The Gujarat Model — why walls can't hide the truth

Carolisa Monterio, a Bollywood singer, aptly pointed out that after being Chief Minister of Gujarat for 12 years and Prime Minister of India for six years, Narendra Modi still needs a wall to hide his ‘Gujarat Model’ from US President Donald Trump. Perhaps, Modi can hide the ‘model’ from Trump on his visit to India, but the spread of abysmal poverty and inequity in the country, and in Gujarat, cannot be hidden by building walls or by hiding data.

It is interesting to note that Modi and Trump enjoy deep roots of commonality in their ideas of governance and politics. Both are anti-minority, and use jingoism to justify their hatred towards working people, especially the poor. Trump is known for his stance against immigrants, and for building a wall along the Mexico border. Similarly, Modi is targeting the marginalised, the minorities and the poor in India to consolidate his politics. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the proposal for a National Register of Citizens (NRC) point toward the anti-minority and anti-poor stance of the Modi government.

Back to the wall now built to wall off an Ahmedabad ‘basti’ where 700 families live: It has come to light that invariably, all of the basti’s residents are engaged in informal labour and have been demanding civic amenities from the municipal authorities. Instead of recognising that swathes of poor settlements are prevalent across the country and in Gujarat, Modi wants to hide them as the much-touted model of ‘vibrant’ Gujarat would be shattered if the world comes to know the state of affairs in his home state -- forget ‘vikas’, even open defecation continues to prevail in that state.

Urban India is witnessing one of the worst challenges as far as poverty is concerned. It is not a hidden fact that humongous inequality exists in the cities, which has further accentuated in the last three decades and particularly since 2014. An Oxfam report has starkly pointed out that 63 individuals own assets worth more than the total budget of the Government of India. A comparison of rural and urban inequality is revealing: the gap between the top 10% and bottom 10% of asset holders in rural India is 500 times; in urban India, that gap is about 50,000 times.

Modi’s rule and the ‘Gujarat Model’ have widened the gap. Since Modi took power, the governance model and city development model in the country saw a dramatic alteration from the past. This is not to say that Modi’s predecessors were pro-poor and designed policies to address urban poverty but only to point out that Modi’s rule has brought about a transformation in city development model. In simple terms, it meant that a change was effectively brought out to ensure that city governance models and development models are not restricted to just managing the affairs of the city -- for example, providing civic amenities like water, sanitation, housing, etc. -- but to effectively run the city as an ‘entrepreneur’. And for that, city governance structures had to take on the onerous task of attracting investments.

This transformation, typical of the ‘Gujarat Model’, was first announced in the form of 100 smart cities, wherein cities were asked to be competitive and ensure that investments take place for city development. This was a clear departure from the past. To attract investments, certain fundamental changes were asked to be brought about in the development trajectory. Land monetisation was one such change. In more than 85% of the smart city proposals, the cities have opted for redevelopment projects. The second form of investment was to be sought in pan-city development, which had more to do with the Internet of Things.

The redevelopment model of cities leads to large-scale eviction of the poor and marginalised groups. It is estimated that a slum dweller is evicted from Indian cities every three minutes. In some large cities, the slum populations comprise nearly 50% of the population and in many cases, the slums occupy what is called ‘prime land’.

Another form of assault on the urban poor is through the virtual privatisation of housing in the cities. More than 25% of public housing is the universally accepted model of inclusive housing. In India, public housing has fallen from 6% to 3%. This has led to massive sprouting of urban slums. Since the urban poor, amongst whom a large population comprise migrant workers, are unable to bear the cost of private housing in the cities, they are forced to live in slums. The mounting cost of utilities, education, health and even water add to the massive surplus that capital extracts from people in the cities.

The 100 Smart Cities model, by which the cities were supposed to become beacons of urbanisation in India, is already fading. However, what the model has created and will leave behind is more urban sprawl, and more urban poor, now worse off than before.

It is this failure of the Modi government which came in boasting of creating sparkling cities, applauding the massive use of technology to provide urban solutions, that the wall in Ahmedabad brings into view.

The data reveals that neither Indian cities have become open-defecation free, nor have they been able to attract investments for their development. And instead of accepting the failure of its model, the Modi government has decided to hide it – from Indians, by not releasing the data on urban poverty; and from outsiders like Trump, by building walls. But these walls are not enough to hide the reality.

Poverty has struck deep roots into our society over generations. We can dream of throwing it off our backs, but the reality is that without bringing in a qualitative change in the development paradigm, our vulnerability will only continue to accentuate.

(The writer is a former deputy mayor of Shimla)