D. Parthasarathy

Social and environmental insecurities in Mumbai: towards a sociological perspective on vulnerability

Abstract Over the last few years Mumbai — Indias financial and cammercial capital — has been affected by adverse climatic events leading to flooding and landslides resulting in high loss of lives and property. While different sections of the population were affected, the poor and the socially marginalized — living in environmentally risk prone areas — were more affected than others. In view of the dearth of comprehensive studies linking social vulnerability and environmental risks in Mumbai, this paper attempts to throw some light on this relationship with a specific focus on populations living and working close to the Mithi river which flows through parts of the city. Flooding of the Mithi river has been a major reason for death and destruction in the city during major flooding events in recent years. Contrary to popular views blaming the government, the local municipal corporation and encroachments for enhanced environmental hazards in Mumbai, the paper brings out a more complicated picture of the links between poverty, power distribution in society, discrimination, and environmental changes and shifts that have led to the current crisis. In doing so the article engages with some classical sociological perspectives on risk developed by Mary Douglas and Ulrich Beck, and critiques their applicability, especially in non-western contexts.

Rural, Urban, and Regional: Re-spatializing Capital and Politics in India

The debate over India’s economic liberalization has dwarfed significant social transformations and political changes since the late 1970s/early 1980s, with non-Brahmin upper castes and other backward class castes rising to power in several Indian states, irrevocably altering the political landscape of symbols, language, styles of mobilization, and alignments. These changes have, in turn, created new urban-rural networks and connections or reinforced older ones. This chapter attempts to understand rural-urban transitions and connections in light of these political trends with a special focus on the three states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra. These states have been at the center of new urban dynamics caused, in part, by global linkages fostered by economic and spatial switches in their urban centers. While rising political and economic aspirations of ‘regional’ or rural elites have been recognized to have played a role in the regionally differentiated growth patterns of the post-liberalization period, the spatial implications in terms of domestic capital flows, their specific iterations in space, and redrawing of the relationship between rural and urban areas and their diverse populations have not been adequately researched. The interconnections between agrarian capital and global finance and their geographical effects are also not well understood. This chapter offers some insights into the different ways in which both politics and capital are being re-spatialized in India. It also discusses the implications of this process for methodological and conceptual approaches that help us to understand and redefine notions of the urban, the rural, and the regional in India.

Urban development, environmental vulnerability and CRZ violations in India: impacts on fishing communities and sustainability implications in Mumbai coast

Coastal Regulations in India are traced back to the UN Conference on Human Environment, held in Stockholm in 1972. The Environment Protection Act (EPA) 1986 was enacted to implement India’s commitments as a signatory. The Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification of 1991 was made under the provisions of the EPA in order to protect coastal environments and social and livelihood security of fishing community. This paper assesses the effects of CRZ rules and violations in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, which has experienced tremendous growth due to the rapid industrialization and urbanization. This process has led to the destruction of mangroves and other important species of fish which play a crucial role in sustaining the coastal ecology and urban biodiversity; high population density and uneven growth have exacerbated adverse environmental and socioeconomic consequences. The Koli (fishing community) in this region faces huge problems of survival and sustenance in small-scale fishing, due to the rampant commercial fishing by big trawlers and large-scale dumping of waste materials by the industries surrounding the vicinity into the sea. In small but significant ways, the fishing communities through their traditional commons-based resource management and livelihood systems protect the coastal ecology and help the cities in reducing their carbon footprints. On the basis of primary field research in Thane–Mulund Creek Bhandup, Chimbai, and Sewri, this paper attempts to assess CRZ violations taking place on coastal areas and is causing damage to the coastal ecology. The research specifically has focused on the particular fishing-related activities and spaces—such as: jetties, parking of boats, access to sea, weaving and drying of nets, landing grounds, drying and cleaning of fish that are more affected by encroachment of seashore area and by CRZ rules violations. It evaluates the actions taken by Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority and Bombay Municipal Corporation while implementing rules and making Integrated Coastal Zone Management plan for management of marine environment. It raises broader issues relating to the contradictions and complementarities involved in ICZM plans vis-a-vis management of biodiversity, within a larger context of rapid urbanization and demands for real estate growth. The paper argues that urban biodiversity management requires clear valuation of the long-term ecological and socioeconomic benefits of sustenance of coastal ecology and related livelihoods.

Global Flows or Rural–Urban Connections? Temporality, Public Spaces and Heterotopias in Globalising Mumbai

This chapter draws upon studies of and fieldwork from the Indian urban context and its evolution, linking these to larger processes of democratisation, social conflicts and emancipatory struggles. It employs the idea of heterotopia to denote greater agency to class and non-class actors, groups and institutions in the definition of urban visions and in the determination of urban spatio-temporal processes and linked social processes. Various agentive groups and individual actors occupy city spaces, use and develop the city for different sociopolitical and economic purposes. For each of them, the city is an event that occurs (or is made to occur) in the specific evolutionary trajectory of their struggles for mobility and social emancipation, or in their rise to dominance. Focusing on Mumbai, this chapter outlines how the study of multiple temporal dimensions can provide key insights into the spatial, cultural, political and social implications of globalisation in Indian cities. It further addresses rural–urban connections, networks and how these interact and intersect with global flows. It traces how these processes and intersections in turn give shape to the social agency of marginalised groups and classes that are expressed in their uses of public space.

Will you walk into my parlor? Spaces and practices of beauty in Mumbai

While studies on corporeal beauty – the ‘body beautiful’ – constitute a mini academic industry, everyday practices of ‘beauty work’ are somewhat underresearched. This paper engages with notions and practices of beauty in a context of socio-cultural transformation and global flows in urban India. The ‘beauty parlor’ emerges as a socio-cultural space where urban aspirations are made and realized, mirroring the shifting place of beauty in the daily life of subjects with diverse class locations. A qualitative study of five beauty parlors in Mumbai revealed embodied practices of aesthetics that reflect the interplay of social structure and agency in the everyday life experiences of men and women. Providing tangible benefits in terms of new opportunities, beauty practices are also influenced by a desire for status, and ideas of ‘good health’ within an emergent ethic of self-care. Practices and consumption in the parlor juxtapose modernity and tradition materializing the field of beauty.

Urban at the Edges: Mumbai’s Coastline Urbanisms

Uneven and combined urban development is a hallmark of the changing Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). Mumbai’s coastline urbanism is markedly different from the dominant urbanisms in the city centre. The growth that makes the city centre a global destination is experienced as phantom violations of nature at the edges. The effects of CRZ (Coastal Regulation Zone) rules and their violations in the MMR have reconstituted the urban in the seashores, with huge impacts on the traditional fishing communities. The marginal people at the marginal spaces are in the receiving end of Mumbai’s quest to become a global city. The resultant intensified urbanization leads to the destruction of mangrove forests and coastal ecosystems, which are crucial in sustaining biodiversity; high population density and uneven growth have exacerbated environmental and socio-economic consequences. The Koli (fishing community) in this region face problems of survival and sustenance in small-scale fishing, due to the rampant commercial fishing by big trawlers and large-scale dumping of waste materials by the industries in the vicinity into the sea. This paper focuses on the transformation of spaces and activities related to the lives of fishing community that is worst affected by encroachment on coastal areas and rampant CRZ violations. It discusses the frequent reclassification of CRZ rules in order to facilitate many developmental projects like Special Economic Zone (SEZs). Within the larger context of evolving urbanisms in the coastal areas of Mumbai, the broader issues related to the contradictions and complementarities involved in Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) plans vis-a-vis management of biodiversity are scrutinized in the study.

Gentrification and Rising Urban Aspirations in the Inner City: Redefining Urbanism in Mumbai

This chapter attempts to bring out the rising aspirations of different populations and the state in the gentrifying textile mill lands of Mumbai. The chapter argues that rising disparity and everyday contrast and contestation in the gentrifying mill land areas also offers the scope for negotiation. Whether it is locational advantage of the textile mill lands or astronomical growth of the land value, the city space of Mumbai is used by people pertaining to different classes. Through an ethnographic study of an inner city neighbourhood and its surrounding areas, it brings out and discusses certain specificities within the gentrification process of Mumbai.

Urban Ecologies in Transition: Contestations around Waste in Mumbai

The paper interrogates the nature of rapid transitions of urban space in a country like India using a case study of a dumping ground located at Kanjurmarg in Mumbai. The land in question was a dense mangrove wetland which was speculatively reclaimed for a landfill. It looks at the protests and contestations around the site to raise questions on the nature of transitions of urban green spaces and explores how human–nature interactions are shaped by politics of development. Inequalities resulting from differential distribution and partial access of urban landscape/resources involving various actors, particularly the state and from micro political processes are explored. It draws from responses of actors and gaps in governance to understand the larger debate around urban social and environmental justice.

Contested Urban Waterscape of Udaipur

In recent years, the discourse regarding the relationship between urban growth and environment/nature has come to the forefront, raising critical questions pertaining to the challenges of ecological limits and the governance paradigms. Unavailability, scarcity, and shrinking of resources like water, jeopardize urban life and processes resulting in contestations and conflicts which are complex in nature. In this background, we use qualitative methods to examine the case of rapidly urbanizing Udaipur to map the contours of contestations embedded in the urban waterscape. This paper dwells on the everyday water practices and negotiations to examine the terrains of access and allocation of water within the city focusing on the old city area.

Are sustainable cities "sustainable" for the poor? a study of Kolkata in Eastern India

L’obiettivo principale di questo articolo e rivedere criticamente alcuni approcci associati all’ambientalismo urbano e alle citta sostenibili, attraverso l’analisi del caso di alcune tra le principali citta indiane. Calcutta viene presa in considerazione per via dei suoi tentativi di raggiungere lo status di world-class city. Attraverso lo studio di caso, l’articolo tenta di esaminare se questa citta stia riuscendo o meno ad abbinare giustizia sociale e giustizia ecologica nell’ambito del suo attuale approccio allo sviluppo.