The “missing middle”: Participatory urban governance in

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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***DRAFT PAPER: DO NOT CITE WITHOUT CONTACTING AUTHOR***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 StudiesUniversity of Warwick, 13-14 December 2010

AbstractThis research challenges orthodox theories of class and urban governance, and is empiricallylocated in Delhi, India. The paper critiques orthodox theories of urban participatorygovernance in the global South, which polarise urban citizens and their civic strategies intothe elite, typically understood as guilty of ‘capturing’ participatory structures, and the poor,largely conceptualized as excluded from formal governance mechanisms but active in morepoliticized forms of civic mobilization, arguing that these orthodox theories are incomplete.This research identifies urban citizens who fit neither the ‘elite’ not ‘poor’ orthodoxconceptual binary, and explores how such citizens engage in participatory urban governance.Empirically, research addresses Delhi’s unauthorized colonies (UCs), residential areas thathave evolved mostly on private land that is not classified “residential” in the Delhi MasterPlan. Housing roughly half of Delhi’s population and comprising a mix of class type, UCsare technically illegal locations for residential development, and are consequently excludedfrom Delhi’s network of basic urban services (water, roads, electricity) and face potentialeviction. Unauthorized colonies are conceptualised as representing India’s ‘missing middle’:comprising the ‘real’ middle class; revealing the failure of orthodox binary concepts toaccurately describe participatory urban governance for those in ‘the middle’; and highlightinghow UCs’ invisibility (linked to their heterogeneity – i.e. their ‘middle-ness’) functions asboth an asset and a limitation in terms of participation in urban governance. The paper callsfor greater recognition in academic and policy debates regarding the nuances in everyday lifethat are overlooked by orthodox governance binaries. As the Delhi case shows, a largeproportion of urban populations are neither ‘poor’ nor ‘elite’, and arguably a similar trend islikely to exist in cities throughout the world where segments of populations demographicallyin ‘the middle’ are ‘missing’ from academic and policy debates.

.I. Introduction

This paper analyses the relationship between socio-economic class and participatory practicesamongst residents of Delhi’s unauthorized colonies (UCs). Orthodox literature on urbangovernance in the global South, which polarises urban citizens and their mobilizationstrategies into the elite, typically understood as guilty of ‘capturing’ participatory structures;and the poor, largely conceptualized as excluded from formal governance mechanisms butactive 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 classifiedas neither ‘elite’ nor ‘poor’, and explores how citizens who fall outside this orthdoxconceptual binary engage in participatory urban governance. More specifically, our research

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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 deepenunderstanding 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 ofcitizenship as reserved for those demonstrating ‘proper’ behaviour within their legal rightsand responsibilities, and consequently a label concentrated amongst elites, excluding forexample the ‘illegal’ activities of the poor). Participatory urban governance is conceptualizedas 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 ofparticipation) 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 urbangovernance.

India, and more specifically Delhi, provides an ideal empirical context for exploring urbanparticipatory governance for at least two reasons. Firstly, the Bhagidari scheme, an urbanparticipatory device launched in 2000 by the Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dixit provides arich example of a clear political emphasis on participatory governance in urban management.The scheme, defining itself as “a citizen–government partnership” (Bhagidari website)1 isdesigned to facilitate concertation between residents and city administrators in order todevelop 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 numerouscritical studies (e.g. Mawdsley, 2009; Tawa Lama-Rewal, 2007, Mehra, 2009). Secondly,Indian cities in particular have inspired new theoretical developments regarding localdemocracy that have informed international debates regarding urban citizenship and everydaypolitics (e.g. Holston and Appadurai, 1996; Chatterjee 2004; Harriss 2007).

In terms of the empirical focus, unauthorized colonies (UCs) are a particularly heuristic objecton four grounds. Firstly, residents of UCs are neither exclusively poor nor elite, but comprisea diverse mix of class type and hold an amorphous position in the city’s political and socialspaces, straddling the porous line between legality and illegality. Secondly, UCs possess aclear and distinct issue around which residents can mobilize, i.e. the regularization of the landon which occupants reside. Thirdly, previous research on mobilization and participatorystrategies in Indian cities has not considered the positionality or methods employed by UCresidents, instead focusing largely on ‘slum-dwellers’ and/or the elite ‘middle-classes’ asanalytical juxtapositions. And fourthly, UCs accommodate roughly 50% of urban dwellers inDelhi2 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 withmembers of RWAs located in different types of UCs, which could be broadly described aspoor, middle and wealthy in terms of residents’ socio-economic status and each settlement’s

1 http://delhigovt.nic.in/bhagi.asp2 The estimate of 50% was asserted by officials (e.g. MCD Chief Town Planner, 01/04/09), although accuratedata is absent. Furthermore, the MCD commissionner Rakesh Mehta, in a note submitted in 2004 to theNanavati commission on UCs, stated that “ a majority of constructions is unauthorised… the ratio betweenunauthorised and regular colonies is 75-25 per cent” (The Indian Express, 01/01/2004) However this figureprobably conflates UCs with slums.

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physical characteristics.3 The elected representatives of these residential areas (municipalcouncillors and Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) of Delhi) were alsointerviewed, representing the two dominant political parties, BJP and Congress.4 In addition,interviews were undertaken with bureaucrats responsible for UCs in the MunicipalCorporation 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 inDelhi’s governance. Members of one NGO which has been very involved in fighting theregularization of unauthorized colonies in court were interviewed. Finally five follow-upinterviews were conducted in November 2010 (with officials and RWA members) to provideresearch continuity. Altogether 27 interviews were conducted,5 a small but representativesample 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. Variousdocuments were also collected and analysed, including some very elusive data, such as theofficial list of UCs, analysis of which highlights the concentration of unauthorized colonies onthe city outskirts.

The research findings qualify unauthorized colonies (UCs) as the “missing middle” (toborrow 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 thanelite) class; that RWAs in UCs highlight the failure of orthodox binary concepts to accuratelydescribe participatory governance in cities; and that the relative invisibility of this hugepopulation, which is very much linked to its essential heterogeneity, is both an asset and alimitation as far as mobilization is concerned.

The paper proceeds by firstly describing the empirical context of Resident WelfareAssociations in the context of Delhi’s Bhagidari scheme, as well as the physical and politicalevolvement of unauthorized colonies, including the regularization drive launched in 2007.Secondly, the research is framed around two orthodox theoretical debates, the relationshipbetween different modes of participatory urban governance on the one hand, and thedefinition of middle class in India on the other. Thirdly, discussion and analysis of theresearch findings, conceptualizing unauthorized colonies as representing India’s ‘missingmiddle’ in terms of class, participatory governance hybridity, political/civic activism andinvisibility is presented; and the paper concludes by discussing the theoretical and empiricalconsequences of being both “middle” and “missing”.

.II. The empirical context: Participation, land and class in contemporary Delhi

2.1 Participation in practice: Delhi’s Resident Welfare Associations

3 Interviews were undertaken with RWAs in ten UCs, spread geographically throughout the city, of which twowere wealthy, five were ‘middle’, and three poor (in relative terms).4 It is worth noting that fieldwork was undertaken in the run-up to the 2009 general elections, and thus interviewswith some politicians were clearly affected by electioneering mantras.5 Some interviews were with single individuals (e.g. officials), others were group interviews (e.g. office bearersof a RWA). In total 35 people were interviewed, though this was not always in a planned manner, as peoplesometimes joined group interviews in an ad-hoc fashion.6 Mawdsley et al (2009) use the phrase ‘missing middle’ in a different context with a different meaning,highlighting the failure of conservation discourse and policy to acknowledge the role played by the urbanmiddle-classes (e.g. as domestic visitors to India’s protected areas).

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Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) are commonplace in India’s urban middle-classneighbourhoods,7 and have existed in Delhi since the 1950s. In Delhi’s authorized colonies,RWAs are linked to the occupation process following the construction and/or sale of plots bythe Delhi Development Authority (DDA).8 RWAs are non profit associations, funded viamonthly resident subscriptions, whose self proclaimed role is to represent the inhabitants of aphysical area; typically a colony, street, or building. Although the activities of RWAs varysignificantly, and some function primarily as management committees (especially in newhousing estates and apartment blocks), they are usually concerned with infrastructure andbasic services in the area: for example roads, parks, water, electricity, and solid wasteremoval. They also generally promote local conviviality, through the celebration of festivals,and sometimes through the creation of an informal assistance service. The strategiesemployed by RWAs to secure and maintain services and infrastructure from municipalitiesand other public authorities range from clientelist strategies of personal persuasion, to thecollective organization of demands and complaints (e.g. via petitions and marches),depending on the class, education and connections of residents (Arabindoo, 2008). AlthoughRWAs exclusively prioritise the needs of residents within a small bounded physical area,more recently RWAs in Delhi have extended these self-serving interests beyondneighbourhood-level issues, promoting a middle-class agenda of ‘proper’ citizenship acrossthe city. The disproportional voice of RWAs in city politics is consequently criticized forpromoting an exclusive ‘middle class’ agenda as the sole vision of urban society. Forexample, promoting the ‘greening’ of the city, to the exclusion of other potentially lessorganized but often more numerous urban voices, such as the poor’s need for basic services(e.g. Fernandes, 2004; Baviskar and Ray, 2009). This exclusion is justified by the RWAnormative vision of urban citizenship as restricted to ‘respectable’ and ‘tax-paying’ urban-dwellers (i.e. the middle-classes), in contrast to ‘illegitimate’ and ‘burdensome’ urban-dwellers (i.e. the poor).9

In Delhi, Bhagidari (meaning ‘partnership’ in Hindi) was established in 2000, officially for“developing a democratic framework in which citizen groups can communicate and act inpartnership with government servants in order to solve simple, daily problems”,10 and thescheme is almost exclusively channeled via RWAs from authorized colonies. The Bhagidarischeme comprises regularly organized thematic workshops (usually lasting three days),through which representatives of RWAs and the various administrations dealing with urbanservices meet and debate, with the intention that they collaborate (rather than conflict) as‘Team Delhi’ to resolve common problems by identifying “consensual propositions”, a keynotion of the scheme.

7 Although there are a handful of RWAs situated outside of middle-class neighbourhoods, e.g. in slums andlower class neighbourhoods (Coelho and Venkat, 2009) the overwhelming majority are in middle-class areas.8 DDA is an agency of the Central Government created in 1957 to prepare and implement the Master Plan in theCapital. This process requires the creation of cooperative housing societies who subsequently applied for theallocation of a vacant plot or building, with allocation ultimately conducted through a draw of lots among the listof applicants. Typically, a few decades after the creation of the cooperative society, the residents of the plot nolonger coincide with the society´s original members, and consequently a RWA is formed, to voice the concernsof actual residents (new owners, heirs or, albeit less often, tenants).9 Of course, RWAs are not a homogenous group, and the ‘voice(s)’ of RWAs are easily usurped by a handful ofhighly vocal RWA federations. Indeed, during the 2006 master plan debate in Delhi the differences betweenRWA interests became evident, with more affluent RWAs supporting zoning, in contrast to a petition for mixed-land-use amongst RWAs in more lower-middle-class colonies.10 Delhi smiles (brochure of the Bhagidari scheme, Delhi government, 2007)

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There is significant literature analysing the impact of the Bhagidari scheme on urban politicsand everyday life in Delhi (e.g. Tawa Lama-Rewal, 2007; Chakrabarti, 2009; Mawdsley,2009). To summarise, Bhagidari has been largely captured by an elite (upper-middle andmiddle-middle class); functions as a springboard for RWAs to transform themselves into aninterest group (e.g. through forming large federations) whose interests and voice extendbeyond localised ‘residential’ issues; and provides RWAs (rather than residents per se) withsignificant influence and authority in urban governance via privileged access to the media andcourts (for example, RWAs were highly vocal in the conflict over land use that shook Delhi in2006-2007). Thus, RWAs in Delhi can be understood as a powerful platform for defendingand promoting apparently middle-class agendas in city politics, often to the exclusion ofother, less powerful but often more numerous, voices. These Delhi-based developmentsindicate the transition of RWAs from neutral mediums for channelling information betweengovernment and neighbourhood-based citizens, to political actors in their own right (i.e.separate from party politics),11 promoting a highly class-based vision of democracy for thecity as a whole.

These findings are reflected elsewhere in India, where there is widespread recognition in theliterature that despite the existence of a significant range of national and local strategies andinstitutions promoting (at least officially) the decentralisation of democracy, in India’s cities,participatory strategies are not only ‘captured’ by the elite to promote middle-class agendas,but in practice serve to actively exclude the urban working poor (e.g. Harriss 2007, 2010;Zerah, 2009). Harriss (2010:18) sums this neatly by commenting that: “democraticdecentralisation in India’s big cities is, quite simply, a sham”.

2.2 Unauthorised Colonies: Delhi’s ‘missing’ citizensOne major criticism of the Bhagidari scheme is that in requiring participation almostexclusively via RWAs in authorized colonies, it essentially caters to a minority of residents.Indeed, beside the approximately three million people living in squatter settlements(commonly referred to as ‘slum dwellers’), it is estimated that about half of Delhi’spopulation, up to six million people, live in roughly 163912 unauthorised colonies (UCs).Consequently, the reliance on Bhagidari (and the accompanying insistence on RWAs inauthorised colonies as the sole method of involvement in the scheme) as Delhi’s primarymechanism to achieve participatory urban governance is necessarily exclusionary.13

Furthermore, the dominance of theories juxtapositioning slum-dwellers against the elite inconceptualising India’s participatory urban governance has lead to a major omission, ignoringthe role played by up to half of Delhi’s population, unauthorised colony residents.

UCs are residential areas that have evolved over many years mostly on private land14, largelyon the city outskirts (with a concentration in South West and Trans-Yamuna areas), whereland costs are lower. They are ‘unauthorised’ because the land on which they reside was notclassified “residential” in the Delhi Master Plan, largely due to the corrupt practices of

11For example, RWA- (rather than party-) sponsored electoral candidates have appeared in Delhi (Harriss,

2010).12 This figure is based on the number of applications for regularisation received in the 2007/08 regularisationdrive.13 Although the Delhi government has recently announced its intention to extended RWAs beyond middle-classcolonies (Harriss, 2010), so far this has only been achieved in UCs rather than slums. Furthermore, middle-classRWAs in authorised colonies continue to dominate the Bhagidari process.14 A minority (about a quarter, according to the Nanavati report, 2005) of UCs are built on public land.

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developers, contractors and officials of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).15 Over theyears, the DDA failed to provide adequate housing and/or sufficient land zoned residential tomeet the rapidly expanding population of Delhi, a failure that has primarily affected the poor,but also has a profound impact on the residential locations and practices of the lower- andmiddle-middle class, and even the rich in some cases. Therefore, a very centralized planningpolicy has resulted in highly unplanned citizen-led forms of urban development as citizenshave purchased and/or built structures on land not officially residential. Thus while manyresidents of UCs are the legal owners of their land/house16 and may have resided there forseveral decades, their property is illegal from the perspective of planning authorities,17 andconsequently these colonies are not included in Delhi’s network of basic urban services (e.g.water, roads, electricity, sanitation, sewerage).

The majority of UC inhabitants are lower-middle class. In some cases the physicalcharacteristics of the UC resemble a slum, while other UCs are occupied by the rich and well-connected, who have built their own roads, secured water from private (illegal) wells andelectricity from private generators (with private installation and maintenance paid collectivelyby residents). Most UCs have electricity and water (privately-provided), but the provision ofother services (e.g. cement roads, streetlights, sewers, drains, solid waste management) variessignificantly. Living in an UC (as opposed to an authorised colony) essentially means livingwithout legal access to basic urban services (although many UCs provide these servicesprivately and/or illegally),18 as well as the constant threat of demolition, particularly forhouses constructed after the most recent ‘cut off date’,19 and consequently also exposure toextortion by corrupt policemen.20 The regularization of UCs is therefore much desired by allUC residents regardless of socio-economic status or geographic location.

2.3 The regularization process: from unauthorized to ‘regularised’ coloniesGiven the complexity of Delhi’s governance, the intricate details of repeated drives toregularize Delhi’s UCs are beyond the scope of this paper, involving the Supreme Court, theDelhi High Court, as well as the three scales of government (central, regional, municipal). Wesimply mention that there have been three regularization drives in the past: 1961 (110colonies), 1969 (101), and 1977 (567) (Mathur, 2006).21 These drives are closely linked to

15 DDA is the parastatal agency in charge of land acquisition and development in Delhi.16 Legal in the sense that it was registered with the deeds office (with stamp duty paid) and/or they signed anaffidavit with the previous owner(s).17 Although a court might uphold their right to ownership based on purchase and occupation.18 Anecdotally, a further feature of UCs that we noted during fieldwork is their lack of open and/or collectivespaces, for example community centres, parks. Connected to this, it was evident, even in very wealthy UCs, thatthe spaces in between houses were dilapidated, indicating a lack of care beyond the boundary of individual plots.19 The ‘cut off date’ refers to the most recent High Court deadline for allowing construction in UCs, with anyconstruction after this date at risk of demolition and not eligible for regularisation. However, there is confusionabout this date. Initial interviews (March/April 2009) indicated 31 March 2002 as the cut off date, while morerecent interviews (November 2010) suggest that the 2002 cut-off date concerns only the boundaries of the UC,while the cut-off date for individual constructions is 2007, i.e. the time when the regularization process wasannounced. The lack of clarity amongst officials regarding the cut off date suggests broad acceptance that no UCdemolitions will occur and that ultimately services will be provided.20As one UC resident explained to us: “last year the Supreme Court ordered that all walls in Sainik Farm … hadto be lowered to 5ft … so we started to lower our wall. The police saw us and came and asked for a bribebecause we’re knocking a wall down and building [new construction is prohibited in UCs], even though theyknow that the Supreme Court asked us to do this” (25/03/09, Forest Lane RWA)21 It is important to note that ‘regularisation’ does not automatically turn an unauthorised colony into anauthorised colony (instead the settlement becomes a ‘regularised colony’), however, regularisation does meanthat services should now be provided by the state and also removes the threat of eviction.

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political elections, unsurprising given the potential electoral benefits of ‘regularising’ (orbeing seen to ‘regularise’) the living contexts of approximately half of Delhi’s population.Since 1993, a court case regarding the legality of regularisation is ongoing,22 and in 2006 theSupreme Court ruled that services must be provided in UCs prior to regularisation. TheCourt’s decision has proved a major obstacle to the previous politically-charged ease ofproviding ‘regularisation’ without any commitment to accompanied service provision.Nevertheless, regularisation remains a prominent electoral issue for both major parties.23

Thus, in December 2007, as the Delhi government prepared to face elections (in November2008), it announced its intention to regularize a number of UCs.24 The regularization processinvited UCs to form RWAs that would then play a major role of liaison between residents andauthorities. Between December 2007 and March 2008, RWAs in UCs were invited, throughthe press as well as by individual letters, to submit a number of documents (including layoutmaps). Approximately 1639 applications for regularization were received. Concurrently, theBhagidari scheme was opened to UCs as a specific category, and four one-day workshopswere organized exclusively for RWAs in UCs in April 2008.

In August 2008 1228 UCs received, via a highly politicised and publicised ceremony,“provisional certificates of regularization”, acknowledging that they had submitted all therequired documents and were eligible25 for regularization. These certificates were arguably anelection stunt intended to secure votes for the ruling party, and were criticized as such by theopposition party, the BJP, who claimed that merely providing certificates did nothing to alterthe daily hardships faced by residents of UCs. However, possession of certificates wasimplicitly interpreted by residents and local politicians as meaning that no demolition wouldoccur and also that services would start to be provided, and that politicians would nowactively engage with UCs.26

“The Delhi government keeps making announcements, but as you can see, the road isjust coming now because elections are here, but otherwise nothing happens ... The mainthing is that because there is a certificate we feel better, we feel recognised, but if afterone year nothing happens then we will feel very bad again. (18/03/09,, Defence EnclaveRWA)27

“We have got provisional certificates but we are still demanding basic amenities fromofficials. It saves further demolitions though because we are provided with provisionalcertificate” (27/03/09, Khanpur RWA)

22 This Court case was initiated by a Public Interest Litigation filed by the NGO Common Cause, who argue thatUCs should not be rewarded for their illegality by being regularised.23 During fieldwork we were repeatedly told by representatives of both the major political parties, the BJP aswell as the Congress, that they have had this issue at their heart.24The regularisation drive is a joint project between the Delhi government and the central government (Ministryof Urban Development).25 UC were considered non-eligible for regularization whenever they encroached on forest land, the ridge, onland administered by the Archeological Survey of India (e.g. proximate to a monument), or on land proposed formajor road/rail developments (DDA, 2008). In addition, affluent RWAs were also excluded from theregularisation process (an UC is considered ‘affluent’ when at least 50% of its plots are larger than 350m sq,Mathur, 2006:20), as were buildings used for non-residential purposes as well as UCs where more than 50% ofplots were unbuilt at the time of document submission (DDA, 2008).26 And anecdotally, we did observe roads being built in several UCs (see Defence Enclave quotation, 18/03/09).27 Interviews with RWAs are recorded by date and location, thus anonymising individual officer-bearers.Interviews with public officials and politicians are also anonymised, although their official position at the time ofthe interview is provided.

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Sheila Dixit, the Chief Minister of Delhi, was elected for the third successive time in 2008, anexceptional event in contemporary India, with many observers partly attributing thisunprecedented resistance to anti-incumbency to the relationship of trust that she hasestablished with the middle classes in the capital city. More specifically, it was estimated thatshe mobilized the residents of authorized colonies in 2003 due to the Bhagidari scheme, andthose of UCs in 2008, thanks to the regularization process. However, once elections werecomplete, almost overnight newspapers stopped reporting on the regularization process and itbecame unclear whether the process was terminated or ongoing. It later became evident that aperiod of 12 months was granted to “complete the formalities before formal regularisation”,although this was later extended by another year, to October 2010.28

The officials we met at the MCD and DDA explained that they were now (April 2009)checking documents and doing surveys (e.g. to check boundaries and extent of developmentin UCs).29 The next phase would request inhabitants of UCs to pay development and landcharges30 in addition to penalties, before development is finalised. However, previousregularization drives suggest that payment of charges is usually avoided (Mathur, 2006:35), afact also hinted by a top level MCD bureaucrat.31 At the same time, some services were beinginstalled ahead of regularisation (to UCs on private land). 32 Thus while the future of UCs interms of service provision and regularisation remains uncertain, the 2008 establishment ofRWAs in UCs seems likely to continue as a voice for this overlooked yet demographicallydominant sector of Delhi.

.III. The theoretical context: participatory urban governance amongst India’s urbanmiddle classes

3.1 A series of binary conceptsThe theoretical framework comprises a series of binary concepts, all of which are theorthodox approach in contemporary discussions regarding urban local democracy.

A thorough exploration of the mass of literature debating participation as either essential inorder to “put the last first” (Chambers, 1997) or a problematic “new tyranny” (Cooke andKothari, 2001) is beyond the scope of this paper (and has been completed elsewhere, Mohan,2007). Instead, we focus on the distinction between ‘invited’ and ‘invented’ spaces ofparticipation (Cornwall, 2002a; Miraftab, 2004), a binary that is widely used in analysingpractices of political participation and mobilisation throughout the world. Invited spaces arethe dominant form of participation discussed in the literature (Sinwell, 2010), and are definedby participative procedures that are externally established, for example by the state and/ordonors, and to which more grass-roots organisations and/or individuals are requested toparticipate. They are suspected to pertain to a largely state-centred irenic vision of citizenparticipation and urban management (Mitlin, 2004). In contrast, ‘invented spaces’ describemore grassroots-led spaces of participation and political mobilisation that are largely

28 The Hindu, 21/08/2010.29 Return interviews over 18 months later confirmed that officials were still finalising boundaries and the extentof development, having had to return numerous incomplete and incorrect layout plans that RWAs had previouslysubmitted (Chief Town Planner, MCD, 01/11/10; DDA Deputy Director, 03/11/10)30 Development charges are for the provision of communal facilities, land charges are only for UCs located ongovernment land.31 MCD Chief Town Planner, 01/04/0932 This is linked to the Supreme Court ruling requiring service installation prior to regularisation.

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demonstrated by collective action that functions in confrontation (rather than concertation)with authorities, and these spaces are perceived as focused on challenging (rather thanworking alongside) dominant power relationships (Miraftab, 2004). Of course, the everydayreality of participatory efforts are more complex and nuanced, and although theinvited/invented binary provides a useful shorthand for distinguishing between different typesof ‘participation’, particularly in understanding the role of the state, we recognise that practiceis often more ‘messy’ than theory allows for, and that many mobilisation strategies and civicassociations straddle both the invited and invented.

Drawn from empirical research based on India, two authors have famously theorized theurban political scene in binary terms. John Harriss (2007:2717) underlines the differencebetween the “old politics of political parties and their mass movements, especially tradeunions ... a politics forged primarily in and over workplaces” and the “new politics ... built uparound voluntary organisations in civil society rather than political parties, around new socialmovements… rather than labour organizations, and … forged in communities rather than inworkplaces”. Similarly, Partha Chatterjee (2004) distinguishes between ‘civil’ and ‘political’society in describing the political mobilisation strategies of different urban dwellers. Whilecivil society is comprised of “proper” law-abiding urban citizens (i.e. the middle class) whoexercise rights as enshrined by law and are organised around neighbourhood-basedassociations, “political society” describes the mass of the urban poor who, living ininformality, can only access the state through local politicised arrangements and favours, inwhich political parties (at various scales) manage the relationship between “populations” andthe “government”. Chatterjee, who underlines more than Harriss the social dimension of thisevolution, has been discussed and used by a large number of writings on urban governancewithin and beyond the Indian context. Furthermore, although based on the Brazilian context,James Holston’s (2007) distinction between the “insurgent”, fighting for land, housing andtenure; and the “entrenched” in the city bears obvious similarities to both Harriss andChatterjee’s binary conceptualisations of urban everyday politics. His notion of ‘insurgentcitizenship’ (an oxymoron in Chatterjee’s terms), as the everyday practices of citizensnegotiating with the state and in doing so, disrupting the entrenched (i.e. inventedparticipation at its most active), has been widely adopted as a new way to understand andanalyse civic activism throughout the world (e.g. Friedmann, 2002; Miraftab, 2009; Meth,2010).33

These three pairs of concepts essentially seek to explain urban political behaviour byclassifying residents and their collective action into two distinct categories. Implicitly, theseclassifications are concentrated around issues of class: Harriss’ historical evolution ofdemocracy as shifting from labour-based political movements (i.e. working-class) to civilsociety-based associations (i.e. middle-class) effectively re-labels Chatterjee’s division ofurban dwellers’ political strategies into the politicisation of the poor (political society or ‘oldpolitics’) versus the civic engagement of the elite (civil society, or ‘new politics’), whileHolston’s classification of urban citizens as insurgent (read dissatisfied poor) versus theentrenched (read established middle-class) further demonstrates the underlying contrastbehind these concepts, comparing the political practices of the poor and middle class. This isneatly summed by Harriss (2005:33), who argues that “civil society is the arena for middle-

33 The framework for analysis in this research relies more heavily on Harriss and Chatterjee’s theorisation ofurban participation which is rooted in the Indian context. Limits of space preclude a similar depth of analysiswith regards to Holston’s Brazil-based theorisation, though his framework is mentioned in order to highlight thedominance of class-based urban governance binaries outside of the Indian context.

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class activism ... whilst the urban poor engage in politics”. However, while the middle-classes are understood as active in choosing civil society, the poor are “left with politics”,meaning that they are dependent on local ‘big-men’ (e.g. party leaders) and that their voice ismediated through party political channels (Harriss 2010:6). At the same time, the middle-class remains a largely undefined and amorphous category,34 while consideration of thosecitizens who fit neither label goes largely ignored.

3.2 The Indian middle class: an amorphous categoryThe growth of the Indian middle-class is an internationally recognized trend, evidenced by thearrival of high-class shopping malls and IT facilities in India’s cities, as well as theinternational travel habits of this new globalised elite. Despite fanfare surrounding theiremergence, the concept of middle-class in India is essentially ambiguous and highlycontested, with its definition the object of a large and ongoing debate among scholars (e.g.Fernandes, 2004; Sridharan, 2004; Deshpande, 2006; Mawdsley, 2009).

As an empirical reality, the middle classes are usually defined in terms of income level(Sridharan, 2004) and consumption patterns (Deshpande, 2006). Other, more contestedcriteria include type of occupation (manual versus non-manual), education level (Englishmedium versus indigenous language), place of residence (rural versus urban), andcaste/religious identity (Hindu upper castes versus others) (Baviskar and Ray, 2009).Depending on the criteria used, the middle classes are estimated to comprise between 6% and26% of India’s total population (Sridharan, 2004:414).35 In other words, they constitute, instrictly relative terms, the elite.36 Of course, as is confirmed through this research, the‘middle class’ label implies a homogeneity that is absent from reality, masking the culturaland socio-economic differentiation within this broad category (cf. Deshpande, 2006;Fernandes, 2007).

Projecting the binary concepts of political participation onto India’s new class-basedlandscape, Chatterjee’s (2004) ‘civil society’ essentially describes the middle-class vision ofthe city and citizenship as being restricted to ‘proper’ and ‘rightful’ citizens (e.g. those whopay tax and reside in houses in authorised colonies, i.e. the middle-class), demonstrated by theactions of middle-class activists in ‘cleaning and greening’ the city, removing all signs of‘dirt’ (both people and places). This highlights a major element of the new Indian middle-class, not just an empirical reality, but encompassing a normative vision of the future ofIndian society and acceptability. Indeed, Deshpande (2006) interprets the Indian middleclasses as an ideological project, comprising the new “moral majority”: even though they arefar from being the most numerous socio-economic category in India. In other words, theyoccupy a hegemonic position insofar as they represent what India wants to be in the twentyfirst century: educated, upwardly mobile, with a westernized consumption pattern (but notnecessarily westernized values). This idea of the new middle-class identity as emerging in thecontext of India’s contemporary economic liberalisation, is exemplified in Leela Fernandes’

34 Although ‘the poor’ is also a very broad and ambiguous label to classify, there are at least very clear economicindicators (e.g. income-based) and data sets available to quantify ‘the poor’.35 Nijman (2006) also mentions the Centre for Industrial and Economic Research and the National Council forApplied Economic Research, two research centres based in Delhi, who respectively estimate that 34% and 54%of households belong to the middle class category.36 The wide gap between these two figures underlines the ambiguousness of the notion of middle class in theIndian context: if we refer to the top 6% (in terms of income level) of the population, then ‘the middle class’ isclearly a euphemism for “the wealthy”; but if we refer to the top 26%, then the lower middle classes are alsoincluded.

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(2006) “consumer citizens”, actively demanding an Indian city that reflects their consumeristinterests.

.IV. Unauthorised Colonies: The “missing middle”Based on the research presented below, we argue that residents of UCs constitute “the missingmiddle” in three distinct ways: empirically, theoretically, and politically. This argument alsohighlights the limitations of binary conceptualizations in understanding everyday practices oflocal democracy and participatory governance, both within the Indian context, by highlightingthe multidimensional nature of UC residents’ issue-based discourses and mobilizationstrategies, but also at a wider scale, indicating the ways in which the orthodox poor/elitebinary excludes large demographic communities and over-simplifies reality.

4.1 The ‘real’ middle classUC residents are perhaps the only population in India whom one can design as truly middleclass, since they are both in the middle (in socio-economic terms), and comprise a majority inDelhi. Indeed residents of these colonies are an essentially heterogeneous population,comprising both the very rich and the very poor, although the majority are lower-middle/middle-middle class. According to the wife of a BJP MLA who herself is an attorneyat High Court, “people like us live there [in UCs]” (19/03/09), a sentiment confirmed byRWAs in UCs.

“Most of the people here are employees in private companies – airport, IT, call centres.It’s total [sic] middle class”(20/03/09, Raj Nagar RWA)

“People from lower class cannot afford to buy here and people from upper class are inposh colonies ... Here it is more middle middle class and lower middle class becauseland here is much cheaper than in posh colonies” (27/03/09, Khanpur RWA)

“This is a colony where generally the middle class try to come. The upper middle-classnever come here because they can afford the authorised areas. But for those who wanttheir own house, they have no choice – so they take a chance and buy in an unauthorisedcolony” (20/03/09, Vasent Kunj RWA)

“People living here are ... not the very poor, but not wealthy” (18/03/09, DefenceEnclave RWA)

Thus, UCs are arguably the location of India’s urban ‘middle’ citizens: situated in between thepoor and the elite37 in terms of both socio-economics (e.g. income and jobs) and their legalposition in the city. For while slum-dwellers living in informal and un-serviced areas faceongoing demolition (and occasionally re-settlement), and the elites and middle-classes inauthorised colonies enjoy complete security of tenure and service provision, residents of UCsencounter a mixed security of tenure (e.g. demolitions do occur, but there are no massevictions, and all pre-2007 structures are protected), as well as a mixed experience of serviceprovision (e.g. many UCs have private water and electricity, but other services are mixed).

37 Although there are a handful of UCs accommodating wealthy residents, these are on the whole not the elite ofDelhi, who, by the very nature of their ‘elite’ status (in socio-political rather than financial terms alone), reside inauthorised colonies. Nonetheless there are a very small number of elites (e.g. top army personnel and politicians)residing in specific UCs for historic reasons (e.g. Sainik farms was originally awarded to army officials).

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UCs are thus situated in between the poor and the wealthy, representing the demographic‘middle’ of India’s cities.

4.2 Invented and invited spaces of participationRWAs in UCs challenge the binary thinking that is orthodox in contemporary research onparticipation because they are both invented and invited spaces of participation. While theparticipation literature does acknowledge the possibility of groups using both invented andinvited forms of participation, the fluidity with which RWAs in UCs move between the two issignificant, providing further evidence of their essentially ‘middle’ positionality in bothempirical and theoretical terms. The hybrid nature of RWAs in UCs is evident from thecontrasted narratives provided when asking respondents to detail the raison d’être of the localRWA. There emerged three rationales for their existence:

.i. To replace the state: for example when RWAs are created in order to organize andmaintain the private provision of services such as water, sewerage and roads.

“We collected funds for the road, got it made, called some constructors to get the roaddone … so we tell our members, this will be the cost, so we collect the money and paythe constructors” (26/03/09, Neb Valley RWA)

“[The] resident association on our road looks after the generator room, pays the men’ssalary – which makes our electricity, it pays the road sweepers too, and the chowkidars[watchmen] … which comes from the money we pay to the RWA (25/03/09, ForestLane RWA)

“We are self-sufficient, we pool everyone – we did the road and sewer ourselves”(18/03/09, K block RWA, Mahilpalpur ward)

.ii. To fight the state: for example when RWAs are created in order to resist demolitionsand/or demand services from the state.

“The DDA wanted to demolish these houses, so associations were created to fightagainst the threat of demolition and protect people in unauthorised colonies. So weformed these associations of householders in every colony. These are the associationsof the people and they have a legal right to represent citizens of unauthorised coloniesto the government of Delhi because they are registered with the Registrar of Societies.Also we would go to the media to build up pressure on politicians” (18/03/09, K blockRWA, in Mahipalpur ward/zone)

“We formed this society and got it registered with the act. Then we started applyingfor water, electricity, roads – things like that (26/03/09, Neb Valley RWA)

“[We set up the RWA] to fight with local authorities for regularisation, for electricity,things like that” (20/03/09, Vasant Kunj RWA)

.iii. At the invitation of the state: for example when RWAs are created in order to apply forregularization of the colony.

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“[Our] RWA was created seven years ago – when some development had startedhappening in this area. The association was created because it was needed to talk withthe government. The government wanted some information from the area about water,electricity – so we had to form the association because the government won’t talk withthe people individually” (30/03/09, E block RWA, Sangam Vihar,)

A series of official reports on UCs reveal that RWAs are now deliberately encouraged by thestate. The Nanavati report, comparing the guidelines for regularization of UCs been issued in1977, 2001 and 2004, shows a gradual change in official approaches towards RWAs: from the1970s when there was no role for RWAs and the regularization process was entirely state-driven, towards an increased ‘invitation’ from the state for UCs to form RWAs from 2001onwards, and ultimately to the contemporary position whereby formingan RWAs is a -regularization requirement. For instance, while in 2001 layout plans were prepared by localauthorities working alongside RWAs, by 2004 these plans were prepared exclusively byRWAs and then presented to the state.38 The shift, from ‘encouraging’ to ‘requiring’ RWAsin UCs is equally clear from these two documents, completed only two years apart:

“The residents of these [unauthorized] colonies need to be encouraged to formassociations and get them registered as a society, so that there is a well defined body todeal with regularization matters.” (Mathur, 2006:33-4, our emphasis)

“The residents of each unauthorized colony/habitation shall establish a registeredResidents Society … This shall be a pre-condition for considering the case forregularization” (DDA, 2008:8, our emphasis)

Furthermore, it becomes clear that in encouraging RWAs, the state expects these invitedspaces of participation to function not merely as representatives in discussions betweenauthorities and residents, but also as government watchdogs: “RWAs … need to be activiatedto report unauthorized development and construction to the monitoring unit of the localbodies” (Mathur, 2006:53), thus implying a state-centred vision of participation, in line withcritics of invited participation.

Therefore, while some RWAs in UCs have historically emerged as anti-participatory (.i. toreplace the state) and/or as spaces of invented participation (.ii. to fight the state), morerecently both new and pre-existing RWAs in UCs are functioning as invited spaces ofparticipation (.iii. at state’s behest). While invited and invented modes of participation areoften theorised as mutually exclusive, existing literature does indicate the possibility ofassociations functioning with “fluidity” between invited and invented participation (Miraftab,2004:1), though few empirical examples are offered. Thus, the multiple rationalities andstrategies of RWAs in UCs again highlights their essentially ‘middle’ nature, neither onething nor the other, but a composite of orthodox theoretical binaries.

4.3 ‘Middle’ strategies of mobilization: political and civil societyHybridity also defines the registers of discourse and repertoires of collective action used byRWAs in UCs. UCs successfully employ discourses and strategies that are typically perceived

38However, RWA preparation of layout plans has in practice been highly problematic as the absence of technicalprecision and lack of uniformity between submitted plans has slowed official responses and resulted in layoutplans being rejected (MCD Chief Town Planner 01/11/10; DDA Deputy Director 03/11/10; K block RWAMahipalpur, 03/11/10).

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as methods of the poor, for example engagement with political parties and claiming a basichuman right to services; in addition to reliance on typically ‘elite’ discourses and mobilizationstrategies, for example claiming respectability based on tax-paying and ‘good’ citizenship,forming neighborhood associations and blaming the state rather than self-interest for theirpredicament. While party politics are traditionally understood as giving a ‘voice’ only to thepoor (albeit one mediated through corrupt and non-democratic practices), with civil society(divorced from party politics) reserved for the middle-classes, the case of unauthorised colonyresidents reveals the porous nature of these binaries. Consequently the orthodox binariesshaping academic and popular debates on participation and governance in India’s cities do notadequately explain the practices of UCs. For instance, an MLA declares:

“the party is more popular in unauthorised colonies [than in authorised colonies]because they need more, so they are very active to contact us, [or to contact] anygovernment agency. So people in UCs are much more [politically] active than people inauthorised colonies.” (19/03/09, BJP MLA)

The role of party politics in associational life and collective organisation is paramount inIndia’s cities. Surveys in Delhi reveal the importance of political parties in poor people’sstrategies to secure basic services (Harriss, 2006), revealing the way that the poor’s collectiveorganisations are entrenched in party-based politics and divided along party lines. In contrast,middle-class collective organisations (e.g. RWAs in authorised colonies) have insteadwithdrawn from party politics altogether, instead arguing for the importance of their voicebased on ‘respectibility’ and ‘proper citizenship’. Combining the strategies of bothapproaches, RWAs in UCs utilise party-based political actors, whilst also claimingrespectability and ‘proper’ behaviour.

The old politics of political societyAlthough RWAs in UCs officially emphasise a non-political status (as in middle-classauthorised colonies), at the same time, a large number of RWA office-bearers in UCs are alsoparty workers, highlighting the blurred line between RWA (civil society) and party (politicalsociety) activities. For example, the vice-president of the Neb Valley RWA admitted hispolitical role as editor of the Congress Party magazine and then later explained the utility ofthis political position:

“I have a problem – if I look at the government plans for a highway over here then myhouse is in that plan. Now obviously the man who drew that line for the highway he didnot know there were houses there [because the land is zoned non-residential in the DelhiMaster Plan]. So now I am going to pull a million strings to stop this. So they will bepressured – they will get phone calls saying “no, don’t demolish Mr S----‘s house” sothey won’t want to get involved” (26/03/09, Neb Valley RWA).

This quotation in itself exemplifies the presence of a ‘political society’ system of clientalismand patronage amongst UC RWAs, a strategy more typically associated with the poor than thewealthy. Furthermore, this was not an isolated example: amongst the ten UC RWAs that wereinterviewed, four acknowledged having office bearers who were also political party workers(Neb Valley, S Block: Khirki extension, Khanpur, and Sangham Vihar), and wheninterviewing a councillor in an additional ward that comprises UCs, he invited a local UCRWA officer who was also a Congress party worker to join the interview (24/03/09, KishanKunj RWA), and these interviews all revealed significant overlap between the RWA and

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party roles. For example, a BJP ward president who was also president of a UC RWAinformed us that he communicates with residents in “my” UC primarily via party politicalchannels, thus excluding non-BJP party members from access to local information (25/03/09,Khirki extension RWA). In addition, an RWA with both Congress and BJP party workers onits board acknowledged that such political connections expedited their requests for supportfrom local politicians, thus highlighting the patronage-based ‘politicisation’ of UCs’mobilisation strategies (27/03/09, Khanpur RWA). Finally, further evidence of the conflatedroles between the RWA and political party in UCs is revealed by the comments of thepresident of an UC RWA who is also a Congress party worker: “the basic role of RWA is tobring together people and parties, they are a linkage between the two” (30/03/09, SanghamVihar). This system of patronage is clearly linked to the electioneering of political parties,with an obvious focus on mobilising UCs in order to secure votes:

“We have a big meeting and say we will only support the person who does help us – hewill get our vote” (18/03/03, K block RWA, Mahilpulpar)

“They think that because I’ve given that colony roads that hopefully they will vote forme, and it’s true because if they help us we will support them” (26/03/09, Neb ValleyRWA)

This ties closely with Chatterjee’s (2004) argument that political society is not about altruisticsupport for the poor, but primarily about banking votes for political parties. While Harriss(2010:6) argues that the elite choose civil society associations, while the poor are “left withpolitics”, having to negotiate their voice via party ‘big men’, UCs again reveal the ‘middle’nature of mobilisation, combining both civil and political modes, so that the ‘big men’themselves are representing both political party and RWA interests, ultimately to best servethe needs of UC residents (themselves included) through whatever means necessary. Afurther element of Chatterjee’s political society is not only that the poor rely on politicalparties, but also that their demands are centred on basic needs and human rights rather thanconsumerism or the protection of privileges (as with the middle-classes). A similar discoursewas evident in the demands of UC RWAs, who argued that “a man must have a house”(25/03/09, Khirki extension RWA) and that “the road is a human right” (18/03/09, DefenceEnclave RWA), resonating strongly with the claims of slum-dwellers for basic serviceprovision. Thus, the label ‘political society’ and to a lesser extent the ‘old politics’ of theworking class can arguably be applied to UC residents, their mobilisation strategies anddiscourses.

The new politics of civil societyThe notion of ‘proper’ citizenship as the justification for involvement in participatory urbangovernance is a central element of Chatterjee’s civil society. The middle-class role as thecity’s primary tax payers is a common rationalization amongst RWAs in authorized areas fortheir disproportional (in demographic terms) influence, arguing that they are mobilizing to“give the city back to its proper citizens” (Chatterjee, 2004:140). However, despite the factthat UCs are technically illegal and their residents often vilified in official reports as“unscrupulous persons” (Mathur, 2006:3), RWAs in UC equally utilize discourses ofrespectability based on tax paying as a basis for demanding civic recognition and service-provision.39

39 Based on interviews with both UC residents and city officials, it appears that some UC residents pay propertytax, while others do not.

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“Government provides us with nothing in Sainik Farm and yet we all pay property tax,so we don’t understand … It’s politics, they will regularize the slum, which is ongovernment land and is totally illegal, but we have bought [our houses] and pay taxesbut we don’t get regularization – what kind of democracy is that? You can’t pick onpeople because they are rich, but the slums are illegal” (25/03/09, Forest Lane RWA)

“They’re charging us every month, development charges for water, but they do notprovide [and] they do not clean it. But we are paying … 50% of the water bill theycharge for sewer, but they are not providing sewers! … When it comes to payingincome tax, development charges, we are first class, otherwise [when it comes to serviceprovision] we are second class” (25/03/09, Khirki extension RWA)

Thus the primary basis of elite justifications for dominating political discourse in the city, i.e.their exclusive role as the city’s legitimate citizens based on legal occupation and tax-paying,is partially quashed by claims from UC residents to the same tax-paying discourse. If weaccept the elite logic that those paying for the city should determine its course, then the voiceof UC residents demands recognition.

Another essential element of the middle-class civil society approach to participatory urbangovernance is reliance on neighbourhood associations as the primary basis for activism (ratherthan mobilizing via more politicized means). Although, as was shown earlier, residents ofUCs do function via political parties, at the same time, they stress a professionalneighbourhood-based approach to civic mobilization, in which the RWA operates as theintermediary between government and residents, much like in authorized colonies.

“We’re applying for regularization through the association [RWA] – that way you havea stronger case. So our association has done all the paperwork and we’re hoping it willcome through” (25/03/09, Forest Lane RWA)

Consequently, the professionalism and neutrality that RWAs in authorized colonies argueoffers them a monopoly on authentic non-politicised civil society in India’s cities, is adiscourse and strategy equally shared by RWAs in UCs. Although, as highlighted earlier,RWAs in UCs operate in tandem with political parties, almost all UC RWAs were at greatpains to stress the non-politicised nature of their RWAs even though in many cases this wasclearly not the truth:

“The association doesn’t get involved in the election process – we don’t support that ...We are not allowed to get involved with politics” (18/03/09, K block RWA, Mahilpalur)

“This is a non-political platform ... We don’t make things political because we are doingthe social work” (27/03/09, Khanpur RWA)

“[The] association is not interested in politics – we will have contact with differentpoliticians in charge of things, but don’t get involved in different parties” (30/03/09, Eblock RWA, Sangham Vihar)40

40 The latter two of these quotations come from RWAs that elsewhere in the interview acknowledged havingparty workers as office bearers.

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The explicit reliance on RWAs to negotiate with the state in both authorized and unauthorizedcolonies (even though implicitly in cases in the latter, they mask political parties) highlights aparallel form of civil society. In fact, the reliance of RWAs in UCs on both RWAprofessionalism and neutrality and the dynamism of political parties only further emphasizesthe hybrid ‘middle’ nature of RWAs in UCs.

In addition to the civil society ‘tax-paying’ discourse of respectability and financialdominance, a further rationalizing discourse of middle-class RWAs in authorized colonies isan emphasis on state rather than individual responsibility for creating (and consequentlysolving) urban problems. For example, via court cases the city is blamed for ‘allowing’ thepoor to encroach on land, for ignoring the environmental needs of the city, and for thedeclining service standard, with no recognition of any middle-class complicity. The sametendency towards state (rather than personal) culpability is equally evident amongst UCRWAs:

“So these places [unauthorized colonies] come up because the government failed toprovide us enough land, so we bought these plots but it was illegal … so we went to thegovernment to recognize us and as residents provide the same services as othercolonies” (26/03/09, Neb Valley RWA).

“The DDA only built houses for middle-class and upper-class so 70% could not affordhouses, so they came to these farmers … and bought land from the farmers to build theirhouses, and this became the UCs – it was because of the basic need for housing”(18/03/09, K block RWA, Mahipalpur ward)

“So it’s a fault of the government not the citizens that it is unauthorised because thegovernment refuses permission for houses” (25/03/09, Khirki extension RWA).

In line with the rationalization of UC residents as respectable tax-payers seeking to functionin an over-crowded and under-resourced city, they necessarily blame the government for theirprecarious tenure in the city and consequent lack of services, because to admit culpabilitywould ultimately weaken their discourse of both ‘rights’ (political society) and ‘respectability’(civil society).

RWAs in UCs occupy a hybrid space and identity, that is, hybrid between the activities ofmovements in slums and in authorized colonies. To explain: RWAs in UCs share similargoals to slum-dwellers in terms of service provision grounded in a discourse of ‘basic humanneeds’, whilst also employing similar mobilisation strategies in terms of engaging withpolitical structures and parties. However, RWAs in UCs differ in explicitly emphasising thedistinction between RWAs and political parties, even if in reality their activities are blurred.Furthermore, RWAs in UCs offer similarities to RWAs in authorised colonies in terms of adiscourse of ‘respectability’ and explicit reliance on civil society groups, but with a cleardifference in their relations with political parties. Therefore, RWAs in UCs highlight veryclearly the blurriness between Chatterjee’s political and civil society, mobilising in both ways.

As has been argued, the strategies employed by UC RWAs represent the ‘middle’ betweenpolitical and civil society (Chatterjee), between insurgent and entrenched (Holston) andbetween the old and the new politics (Harriss). This highlights the problematic nature oforthodox binaries in classifying complex political and everyday methods of mobilization.

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Although Harriss (2010) has recently noted the existence of some organizations thatsuccessfully mix ‘political’ and ‘civil’ society; i.e. organizations such as the Tamil Nadu SlumDwellers’ Rights Movement, which are founded by the middle-classes but in which poorpeople are active participants (civil society) and consequently develop their own politicalagency (political society); he identifies these as exceptions rather than the norm. However, inthe context of Delhi, where half the population reside in UCs, the blurring of political andcivil society is clearly the norm rather than the exception, thus bringing into question thetraditional binaries through which India’s urban associational life is currently understood.

Solomon Benjamin’s (2000) research in Bangalore provides some awareness of the blurringbetween civil and political in collective action. Benjamin distinguishes between localeconomies and corporate economies, arguing that the former represent the ways in whichmost people live and work, accessing government via middle- and junior-level bureaucratsand local political leaders to secure improved infrastructure and services, while the latterrepresent the business and industry elite in society, able to shape the urban form via directaccess to high-ranking politicians and bureaucrats. His approach arguably ignores, extendsand distorts the contemporary political/civil society binary: i.e. it ignores the specificeconomies of the poor by lumping all non-elites into the ‘local’ category; it extends the labelsby adding the ‘elite’ as a separate category from the middle-classes (though arguablyachieving this at the expense of the poor); and it distorts by suggesting that the elite useprimarily ‘political’ means to achieve their objectives, an approach largely understood as theraison d’etre of the poor. Interestingly, his account of local economies could be a descriptionof the methods of most UC RWAs, often thwarted by the actions of corporate economies.

More recently, Coelho and Venkat’s (2009) research on neighbourhood associations inChennai alleges significant overlaps between political and civil society. They argue that,contrary to popular academic discourse, there are slum-based associations (e.g. RWAs andself-help groups) who favour civil society-esque professionalism and organization (e.g. bankaccounts, formal meetings with minutes), while middle-class associations often engage withpolitical channels in order to secure their needs. However, what their research also identifiesis that on the whole middle-class groups are apolitical, favouring reliance on officials and onlyturning to politicians and party-based methods when other avenues are exhausted (i.e. civilsociety remains the middle-class default mode), while the majority of slum-based groupsremain highly politicized, with a handful of emerging groups that desire political neutralitybut in reality are often forced into patronage and clientalist relations (i.e. political societyremains the primary option for the poor). Thus their research in fact largely confirms ratherthan challenges Harriss and Chatterjee’s distinctions as the norm, but calls for recognition thatthe universality of these binaries is questionable. Coelho and Venkat (2009) also arguablyreinforce the class-based arguments of both Harris and Chatterjee, by highlighting thedistinctions between lower and middle-class RWAs in their Chennai-based fieldwork, withthe former more reliant on political parties than the latter. In contrast, the findings of thisresearch reveal RWAs in both lower- and middle- middle-class areas that simultaneouslyemploy both political and civil society strategies, willing to use any method necessary toachieve their goals.

4.4 An invisible majority? The missing middle of Delhi’s populationGiven the data presented in this paper, highlighting the dominance of UCs in terms of ademographic majority, but also a key political tool, the lack of academic research or thrivingpolitical debate regarding the mobilization of UC residents is astounding. For example,

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Chatterjee’s vision of the future Indian city is based on a traditional global city-esque divisionbetween the propertied elites living in authorized colonies and working in managerial andtechnocratic positions, and low-income informal workers situated in slums. Nowhere in thisvision is the position of those living in unauthorized colonies, the mass of people who straddlebetween the two extremes functioning in the interstitial spaces between legality and illegality,between political and civil society. Two possible explanations for the ‘invisibility’ of UCs areoffered.

Firstly, the ‘multipositionnality’ of key actors, for example many bureaucrats, politicians,civil society activists and property dealers have personal stakes in UCs: a house; someproperty; a business; a network of clients and/or a bank of voters. Thus many officials andother stakeholders have vested property and political personal interests in maintaining UCs,but due to their professional position in the city are potentially required to oppose theirpresence, and thus the compromise is a quiet and tacit acceptance of UCs. During fieldworkwe met RWA office bearers in UCs who were also property dealers, civil servants and partyworkers. Furthermore, several RWA representatives indicated the presence of governmentofficials (and in some cases) politicians as residents and/or owners in their UC:

“Most people here are in business … others are government servants, political people aswell … we have a Congress man here” (26/03/09, Neb Valley RWA).

Official reports (Nanavati and Mathur) repeatedly mention the ‘connivance’ of employees ofvarious concerned authorities, for example police officers and government officials, withregards to UCs.41 Even a high level commission such as the Nanavati commission, whichwas established in 2000 to investigate the growth of UCs since 1993, and in particular toidentify and apportion blame to responsible individuals, met with significant passiveresistance in its quest for precise information. Indeed, the fact that a commission intended asa six month investigation took five years to complete, and that its report remains a highlyconfidential document,42 hints at the collusion between officials and the ‘problem’ ofunauthorized colonies.43 This overlap between citizens as involved in both authorized andunauthorized colonies was further confirmed by our interviews:

“15-20% of people are part of both authorized and unauthorized areas – so I have landthere [unauthorized colony] and here [authorized colony]” (26/03/09, Vasant KunjEnclave RWA).

41 For example: “The enforcement machinery of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), DDA and NewDelhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has been ineffective in checking the growth of unauthorized colonies onaccount of connivance of the field staff of these bodies as well as political pressures.” (Mathur CommitteeReport, 2006: 3)42 Although we unofficially secured access to the Nanavati Commission report, we are not able to quote from it(hence it does not appear in our reference list) as it is not a public document: it was never tabled for discussion inparliament and previous attempts to secure the report via the ‘right to information’ act were unsuccessful, thushighlighting the politically delicate nature of the UC topic.43 Indeed, the follow-up fieldwork conducted in November 2010 (18 months after original fieldwork)encountered problems accessing top government officials with regards to UCs, many of whom were simplyuncontactable, on long leave or had resigned following corruption allegations.

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“The many empty plots [in this UC] belong to people who live in authorised coloniesand have used their extra money to buy land here, now they wait for the price of land togo up, and then they sell” (30/03/09, Sangam Vihar)44

Secondly, UCs residents are an extremely heterogeneous population, ranging from the poor tothe elite, comprising all ethnic and caste groups, supporting different political parties,physically dispersed across the city, and experiencing divergent access to services (somecolonies have cement roads, electricity, water and sanitation, while others lack all these basicservices) largely due to political connections, longevity and socio-economic status. Thisabsent collective identity prevents UCs from fully functioning in a political context whereidentity is all important. Although the desire for regularization could provide a collectiveobjective around which to mobilize, the divergent socio-economic identities and experiencesof service-provision results in mistrust between different UCs and ensures that collectivemobilization occurs only within rather than across UCs. This is best demonstrated by theabsence of a federation of UC RWAs, when such federations are commonplace amongstauthorized colonies’ associations.

“All of us are on land that we own, bought from farmers – but there are other[unauthorised] areas where people have taken land illegally, so we don’t want theirproblems, so it’s not good for us to join a federation. (26/03/09, Neb Valley RWA)

Furthermore, the official distinction between affluent and non-affluent UCs (only the latter areeligible for regularization) further fragments this fragile collective objective, as UCs areunsurprisingly reticent to join with other RWAs that might potentially weaken their claim forregularization. Thus, not only do UCs occupy the ‘middle’ ground in terms of class, mode ofparticipation and activist strategies, but their presence (despite significant numerical strength)is rendered invisible by both the multipositionality and heterogeneity of UC residents andowners. In other words, it is the middle nature of UCs that ultimately renders them ‘missing’.

. V. ConclusionConcepts are designed to help uncover reality, not merely describe it; in this case the conceptpairs which form the orthodox approach to urban governance in India (and elsewhere) haveultimately served to reveal an almost invisible category; thus proving their worth astheoretical tools, despite failing to encompass reality. The orthodox concepts offered byChatterjee, Harriss and Holston are more heuristic if viewed as defining a bipolar situation,thus suggesting that numerous people and practices fall in between the political and civilsociety, the old and new politics, the insurgent and the entrenched. Indeed, this research isnot the first to note that binary conceptualizations of society as divided between the elite andthe poor omit a huge demographic sector and simplify the differentiation within such groups(e.g. Mohan, 2001:160; Kamath and Vijayabaskar, 2009; Mawdsley et al, 2009:50); thatinvited and invented spaces of participation can overlap (e.g. Cornwall 2002b:7; Miraftab,2004:1); or that distinctions between political and civil society (or old/new politics, orentrenched/insurgent) are overly-simplistic, failing to capture the reality of overlapping andinter-linked processes (e.g. Mawdsley, 2009; Coelho and Venkat 2009). However, thepresence of multiple hybrids in the case of RWAs in UCs is particularly striking, and thedominance of UCs in Delhi highlights the inadequacy of orthodox binary concepts for themajority, not merely the handful who slip between categories.

44 This financial risk is historically merited: when colonies were regularised in previous drives (e.g. in 1977),property and land values soared (MCD Chief Town Planner, 01/04/09).

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To summarise, research grounded in Delhi has revealed the limitations of orthodox binarytheories, highlighting unauthorised colonies as the ‘missing middle’ in theoretical andempirical terms. ‘Missing’ in terms of their absence from both policy and scholarly debatesabout urban participatory governance in India, with this invisibility explained as a dualconsequence of complicit officials and UCs’ lack of collective identity. UCs areconceptualised as ‘middle’ in functioning as a composite of multiple theories and realities inthree essential ways. Firstly, residents and settlements fall in the ‘middle’ between typical‘poor’ and ‘elite’ characterisations, for example UCs operate with mixed tenure (in)securityand service provision that is neither the mass evictions of the slum, nor the full serviceprovision of the elites. Secondly, RWAs in UCs operate not only as spaces of both invited andinvented spaces of participation (as), but also as anti-participatory structures, operating inorder to replace the state in terms of service provision. These diverse participatory functionsdo not operate in isolation, but rather function alongside one another so that UC RWAscomprise composite ‘middle’ spaces of urban participation. Thirdly, contemporaryunderstandings of Indian urban governance as divided between political and civil society arechallenged by the UC example. RWAs in UCs operate in the ‘middle’ reliant on bothpolitical and civil society discourses and strategies, for example claiming respectability basedon tax-paying and involvement in a neural professional RWA to secure governmentculpability (e.g. civil society), yet simultaneously employing political party connections andclaiming basic human rights (e.g. political society). Furthermore, going beyond the Indianempirical context, this paper also argues for greater recognition in academic and policydebates of the nuances in everyday life that are not accurately captured by neat binaries. Asthe Delhi case has shown, a large proportion of the city can neither be categorized as ‘slumdwellers’ (or the ‘poor’) nor the ‘elite’, and arguably a similar trend is likely to be evidencedin cities throughout the world where a large proportion of populations are demographically in‘the middle’ and are consequently ‘missing’ from academic and policy debates.

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