THE LAKSHMI MITTAL AND FAMILY SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE 2018-19 STUDENT GRANT REPORTS
Cover credit: Map of South Asia by Roma Kalani Ed.M.’17
TABLE OF CONTENTS About the Mittal Institute Student Grants
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Student Grant Recipients Nariman Aavani Indo-Persian Cultural and Religious Interaction in Mughal India
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Morgan Curtis Decoding a 5th Century Tamil Epic and its Retellings
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Julia Fine Transformation of South Asian Foodways
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Mohit Mandal Malayalam Summer Language Program 2019
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Bronwen Gulkis Multiplicities of Movement: An Analysis of Folios from Asia to Europe
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Laura Sky Herman Indian Yellow: Pigments Then and Now
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Pranati Parikh New Meanings: Studies of the Sanskrit Language
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Eduardo Pelaez Learning from Slumscapes
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Karan Saharya The Many Lives of the Qutub Minar: Conservation and Conflict in Post-Colonial India
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Nivedita Saksena A Data Protection Framework for Health in India
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Alexandra Indira Sanyal The Hybrid of Urbanism and Historic Preservation in Kolkata
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Tommy Schaperkotter Architectural and Urban Ecosystems in Bangladesh’s Rohingya Refugee Camps
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Davindar Singh The Sounds of India’s Rural and Urban Spaces
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Rui Su Metropolitan Governance and Municipal Staffing in Bangalore
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Iris Yellum The Value of Viability: Seeds, Indian Agriculture, and Agrarian Livelihoods
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Kale mache marda sashi; photo taken by Mittal Institute grant recipient Stephanie Spray, PhD ‘16
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The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University
MITTAL INSTITUTE STUDENT GRANTS The Institute awards summer and winter session grants to Harvard students focused on deepening their academic engagement with issues facing South Asia. Research grants support field research on specific topics that could contribute to a thesis or dissertation. Language grants support students who choose to pursue an intensive study of a South Asian language. Internship grants are awarded to students who choose to work with organizations in South Asia.
2018-19 Student Grant Reports
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BY THE NUMBERS
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The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University
Research
Doctoral
Summer session
Language Study
Graduate
Winter session
Internship
Under-graduate
1
12
3
3
GRANT TYPE
GRADUATE LEVEL
GRANT TERM
6 9
7
16
STUDENTS FUNDED
7
Faculty of Arts and Sciences Graduate School of Design
$25,000 TOTAL AMOUNT DISBURSED
Harvard College
T.H. Chan School of Public Health
SCHOOL-WISE DISTRIBUTION
Amritsar Agra
Delhi
Jaipur
Mumbai Kolkata Bengaluru
Pune
Chennai
Wayanad
Cox's Bazar
RESEARCH SITES
2018-19 Student Grant Reports
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NARIMAN AAVANI PhD Candidate, Comparative Study of Religion Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
This summer I had the privilege of studying Indo-Persian cultural and religious interaction in Mughal India under the supervision of Professor Shankar Nair at the University of Virginia. My initial plan for the summer and the academic year was to go to India and conduct some preliminary research for my dissertation. However, as destiny had it, due to some visa issues and other considerations, I decided to stay in the US. I am pleased to say that I am very happy with my decision to stay and work with Professor Nair, as it allowed me to acquire and improve upon some unique skills.
INDO-PERSIAN CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS INTERACTION IN MUGHAL INDIA Prasad Fellow Language Study Grant Summer 2019 UNITED STATES
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There are many challenges that a researcher in the nascent field of Hindu-Muslim interactions faces. For example, there are only a handful of texts from the Mughal period that have been critically edited. This makes the task of knowing the manuscripts crucial. In order to know how to work with the manuscripts from this period, it is essential to acquire several skills: 1.
2.
To know where and how to look to locate the best manuscripts (although there is an online database that includes very useful information about works that have been translated into Persian from Sanskrit, the website is far from thorough); To know Mughal Persian orthography, in particular the rendering of Sanskrit terms into Persian. In the absence of a complete dictionary of Indo-Persian words, it is very difficult for someone to intuit immediately that “bīd” is “Veda,” or
The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University
3.
“gīyān” is “jñānā”; To be skilled in the interpretation of the texts and figuring out what the authors of the texts were trying to achieve through translation.
For example, in “In Search of Equivalence: Conceiving Muslim-Hindu Encounter Through Translation Theory,” Tony K. Stewart argues that, by translating these texts into Persian, Muslims were trying to make sense of a foreign world-view by finding equivalent words for Sanskrit terms in their own language. Even if we agree with Stewart’s stipulation — with which I myself agree to a great extent — the question remains as to what this process of equivalence entails. To equip myself with tools that would enable me to answer such questions, in consultation with Professor Nair, I chose two texts to work on. One was an abridged version of the Persian translation of Laghu-Yoga-Vaṣiṣtha, with marginal notes by Mīr Findiriskī (d.1640), and the other was the Persian translation of the Gīta by Dāra Shukūh, along with the Persian commentary of Abd al-Raḥmān Chishtī called Mir’āt al-ḥaqā’iq (The Mirror of Truth). Laghu-Yoga-Vaṣiṣṭha is a text composed by a Kashmiri pundit Gauḍa Abhinanda sometime between the ninth and thirteenth centuries CE. The text itself is an abridged version of a longer text, Yoga-Vaṣiṣṭha, which seems to be based on an older text, Mokṣopāya, a 10th century work from Kashmir. The Sanskrit text of Laghu-Yoga-Vaṣiṣṭha comprises around 5,000 verses in six books
in which the story of the Hindu hero Rāma’s conversation with Sage Vasiṣṭha is narrated. Rāma has abandoned his royal duties and the society and is in search of divine knowledge (jñāna). Vaṣiṣtha uses many stories, parables, and dialogical strategies to instruct Rāma on the nature of this supreme form of knowledge. At the end and after instructing him on the nature of jñāna, he convinces Rāma that he should return to his kingdom, but remain firmly rooted in the divine knowledge. This text has been translated into Persian in total or in part a number of times. The legend has it that Dārā Shukūh, the Mughal prince, had a vision of Rāma and Vaṣiṣtha in which the former tells Dārā Shukūh that they are
like brothers since they are both seekers of the ultimate truth. He then offers him some sweets that Vaṣiṣṭha had given to him. Upon waking up, Dārā Shukūh takes this to be a sign that he should commission the text to be re-translated again, a task that was accomplished in the year 1656. However, this was not the first time that this text had been translated into Persian. Almost half a century prior to the completion of Shukūh’s translation, Prince Salīm (who later became Shāh Jahāngīr) commissioned another translation, a task that his Persian-writing courtier Niẓām al-Dīn Pānīpatī (d. 1609), with the help of two Sanskrit pundits, Jagannātha Miśra Banārasī and Pathān Miśra Jājīpūrī (d. unknown), undertook. Mīr Abī al-Qāsim
Findiriskī (d. 1640), the renowned Persian polymath, composed a redaction of the text with marginal notes. He also wrote a commentary on the translation called Sharḥ-i jug. I am very glad that I had the opportunity this summer to think about these topics and challenges, and acquire the necessary skills to deal with them. I would like to conclude my report by expressing my deep gratitude to the Mittal Institute for its generous grant, and I hope that I will be able to participate in its programs and continue my relationship with the Institute in the years to come.
2018-19 Student Grant Reports
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MORGAN CURTIS Ph.D. Candidate, Philosophy Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
The Cilappatikāram (“The Tale of an Anklet”) is a 5th century Tamil epic telling the story of Kovalan, a merchant, and his wife Kannaki, who becomes a goddess. Ilango Adigal is credited as the author of this literary work. Over the summer, I conducted the preliminary research for my intended dissertation project on the Cilappatikāram and its reception and retelling histories. During my research, I was able to address my interests and needs for my dissertation in numerous ways.
DECODING A 5TH CENTURY TAMIL EPIC AND ITS RETELLINGS Prasad Fellow Research Grant Summer 2019 UNITED STATES
I spent time reading the Cilappatikāram itself, building my skills in reading premodern Tamil verse through regular meetings with Professor Anne Monius. Through this work, Professor Monius and I refined my working translation of the initial parts of the text, while discussing ways in which translation differences and difficulties impact the interpretation and meaning of the text. We discussed issues about the relationship between the text’s form and content: For example, this is the oldest extant piece of narrative literature in Tamil, and therefore possibly the first piece of narrative literature recorded in Tamil. It is also the oldest text we have that addresses the idea of karma in any detail — prompting us to discuss some working theories on the possible relationship between these pieces. I also spent some time meeting with Dr. V. Prakash from the French Institute of Pondicherry via Skype. Through this, I was able to begin reading the two oldest existing commentaries on the text. As with most commentaries, these helped illuminate
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tricky grammatical aspects of the root text, provided connections to other texts in the Tamil literary tradition, and offered one person’s interpretation of the text. Dr. V. Prakash’s expertise in Tamil literature added critical understanding to the commentaries, as he could further explain the connections the commentators were making to both grammatical and literary texts. He also understands the landscape of modern Tamil research on the Cilappatikāram and its companion text, the Maṇimēkalai, and brought these perspectives into the reading sessions, as well, so we could discuss various existing theories about each text and the possible relationships between the two texts. This helped me discover research about the text that I had not yet seen. Lastly, I spent a few days in the library of the University of Texas at Austin, which vastly increased my exposure to and identification of modern retellings of the central story of the Cilappatikāram. I found retellings in Sanskrit, Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, and English in various forms (short stories, novels, comic books, and plays). I have started reading some of these retellings and have procured copies of almost all of them. Prior to this trip, I did not know about the written retellings in Hindi or Malayalam, and knew of only one Sanskrit version. These materials now constitute a rich set of sources for my research purposes. While there, I was also able to identify and scan a few other studies that address the text — some of which I had heard of but had not been able to find, and others that I had not even seen referenced before.
These retellings inspire a variety of research questions for me: Who are the presumed audiences for the materials written in languages other than Tamil and English? What is their reach? How has this text that holds such an important place in Tamil politics and culture been received by Hindi-reading and -speaking audiences? I am especially intrigued by the two modern Sanskrit retellings, one of which is essentially a prose rendering of the Tamil, the other a play. One of my immediate next steps will be to read
the Sanskrit play and attempt to determine its intended audiences and purposes. At the same time, I will continue reading through the Tamil-language materials I was able to find this summer that are written by political figures (retellings and speeches). Through these materials, I am working to build a better understanding of how and why this text became so politically charged, untangling the narrative about its ascendency to political importance by highlighting the ways in which the text inspired contention.
During my second trip to Austin, I met with Dr. Elaine Craddock of Southwestern University, who works on Tamil materials in both the premodern and modern contexts and has an interest in the CilappatikÄ ram. We discussed possibilities for conference panels and researchers in North America with whom I should contact to support my ongoing work. Overall, the grant from the Mittal Institute allowed me to make significant strides in my research and opened up new pathways for my research as I work toward a dissertation prospectus.
2018-19 Student Grant Reports
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JULIA FINE Harvard College '19
This winter break, I received a grant to perform research in London on the transformation of South Asian foodways during colonialism. I spent three weeks in London exploring and probing the British Library India Office Records. There, I worked to enhance all three of my thesis chapters with archival materials. I explored the East India Company’s introduction of the potato to the subcontinent, the recipes promoted by the memsahibs in British India, and the food rations given to the Sepoys in World War I.
TRANSFORMATION OF SOUTH ASIAN FOODWAYS Prasad Fellow Research Grant Winter 2018 UNITED KINGDOM
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Without this grant, I could not have completed my thesis. In addition to my time spent in the library, I got the chance to explore London. I loved going to Brick Lane, Shoreditch, and South London, seeing all of the different pockets of the city. It was a particularly interesting time to be in London, as the vote regarding May’s Brexit Bill was happening. I relished the opportunity to learn about British politics, as well as the many ways that different communities were and will be affected by Brexit.
MOHIT MANDAL Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
This summer, I participated in the Malayalam Summer Language Program run by the American Institute of Indian Studies. The AIIS program offers an intensive, immersive, 8-week-long experience that allowed me to concentrate solely on learning the language. For the duration of my project, I spent five days of the week in language class, and spent the evenings studying, completing assignments, and arranging meetings with local contacts. Academically, I pursued my interest in trade and labor connections between South Asia and the Middle East. Kerala is one of the few states in India with a Communist government and a sizable presence of religious minorities. Many migrants from the
Arabian Gulf countries, having served out their fixed-term contracts, are now returning in vast numbers to Kerala, resulting in demographic and sociocultural shifts in the local community that have yet to be fully recorded. Building a strong foundation in Malayalam, therefore, is central to my planned fieldwork. Equipped now with instruction materials from this summer, I plan to continue strengthening my language skills. In this academic year (20192020), I am pursuing graduate coursework to deepen my understanding of the social frameworks undergirding the lives of South Asian migrants — the forces of religion, caste, and capital. I am also building my reading lists in consultation with my advisors and preparing for my PhD general exams.
MALAYALAM SUMMER LANGUAGE PROGRAM 2019 Language Study Grant Summer 2019 INDIA
2018-19 Student Grant Reports
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BRONWEN GULKIS Ph.D. Candidate, Art & Architectural History Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
A winter travel grant from the Mittal Institute allowed me to spend January 2019 in St. Petersburg, Russia, where I viewed the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts’ exhibit Brush and Qalam at the State Hermitage Museum. This exhibit, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Institute, presented several unique opportunities to view objects from the collection that are rarely on view and do not typically circulate outside Russia.
MULTIPLICITIES OF MOVEMENT: AN ANALYSIS OF FOLIOS FROM ASIA TO EUROPE
The most significant of these was a selection of folios from the so-called “St. Petersburg Album,” an album of paintings and calligraphy from India and Iran. I was happy to see that these folios were displayed in double-sided glass cases, which allowed me to view both the paintings on one side of the folios, and the works of calligraphy on the other side. As a result of the Mughal album format (wherein calligraphy and paintings were mounted on alternate sides of each page) and the general lack of interest in Islamic calligraphy outside the Islamic world, folios are often displayed showing only the painted side. Viewing both sides of the folios in the same gallery space allowed me to make comparisons about the design scheme and ornamentation of the album group as a whole, and consider the way in which the images interacted with one another to build a larger meaning for the album.
emphasizes materials and textures. By returning over several visits, I was able to make observations on how some folios were constructed from multiple pieces of paper, and see the cleverly disguised lines where each small drawing was joined to create a large sheet that was made into an album leaf. Details like this would not have been visible if I was consulting facsimiles or online images. My study of these folios was also enriched by Dr. Adel Adamova, a curator in the Oriental Department of the State Hermitage. In our meetings and emails, she provided me with background information about the Hermitage, IOM, and Dorn collections, and directed me toward publications in English and Russian on the topics of my research. For the second component of my trip, I was able to spend longer than expected — two weeks, rather than one — working with the National Library of Russia to view one of their Indo-Persian albums, Dorn-489. As a continuation of my summer research there, I was able to complete measurements, take notes for photography orders, and consult with their librarians. On many days, I was able to travel between the Hermitage and the National Library to compare collections, and formed many ideas about the connections between the two albums.
Prasad Fellow Research Grant Winter 2018 RUSSIA
Seeing these objects in person also let me observe in detail the construction of the folios. The large, shaded windows of the exhibition gallery provided what conservators refer to as “raking light,” angled lighting which
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My research trip had an additional surprise: via my contacts at the Hermitage, I discovered that the nearby State Museum of the History of Religion, which had owned two of the St. Petersburg Album folios since the Soviet era,
had put both folios on display as part of a temporary exhibition on Shia Islam. One of the major questions about the St. Petersburg Album is whether it reflects an Indian tradition of album assembly, or an Iranian one. My visit to the Museum of the History of Religion not only offered me an opportunity to see an additional two folios, but also to reflect on how these folios can be placed in a context
that describes them as either “Iranian” or “Indian.” The questions raised by these two very different exhibitions also reinforced one of the central concepts of my final dissertation chapter — that the process by which these works of art came to Europe was more complex than the unidirectional movement of objects. I returned to Cambridge excited to work on my chapter and continuing my work
of situating these albums in their historical and social context.
2018-19 Student Grant Reports
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LAURA SKY HERMAN Harvard College '19
In January 2019, I traveled to India to conduct research for my senior thesis, which seeks to better interpret, preserve, and present works of art by understanding how the availability of materials and the development of material technology influence artistic choice and innovation. I used the grant from the Mittal Institute to explore pigments: How they are created, why they might have disappeared, and their implications for artistic innovation today.
INDIAN YELLOW: PIGMENTS THEN AND NOW
Research Grant Winter 2018 INDIA
Lost forever is Indian Yellow. Widely used in Indian art (frescoes, oil paintings, and watercolors), cloth dyeing, and other products from the 16th-19th century, it was noted for its brilliant luminance that appeared especially fantastic when bathed in sunlight. Its origin and manufacture is unclear. Some say this transparent fluorescent glaze is made from the urine of cows in rural India fed a strict diet of mango leaves, but disappeared due to malnourishment for the cows. Others cite mixtures of chrome salts and plant extracts. Through a combination of interviews, hands-on experimentation, and detailed observations, I used my time in India to better understand the dynamic relationship between Indian Yellow and Indian art, seeking to find its origin and subsequent disappearance. While one pigment in rural India might seem insignificant, a deep understanding of its history is important to better recognize the traces of artistic processes in works of art, and to consider the implications of alterations that can occur in objects over time. A viewer often appreciates a work of art only for its
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finished visual product, but, to me, an equally valuable quality of art is the relationship between the makers, the materials, and the techniques they use. It is in this area where politics, economics, and greater cultural dynamics come into play. Through my field work, I discovered some contemporary alternatives to Indian Yellow. Today, mustard seed is often used to create yellow pigments and dyes. I found it growing in a field alongside the Jaipur-Agra Express. Another popular natural alternative I discovered was yellow made from a combination of turmeric, lemon, sunflower, and Majeet (a type of tree). With the mentorship of pigment expert Pedro da Costa Felgueiras, a London-based researcher commissioned with restoring history’s most famous lost colors, I visited various museums and archaeological sites to talk with locals, artists, and museum professionals. The itinerary included stops in Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, and Mumbai to interview experts who possess highly specific knowledge and to personally view artifacts that contain Indian Yellow.
Another popular natural alternative is yellow made from a combination of turmeric, lemon, sunflower, and Majeet (a type of tree) shown here. The green in the back is made from spinach and mango leaf.
Detail with Indian Yellow, Mughal Dynasty, 1600s.
Shopping for ingredients to make natural colors at the market.
The head conservator at Red Fort replacing broken lattice embellishments using traditional techniques.
A cow walking on the side of the road. It is believed a specific type of cow urine is used to create Indian Yellow.
2018-19 Student Grant Reports
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PRANATI PARIKH Harvard College ‘21
This summer, I participated in the Sanskrit program in Pune, Maharashtra, offered by the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS). It surprised no one, I think, that I spent approximately ten weeks of my summer in India — a country to which I owe my cultural and religious heritage, a country which is home to people who look like me, who use similar blends of spices in their daily cooking, and from whose mouths spills a cadence of speech that echoes my own family. India is as familiar to me as my mother’s hands. And, yet, this summer was a glimpse into a new India. It was a time for appreciating granularities in a familiar topography and finding it splendidly unfamiliar at every step, yet, in the end, discovering a place for myself.
NEW MEANINGS: STUDIES OF THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE Prasad Fellow Language Study Grant Summer 2019 INDIA
Pune is a beautiful place for an intensive program of Sanskrit study — unsurprisingly, because it is home to universities and postgraduate research institutes with exceptional expertise in the language, but also because the city itself brings together various disciplines and dispositions, the confluence of which perfectly represents the character and usage of Sanskrit in contemporary life. For instance, Pune is both Maharashtra’s cultural capital and its largest information technology hub. I stayed with a family whose members spoke predominantly Gujarati and Telugu, but studied under those who spoke Marathi and Hindi. I practiced speaking, reading, and writing every day in a language known for its ancient richness and erudition, studying romantic and epic poetry, light-hearted drama, and subtle, technical philosophy. But when the members of our program played Sanskrit
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charades, it was words like “cell phone” and “radio” that we acted out — words construed from an ancient tongue to give language to what humans in the world today need to say. In addition to the versatility and relevance of Sanskrit in applications to all walks of life, the program opened my eyes to the language as a living form. Deccan Postgraduate Research Institute is the only institution in the world that is currently compiling an encyclopedic and historical Sanskrit dictionary of its kind, combining the study of Sanskrit with lexicography. Of course, it does not initially seem like the maintenance of a library and scriptorium of carefully curated Sanskrit manuscripts is anything more than a deep, dusty dive into the past. However, more than concretized definitions, the dictionary is devoted to tracing change in meaning over time, documenting each mention of a particular word over a selected corpus of upwards of some thousand texts. Lexicographical study, combined with deliberate and venerating attention to Sanskrit grammatical principles, thus reveals less of the rigidity often associated with Sanskritic traditions, and more of the fluidity and impressionable nature of the language. The day that we toured Deccan College’s Scriptorium, I found out that the professor who had been personally tutoring me in the study of Kālidāsa’s Raghuvaṃśa was the director of the dictionary project. Greeting me as humbly and cheerfully as he did each Thursday and Friday, he proceeded to give the students of the program an overview of the project and its logistics, telling us all about the rounds of
editing and review that each entry undergoes before it is finalized. More than seventy-five percent of the dictionary’s contributors are women. In the scriptorium, I was determined — after enough trips to places like Disney World, where my name is never on a souvenir keychain — to find at minimum the verbal elements from which my name is derived. A fellow student dramatically pulled out his phone to record my “discovery of myself.” I was surprised to be allowed to open the small file drawers, to be able to sift through the cards with my bare hands, some of which are over fifty years old. But the project, and the language through its symbolism, is not one to be preserved in a museum for centuries hereafter. Such sustained interaction is not only possible, but encouraged. I spent several minutes in a room that smelled of old books trying to find my name, before finally coming upon not one, but more than fifteen slips with my name handwritten on each, carefully documented by pundits. Although from a bygone era, they had likely also studied the same texts that I had this summer in Pune. So, I learned various meanings of the word pranati, chronologically ordered and cited on yellowing slips of paper, signed by those enamored with the language I had been given the opportunity to study: namaskāra, salutation. Surrendering. To beg one’s pardon. Obeisance, bowing, reverence. It was as if voices in fading blue and black ink were speaking my name. I don’t think that discovering my name in a Sanskrit lexicographical archive was the same as discovering myself. Neither was it a moment of realization after which I knew with a conviction that it is my life’s calling to study Sanskrit. No, I had decided to study Sanskrit a few years prior, and the requisite experience to apply to the program was at minimum two years of Sanskrit study. But my
summer in Pune was a reminder that what we know can be made anew, and must be made so for it to thrive. Perhaps the best example of this is the story of the Raghuvaṃśa itself, which, while related to the Ramayana, is more a purview of the Raghu family lineage. I read from the Raghuvaṃśa a chapter about Dilipa, and the boon he received from the celestial cow, Nandini, to have a son — Raghu, who would be Rama’s great-grandfather. The chapter is riveting and the poetry brilliant. Again, however, the story of the Ramayana and its moral imports became, through the opportunity to study in Pune, freshly contextualized and relevant through perspectives I had not considered. The nearmartial firmness on matters of righteousness often derived from the Ramayana is now bolstered, in my mind, by an eye for beauty, a favoring of compassion and mercy over justice, a reverence of the feminine, and a willingness to take seriously what seems magical and surreal. Living in Pune this summer with people who demanded the best of me — academically and socially — has made yet another lesson possible in the long line of those which constitute a liberal arts education. India, I have learned, is not an insular place that I can associate in my mind with a simple imagination of the homeland. It is a place where people like me can critically engage with differences in both people and opinions, and a place to embrace unfamiliarity and the beauty it brings. I am grateful to AIIS, to the Mittal Institute, and of course, to those who continue teaching Sanskrit and its relevance to the current state of the world and its inhabitants.
2018-19 Student Grant Reports
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EDUARDO PELAEZ Master in Design Studies ’19 Harvard Graduate School of Design
The rapid population growth, rural-urban migration, and occupation of vulnerable grounds prone to ecological risks have been the main features of slums worldwide. In this context, slum dwellers have been the most affected by floods, landslides, and pollution. However, they have also developed resourceful strategies and communitybased initiatives to protect themselves from disasters. So, how does the combination of an informal settlement and a flood-prone region inform strategy and knowledge of settling and protecting in Mumbai?
LEARNING FROM SLUMSCAPES Prasad Fellow Research Grant Winter 2018 INDIA
Thanks to a winter grant from the Mittal Institute, I was able to research community responses to flooding events in Dharavi, one of the biggest slums in Mumbai, India. The main goal of this research is to document several interventions made in the built environment because of flooding and highlight successful self-organization strategies. Additionally, this research seeks to make visible the invisible knowledge and start to change the negative narrative of slums. Instead of wondering what is wrong with slums, we can consider what is right with slums — and Dharavi could be the example. Finally, this research process of three weeks in Mumbai was filled with interesting experiences, such as meetings with two local nonprofit organizations, talks with some neighbors and merchants of Dharavi, and discoveries of important elements in Dharavi’s built environment. During the last 13 years, Mumbai has been affected by severe floods during the monsoon season. Potentially the worst floods took
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place on July 26, 2005 and August 29, 2017, culminating in 944 mm of rainfall in one day and 468 mm of rainfall in twelve hours, respectively. These severe disasters necessitated a strong response from the national government, but the state failed to respond quickly. Local communities (as small collective entities) had to manage a quick process of preparation and recovery. In these events, more than 700,000 people who lived in Dharavi were severely impacted due to lack of an appropriate drainage system, their closeness to the Mithi river, and the weak ground of the region’s swampy territory. The vulnerability of this place has created a built environment where houses and common grounds must be constantly modified and adapted to avoid severe damage from flooding. Dharavi is located in the southern extension of the Mumbai peninsula, and its territory was a mangrove swamp more than one hundred years ago. Dharavi is a diverse settlement with mixed-use development — mainly commercial real estate and housing — and religious, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. In this important commercial hub with dwellings in constant development, it is necessary to protect families, buildings, and common spaces when a flood comes. During the monsoon season, the likelihood of a flood is high, and the Dharavi’s built environment is affected by water that comes from different directions: from above, along the sides, and from below. From above: Heavy rainfalls force to residents
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to have an inclined roof to channel water from their buildings into the narrow alleys. In many cases, the rainfall water goes through improvised channels and empties into the nearest stream or public sewage system of the closest road. The majority of the roofs that one can find in Dharavi are made by simple sticks and plastic sheets. Along the sides: Heavy rainfall also increases the level of streams and the Mithi river, which is next to Dharavi. This causes the streams and the river to overflow, affecting floodplain areas close to these natural borders. From beneath: Heavy rainfalls and the
overload of water in streams and the Mithi river cause the underground aquifers to rise, leading to groundwater flooding.
buildings and the neighborhood from floods.
After visiting and talking with several neighbors about flooding events, I learned how water can come from underground, and the community is vulnerable due to the weak and wet ground. These three water directions in flood events cause seepage and cracks in foundations, illnesses, and require direct action to protect a building and mitigate future damages. For that reason, through this research, I documented some particular physical elements of built environment and nature that play a key role in protecting
After visiting several open places, alleys, and houses in Dharavi, I identified a group of nine important elements of the built environment to protect buildings from floods:
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Physical elements:
1.
2.
Blue sheet plastic roof: A cheap material that can be used for waterproofing above a solid roof. Second floor for housing: The first floor is kept for commercial activities or storage, and the second for housing and valuable possessions.
3.
4.
5. 6. 7. 8.
9.
Keep electric wires and outlets above 1.5 meter: This can help avoid shortcircuiting during floods. Blue water tanks: To access fresh water if polluted waters inundate the neighborhood. Tiles on walls: To clean easily if water enters the house. Concrete Steps: To prevent rainwater from entering the building. Strong mortar and thick tile: To avoid tile breakage from underground water. Flood evacuation tube: To empty the interior of the house if underground water comes inside. Blue sheet plastic floor and lime: To
proof the foundations for humidity or underground water. Besides the research proposal, it was a very interesting and enriching experience to spend part of the winter break in Mumbai and learn from its constant mode of urbanization. For that reason, it was important to recognize that it is better to avoid the phrases “informal settlements” or “slums” and instead call them spontaneous settlements, which reinforces a narrative of communities and infrastructure in constant development and always finding resourceful solutions to daily problems.
analyzing the built environment of Dharavi was bolstered by speaking with and learning from residents and professionals. For this reason, I would like to thank the nonprofit organization URBZ led by Rahul Srivastava and Matias Sendoa, who gave me several pieces of advice about the composition of Dharavi; Rishad Netarwala who accompanied me to Dharavi and translated all conversations with local residents; and a couple of young residents who helped me explore Dharavi.
The process of visiting, observing, and
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KARAN SAHARYA Master in Design Studies ’20 Harvard Graduate School of Design
In the past, conservation studies in India have mainly focused on architectural preservation efforts to protect and maintain designated monuments. In many ways, this is the legacy of the former colonial regime, which enacted stringent preservation laws and laid the academic foundation for the predominant mode of conservation we now see in modernday India. This is exemplified in the manner in which state agencies, advocacy groups, and academics have dealt with archaeological sites, as plots entirely removed from their urban contexts.
THE MANY LIVES OF THE QUTUB MINAR: CONSERVATION AND CONFLICT IN POSTCOLONIAL INDIA
Research Grant Summer 2019 INDIA
More than ever before, these issues are coming to light in the face of rapid urbanization, technological innovations, and majoritarian politics. As a young, engaged architect and a student of the Critical Conservation program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, I am interested in investigating the relationship between the production of urban space through preservation designations, and contemporary issues of spatial cleansing, social justice, and cultural transformation — particularly in post-colonial nations. This year, I was fortunate to receive a research grant from the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, allowing me to perform research in Delhi through the summer. The focus of my study was the iconic Qutub Minar Complex, located in the ancient settlement of Mehrauli in southwest Delhi. The Qutub Minar was constructed in the 12th century and symbolized the beginning of the Islamic Sultanate in northern India. Under the British regime in the 19th century, what began
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as an imperial project to document ancient monuments in a new colony soon became a platform to implement preservation regulations framed by orientalist conservationists, including Alexander Cunningham and James Ferguson. Post-independence, the same frameworks continue to shape the discourse around conservation. In 1993, the Qutub Minar was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Today, given the influence of international cultural organizations, there is a tangible impact on urban “heritage” districts. The methodologies I adopted entailed research of local history, policy, and urban planning relevant to India and Delhi, specifically. This study aimed to develop a new understanding of historical monuments by situating them in contemporary urban contexts rather than viewing them as revered relics. My research was performed in three broad phases. Firstly, I conducted preliminary archival research of various textual and photographic sources, located in various institutions and libraries across Delhi. This gave me a historical understanding of the site and lay the foundation for my study of the Qutub Complex. Secondly, I conducted interviews with various stakeholders associated with conservation in Delhi, particularly those invested in the formulation of preservation and planning regulations. My interactions with architects, archaeologists, sociologists, planners, and historians gave me a deep understanding of
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the site and its importance in contemporary Indian consciousness, while learning about the various processes, challenges, and implications associated with conservation in Delhi. Thirdly, I conducted field research in Mehrauli. This was perhaps the most rewarding part of my summer, because I had the opportunity to interact with locals who reside and work around the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
This uncovered the everyday exigencies that communities in Delhi’s urban villages face, from civic issues to economic activities. My research benefitted immensely from the stories I heard, the people I met, and the places I visited, allowing me to bridge the gulf between conservation as an academic endeavor and the tangible pressures of on-ground urbanization. I delved into how communities with little political agency can engage with conservation and how they can
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benefit from planning processes. The study I undertook resulted in significant findings. I realized that architectural preservation is often deemed paramount to the living conditions of individuals. The creation of a palatable tourist-zone, set against the backdrop of “heritage” monuments like the Qutub Minar, entails the removal of “blighted” informality and the superimposition of state authority to cater to international
poor sanitation facilities, improper garbage disposal, and undrinkable water. More importantly, it is symptomatic of the changing democratic landscape of India, currently witnessing a rise in religious nationalism. In this process, I was able to make connections between conservation, culture, urban identity, capitalistic development, and their impacts on marginalized communities where land remains the principal urban resource. As a young student, this summer research project made me aware of urban inequities and has re-aligned the way I now approach architecture, planning, and conservation. None of this could have been possible without the support I received for fieldwork from the Mittal Institute, which gave me the chance to visit and learn in India. This project is therefore unique in its approach, as it shifts the focus of conservation studies from the monument as an architectural object to communities inhabiting urban land. I believe this can serve as a model for further studies across South Asia. I wish to use the learnings from my summer research to develop my graduate thesis — which will focus on other case studies across not just in India, but in other South Asian nations as well, each of which are experiencing seismic shifts by way of urbanization, migration, and politics — to ask how architects and planners can engage with future challenges.
capital and foreign tourists. With this form of “development,” there is large-scale eviction of low-income, historically marginalized communities around the monument complex. The process of monument designation, therefore, may infringe upon the fundamental “right to the city” for many in Delhi. A deeper study of the Qutub Minar revealed how the monument itself has been historically used as a culturally mutable object to reiterate
social and political divergences, beginning with imperialist notions of “us” and “them.” Here, multiple narratives of “heritage” presumed to be imbued in monuments like the Qutub Minar are often weaponized by political groups for electoral gain in the name of social identity. At one level, this apportions certain groups with greater “cultural capital” to organize and parcel land. Religion- and caste-based urban segregation is on the rise — all while hundreds of households continue to deal with
The long-term objective of my research going forward will be to challenge deep-set notions of conservation and urban politics, to academically analyze the role of capital in shaping contemporary cities, and to search for solutions that would help communities become informed stakeholders in South Asian cities.
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NIVEDITA SAKSENA Master in Public Health ’20 Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
A DATA PROTECTION FRAMEWORK FOR HEALTH IN INDIA Prasad Fellow Research Grant Winter 2018 INDIA
In late 2018, the government of India launched a segment of the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP), an initiative to provide electronic health records (EHRs) to every citizen of the country. It is aimed at prescribing uniform standards to ensure the integration and interoperability of EHRs through a centralized, accessible platform. The IHIP records real-time, village-wise, and case-based health data with GIS tagging. It also integrates data from multiple vertical health programs aimed at tuberculosis control, maternal and child health, and the control of non-communicable diseases. There has also been an increase in the uptake of telemedicine, genetic testing, personalized medicine, and mobile health applications (m-health apps) in health programs across the country. These raise concerns about patient privacy and adequate safeguards for data protection. In 2017, the Supreme Court of India affirmed the existence of a constitutional right to privacy. Concerns about privacy violations and the lack of legal protection against the illegitimate use of personal data also prompted the government to constitute a Committee of Experts (“Committee”), which has recommended a general legislative framework for data protection (“Bill”) in the country. Despite potential grave consequences from a privacy violation, the unique concerns of health data remain largely unaddressed in these deliberations. A previous attempt at addressing protection for health data — the Digital Information Security in Healthcare Bill — will also have
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to be substantially revised in light of these developments. Through work under this grant, we have proposed a regulatory framework for health data. As the government finalizes the Bill before it can be introduced in Parliament, we have examined concerns specific to the health sector and patient rights to privacy and confidentiality. First, we provide a brief overview of how the right to health privacy has been addressed judicially and the protections for data protection and patient privacy that exist in different health legislation currently in force. This patchy framework highlights the need for a comprehensive framework to protect health data that operates in tandem with pre-existing laws. Then, we describe the key elements of our proposed data protection framework in the context of health. This is premised on the need for an open and transparent health information system with clearly enumerated patient rights and safeguards. Finally, we recommend how these rights may be operationalized and what measures must be taken for their effective implementation. Deliverables and Timelines During the course of the winter grant, the following deliverables were outlined: (i) Conduct face-to-face interviews with experts in the area. (ii) Partner with local organizations to workshop the recommendations in the report. The workshop and interviews were used to collect information on the current state of health data protection, to gain insight into
the practical aspects of working with health data, and to seek feedback that will inform the recommendations of the final report.
Srikrishna Committee — a group tasked with drafting the general data protection law in the country.
Report Narrative
Dr. Sengupta gave us insight into the process of drafting the Bill and the reasoning behind some of the policy developments. He also recommended how we could guide our research on health data protection.
For the project, interviews and meetings were conducted in Delhi and Bengaluru. Through these interviews, we covered a wide range of stakeholders: Policymakers, experts in technology law, and researchers and technical experts involved in the development of electronic health record toolkits. Feedback from each of these stakeholders will be incorporated into the final report. The initial two weeks of the grant period were spent conducting a literature survey and case-law analysis on the contours of health privacy in India. This draft was used to inform the discussions with the stakeholders. Meetings On January 16, Professor Satchit Balsari and I met Dr. Arghya Sengupta, a member of the
The next set of meetings were conducted in Bengaluru. First, a day-long workshop was conducted at the St. John’s Research Institute on e-Punarchetana, their EHR-PHR project working to implement electronic health records in rural Bengaluru. During the course of the workshop, presentations were also made about our proposed technical architecture for an electronic health record in the country. This was followed by a series of interviews. First, we met Rahul Matthan, Partner at the law firm Trilegal and expert in technology and privacy laws. We discussed our main
recommendations from the report and presented the technical architecture for the project. He suggested several improvements and directed us toward other unexplored aspects of the issue. This was followed by a meeting with Pramod Varma from iSpirit, an organization that has been actively involved with developing open-source software to implement different government projects around the country. We discussed with him his current work in developing similar EHR systems for different health programs being implemented throughout the country. My work on this project was a great learning experience. It developed a greater understanding of our direction, and we were able to consult with multiple experts to receive feedback on our proposal. Based on our experience, we will be able to continue our work to propose a privacy protection structure for a federated patient health record system in India.
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ALEXANDRA INDIRA SANYAL Master in Design Studies ’20 Harvard Graduate School of Design
With my grant from the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, I spent eight fruitful weeks abroad, studying the how and the why of the limited set of historic designations in Kolkata. My daily activities were structured around site visits, photographic and written documentation of spatial practices and cultural phenomena, investigative interviews with scholars and professionals in the field of conservation, theoretical readings, and archival work. I spent the first six weeks in Kolkata trying to better understand the city’s spatiality and how many Kolkatan’s livelihoods and daily activities engage with the hybridization of the old and the new.
THE HYBRID OF URBANISM AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN KOLKATA Prasad Fellow Research Grant Summer 2019 INDIA
Through neighborhood walks, conversations with locals, and visits to tourist attractions, it became clear to me that Kolkata is a city deeply entrenched in conflict between the desire for dynamic urbanism and the protection of multiple histories and Bengali identity. The majority of time was spent conducting interviews with professionals working on issues of preservation, heritage, and urban identity in Kolkata. Upon returning to Boston, I began to transcribe and decode these interviews, looking for ideological and thematic trends, as well as unstated but often implied affiliations between my interviewees and the agencies that I am investigating. My research culminated in a trip to London, during which I spent time in the British Library archives, looking at older listings of heritage monuments compiled by the Bengal Public Works Department — lists that were later replaced by the ASI list, from which
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my grounding research question emerged. Spending time with these documents turned my project upside-down, because I found that the listing processes seem to have grown more exclusive over time, despite the decline of Western influence. I used to assume (due to the colonial hangover in the city and the Western residue that has seeped into Bengali elite cultural identity) that Western hegemonic institutions remain in control of protected heritage, because it was the British who first introduced preservation. However, I realize now my project goes far beyond the issue of “the West versus the rest” and actually grapples with ideological and practical conflict between competing national, subnational, and local “Indian” hegemonies. This got me thinking about one of my original questions (why does preservation in Kolkata, and most of India, still work under the established laws and rhetoric of British preservationist ideology, over seventy years post-independence?) and how I must also ask whether what is needed is a new model of preservation that better negotiates the Indian context, or whether the rising Hindu nationalistic ideology of the country would just use this new rhetorical power to push their own agendas. Is the central problem actually the inherent importance that the institution of preservation holds and the power that it bestows both upon the space being preserved and those who control it? My original proposal for this summer’s research focused on the preservation status
of the St. John’s Anglican Church and Beth El and Magen David Jewish Synagogues. Upon my arrival to Kolkata, based on the preliminary readings that I had done, I decided to reframe the project to look broadly at historic preservation in the city, but to use the Jewish synagogues as a case-based example of the lasting structural and socio-cultural impacts of these preservation projects, years after they were initially designated. I decided to leave St. John’s Church out of it, because I felt that the discussion of Christianity as a hegemonic imposition (as enforced through the colonial project) has already been extensively considered in colonial theory and scholarship. However, the case of Kolkata Jews, their synagogues, and the Muslim caretakers is uncharted territory worth exploring. Moving forward, I am now working on converting this summer project into my masters thesis. Titled Power in/and Narrative: The Politics of Heritage and Urban Identity in Kolkata, this thesis will explore the manifestation of and conflicts over urban
identity in Kolkata, through the lens of the comparatively limited set of historic designations in the city as one of India’s major metropolises, focusing on the Jewish synagogues as a case study that reflects conflicts over which spaces are deemed valuable, how, why, and by whom, so as to identify the competing hegemonic forces at play, under which institutionalized supremacy occurs. Such varying institutions, governed by their own ideologies of meaning, create tension over identity and value, subsequently limiting socio-political coexistence within the city by utilizing mechanisms, such as historic preservation, to alter the dominant narrative of power and identity in post-colonial Kolkata. My research methodology is fourfold: firstly, investigating the differing priorities of conservation agencies, the conflicts of ideology and practice between them, and the socio-political and cultural impacts that they’ve had on Kolkata. Secondly, comparatively mapping listed sites and overlying urban geographies with data on class, caste, and
religion in order to hypothesize who matters and who doesn’t in the contemporary urban context. Thirdly, interviewing scholars and practitioners whose work relates to heritage preservation, whether through academics, politics, or architectural practice. Fourthly, reviewing literature that engages with theories of urban history, the colonial project, spatialized religion, and the fundamentals of heritage conservation and nostalgia. To take this thesis to the next level of investigation, I hope to return to the field this winter to conduct follow-up interviews with the agencies, scholars, and professionals with whom I connected. I’d also like to partake in more quotidian applications of heritage conservation, such as heritage walks and open meetings.
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TOMMY SCHAPERKOTTER Master in Architecture ’20 Harvard Graduate School of Design
ARCHITECTURAL AND URBAN ECOSYSTEMS IN BANGLADESH’S ROHINGYA REFUGEE CAMPS
Research Grant Summer 2019 BANGLADESH
This summer I traveled to Bangladesh to conduct fieldwork in the Rohingya refugee camps located in the Ukhiya and Teknaf regions, adjacent to the country’s border with Myanmar. I am pursuing this research as a component of a publication and my master’s thesis, which addresses the architectural and urban patterns of refugee settlements created in the wake of forced migration that has engendered a humanitarian crisis heretofore unprecedented. This crisis is often explained as one of refugees, but not always as one of refuge, of architectural spaces where the voices, memories, and capabilities of people are held in abeyance, precluded from substantive participation in the creation of their own built environment.
While there, I conducted interviews, made observations, and collected visual documentation. I spoke with community leaders, including the co-chairmen of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights — an organization that has collected historical documentation regarding the status of Rohingya citizenship in Myanmar. I was invited into homes and public spaces where I heard the voices of wives, mothers, teachers, husbands, fathers, builders, daughters, sons, clinicians, and community organizers. Their stories weave an elaborate tapestry of the Rohingya community that is, unfortunately, too frequently obscured and rendered impersonal through the lens of humanitarian infrastructure.
The contemporary complexities of humanitarian urbanism are exhibited poignantly in the Rohingya refugee camps, one of which the United Nations has declared the largest and most densely populated refugee settlement in the world. By virtue of such statistics, the situation facing the Rohingya diaspora in Bangladesh has received much attention over the past two years. However, the stories are longer and more intricate than the ways in which they are often portrayed. Notable authors and journalists have thoroughly chronicled the conditions that precipitated the tragic events of 2017. I do not seek to replicate their work but to use a historical understanding of the community to bolster a contemporary analysis of the architectural and urban ecosystems within the camps.
I observed interactions between different groups co-existing in the camps: the military, host community, humanitarian actors, and refugees, both registered and unregistered. I witnessed the stewardship of healthcare, the distribution of supplies, the education of children, the construction of buildings, and a wedding. Throughout my time there, I obtained a collection of photography and video footage, ranging from expansive visualizations of urban and ecological conditions to intimate portraits of everyday activities.
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My time there coincided with a shadow cast by the international debate over repatriation, an ongoing discussion that culminated on August 25, 2019, the two-year anniversary of the ethnic cleansing campaign directed toward the Rohingya in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. The community has labeled
this date as “Genocide Remembrance Day.� The name underscores the precarious future facing not only the Rohingya, but minorities, refugees, and stateless communities the world over. This act of remembrance is also a plea to the global community, itself entangled in dreadful disputes over immigration. It is an appeal of coexistence, and a reminder that the degree to which we can celebrate, not merely tolerate, the diversity of this planet
will be one of the defining challenges of this century. In addition to the support of the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, I am also grateful to my colleagues: Anna Heringer, architect, former Loeb Fellow, and visiting Harvard professor; Shaowen Zhang, former Aga Khan Research Fellow and current PhD candidate at Harvard University; as well as
OBAT Helpers, a nonprofit organization based in the United States and Bangladesh; the Dipshikha organization; the Bengal Institute in Dhaka; the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission (RRRC); and all members of the Bangladeshi and Rohingya communities who demonstrated kindness and courage by sharing so much of themselves with me.
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DAVINDAR SINGH Ph.D. Candidate, Ethnomusicology Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
My research in the Punjab was conducted across major urban centers, towns, villages, and a little bit in the countryside proper, but much of it ended up centered on the roads that connect all of the above.
THE SOUNDS OF INDIA’S RURAL AND URBAN SPACES
Research Grant Summer 2019 INDIA
My main goal was to examine the production of religious sound in a variety of settings, with an eye toward the social demarcation of “spaces” around the sites of these sounds. Of course, this originally led me to the kinds of places that one would obviously expect: shrines, churches, gurdwaras, masjids, a few Buddhist monasteries, and so on. After listening to most of the field recordings I made, they all seemed to end up pointing to the sort of conclusions that are common in the literature on sound studies in urban spaces: people go about their business within their particular location-bound social milieu, but sound bleeds over. This tends to lead to different reactions that indicate ongoing social attitudes, without necessarily changing the way people go about their business or their particular location-bound social milieu — sound isn’t always that powerful of a social force. I certainly heard many things that supported this habitual description — Gurbani at Harmandir Sahib (Amritsar’s famed Golden Temple) suffuses the surrounding blocks in a reverberant manner, shaped by the warrenlike alleyways that surround the compound. This harkens back to pre-colonial construction and planning practices that still shape much of the city. In turn, recent construction in the city has produced open commercial plazas
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and long roads, which ease tourist foot traffic and the quotidian logistical transport that fuels daily life, but produce very different patterns of aural resonance (if any) compared to the older alleys flanking the Golden Temple. The highway flanking Lahore’s Jamia Masjid offers relevant points of comparison. The significance of transportation and logistics to the urban aural environment led me to try to figure it out in rural areas. Sufi martyrs’ shrines (dargahs) in comparative seclusion are only reachable on foot, often sequestered in impoverished peri-urban communities. In turn, dargahs within wealthier communities — landholding being one of the key historical financial drivers in Punjab — have large (and profitable) festivals, with dramatic all-night recitation, and the roads that come to them grow more firmly demarcated with hastily constructed shops. Similarly shaped by logistical factors, the shrines and recitations dedicated to Gugga Marhi, a saint who protects against snake bites and whose adherents are ecumenically hailed in texts also associated with Islamic, Hindu, and Sikh discourse (and whose shrines sport Urdu, Hindi, and Punjabi scripture) are invariably positioned at roadsides, using sound to lure in adherents. Yet the faith’s lack of political representation and smaller, less powerful congregations may be indexed in its temples’ significantly quieter — though constant — aural production, and its lack of aesthetically dramatic presence in the urban environment.
However dramatic their shrines’ interiors may be, I only saw one (in Chandigarh) with any sort of eye-catching exterior construction or captivating sonority, and even then, its location along a long, non-pedestrian thoroughfare offered a measure of isolation. Many of the Buddhist monasteries are based at deliberate
pedestrian isolation as well, even near and within the urban centers of Dharamsala and Shimla, which compels adherents to tread a long — though religiously marked — distance before actually reaching any forms of religious architecture or sonic production.
Overall, this was a very productive start to my research, and has given me plenty of material to begin working with. Next, I will assess the social and cultural causality through an ethnographic exploration of the sites I examined.
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RUI SU Master in Urban Planning ’20 Harvard Graduate School of Design
I spent my summer interning at the Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, a policy think tank in Bangalore that promotes decentralization and civic participation in urban governance. As part of the Advocacy & Reforms team, I conducted online research with other young people interested in the field of urban policy to provide recommendations for local governments in India.
METROPOLITAN GOVERNANCE AND MUNICIPAL STAFFING IN BANGALORE Prasad Fellow Internship Grant Summer 2019 INDIA
The backdrop of much of Janaagraha’s work was the landmark 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (74th CAA) passed in 1992, which mandated devolution of municipal functions to Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). Yet, as one can imagine, decentralization did not happen overnight. Significant labor and debates were involved in adapting the overarching national policy to the realities of each state and municipality. What followed the 74th CAA was a long, iterative, and challenging process of rethinking and reforming governments on different levels that continues to this day. Where Janaagraha comes in, then, is to help accelerate and strengthen the decentralization process from multiple angles. Most famously, Janaagraha’s Annual Survey of India's City-Systems (ASICS) evaluates the quality of governance in major Indian cities, using metrics that include those related to decentralization. Moreover, the organization establishes relationships with city and state governments to assess the specific conditions in different localities and offer consultation and feedback.
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During my internship, I plugged into the latter stream of work and carried out two research projects: Metropolitan Governance and Municipal Staffing. The first, Metropolitan Governance, was aimed at examining the governance structure of global cities from an Indian perspective and drawing applicable lessons. I delved into the case of Metropolitan Manila and explored its government’s funds, functions, and functionaries — a task that involved much more complexities than simply collecting objective facts. The political history of Manila was intricately tied to the Philippines’ rise and fall between dictatorship and revolution. Thus, uncovering the origins of different levels of government institutions led me into various “rabbit holes” in the academic literature. More importantly, given Janaagraha’s mission of supporting India’s decentralization, I devoted a lot of attention to how the current metro governance in Manila is structured and managed. The project was still ongoing by the time I finished my internship. Sharing the international scope of the Metro Governance project, the Municipal Staffing project looked at cases from other countries for inspiration to solve the issue of staffing inadequacy in Telangana municipal governments and the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC). In particular, the project focused on the staffing policies and practices of the accounts and revenue departments in city governments and transport organizations. My work straddled domestic and international spheres: Analyzing staffing data from three
cities in Telangana, and developing case studies on the foreign cities of New York, London, and Johannesburg (these three cities were selected based on Janaagraha’s ASICS scoring). The daily tasks for this project appeared mundane at first: Tabulating the numbers of employees at each position, constructing organizational charts, reading salary and promotion policies, and so on. However, these processes exposed me to the nuts and bolts of public sector institutions and helped me understand the immediate challenges facing municipal governments in India, such as understaffing and lack of clarity on qualifications required for professional positions. Meanwhile, interfacing with real government agencies like the BMTC meant working with some degree of political uncertainty, such as municipal elections, while still making timely deliverables. These empirical details complemented my academic and theoretical studies in urban planning in the global South. Before starting this internship, I set the goal of exploring the intricate governance structures in India to gain insight into the country’s urbanization process. During my time at Janaagraha, in order to transform findings from other parts of the world into applicable, contextualized outcomes, I familiarized myself with the key policies and developments in India’s urban history. I was particularly grateful for the opportunity to acquire solid foundational knowledge of local government institutions in India with varying degrees of decentralization. While I had encountered decentralization as a concept, witnessing how it manifested on the ground broadened my understanding of its specific impacts and provoked further thoughts on this seminal policy’s merits and faults. As the fall semester unfolds, this internship experience continues to derive meaning as I situate it in my current coursework. Taking a step back from the day-to-day responsibilities
and venturing into high-level theories, I am able to not only deepen my knowledge about decentralization and public sector staffing, but can connect the two different projects I worked on under one unifying framework. In the throes of intensive research, for example, I found my vision constricted by the limited variety of staffing solutions in different parts of the world. Even when some countries had implemented convincing reforms to dramatically expand the public sector’s personnel capacities, the contexts often diverged too greatly to allow for effective policy transfers. Fortunately, my readings this semester have shed light on the underlying causes of such staffing shortage and linked together similar challenges in different parts of the global South. This has allowed me to reflect more critically within and beyond the realm of policy transfers. Furthermore, a more in-depth study of urban development in India in the current academic setting affords me the opportunity to engage with important topics I did not have a chance to engage with this summer, such as informality, caste, and class. What was omitted was just as important, if not more so, than what was included, especially in terms of uncovering the biases and power dynamics implicit in the internship work. Outside of the nine-to-five routine, being in the city of Bangalore supplemented my understanding of Indian cities with lived experiences, despite the brevity of my stay. The lively and rapidly changing city was a diverse environment for me to wander into and observe unfamiliar spaces, simultaneously blending in and standing out. I walked the streets and interacted with people with heightened awareness of my positionality and privilege, partially due to the support of the internship grant, and partially because of the places where I came from and where I resided. Each experience — from awkward English conversations with Uber drivers to weekend trips to Mysore — took on double meanings, as reflexivity permeated the everyday. I
enjoyed the life I was able to access in Bangalore, but this also required me to be even more critical of how my presence was built on the labor, livelihoods, and exclusion of others. For instance, how did my shortterm rental in the “co-living space,” a booming niche market catering to young professionals, make parts of Bangalore more unaffordable and inaccessible? What political projects was I complicit in as a Harvard student participating in policy consulting work? On a personal level, I was deeply indebted to the generous help and unsurpassed openness of my colleagues at Janaagraha. Everyone I worked with made me feel incredibly welcome since day one, from trying out delicious lunch spots to sharing their honest thoughts on the staggering complexity that is Indian society. Professionally, every person from my supervisor to my teammates offered me guidance and assistance whenever I had any doubts or frustration. Their friendliness, care, creativity, and wits added so much fun to the eight hours of staring at a laptop every day. They made navigating the new city tremendously easier and more exciting, and even the little daily interruptions (e.g. traffic, Internet outage) felt more amusing than annoying because of their company. I cannot thank them enough with merely my words, and can only hope that our friendship will last. Lastly, I would like to express my genuine gratitude to the Mittal Institute for supporting my summer internship, which inspired a wellspring of thoughts and contributed to my career pursuits.
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40 The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University
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CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138 https://mittalsouthasiainstitute.harvard.edu/