Introduction

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

-Jane Jacob

The commotion of the road changes into children’s laughter and the fresh tar of the four-lane road converts into dusty narrow aisles, as soon as we step down to walk into our site. We’re greeted by a vast stretch of dense tin roofs, each hooked with dish antennas. A change of height, from the main road to the site, doesn’t only feel metaphoric to the conditions we are about to enter, but is also a good reminder of the world we’d have to leave behind to understand this new one a little better.

Vishwakarma Nagar literally translates to the land for the god of architects, the one who creates. A lot of inquisitive faces greet us with questions and half smiles, we reciprocate with a namaste, trying our best to ease this new strangeness. For the residents of Vishwakarma Nagar, their basti, as they like to call their informal settlement, is the home they’ve always known. Three generations of family lineage have been brought up in this neighborhood, and for better or for worst, they wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. The residents have been living with unsurety for the past 20 years and today they face insecurity more than before. Knowing that one day their basti would be taken down seems like a hard pill to swallow. However, the strength and the resilience of this community lies in its verve and vitality.

As a part of the course Urban Informality at Urban Ecological Planning Programme, our group of three spent 8 weeks in close proximity with the residents, trying our best to understand their day-to-day lives, the dynamics they share within the community and the issues they face. We intend to study all these aspects to narrate an honest translation of our research from this fieldwork to have a better understanding of the assets and vulnerabilities of this area. To achieve this level of understanding, we’d be using Carole Rakodi’s Livelihoods Framework that puts the citizens at the center and looks at their assets from five different capital lenses.

Our focus lies on studying the complexity of Vishwakarma Nagar, a notified slum, which has found itself in the heart of an upcoming commercial area of Bhopal. The length of our study would be covering the participatory methods we used to involve the community in

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Habibganj Railway Station

BHEL Quarters

Vishwakarma Nagar BHEL

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our process of data collection, our analysis of the current situation based on the collected data and livelihood framework, which lead to our findings that would help draw us our focus. With these aforementioned understand -ing we’d base our subsequent proposals that would act as strategic interventions resulting in both short and long term benefits.

BHOPAL, INDIA

A very famous Indian saying goes like: ‘Kos-kos par badle paani, chaar kos par baani’

Translation: ‘The language spoken in India changes every four kilometers, just like the taste of water that changes every one kilometer’.

When one talks about India, it’s inevitable to not talk about its population and it’s diversity. With a population of 1.3 billion, India is one of the most densely populated countries in the world with almost 23 official languages and a kaleidoscope of religions and sects (Census 2001). With such a rich cultural and social diversity it’s hard to study the country in a pre-set format that gives it a conventional identity.

We live in a world, after all, where the rights of private property and the profit rate trump all other notions of rights one can think of (Harvey, 2018). With urban migration

8 happening at a rapid pace, it’s hard for the city dwellers to survive the increasing prices and harder for the urban poor to own a rightful place in the city.

The central state of Madhya Pradesh is known for its rich culture and heritage. Owing to its location, it experiences migration from all parts of the country. This blend of culture and tradition has only added to the value the state has upheld. The capital city of Bhopal holds the same cultural richness as a testimony.

Bhopal gained a lot of international attention after the Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1984 when thousands died due to lethal gas release at the Union Carbide factory. This industrial disaster that affected generations of survivors, even after 34 years, has the city fight for justice and compensation. However, the citizens of the city refuse to dwell on this tragic past and have moved on for a better future, but the crime and hurt are still alive in the hearts of many.

The city of Bhopal was also known as the princely state of the Begums and the Nawabs, the Islamic rulers. Today, this state capital is an administrative center and has gathered limelight for being one of the 20 projects under the first phase of Indian government’s acclaimed Smart City Project of 2015. It’s interesting to note how a part of Bhopal gears

up for this new dimension that it’s soon to receive and the other half of it holds onto its rich legacy and culture.

The smart city’s vision for Bhopal on its website says: “It (Bhopal) is amongst the 20 lighthouse cities with a dramatically different approach which is driven by ‘Redevelopment’ rather than ‘Retrofitting’” (Smartbhopal.city, 2018). This investment by the government would not only be focused at improving the infrastructure of the city, but also to improve the living standards for its citizens. However, this concept of digital utopia is neither inclusive of the marginalized nor does it take into consideration the social risks involved.

The year 2020 envisages Bhopal as a “zero slum city" with rehabilitation and relocation of as many as 20000 slum dwelling units in a phased manner (Saxena and Joshi, 2018). Through our project we intend to study the Smart City of Bhopal from a bottom-top approach. Wherein, we seek the participation of those citizens whose opinions were left out from the grander schemes planned for the city.

HABIBGANJ: THEN AND NOW

Habibganj area, what once was the sub-urban part of Bhopal is now considered one of the most prime locations of the city. To ease the traffic of the Bhopal Junction railway station, the Habibganj railway station was constructed in the year 1979. In 2017, the Habibganj railway was taken over under the scheme of

Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Limited (IRSDC), a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), responsible for redevelopment projects across the country. Habibganj railway station is not only one of the many projects but is also the one spearheading the entire scheme, making it the first private railway station of the country.

The lease for the Habibganj Redevelopment Project (HRP) was won by the Bansal Group of Infrastructure, a local multi-national company (MNC) that won the lease for 45 years. The project is split in two phases: Phase one would be looking at expansion and the development of three commercial blocks, while, the second phase would include a hotel and a hospital around the premises of the station. It’s anticipated that these high scale developments would contribute to the hike in land prices of the area and also give employment opportunities to many.

Right opposite the Habibganj railway station, to the southern part, is home to one of the biggest Indian industrial company: Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL). In the year 1955, the government gave huge pockets of land around the city for the company to set up its mother plant. This development has

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attracted a lot of industries and given many job opportunities. Back in the day, when the industry was flourishing it employed thousands, attracting a lot of job migrations. With time, and more competition, BHEL lost a lot of its projects to the more competent market, hence, downsizing the entire capital. Abandoned quarters of BHEL employees today remain in wrecked and abandoned around the Habibganj area.

VISHWAKARMA NAGAR

After the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, a lot of Bengali migrants moved towards Central India towards Bhopal, in search for a home and opportunities. A majority of these migrants settled in the outskirts of the city in a ‘forest-like’ area called Habibganj. In front of the Habibganj railway station and next to the BHEL quarters, this migrant squatting occurred and thus came Vishwakarma Nagar into existence; and hence its second name, Bengali colony.

From our conversations with the residents, the first settlers that we could trace were the rural migrants who came here in the year 1960s from the neighboring town and villages of Madhya Pradesh looking for jobs. For this reason, today the area is segregated in two mahallahs, or communities: the Bengali and the Bihari mahallah, based on the place where one has come from. This squatting on a vacant land grew denser every decade. Due to no formal intervention, the area grew organically without any planning. What once was a suburban forest area soon turned into a dense settlement of migrants who called it home.

In 2013 Vishwakarma Nagar had around 848 households (Slum Free Plan for Bhopal Metropolitan Area, 2013). This organically growing informal settlement functions amidst a planned urban location. With commercialization and development happening in Habibganj, this settlement finds itself in the midst of great risks of eviction. When our group was assigned this site, we were told that probably the settlement won’t survive till the course of our fieldwork. Our assumption of the resident’s tenure security developed even before we visited the site.

Today, Vishwakarma Nagar is one of the slums listed in the Slum Free Plan that envisages a ‘Slum-free India’ by encouraging States to tackle the problem of slums in a definitive manner (Sudaup.org, 2018). For the citizens, the future of Vishwakarma Nagar, their home, remains unknown.

Our assumption and their unknown future took us through deeper levels of research, each of which was developed through methods and procedures that would be discussed in detail in the subsequent chapters.

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Trust building

Co-workshop with SPA Delhi and KRVIA Mumbai

Identify issues: unemployment, marginialised women and tenure security

Needs assessment

Identifying concerns: sanitation, water supply in addition to tenure security

Frustrated and confused by the interview with Bansal group

Proposal development

Data analysis and findings Final report

WEEK 1 WEEK 2&3

First impression

Getting familiar with Bhopal

First visit to Vishwakarma Nagar WEEK 4&5 WEEK 6&7 WEEK 8&9 WEEK 10&11

Focus on tenure security

Co-workshop with SPA Bhopal

Interviews with community residents

Focus on information exchange

Interviews with BHEL and Housing For All

Co-design workshop with the community WEEK12

Conclusion

Final presentation Seminar in Delhi

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