Small Towns and Decentralisation in India: Urban Local Bodies in the Making

271 Pages·2017·13.743 MB·English

by  Rémi de Bercegol (auth.)

Exploring Urban Change in South Asia
Rémi de Bercegol
Small Towns and
Decentralisation
in India
Urban Local Bodies in the Making
Exploring Urban Change in South Asia
Series editor
Marie-Hélène Zérah, Institute of Research for Development, Paris, France and
Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, India
Editorial Board
Subrata Mitra, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore
AmitabhKundu,CentrefortheStudyofRegionalDevelopment,JawaharlalNehru
University, New Delhi, India
Pushpa Arabindoo, Department of Geography, University College London,
London, UK
Vyjayanthi Rao, Department of Anthropology, New School, New York, USA
Haris Gazdar, Collective for Social Science Research, Centre for Economic
Research in Pakistan, Lahore, Pakistan
Navdeep Mathur, Public Systems Group, Indian Institute of Management,
Ahmedabad, India
Eric Denis, CNRS-Géographie-cités Lab, Paris, France
Sanjay Srivastava, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi, India
Nandini Gooptu, Oxford Department of International Development,
Oxford University, UK
About the Series
The series incorporates work on urbanization and urbanism in South Asia from
diverse perspectives, including, but not being limited to, sociology, anthropology,
geography,socialpolicy,urbanplanningandmanagement,economics,politicsand
culture studies. It publishes original, peer-reviewed work covering both macro
issues such as larger urbanization processes, and economic shifts and qualitative
researchworkfocusedonmicrostudies(eithercomparativeorethnographicbased).
Bothindividualauthoredandeditedbooksareconsideredwithintheserieswiththe
possibility of identifying emerging topics for handbooks.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13432
é
R mi de Bercegol
Small Towns
and Decentralisation
in India
Urban Local Bodies in the Making
123
RémideBercegol
Department ofUrban Dynamics
Centrefor Social Sciences andHumanities
NewDelhi, Delhi
India
and
CNRS, PRODIG
Paris
France
The work is published with the support of the Publication Assistance Programmes of the
“InstitutfrançaisenInde”andthroughapublishingcollaborationbetweenPublisherandthe
Centrefor Social Sciences andHumanities, NewDelhi, India
ISSN 2367-0045 ISSN 2367-0053 (electronic)
ExploringUrban Change inSouthAsia
ISBN978-81-322-2762-5 ISBN978-81-322-2764-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-2764-9
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016945796
TranslationofthefrenchpublishedbookPetitesvillesetDécentralisationenInde.
©SpringerIndia2017
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Outside the Indian hinterland rushed by. Hundreds
of kilometres of a familiar yet unknown landscape,
seen countless times through train windows, but never
experienced—hislife till then hadbeenprofoundly urban.
Shabby stations of small where the train didn’t stop,
the towns that looked nice from a train window,
incurious patient eyes and weatherbeaten bicycles
at a level crossing, muddy children and buffalo
at a waterhole. To him, these places had been, at best,
names out of newspapers, where floods and caste wars
occurred, and entire Harijan families were murdered,
where some prime minister took his helicopter just
after a calamity, or just before the elections. Now he
looked out at this remote world and felt a little unsure,
he was going to spend months in a dot in this hinterland.
Upamanyu Chatterjee English, August:
An Indian Story, 2006 (pp. 10–11).
To my family
Acknowledgements
This book is adapted from my doctorate thesis, which I submitted in France in
2012.1 As such, it is the fruit of an enriching human, intellectual and emotional
adventureforwhichIwouldliketothankallthosewhohavesupportedme,bothin
India and in France.
IwouldliketoexpressallmyappreciationandgratitudetoMarie-HélèneZérah,
researcherattheInstitutdeRecherchepourleDéveloppementandsupervisorofmy
workinDelhi,forbeingaconstantsourceofextremelyvaluableadviceduringmy
stayinIndia.MysincerethanksalsogotoSylvyJaglin,ProfessorofGeographyat
Université Paris Est and my thesis supervisor in France, who supervised, guided
and revised this research. Thank you both for taking turns to motivate and advise
me throughout my doctorate, from the initial design stage through to writing and
editing my thesis.
Noneofthisworkwouldhavebeenpossiblewithoutthefullcooperationofthe
MinistryofUrbanDevelopmentandDirectorateofLocalBodiesmanagementstaff
inLucknow,whogavemepermissiontoconductthisresearch;withoutthesupport
ofalltheengineers,whotookthetimetoexplainhowtheiragencyworks;without
theinvolvementof themunicipal elected officials, who allowed meto reviewtheir
recordsandinterviewtheirstaff;or,ofcourse,withouttheinputofthelocalpeople.
I would therefore like to pay particular tribute to all the people I met in the small
townsofSiddarthnagar,Phulpur,KushinagarandChandauli,whorespondedtomy
questionsandprovidedconfirmationthaturbanresearchisnotmerelyanacademic
exerciseortechnicalanalysis,butitisalsoshapedbythemomentssharedwiththe
people directly affected, the inhabitants experiencing and feeling the impacts
of these contemporary changes every day. Lastly, I would like to extend my
1DeBercegol,R.,L’émergencedesmunicipalités.Analysedelaréorganisationdespouvoirsissus
deladécentralisationsurlagouvernancedepetitesvillesd’UttarPradesh.Paris-EstUniversity
thesis, supervised by Sylvy Jaglin (LATTS) and co-supervised by Marie-Hélène Zérah (IRD),
presentedon14March2012atEcoleNationaledesPontsetChaussées,2012,436pages.
ix
x Acknowledgements
warmestthankstoGowdaShankare,myresearchassistantandnowgoodfriend,for
his enthusiastic and thorough involvement in the research field visits.
I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to all the institutions that
financiallysupportedmeduringthisresearch,includingtheLaboratoireTechniques
Territoires et Sociétés (LATTS), the Ville Transports Territoires graduate school,
the Fondation Palladio managed by Fondation de France, the French Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and, especially, the Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities (or
Centre de Sciences Humaines—CSH—in New Delhi), which provided me with
supportduringthewritingofthis publication.Iwouldparticularly liketothank all
the current and former members of CSH that I met whilst in India for all their
assistance, for making me feel so welcome and for helping to make my time in
Delhi so enjoyable, particularly during our animated discussions over the famous
chai prepared by Pushpa. My heartfelt gratitude therefore goes to Basudeb
Chaudhuri, ex-director of CSH, who considerably facilitated my research between
2008 and 2012. I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to the French
Embassy in Delhi that, thanks to the efforts of Dorothée Gieux and Nicolas Idier
of the book office, helped me obtain funding to translate this publication from
French into English. In relation to which, I would like to pay tribute to Nicola
Brodrick for her high-quality English translation and unwavering commitment to
her task: merci infiniment pour cela. All my gratitude also goes to my editor at
Springer, Shinjini Chatterjee, for her belief in the value of my research and her
work to ensure its publication.
Lastly, I would like to extend my warmest thanks to all those who helped and
guidedmethroughtheupsanddownsofmyresearchand,especially,tomyfamily
for their constant encouragement and support.
Towns in Transition
A Photo-Essay of the Small Towns Studied
From the countryside to the town
In many ways, rural life remains deeply entrenched in these small towns. Whether luxuriant
flowersinPhulpur,the“townofflowers”(a),orplacidbuffaloesinChandauli(b),non-built-up
areas inside the “town” boundaries play host to scenes more commonly found in villages,
including planted fields and prairies. Many of the towns’ inhabitants continue to work in the
agriculturalandpastoralsectors(candd),preservingarusticimageforthesetowns(eandf).
xi