Walk through any of our metros and you are struck not by their promise of being “world-class” but by how quickly they have descended into the feel of overcrowded villages. Not the idyllic sort of villages that evoke pastoral nostalgia, but villages transported into concrete, stripped of charm, and dressed up in glass towers and neon lights. We inhabit cities that are growing in size and GDP numbers, but shrinking in dignity, discipline, and civic grace. They are meant to be symbols of modern India, yet every corner exposes how poorly we manage what we build, equally poorly anyway.
Consider something as ordinary as buying a packet of bread. What should be a five-minute errand becomes an ordeal in civic disorder. Cars are double-parked, often triple-parked, engines running, air-conditioning on full blast. The arrogance of “I will only take five minutes” is treated as a universal privilege, the inconvenience to everyone else dismissed as the collateral of urban life. This casual lawlessness, tolerated and repeated, is what passes for normal in our cities. Far from being embarrassed, people see it as normal, muttering, “Everyone does it, why not me?” The small, everyday scenes of indiscipline are the defining image of how we live.
The same disregard extends to littering, where streets are treated as convenient extensions of household bins. Garbage is tossed from balconies, plastic bags are dumped at street corners, and vehicles become moving dustbins with wrappers flying out of windows.
Encroachment has become the parallel economy that sustains this disorder. Pavements meant for pedestrians are claimed permanently by vendors, street corners become mini-markets, and public land is steadily converted into private territory. These thrive with political and local bureaucratic blessings. Citizens who pay their taxes honestly are left to wonder what exactly they get in return.
Noise and impatience mark another dimension of this civic collapse. Loudspeakers blare deep into the night during processions, weddings, and rallies, while neighbourhoods quietly excuse the disturbance as “culture.” Few pause to ask what this means for hospitals, for students preparing for exams, or for senior citizens seeking rest.
The same disregard spills into everyday public life where the very notion of a queue is treated as optional. At metro stations, store cash counters, or airport gates, jostling is accepted as the preferred way forward. The dignity of waiting for one’s turn, which is a minimum expectation in any modern society, is eroded in the scramble of daily life.
Our cities function, in truth, like modern versions of the village square. Rules exist, but their application depends on who you know, how much you can pay, or how forcefully you can demand an exemption. Parking regulations collapse before the SUV with a political sticker. Authority rests not with institutions but with individuals ‒ political patrons, government officials, local brokers ‒ who convert disorder into influence.
It is tempting to place all the blame on politicians and bureaucrats, and indeed their laziness in lawmaking and enforcement is central to this decay. But there is also the undeniable truth of our own (citizens) civic conduct. We behave as though cities are not collective spaces to be preserved, but private estates to be exploited.
Nothing illustrates this more starkly than the split personality of the Indian citizen. Abroad, we stand in line, follow rules, and respect public order with precision. Back home, the same discipline vanishes at the airport exit. We follow rules only where they are non-negotiable. Where enforcement is weak, our instinct is to bend, bypass, or break.
And that is why cities expose us. They are unforgiving mirrors of who we are as a society. They reveal not just institutional laziness but also social hypocrisy. We aspire to be a five-trillion-dollar economy, but cannot manage parking. We want to host global summits, but cannot enforce local zoning laws. We dream of smart cities, but ignore the dumb basics. Cities are the truest test of national character, and in that test, we are falling short. A great nation cannot be built on fragile, chaotic cities.
There is, too, a political dimension to this dysfunction. Disorder is useful. When every hawker requires protection, when every builder requires clearances, when every motorist fears the constable, there is leverage. The more chaotic the system, the more valuable the patronage of those who control it. Fixing cities would mean reducing this leverage, and so chaos becomes a political resource.
The tragedy is that cities were meant to be engines of prosperity and modernity. Urbanisation should have been India’s great leap forward. Instead, it has become a drag on progress, exhausting talent rather than attracting it.
What we are left with are cities that are not truly cities at all, but high-rise villages. The skylines are taller, the Wi-Fi faster, the malls shinier, but the mindset is unchanged. We confuse development with construction, mistaking more flyovers and bigger airports for the hard work of civic order. But no amount of glass and concrete can conceal the fact that our cities remain fragile, chaotic, and unworthy of the ambitions we hold for ourselves as a nation.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. |
