypass urbanisation” as noted above. He is also in agreement with ABD projects, calling them “strategic pieces” of intervention. Avoiding the urgent problems to be addressed and leapfrogging to the solution of ‘smart’ cities just for the sake of matching up with global trend does no good for any Indian city. However, towards the end of the interview Cherubal acknowledges that there are impediments faced by the SPVs all over the country due to the lack of a “starter pack” of sorts containing essential information of model networks rudimentary to any city, on the lines of water, infrastructure. 

The SCM is the government’s current myopic intervention towards the betterment of the urban fabric - adding to an already existing plethora of urban schemes in the country (Housing and Land Rights Network, 2018; Center for Policy Research, 2018) – some of them launched almost simultaneously like the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT); Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Housing for All – 2022); National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY); Digital India Program and the Swachh Bharat Mission. With the existence of multiple schemes that, by definition at least, aim to cater to the basic infrastructural needs of the city chosen, one can even question the necessity of the SCM for Indian cities. Many of these have overlapping goals. For instance, 92 out of the 99 smart cities finalized under the SCM also come under AMRUT. The way that cities and projects were selected to become a part of SCM did not add to the cause. The competitive format of selection favored the selection of the best SC proposals rather than the most deserving ones (Housing and Land Rights Network, 2018). When the same cities are benefiting from multiple schemes, it raises questions regarding development of the other 3900 odd cities and towns of India. These kinds of rushed and repeated myopic interventions are pushing the government to opt for public-private partnership models, steering the economy away from the managerial system towards one adopting an entrepreneurial urbanism (Datta, 2015b; Harris, 2015; Harvey, D. 1989). Entrepreneurial urbanism or “urbanisation as a business model” (Harris, 2015) has been the way of working right from the city of Dholera and Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) in Gujarat, the pioneers of the concept of smart city in India (Datta, 2015b) and has now become a default mechanism for the implementation of the SCM.  

With private companies in the picture, they started viewing the SCM propositions through the lens of money and profit (Hoelscher, 2016). Their increased involvement through the SPV framework implied a situation of “privatization of government” and the “corporation of city”, as outlined previously. A system of entrepreneurial urbanism on a base of neo-liberal ideology has been set up in the process (Harvey, D. 1989). The capitalist view made the Area Based Development (ABD) the commonly adopted methodology under this scheme. Around 80% of the total budget allocated for the SCM are utilized for ABD projects whereas a mere 20% will be spent on pan-city initiatives (GoI, 2015). Cities like Chennai, Bhubaneshwar, Coimbatore, Indore, among others, have proposed ABD projects situated at their respective city centers. (Housing and Land Rights Network, 2018) This translates into most smart cities having just 0-5% of their total area and proportionately around 20% of their population benefiting from the implementation of the project and the funding (Housing and Land Rights Network, 2018). The staggering statistics begs us to ask the question “who are these smart cities made for?”   

The creation of specific areas where the intensity of development is very high, in a sense separates itself from its surroundings and excludes citizens based on economic, social grounds, similar in concept to the occurrence of “splintered urbanism” due to concentrated patches of development (Graham & Marvin, 2001). This phenomenon is not new to India. With the SCM still being in process, it is helpful to take a step back in time and look at previous such ideas to gauge the impact it might have on the general public. The ABD prospect of the SCM is reminiscent of the rhetoric of the gated communities’ ideology (Chakrabarty, 2019) – creating islands where infrastructural facilities, amenities are concentrated. In the past these kinds of “urban integrated mega-projects (UIM)” or “privatopolis”, as carefully noted and analyzed by Gavin Shatkin (2011), have been the result of the requirement to satisfy the needs of a “global citizen” through privatization of the planning process, land and damage to environmental sources. As he further observes, they operate with profit as their main agenda and consequently lead to the “wholesale commodification of the urban fabric.” (Shatkin, 2011: 77–78). SCM’s similarities can also be traced to the creation of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in India. The SEZ were instrumental in changing the way space was managed (Roy, 2011) in terms of land use and public-private partnerships. The SC in India can be thought of as an SEZ with social infrastructure, or the appropriation of UIM with the additional feature of ‘smartness’.  

A kind of slow but definite exclusion of people has been observed in the various SCM initiatives through analysis reports of civic bodies like Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), an Indian charitable trust, based out of New Delhi, which have been carried out from a human rights standpoint. They claim that by adopting the ABD approach, only 8% of the total population or 22% of the total urban population of the country will benefit. As quoted by the HRLN’s analysis report on smart city initiatives, “INR 203,979 crore is being spent on only 99.5 million people, accounting for 22 per cent of India’s urban population and less than 8 per cent of India’s total population.” These “smart enclaves” will impose further pressure on its citizens in the form of higher taxes/user fee charges in exchange for the higher quality of goods and services provided, so that it enables investors to make back their money. This step is listed out by the SCM guidelines and further cemented by the vice president of India, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu (Najib and Khanna, 2016). The premium nature of the SC enclaves will increase cost of real estate. The influx of migrants aspiring for a better quality of life will increase the demand for affordable housing as well as the price of housing, thus not really making them ‘affordable’ anymore. Also, with eleven cities namely, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruppur, Thootukudi, Dehradun, Jhansi, Puducherry, Muzaffarpur, Satna, Rajkot, Raipur and Trichy, propagating for a livable, slum-free environment (Housing and Land Rights Network, 2018), inclusion is really put to the test here. The urban poor of India are hence deprived and excluded from these ‘enclaves’ and are most affected by this sequence of events. Urban population densification leads to strain on environmental resources which would have a major impact on the ‘quality of life’ of the residents that the GoI (GoI, 2015) stresses upon improving through the SCM.   

The commodification of the idea of ‘smart’ has many ramifications ranging from economic, social to political. This essay has tried to establish that the GoI’s objective to achieve inclusivity and sustainability for the people of India through the definition of the SCM rhetoric is not panning out. It acknowledges that although focusing only on the effect of the GoI’s definition of SC - on aspects of inclusion and democracy, among others - may be a limitation, these definitions are what make up the foundational rubric of the SCM. Hence any rectification whatsoever must be started from here. In India, the drift towards globalization in the postcolonial era calls for “worlding of cities” (Roy, 2011: 259-278). Cities that are more tuned to work in the global scheme of things rather than the homeland. India is stuck in a vicious cycle of public-private partnership throughout history as illustrated previously, when it comes to the case of urban policies. These partnerships being business driven and do not nurture the complex amalgamation of stark dichotomies of Indian cities. This socio-economic paradigm rotted in cultural significance is what has come to define the heart of Indian cities and not the new swanky pedestrian walkways or the sky-high skyscrapers promoted by SCM. Operating at this level of dichotomy is what makes an Indian city a “stimulating smart city” as opposed to a “stupefying smart city” (Sennett, 2012).