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In the City, out of Place: Environment and Modernity, Delhi 1860s to 1960sAuthor(s): Awadhendra SharanReviewed work(s):Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 47 (Nov. 25 - Dec. 1, 2006), pp. 4905-4911Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4418951 .

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I n t h e C i t y , O u t o f P l a c eEnvironment a n d Modernity, D e l h i 1 8 6 0 s t o 1 9 6 0 s

Over the last two decades, cities as spaces of residence have come into conflict withcities as sites of work, mediatedby concerns around the environment.This essay engageswith the nature of urbanmodernity n India while historicisingthe debates over theenvironmentn Delhi. The issues and practices bundledtogether as "environmental",aroundwhich strategies and tactics are organised, shift through time. Infrastructure and publichealth; nuisance and noxious trades;pollution and zoning; standardsand technoscience;and environmentalismhroughlegal rights, leave their distinct imprintson how we dwellin the city. An environmental njury,perhaps, does not lie in Nature alone and mustbe apprehendedthrough rameworksthat renderthese injuries intelligible. Theattention to these shifting registers shall help to link planning and environmentboth to power and to an anthropology of the urban modern in India.

AWADHENDRA SHARAN

ver the last two decades, cities as spaces of residencehave increasingly come into conflict with cities assites of work, the two often being mediated by concernsabout the environment. For some commentators environmentaldegradationnurban ndia s aconsequence of administrative apseand lackof political will. Short-term nterestshave prevailedoverlong-range, scientifically conceived plans, leading to chaos withindustries lourishing n residential pacesandmajorityof the urbanpoorhuddled nnumerous bastis' andslums.1 Forothers,contem-porary nvironmentalism n cities such asDelhi, aims no more thanto render nvisible that which is unaesthetic, the ugliness of pro-duction,andtogetherwith it,bodies at work.2 This essay seeks toengage withthe natureof urbanmodernity while historicising thedebatesoverenvironment nDelhi. Isuggest thatthe constellationof issues and practices that are bundled together as "environ-mental";aroundwhich strategies and tactics are then organised,shift throughtime. Five broadconstellations may be suggested:infrastructureand public health; nuisance and noxious trades;pollutionandzoning; standardsandtechnoscience; andenviron-mentalismthrough legal rights, each of which leaves its distinctimprinton how we dwell in the city. Argued another way, theessay suggests thatthenatureof anenvironmental injurydoes notlie in Naturealonebutmustbeapprehended hrough he frameworkthatrender heseinjuries ntelligible. Theattention to theseshiftingregisters,wehope,shallhelpus linkplanningandenvironmentbothto power and to an anthropology of the urban modern in India.The inquiry is developed in two parts, the first concerning thenature of colonial urbanism in Delhi and the second addressingtheperiodof nationalistplanning.The conclusion briefly outline'sthe framework of regulatory science and legal rights throughwhich environmentalism in contemporary Delhi has unfoldedover the last decade.

Colonial Urbanism:Infrastructure, Nuisance and CongestionTechnologies of urban governance till the end of the 19thcentury were anchored in conceptions of public health. Miasmawas the influential theory of disease that explained a sick bodythrough he"corruption" f air on account of decaying vegetation,

thickfoliage, crampedand ll-ventilated housing, etc.3 Excrement,corpses, carcasses, and their odours, were anathema to the sani-tary inspectors in cities across the world. Alain Corbin writesthat through the nineteenth century "to contemplate the mass ofvapours that accumulated where living beings crowded togetherwas to be seized with a vertiginous sense of alarm".4Not sur-prisingly, theputridcrowd, thetogetherness of people andanimalsand the enclosed nature of residential spaces became familiarobjects of reform. Comprehensive water and sewerage systems,well ventilated houses, clear streets and public spaces throughwhich a civic community could express the urbancollective selfwere hallmarksof 19thcenturyEuropeancities as they respondedto the spatial andsocial impacts of the industrial revolution.5Thefunctioning of the humanheart,as William Harvey hadrevealedit, shaped an image in which modern European and Americancities cast themselves, as circulatory systems with unhamperedmovement of air,water andcitizens throughthebody of the city.6Liberal governmentality implied that these networks shapedindividual conduct withoutbeing directly interventionist, "clean-liness" being a function not of the exercise of police power butof technological discipline that left the home and the familyrelatively autonomous to shape itself.7Colonial cities could not have been more different. The crowdwas suspect for more reasons than one and the lack of legibilityof colonial streets that wound their way into narrow lanes andcul-de-sacs spoke both of inferior urbandesign and functionedas a sign of degeneracy.8 Local urban practices, whether theyrelated to the mix of the public or privateor concerned the properrelationship between the spaces of the living andthe dead, couldnot simply be cajoled into transformingthemselves. Instead theyhad to be coaxed into rendering themselves in the image ofEurope,making municipalgovernance in colonial contexts morea matterof authorityandpolicing thanof individual fashioning.9As Gyan Prakashhasargued"colonialgovernmentality could notbe the mere tropicalisation of the Western norm, but its funda-mental dislocation".10 What was achieved in the metropolitancentre through the sovereignty-discipline-government triangleidentifiedbyFoucaultcould beeffected in thecolony only throughthepowerof police;themakingof thecitizen intheimperialdomainwas counterposed to the domination of subjects in the colonies.

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In Delhi, Europeans and Indians had lived in a rathermixedfashion till the middle of the 19th century. This changed fairlyrapidly in the aftermath of the revolt of 1857.when a third ofthecity was demolished andrebuilt.Post-mutiny Delhi, like manyother Indian cities, had to be "sanitised" and "improved",witha view to establishing orderandcontaining disaffection. In 1863,a municipal committee was established for the city but unlikeEnglish municipalities that provided amenities such as gas,electricity, water and sewerage networks throughtaxes on rentalvalue of property, Indian municipalities, Delhi included, werehampered by considerably less power, and even less financialresources, to effect the necessary transformation.1 Not surpris-ingly, the infrastructure that developed could, at best, securepartial mprovements.Watersupply in Delhi saw the replacementof the system of canals and wells by piped water beginning inthe 1890s,12 conservancy arrangements were reworked13andelectricity was first supplied on a regular basis from 1902.14Disease and disaffection were sought to be simultaneouslyaddressedthroughwidening of roads andcreation of open spacesthat separatedEuropean residents from native quarters.15Effec-tive connectivity through these networks, however, was ratherlimited, both on account of cultural differences and insufficientfinances.16By 1894, Jyoti Hosagraharpoints out, only 146housesin the city, mostly European, had water connections. Few streetswereregularlymaintained andby 1912 the municipality had beenable to build only 25 public latrines and threepublic urinals for acity that now numbered close to 5,00,000.17 Waterborne atrineswere yet to be introduced in the city by the first decade of thecentury and the ambitious scheme floated in 1913 to provide awaterbornesanitation system for the city remained a paperdreamin the face of the fiscal conservancy of thegovernment of India.18Infrastructure n the colonial city, it may be suggested, operatedmost powerfully in the symbolic realm, gesturing to an imminentmodernity, even as that modernity was endlessly deferred.The management of "vapours" and "nuisances" defined asecond domain of interventions in the colonial city. The MilitaryCantonments Act of 1864 contained regulations notdnly on landuse and drainage but also on nuisances and unlicensed trade.19Similarly, the reporton the sanitary state of the army mentioned"unhealthy trades" alongside "badc ir", "badly constructed andill-ventilated habitations", "poor drainage", etc, as contributingto an undesirable state of affairs.20The remedy in law that haddeveloped Europe was largely in the nature of private disputessuggesting that the enjoyment of one's propertycould not be atthe expense of injury to another. Typically used by one formof productive activity (e g, agriculture) against pollution andconsequent loss of value caused by another (e g, industry),theselaws were resorted to rather infrequently by the working classof Britain and found even less use in colonial cities.21Insteadwhat came to the fore as a technology of governance in colonialIndia were the laws of public nuisance, coded first in the penalcode of 1862, chapterXIV of which concerns offences affectingthe public health, safety, convenience, decency and morals.The code recognised a person to be guilty of public nuisance ifs/he carriedout "anyact or is guilty of an illegal omission whichcauses any common injury, danger or annoyance to the publicor to the people in general who dwell or occupy property in thevicinity, or which must necessarily cause injury, obstruction,danger or annoyance to persons who may have occasion to useany public right". Instances of these included "[any] negligentact likely to spreadinfection of disease dangerousto life"," [any]malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous tolife", "fouling water of public spring or reservoir", "makingatmosphere noxious to health", and "negligent conduct withrespect to poisonous substance".22

Thus defined, nuisance covered a rather wide spectrum ofactivities, many of which were not recognised as nuisance evenin England.23Characteristicof the colonial context was also thepower enjoyed by local officials to prosecute underthis law, withthe duty of "lay inspectors" being "to see the abatement ofnuisances and to bringing the cases of nuisances before thelaw".24Convictions forpublicnuisance increasedrapidlybetween1870s and 1910s - in Bengal presidency from about 15 per centof total convictions to about45 per cent of total convictions forcognisable crimes.25 The post-mutiny colonial state might haveaffirmed a hands-off social policy atthe highest levels of govern-mentbut as VeenaOldenburgsuggests, thereweresteady attemptsto insertcolonial agendas in fashioning the Indiansociety at lowerlevels.26In every majorcity of the country we thus see nuisanceas providing an important frame for fashioning the urban order.Michael Anderson mentions roadside hawking, bathing in astream,use of manure n local fishing anddefecation on the streetsas instances in which the colonial state intervened in shapingtheeveryday environment of cities. InBombay we read of ArthurCrawford's concern with trades such as dyeing that he tried invain to locate outside the city boundaries.27In Lucknow, thelocation of the graveyard became a matter of great dispute.28InDelhi, familiar nuisances included encroachmentsonpublic lands,construction of new privies opening into public streets, dilapi-datedhouses, protrudingwalls endangeringthe lives of occupantsorpassersbyandcremationgrounds,aroundall of whichthere werefrequentcontests between the residents andmunicipal authorities,given the ratherdifferent cultural understandings of public andprivate, sacred and profane, appropriate and inappropriatebehaviours.29Even open spaces outside the city wall qualified as"sightless nuisance", rubbish lands that awaited improvement!30Fines and cessation of activity were two ways of dealing withthe issue of nuisance.31 In Delhi, fines were levied for encro-aching on roads, on unauthorised structures and for carrying on"offensive trades"and at various times during the 19th centurytannersanddyers were relocated, taxes were levied on 'tehbazari'and on draught animals and milch cattle whose object was"entirely sanitary", lime kilns were removed to Ajmere gateowing to smoke nuisance, trade in hides was sought to beregulated and the slaughter house sought to be moved from itslocation at Idgah to a site outside the city.32Anderson arguesthat these frequent conflicts around nuisance were reflective ofan intense conflict over the use of public spaces and physicalresources suggesting that the statepolicy was atextreme variancewith the modes of existence and conceptions of property thatobtained in the local society. This was especially true as onemoved down the social ladder, the colonial law operating ad-versely against economically marginal groups by dispossessingthem of common facilities that they had hitherto enjoyed. An'environmental good", Anderson suggests, did not imply thesame for those who "relied upon rivers, streets, and wastelandsas key resources in the daily conduct of production and subsis-tence" and those who "did notdepend immediately uponcommonproperty resources for subsistence".33Christine Rosen's studyof nuisance laws in 19thcentury US also suggests thatthe moveto curb certain kinds of activities in the city was an aspect ofmodernisation,thelegal evidence suggesting thatthe barforproofof environmental harmcaused by modern,steam-drivenfactories,mines, etc, was considerably raised as comparedto proof of harmfromtraditionalworks likepottery, slaughterhouses, wax making,etc.34Anderson's study of smoke pollution in Calcutta also sug-gests thattheburdenof proof under he 1863 Calcutta andHowrahsmoke nuisances act was very high so as to make successfulprosecution"almost mpossible".35Conversely, we maynote thatthe dyers, weavers etc, who had been the objects of Crawford's

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ire in Bombay had significant financial clout, the opposition tothese activities therefore not simply being a matter of economicdivide but reflective of the fact that they were seen as being "outof place" in the modern city.Read thus as a modernising impulse, it is possible to argue thatthe delineation of nuisance activities were always inflected byculturalmarkers.MarkHarrisonpoints out thatpriorto the 19thcenturyclimatic differences were seen as being sources of diseasebut subsequentemphasis shifted to the habits of the natives, thelatterperspective being elegantly summed up in the view of thesurgeon Kenneth MacKinnon who wrote in 1848 that "diseasedepends mainly on general climate ... but it depends also in partupon mere local causes, and on the social conditions, habits andmoralsof thepopulation".36The view found support n influentialquarters uch as in theCantonmentAct of 1864 and in thewritingsof Florence Nightingale: "They live amidst their own filth,infecting the air with it, poisoning the ground...polluting thewater... [some] even think it a holy thing to drink filth".37Quiteobviously, referents of pollution in colonial narratives werealways in excess of "nature"andincluded elements of aesthetics,racial difference and class biases. Consider for instance thesereports from the Delhi municipality:Ghosis living in Gali Shahtaraare a source of great nuisance as

their cattle collect and roam about in the streets, and theirwomenfolkcollect-cow-dung akes within therailwayboundary...thesedungcakes whenstuckto the walls and roofs of thehouses,are as unsanitaryas unsightly.38Over66 percent of the deathsfromrespiratorydiseases occurredin Delhi city...The larger percentageof deaths amongst femalesis no doubt argelydueto thepurdah ystem and to the insanitaryand congested housing conditions.39Nuisance and disease, in the colonial imagination, thus calledfor both material improvements and the containment of thedangers posed by native habits. Cultural differences translatedinto spatial distinctions and what Gyan Praksh calls the irreduc-ible difference regarding "the truth of the Indian body" bothproduced the knowledge and techniques of policing and the

pragmatics of education in matters of health and hygiene.Congestion, inaddition to sanitation'andnuisance, was the thirdimportantcategory through which the colonial state sought tomanagenativepopulations andcityscapes. "Thepeople inDelhi",Colonel Beadon, president of the New Delhi Municipal Com-mittee,noted n 1912"havebeen huddled into atotally insufficientarea so that the streets have been encroached upon [and] slumshave been built".40By the early part of the 20th century it wassuggested "to takeupthe question of extension comprehensivelyand prepareoutlines of a general scheme to provide for roads,streets and space for building during the next 30 years".41Improvement ever more tried to anticipate rather than merelyrespond to a situation and as it did so, it began to acquire theveneer of a plan. However, contrary to the assumption that anysuch plan would be for the betterment of the entire city, the twocities of Delhi were increasingly severed. Further, contrary tothegrowth of professional planning in the metropolitan context,the most that Delhi got was a bureaucraticImprovement Trust.The formation of this Trust was first proposed by A P Hume intheReporton Reliefof Congestion in Delhi that outlined the needto provide an additional built area of about 1,200 acre to housetheexcess populationof the city (estimated at 1,00,000 persons),which, Hume felt, would be best carriedout by an ImprovementTrust.42 This was so because the Trust could work in "publicinterest" while ignoring "politics" in a manner that was notpossible even for a municipality with limited powers:The argument or an ImprovementTrust rests on the basis thathavingdecidedwhatscheme should be undertakent hasstatutory

authority o carryout the scheme. Where a municipality mightbe undecided ormonths andyearsregarding he execution of anyparticular cheme, a Trust,subject to governmentapproval,haspowerbystatute onotifythataparticular chemebeundertaken.43Beginning December 1937 the Delhi Improvement Trust drewup a number of schemes, 26 schemes being listed for the firsttriennial,followed by another21 schemes between 194land 1944and six schemes between 1947 and 1950, all of which weremarked by the precedence of financial consideration over "im-

provement". Tanners were not shifted from Rehgar Pura as itwas felt that this would have a prejudicial effect on land valuein Sarai Rohilla. The slaughterhouse remained where it was andbig slum clearance schemes such as the Delhi-Ajmere Gaterehousing scheme, in which approximately 2,000 families wereto be relocated, remained on paper since it was felt-that existinggroundrentswould make the entirescheme unprofitable.44Humehad been well aware of the potential pitfalls. He wrote, "On thesubject of poor class accommodation that the comparativelyheavy cost of acquisition of land, which in the Circumstanceswill not yield a big return, s a serious obstacle, unless proposalsfor such a scheme go hand in hand with proposals for improve-ment of an area of government land from which a higher returnmay be expected".45As it turned out, between the play of theeconomic andthe environmental, the latterunderstood as decenthousing conditions that could rid the city of its slums, the formeralways trumped.Sandip Hazeerasingh rightlypoints out that,"inspite of the consistently high level of frustration at their failureto reverse the process of environmental degradation, the colonialagencies neverquestioned the shibboleth that urbandevelopmentshould be drivenbytheprofitandprestige motives of the dominantclasses".46 Not surprisingly the committee set up by the govern-ment of independent India to inquire into the functioning of theTrustwas scathing in its assessment of the Trust's activities. Thecapitalof an ndependent,democraticIndia, tsuggested, needed tobe builtaccording oradicallydifferentsetof imperatives hanwhathad characterised the first city of an Empire, based on scientificknowledge and in accordance with a master plan.47Even morecritically, it suggested, the planned city must cater to the needsofallmembersof the urbanpublic,especially "bearingnmind... therequirements of the poorest sections of the population".48Nationalist Modernisation and Urban Environments

In 1947, India was partitioned and Delhi became a city ofrefugees forced tomigratefrom theother side of thenewly mintedborder underthe shadow of death andmassacre. Simultaneously,the normal stream of migration continued, contributing to amassivegrowthof thecity population romapproximately4,00,000persons at thebeginning of the centuryto over 17,00,000 by 1951,the large numbers taking a toll on the city's infrastructuralcapacities. This was a matter of some concern to the newlyindependentrulers of India. "Badenvironment affects us all alike;we are choked, each one of us...by the meanness and squalorwhich stretch their tentacles upwards from the lives of our lessfortunate fellow citizens", wrote G D Birla in his report on theDelhi ImprovementTrust.49The crisis was evidently most signi-ficant for the slum dwellers, but its articulation was throughthelens of the urbanreformer,concerned simultaneously with healthand morality of the poor and "danger" o the city. PanditThakurDas Bhargava, among many others, hinted at sexual/psycho-logical tensions through proximate living: "There is so muchcongestion in Harpul basti that many families live in a singleroom.Father,mother, son, daughter-in-law, daughter,son-in-laware all huddled in the same room. Under the circumstances howon earth can a person maintain his health ('tandrusti'), preserve

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her shame ('sharm/haya') or retain their morality".50Housingcongestion, the Birla Committee noted, was not only a causativefactor in the spread of tuberculosis and other communicablediseases but also bred juvenile delinquency, accentuated thebitterness of class antagonisms and fostered social discontent.It observed "Where honest toil can produce nothing but squalorthere need be no wonder that unsocial tempers rise".51 nto thissocial complex of doingjustice for the "honestworker",address-ing the needs both of the victims of partitionand those who weremerely poorandworking towards the making of a nationalcapitalthat would not suffer the pyschological and social burdens ofmass poverty, Delhi began preparing for a planned future. Thiswas a political task, to be accomplished by technical means. Ifin the case of the ImprovementTrust,politics was evaded throughthe creation of an intermediate institution between the govern-ment and the elected municipality, nationalist urban planningoperated not by evading politics but by making it distinct fromtechnical calculations:

Non-officials do not understandanything about town planning...But anyplan hatwillcome nowwill come before his committeeonwhich thereareplentyof non-official members.Theycanstudyit and make any suggestions. But the actualplanningfor a townor an urban area must be done by town planners.52In this background, RajkumariAmrit Kaur, in her capacity asminister for health and local self-government, invited the FordFoundation to assist in the planning of Delhi in 1956.53AlbertMayer, a US-based plannerwith prior experience of working onthe planning of Bombay and Chandigarh and the initiator ofEtawahruralcommunity development project, was appointed tohead the consultation team consisting of a physical planner, aspecialist in government, an industrial planner, a transportationspecialist, an economist and an urban sociologist.The city of Delhi that the planners encountered in the 1950swas one that was embedded in the regional economy, drawingupon resources, providing goods but above all attracting people,both migrants and refugees. Its governance requiredthe abilityto comprehensively map and order these flows so that optimum

balance could be obtained, minimising "thefriction of progress"as James Scott puts it.54A comprehensive regional and urbanplanwas thesuggested solution. Two strands of regional planninghaddeveloped in the US since the 1920s, a metropolitan regionaldevelopment plan and another view inspired by Patrick Geddesand the garden city movement that subscribed to low-densityurbandevelopments situated in their regional contexts.55In thecase of Delhi, the region as metropolitan area found favour overits conception as a resource region. Delhi, the argument went,was "an almost pure example of the need for the concept,developmentandexecution of a planfor themetropolitanregion",and within this metropolitan region two broad environmentalconcerns were outlined: slums and industrial location.56The issue of slums, in post-partition Delhi, was an absolutepriority,to be tackled pragmatically and scientifically. In a letterto Nehru, Mayer pointed out that while in the west "the socialconscience that demanded slum elimination" emerged after alarge build-up of capital and resources, in India, the task wasrendered far more difficult because of "the growth of moral,social and political pressure before the build-up of resources topermit the massive attackrequired".57 t is entirely understand-able that Mayer was cautious that "care must be exercised notto implyatype andrateof action which in fact may not be possibleto attain or continue".58What was required, in his opinion, wasa demonstration effect, the need to solve select problems inspecific areas on a minimum, adequate. standard scale throughlimited "controlled" development, while making long-termplans.59Plans were thus drawn up for urban renewal of specific

areas and neighbourhoods (e g, Sarai Rohilla, Mata Sundari,Motia Khan, Mubarakpur Kotla, etc), transit camps and"unauthorised land use", the last including on the one handbeggars, vagabonds andsquattersand on the other, open marketsandsmall vendors. The desire was to produce integrationthroughimprovement, to secure at least a minimal degree of equitythrough planning through schemes for relocation of basti squat-ters "in suitable areas not too far away from majorwork centres"with "structuresandfacilities [that]may be substandard" n orderto keep rentsandcosts down, while maintaining "spacestandardsfor schools andparksandstreets, etc". It was also recommendedthat these should be integrated with a larger neighbourhood andthat "reasonableareas should be earmarked in several zones forthe low-income groups who migrate to Delhi on accord of therelentless "push" from the rural areas".60Zoning, the plan argued, was entirely for promotion of healthandsafety, moral and social welfare, andcould not, on any count,be "used to accomplish any kind of human segregation likeexcluding certain communities, or income groups from certainareas".61 n the course of parliamentary debates that precededthe arrival of the American planners the issue had elicited tworesponses. One view favoured the acceptance of difference instandardsand amenities so that all residents of Delhi had a placeto stay. "It would be much better", Mohanlal Saxena, memberof Parliament rom Delhi argued,"if we divide the whole of Delhiinto zones and say such and such zones will be A class, suchand such will be B class andthey will have such and suchservices,some will have all the services and some will have a few".62To insist on uniform standards, he argued, would be to deprivethe many of decent housing who could not afford such living.Others contested this logic of differentiation, arguingthat similarenvironmental amenities ought to be made available to all -electricity, water, latrines and parksbeing the needs of the urbanpooras much as of middleclass residents.3 The masterplanwhenit was formulated took both elements, suggesting that economicdifferentiation would only partially translate into differences ofbuilt form,the exceptions n qualityof buildingmaterial, tc, beingoffset by the need to "adopta comprehensive system of building,sanitary and other codes which prescribe adequate minimumstandards of health, sanitation and safety".64The rule of excep-tions, it argued, would not translate nto the zoning of difference.However, whatjustice offered with one hand,culture withdrewwith the other. To be in city and inhabit its numerous bastis wasto be always under the injunction to mutate into an other, theviolence of the policing of colonial difference yielding to theburdenof thenationalist/modernistdesire for assimilation. Slumswere about economic poverty but also "social degeneration", sothat their improvement was always more than merely physicalreconstruction. Nehru stressed the need for improvement ofphysical conditions but also of the need to face up to "ingrainedhabits and lack of desire as well as lack of training to use betteraccommodation".65The Bharat Sevak Samaj wrote of slums asa consequence of urban poverty, but remarked that "miserableenvironment in which they live breeds despair and a fatalisticapproach to life".66For them, social life in slums lacked "any-thing desirable" and smacked of "manyunhealthy trends",sug-gesting that "social regeneration of slum dwellers" ought to bean "essential and integral part of a slum clearance or slumeradicationprogramme".67t is another matteraltogether that the"problems"of the reformer were sometimes no more than alter-native preferred by the dweller. Details of a survey of the slumsof old Delhi conducted by the Samaj, and made available to theplanners, make clear that though an overwhelming 90 per centof those surveyed expressed their dissatisfaction with theexisting conditions in Delhi slums, a mere 3 percent considered

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industries were "undesirable industries in urban Delhi" andtherefore, best located in neighbouring towns.86Finally, therewere those industries that were to be completely prohibited, viz,the noxious industries that were associated with stench, smoke,fumes, etc, posing hazards to those residing in theirneighbourhoods. A list of 22 such obnoxious and hazardousindustrieswas preparedandthese, the plan emphatically argued,must be kept out of Delhi urbanarea, leaving unsaid where theseshould be located.87However, the most interesting case was thatof industriesdesignated "rural", iscussions on which figure bothin the context of urbanredevelopment and the making of newindustrial zones, sometimes described as noxious and at othertimes as being merely anachronistic.In the colonial period, we have suggested above, native habitswere considered a majorcause of environmental degradation.Inmany ways the nationalist plans for urban improvement anddealing with nuisances carried this style of argument forward,and yet they could hardly do so without dropping the baggageof cultural nferiority ngrainedincolonial writings. The responsethatemerged was to deploy the tropeof the "rural", uralpersonsand rural industrialprocesses/trades being made to stand in theplace of the native, as that which was prior and inferior and inneed of transformation.The firstneeded to be educated into beingproperlyurban/modernwhile the second requiredto be relocatedbeyond the margins of the city, into "urbanvillages". The mainplan itself spoke little of the subject except to recommend thatvillage-like trades such as keeping milch cattle be removed tourbanvillages, which would both strengthen the ruraleconomyand help provide cheap milk to the city.88 However, a moreelaborate set of reasonings were on offer in the work studiesrelated to the making of the master plan. Rural industries weredefined morewidely to include such activities as pottery,tannery,keeping milch cattle, handloom weaving, artistic metal works,'zari' and 'zardosi'making,etc. The criteria hatmade them "rural"was notquite spelt out though thereasons regardingthe necessityfor such a shift were on offer: these industries, it was argued,were located in the heart of the residential areas, intensifyingslum conditions, and their relocation would therefore mean therelease of "valuable land" and "weeding out those uses notrequired n the urbancore". It was arguedtoo that some of these,such as tanning, were also obnoxious and hence must be locatedoutside the proposed urbanisable limits. On the other hand, itwas assumed thatthe villages would gain throughnew economicactivitiesandrural ife thathadbeenstagnatingwouldberevitalised.The problem was that the people who practised such trades werehardlyappreciative f the "win-win"scenario.Itwas estimated hatof the nearly 30,000 farhilies of slum dwellers involvedin ruralindustries,only about half would be willing to move to the urbanvillages being created, the fate of the other half left unsaid.89This sharp polarisation between the urban and the rural, aspersons'and n theireconomic roles, was posited not only in theplan itself but also in its popular descriptions:A further tepwould be to relieve urbanDelhi of those membersof its populationwhose occupations- andconsequently'waysofliving - are primarilyrural, and resettle them in the villages.Tannery, ottery,weaving...arealloccupationswhichbelongnot tothecitybut hevillage ..Toomanypeoplenowsettled nDelhi...areby theirvery natureand instincts ruraldwellers ...if Delhi is tobeplanned ntoawell integrated ity, and o bemaintainedas such,it needs inhabitantswith a primarilyurbanpsychology.90"Nuisance" and pollution were thus to be located elsewhere,spatially and socially, and the discourse of planning acquireditssignificance from its confidence in managing these separations.Overthe next threedecades orso, this confidence has been muchshaken,both throughthe many exceptions to the masterplan and

because there is now anentirely different order of materialflowsandurbanexpectations than thatwhich obtained for the planners,necessitating the innovation of new institutional mechanisms.Conclusion: New Beginnings

Earlierconcerns with pollution that was visible and degradablearegiving wayto newtypesof pollutionwithverysmallquantitiesof synthetic chemicals that...damage the environment...Despiteuncertaintiesand insufficient knowledge, political andscientificdecisions concerningenvironmentalchange will increasinglybenecessary.91This essay' has argued that environment is a fluid concept,linking cultures, populations, materials and spaces in specificways in particularhistorical conjunctures. In the colonial period,public health andconcerns around nuisance shaped the strategiesthroughwhich thestatesought to manage spaces andpopulations.About a half century ago, the nuisance paradigm yielded to theplanning approach in a bid to tackle pollution that occurred innon-proximate instances. Over the last decade, land use planningitself has had to graduallyaccommodate environmental planning,first in the form- of statutory laws governing air and waterpollution and then as a discourse of rights, environment as

fundamentalright, as pronounced in numerousjudgments of theSupreme Court. Planning, in the 1950s had justified itself as ascience andadiagnostic of social needs thatcould addressgeneralgood throughspecific standards.Today, we reflect on thepossiblelimits of that science and the uncertainty that is intrinsic toregulatory science trying to cope with an ever rapidintroductionof new chemicals and wastes into our environment and try tounpack the new politics of environment - legal, technoscientificand highly mediated; precaution must take precedence overfollow-up. However, even in these contemporary environmen-talist discourses there is also the evocation of common nuisancelaws, planning prescriptions and provisions of statutory laws,suggesting that no one agenda totally eclipses another thougheach does seek to fashion the city in its own way. Reflectionson the contemporary city requires that we recover the ways inwhich we ordered our cities in the past, not with a view of areturn but to excavate their traces in our everyday habits andways of inhabiting the city. 533Email: sharan@sarai.net

Notes1 GitaDewanVerma,Slummingn India:A Chronicleof SlummsndTheirSaviours,PenguinBooks, Delhi, 2002.2 AmitaBaviskar,'The Politics of the City', Seminar, 16, August 2002;Dunu Roy, 'From Home to Estate', Seminar, 533, January2004.3 MarkHarrison,Climatesand Constitutions:Health,Race, Environmentand BritishImperialism n India, 1600-1850, OUP, Delhi, 1999.4 AlainCorbin,TheFoul and the Fragrant:Odorand the FrenchSocial

Imagination,HarvardUniversityPress, Cambridge,Mass, 1986, p 47.5 On"sanitary ity" nEngland ee ChristopherHamlin,PublicHealthandSocial Justice in the Age of Chadwick,Britain1800-1854, CambridgeUniversityPress, Cambridge,1998.6 MatthewGandy,ConcreteandClay:ReworkingNature n New YorkCity,MIT Press, Cambridge,Mass, 2002, p 8.7 ThomasOsbore, 'SecurityandVitality,Drains,Liberalism ndPower nthe19thCentury'nAndrewBerry,ThomasOsborne ndNikolasRose (eds),Foucault and Political Reason,Liberalism,Neo-Liberalism nd Ration-alities of Government,Routledge,Londonand New York,pp 99-122.8 Jyoti Hosagrahar, 'Design, Domination and Defiance: NegotiatingUrbanism n Delhi, 1857-1910', PhD, Diss, University of California,Berkeley, 1997.9 This in not to deny that there were significant social differentiationwithinEuropeanitieswithregardothenature fthemunicipalntervention.10 Gyan Prakash, 'The Colonial Genealogy of Society, Community and

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PoliticalModernitynIndia'nPatrickJoyce(ed),heSocial nQuestion,NewBearings n Historyand the Social Sciences,Routledge,2002, pp 81-96.11 Sandip Hazareesingh, Colonial Modernismand the Flawed Paradigmsof UrbanRenewal in Bombay, 1900-1925'. UrbanHistory,28, 2, 2001,pp235-55. Forexpenditures f Delhi municipalityon policingand otherfunctionssee NarayaniGupta, Delhi between Two Empires: Society,Government nd UrbanGrowth,1809-1931, Oxford UniversityPress,Delhi, 1998, pp 83-168.12 Gupta,Delhi betweenEmpires,pp 160-61.13 VijayPrashad,TheTechnologyof Sanitationn ColonialDelhi',ModernAsian Studies(hereafterMAS), 35, 1, 2001, pp 113-55.14 Gupta,Delhi betweenEmpires, pp 167-68.15 Gupta,DelhibetweenEmpires,Ch 6, 'The Strains of UrbanExpansion'and Hosagrahar, 'Design, Domination and Defiance', esp Ch 3,'ConstructingLandscapesof Health,Sanitation-andInfrastructure'.16 MarkHarrison,PublicHealthin BritishIndia, Delhi, FoundationBooks,1994, esp Ch 7, 'Public Healthand Local Self-Government'.17 Hosagrahar,Design, Dominationand Defiance', p 169.18 Prashad, SanitationTechnology', p 123.19 Harrison,Public Health in British India, p 76.20 Hosagrahar, Design, Domination and Defiance', p 147.21 JohnP S McLaren,Nuisance Lawand theIndustrialRevolution SomeLessons from Social History,' OxfordJournal of Legal Studies,Vol 3,No 2, 1983, pp 155-221.22 IndianPenalCode,Sections268-291, inEngland,nuisance aws hadbeenfirstpassed in 1846.23 M R Anderson, 'Public Nuisance and Private Purpose', SOAS lawdepartmentworkingpaper, 1, 1992.24 GyanPrakash,AnotherReason, Science and the Imaginationof ModernIndia, OUP, Delhi, 1999, p 131.25 Anderson.'Public Nuisance and Private Purpose'.26 VeenaTalwarOldenburg,TheMakingof ColonialLucknow,1856-1877,OUP, Delhi, 1985.27 ArthurC Crawford,The Developmentof New Bombay:A Pamphlet,Bombay, 1908, cited in MiriamDossal, 'A Master Plan for the City:Lookingat the Past', Economic and Political Weekly,Vol XL, No 36,September3-9, 2005, p 3899.28 Oldenburg,Colonial Lucknow,pp 112-16.29 Hosagrahar, Design, Domination and Defiance', p 174, fn 62.30 CharlesTrevelyan,cited in Gupta,Delhi between Empires,p 17.31 Gupta,Delhi between Empires, p 71.32 Gupta,DelhibetweenEmpires, p61,159; Hoshragar,Design,Dominationand Defiance', p 138 and A P Hume, Reporton Relief of Congestionin Delhi, Vol 1, Simla, 1936, p 38.33 Anderson,'Public Nuisance and PrivatePurpose', pp 24-25.34 ChristineRosen, 'KnowingIndustrialPollution:Nuisance Law and thePower of Tradition n a Time of RapidEconomicChange, 1840-1864',EnvironmentalHistory, Vol 8, No 3, October2003, pp 565-97.35 M R Anderson,'The Conquestof Smoke: Legislationand Pollution inColonialCalcutta' n David ArnoldandRamchandraGuha(eds),Nature&Culture ndImperialism:Essaysonthe EnvironmentalHistoryofSouthAsia, OUP, Delhi, 1995, pp 293-335. Andersonalso pointsout that theblame n the case of pollutionwas often passedon to the Indianworkers,suggestingthat class and racialdistinctions were nevertoo far off fromthe considerationsof traditionand modernity.36 Harrison,Climatesand Constitutions,p 176.37 Cited in Gyan Prakash,AnotherReason, p 130.38 Government f India(GoI), Reporton the Administrationof the DelhiMunicipalityor the Year1940-41, Vol II:AnnualReportof the MedicalOfficerof Health or 1940, p 26.39 GoI, 1932,Public HealthReporton theDelhiProvinceforthe Year1930,pp 1-2. Racial distinctions of this kind were invoked in many othercolonialcitiesinIndiaandelsewhere.See, Robert-Home,OfPlantingandPlanning,heMakingofBritishColonialities,EandFNSpon,London,1997.40 Cited in BharatSevakSamaj,Slumsof OldDelhi, Atma RamandSons,New Delhi, 1958, p 215.41 Cited in Hume, Congestion in Delhi, Vol 1, p 5.42 Hume,CongestionnDelhi, Vol 1,p22. The size of the excess populationwas based on the standardof 50 sqft of living space per person.43 Hume, Congestionin Delhi, Vol 1, pp 67-68.44 Gol, Reportof the Delhi ImprovementTrustEnquiryCommittee,Vol 1,Delhi, 1951.45 Hume,Congestionin Delhi, Vol 1, pp 38-39.46 Hazeerasingh,Colonial Modernism,p 242.47 Gol, Delhi ImprovementTrustEnquiry,Vol 1, p 25.48 Gol, Delhi ImprovementTrustEnquiry,Vol 1, p 11.49 Gol, Delhi ImprovementTrustEnquiry,Vol 1, p 13.50 PanditThakurDas Bhargava,Lok SabhaDebates, 1955,Vol IX, PartII,p 1838.

51 Gol, Delhi ImprovementTrustEnquiryReport,Vol 1, p 21.52 RajkumariAmritKaur,LokSabhaDebates, 1955,Vol IX,Part I,p 1890.53 Letter romRajkumari mritKaur oDouglas Ensminger,FordFoundationRepresentativen India,January14, 1956. Ford FoundationArchives,NY. A Town Planning Organisation had been set up prior to thearrival of the American consultants that had prepared an interimgeneralplan for the city, a "holding the line" operation awaitingthe making of a regional master plan. See George Goetschius,'TPO: History and Current Affairs' (nd), Albert Mayer Papers(hereafterAM papers),box no 23, folder 3, Universityof Chicagosplcollections.54 JamesScott, Seeing Likea State: How CertainSchemesto Improve heHumanConditionHave Failed, Yale University Press, 1998.55 On heNew YorkPlan eeDavidAJohnson,Planning heGreatMetropolis:The 1929 RegionalPlan of New Yorkand Its Environs, London, E andFN Spon, 1996, On GardenCity Movement see Stephen Ward (ed),Garden City, Past, Present and Future, Spon Press, 1992.56 AlbertMayer,AM Papers, box 21, folder 35.57 AM Papers, box 22, folder4, LetterMay 15, 1957.58 AlbertMayerto JawaharlalNehru,May 15, 1957,AM Papers, box 22,folder 4.59 See the note, 'Study-Work Plan, Slum Clearance and UrbanRedevelopment Section', first draft (revised) (nd), Ford Foundationarchives, NY.60 Delhi DevelopmentAuthority,Master Planfor Delhi, 1962 (hereafterMPD-62), p 27.61 MPD-62, p 44.62 MohanlalSaxena,LokSabhaDebates, 1955,Vol IX,Part I.December7,

1955, p 1728.63 Naval Prabhakar,LokSabha Debates, 1955, Vol IX, PartII, p 1739.64 MPD-62, p 28.65 JawaharlalNehru, Foreword', o BharatSevakSamaj,Slus ofOldDelhi,Atma Ram and Sons, Delhi, 1958.66 BharatSevak Samaj,Slums, p 217.67 Bharat Sevak Samaj,Slums, p 150.68 Bharat Sevak Samaj,Slums, pp 183, 85, 72.69 BharatSevak Samaj, Slums, p 209.70 Jagmohan,slandof Truth,VikasPublishingHouse,Delhi, 1978,pp9, 14.71 MarshallB Clinnard,'Reportof a Pilot Projectin UrbanCommunityDevelopment',FordFoundationProgrammeLetter, ndia,ReportNo 112.May 23, 1960.72 B Chatterjee,director.Delhi Municipal Corporation, The Delhi UrbanCommunityDevelopmentProject',FordFoundationndia,ReportNo 130,July 12, 1962.73 AlbertMayerto JawaharlalNehru,May 15, 1957, AM Papers,box 22,folder 4.74 Onthe interplayof civil andpolitical society see, ParthaChatterjee,ThePolitics of the Governed,Reflectionson PopularPolitics in Most of theWorld,Columbia UniversityPress, 2004.75 ArthusV N Brooks, 'The Office File Box' in CharlesHaar andJeroldKayden (eds), Zoning and the American Dream, American PlanningAssociation, 1990, p 29.76 Brooks, 'The Office File Box' in HaarandKayden(eds), Zoning,p 14.77 Earl FinbarMurphy, Euclid and the Environment' n Haarand Kayden(eds), Zoning, p 169.78 CharlesHaar, InAccordancewith aComprehensivePlan',HarvardLawReview,68, 1955. Citedin RobertNelson, Zoningand PropertyRights,MIT Press, 1980, p 60.79 MPD-62, p 44.80 Inzoning nBombay eeAnnapurnahaw, ThePlanning ndDevelopmentof New Bombay', MAS, 33, 4, 1999, pp 951-88.81 J P Sah, 'A Note on Urban Land Policy', 1961, AM Papers, box 22,folder 23.82 Noxious/nuisanceindustrieswere describedin the masterplan as anyindustry Which Is or May be Dangerousto Life or Injuri6us o Healthor PropertyCaused by Fumes, Effluent or Smoke or by ProducingorStoring InflammableMaterials', MPD-62, p 46.83 WeeklyReport, September30, October 12, 1957, AM Papers, box 23,folder 11.84 MPD-62, p 71, p 51.85 MPD-62, p 22.86 MPD-62, p 83; p 153.87 MPD-62, p 85.88 MPD-62, p 27.89 DDA, WorkStudies,Vol 1, p 188. On consultationpriorto relocationsee 'Social StudiesandACtionnPlanning,'AMPapers,box23, folder20.90 Anand,AptayandJhabvala,Whya MasterPlan orDelhi',TheHindustanTimes, August 21, 1960.91 Go, MoEF, 1992, Policy Statement or Abatementof Pollution,p 2.

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