Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T12:15:40.721Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Communities of Place, Not Kind: American Technologies of Neighborhood in Postcolonial Delhi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2011

Matthew S. Hull*
Affiliation:
Anthropology, University of Michigan

Extract

In 1956 the Indian Government invited the Ford Foundation to assist with a master plan for the Delhi region. Two years later, the invitation was extended to help with a separate urban community development program. Even though the master plan was a comprehensive project covering transportation, water, sewage, housing, industry, and zoning, the creation of community and communities was one of its main goals. The Draft Master Plan for Delhi (DMPD) declared “in all planning for man's environments,” it was “extremely vital” to “evolve a well integrated new community pattern that would fit the changed living conditions of the new age and promote genuine democratic growth.” Similarly, the primary objective of the urban community development project, as laid out by the Commissioner of Delhi, was that of “giving form to an urban community, which has been drawn from backgrounds varying from one another and trying to achieve a homogeneity.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Draft Master Plan for Delhi, vol. 1 (Delhi: DDA, 1960), 97Google Scholar.

2 Department of Urban Community Development (DUCD), Second Evaluation Study of the Vikas Mandals (Delhi: Municipal Corporation of Delhi [MCD], 1965)Google Scholar, Foreword.

3 Prakash, Gyan, “The Colonial Genealogy of Society: Community and Political Modernity in India,” in Joyce, Patrick, ed., The Social in Question: New Bearings in History and the Social Sciences (London: Routledge, 2002), 86Google Scholar.

4 Haynes, Douglas, Rhetoric and Ritual in Colonial India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 109Google Scholar.

5 Legg, Stephen, Spaces of Colonialism (London: Blackwell, 2007), 124CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Albert Mayer, “Some Operational Problems in Urban and Regional Planning and Development,” Albert Mayer Papers (AMP), University of Chicago, 35.34.

7 Henry C. Hart, “Bombay Politics: Pluralism or Polarization,” AMP, 29.4.

8 Ibid., 22.

9 Douglas Ensminger, “India's First Experiment in Urban Community Development, The City of Delhi Takes the Lead in an Urgent Pilot Program,” 10 Feb. 1959, Ford Foundation Archives (FFA), Report no. 106.

10 Sundaram, Ravi, Pirate Modernity: Delhi's Media Urbanism (London: Routledge, 2010), 44Google Scholar.

11 Douglas Ensminger, “Ford Foundation's Role in the Field of Urbanization,” 1972, Oral History, FFA, B.17, 7.

12 Sutton, Francis X., “The Ford Foundation: The Early Years,” Daedalus 116 (1987), 4190Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., 48.

14 Rowan Gaither, “Report of the Study for the Ford Foundation on Policy and Program” (Detroit: Ford Foundation, 1949), 21.

15 Sutton, “Ford Foundation,” 46.

16 Ensminger, “Ford Foundation's Role,” 6.

17 See, for example, Harrison, Selig, India: The Most Dangerous Decades (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Hoselitz, Bert, “The Role of Urbanization in Economic Development: Some International Comparisons,” in Davis, Kingsley and Turner, Roy, eds., India's Urban Future (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962), 172Google Scholar.

19 Julian Whittlesey, “Optimum Size for Delhi-New Delhi Central City,” 28 Mar. 1957, AMP, 22.8.

20 Mumford, Lewis, The Culture of Cities (New York: Harcourt Brace Johanovich, 1970 [1938]), 188Google Scholar.

21 Edward Echevarria, “Optimum Size of Delhi City,” 31 May 1957, AMP, 22.7.

22 DDA, DMPD, vol. 2 (Delhi: DDA, 1960). 123Google Scholar.

23 Ibid., 124.

24 Ibid., 123.

25 DDA, DMPD, vol. 1, 67.

26 DDA, DMPD, vol. 1, 67–68.

27 Hindustan Times Sunday Magazine, 21 Aug. 1960.

28 Mayer, Albert, Pilot Project, India: The Story of Rural Development at Etawah, Uttar Pradesh (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958)Google Scholar.

29 Spence, Ralph, “Foreword,” Autonomous Groups Bulletin 6 (1950)Google Scholar, n.p.

30 Cooley, Charles Horton, Social Organization (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), 51Google Scholar.

31 This conception of social order emerging from interaction is a direct descendant of Scottish Enlightenment thought, in particular, Adam Smith's account of moral sentiments emerging from sympathetic connections among individuals.

32 Addams, Jane, Democracy and Social Ethics (New York: MacMillan Co., 1913), 7Google Scholar.

33 Woods, Robert A., The Neighborhood in Nation-Building (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1923), 201Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., 149.

35 Perry, Clarence, Ten Years of the Community Center Movement (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1921)Google Scholar.

36 Perry, Clarence, Housing for the Machine Age (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1939), 217Google Scholar.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid., 65.

39 Ibid., 57.

40 Jacobs, Jane, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961)Google Scholar.

41 Dahir, James, Communities for Better Living (New York: Harper Bros., 1950), 7Google Scholar.

42 Caplow, T. and Foreman, R., “Neighborhood Interaction in a Homogeneous Community,” American Sociological Review 15 (1950), 357–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Merton, Robert, “The Social Psychology of Housing“ in Wayne, Dennis, ed., Current Trends in Social Psychology (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburg Press, 1947), 163217Google Scholar; Rosow, I., “The Social Effects of the Physical Environment,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 27 (1961), 127–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Festinger, Leon, Schachter, Stanley, and Back, Kurt, Social Pressures in Informal Groups (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963 [1950]), 160Google Scholar.

44 Ibid., vii.

45 Koenigsberger, Otto, “New Towns in India,” Town Planning Review 23 (1952): 94131CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quote 105.

46 Bopegamage, A., Delhi: A Study in Urban Sociology (Bombay: University of Bombay, 1957), 201, 202Google Scholar.

47 DDA, DMPD, vol. 2, 54.

48 DDA, Work Studies Relating to the Preparation of the Master Plan for Delhi, vol. 2 (Delhi: DDA 1960), 93Google Scholar.

49 Sanjeev Vidyarthi, “Inappropriate Appropriations of Planning Ideas: Informalizing the Formal and Localizing the Global” (PhD diss., Urban, Technological, and Environmental Planning, University of Michigan, 2008), 87.

50 DUCD, The Formation and Working of Vikas Mandals (Citizen Development Councils) (Delhi: MCD, 1962), 5Google Scholar.

51 Albert Mayer, “Albert Mayer to E. G. Echevarria,” 22 Jan. 1960, AMP, 21.10. Mayer had a similar opinion of the Indian officials with whom he worked: “Many or most Indian leaders are indifferent to the city or actually have an anti-urban bias.… Both nostalgically and theoretically their hearts are in the villages, and it is a sort of article of faith that the villages are vastly superior to and more ethically habitable than the city. The city must be tolerated, but there is, generally speaking, no creative concept or sense of urgency or sense of identification” (“Piece for Jean Joyce,” 23 Mar. 1959, AMP 22.10).

52 DDA, DMPD, vol. 1, 97.

53 DDA, Work Studies Relating to the Preparation of the Master Plan for Delhi, 78.

54 DDA, DMPD, vol. 2, 26.

55 Ibid., 82.

56 Nancy Munn, “Creating a Heterotopia: An Analysis of the Spacetime of Olmstead's and Vaux's Central Park,” Unpub. MS (n.d.).

57 DDA, DMPD, vol. 2, 66.

58 See, for example, the map “Growth of Disorganized Congestion,” in DDA, DMPD, vol. 1.

59 Mayer AMP, 20.31, the quotation is written on a part of the drawing of which Figure 3 is a detail.

60 Hosagrahar, Jyoti, Indigenous Modernities: Negotiating Architecture and Urbanism (London: Routledge, 2005), 68Google Scholar; Jain, A. K., The Making of a Metropolis (Delhi: National Book Organization, 1990), 185Google Scholar.

61 DDA, Work Studies Relating to the Preparation of the Master Plan for Delhi, vol. 1 (Delhi: 1960), 204Google Scholar.

62 Albert Mayer, “Social Studies and Action in Planning; Understanding and Support,” 1960, AMP, 22.25.

63 DDA, DMPD, vol. 2, 133.

64 Gans, Herbert, “Planning and Social Life,” Journal of American Institute of Planners 27 (1961): 134–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quote 137; Isaacs, Reginald R., “The ‘Neighborhood Unit’ Is an Instrument for Segregation,” Journal of Housing 5 (1948): 215–18Google Scholar.

65 Rene Eyheralde, “Ford Foundation Program Letter,” 27 June 1960, AMP, 11429.40.

66 DDA, DMPD, vol. 2, 98.

67 Samaj, Bharat Sevak, Slums of Old Delhi (Delhi: Atma Ram and Sons, 1958)Google Scholar, Foreword.

68 Mayer, “Social Studies and Action.”

69 Mayer, Albert, “National Implications of Urban-Regional Planning,” in Davis, Kingsley and Turner, Roy, eds., India's Urban Future (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962), 340Google Scholar.

70 Marshall Clinard, Slums and Community Development (New York: Free Press, 1966), 82.

71 Ensminger, “India's First Experiment.”

72 Guha, B. S., “The Role of Social Sciences in Nation Building,” Sociological Bulletin 7 (1958): (inclusive page numbers unavailable), 150CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 Clinard, Slums, 73.

74 DUCD, Formation and Working, 5.

75 Clinard, Slums, 151–52; Clinard, Marshall and Chatterjee, B., “Urban Community Development,” in Davis, Kingsley and Turner, Roy, eds., India's Urban Future (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962), 7879Google Scholar.

76 Clinard, Slums, 168.

77 Ibid.

78 Hall, Derek, A Spatial Analysis of Urban Community Development Policy in India (New York: Research Studies Press, 1980), 140Google Scholar.

79 Clinard and Chatterjee, “Urban Community Development,” 92.

80 Clinard, Slums, 168.

81 DUCD, Formation and Working, 5.

82 Clinard, Slums, 173.

83 DUCD, Manual of Urban Community Development (Delhi: MCD, 1960), 83.

84 Haynes, Rhetoric and Ritual in Colonial India, 109. See also Freitag, Sandria, Collective Action and Community: Public Arenas and the Emergence of Communalism in North India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 78, 212Google Scholar.

85 Gupta, Narayani, Delhi between Two Empires, 1803–1930: Society, Government and Urban Growth (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981)Google Scholar. Interestingly, even British community developers working in Africa during the 1950s and 1960s, in marked contrast to their American counterparts, generally worked through “traditional leaders.” See Batten, T. R., Communities and Their Development (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957)Google Scholar.

86 Hull, Matthew, “Democratic Technologies of Speech: From WWII America to Postcolonial Delhi,” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20 (2010): 257–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87 Clinard, Slums, 299.

88 Ibid., 184.

89 Ibid., 291.

90 Ibid., 196.

91 DUCD, Manual of Urban Community Development, 31, original emphasis.

92 “Monthly Report of Project 2 (February),” C-67/1960/Community Social Development (CSD)/MCD (MCD).

93 DUCD, Organizing Citizens' Development Councils (Vikas Mandals) (Delhi: MCD, 1961), 35Google Scholar.

94 Clinard, Slums, 292.

95 DUCD, Organizing Citizens' Development Councils, 35.

96 DUCD, Manual of Urban Community Development, 34.

97 Clinard, Slums, 293.

98 Ibid., 174.

99 DUCD, Organizing Citizens' Development Councils, 48.

100 “Monthly Report of Pilot Project Shora Kothi Project I (November 1960),” T-150/1959/CSD/MCD.

101 DUCD, Organizing Citizens' Development Councils, 48.

102 Clinard, Slums, 292, 299.

103 “Monthly Report of Shora Kothi Project II (May 1960),” C-67/1960/CSD/MCD.

104 Clinard, Slums, 296.

105 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project IV (December 1960),” R-56/1960/CSD/MCD.

106 Ibid.

107 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project IV (April 1961),” R-56/1960/CSD/MCD.

108 Ibid.

109 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project IV (June 1961),” R-56/1960/CSD/MCD.

110 “Monthly Report of Shora Kothi Project II (June 1960),” C-67/1960/CSD/MCD.

111 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project I (June 1960),” T-150/1959/CSD/MCD.

112 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project I (July 1960),” T-150/1959/CSD/MCD.

113 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project I (November 1960),” T-150/1959/CSD/MCD.

114 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project I (January 1961),” T-150/1959/CSD/MCD.

115 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project IV (August 1960),” R-56/1960/CSD/MCD.

116 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project I (October 1960),” T-150/1959/CSD/MCD.

117 “Monthly Report of Shora Kothi Project II (May 1960),” C-67/1960/CSD/MCD.

118 Clinard, Slums, 179.

119 Ibid., 322.

120 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project I (December 1960),” T-150/1959/CSD/MCD.

121 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project I (June 1961),” T-150/1959/CSD/MCD.

122 Ibid.

123 Clinard, Slums, 148.

124 Lewin, Kurt, Resolving Social Conflict: Selected Papers on Group Dynamics (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948), 67Google Scholar.

125 Narain, Iqbal, “Decentralisation and Democracy,” in Narain, Iqbal, ed., Community Development and Democratic Growth (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1974), 120Google Scholar.

126 Hull, “Democratic Technologies,” 263–66.

127 DUCD, Organizing Citizens' Development Councils, 81.

128 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project I (August 1959),” T-150/1959/CSD/MCD.

129 Ibid.

130 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project I (September 1959),” T-150/1959/CSD/MCD.

131 Clinard, Slums, 284. Clinard quotes this from a report of a community organizer. Though it is unclear from the citation, this is most likely a translation of a Hindi/Urdu poem.

132 Ibid., 56.

133 Ibid., 96.

134 Clinard, Slums, 252.

135 “Monthly Report of Project Shora Kothi Project I (August 1959),” T-150/1959/CSD/MCD.

136 Clinard, Slums, 252.

137 Ibid., 285.

138 This analysis showed, for example, a high correlation of apathy and a low “total activity level” (rs = .44) (ibid., 286.), no correlation between the “total activity level” and the number of formal organizational meetings of the vikas mandals, a high correlation between a high “total activity level” and the number of informal actions groups formed within a vikas mandal area (rs = .84) (Clinard, Slums, 299), and no correlation of the “total activity level” with the length of time required to initiate the vikas mandal (ibid.).

139 Chakrabarty, Dipesh, “Introduction,” in Chakrabarty, Dipesh, Majumdar, Rochona, and Sartori, Andrew, eds., From the Colonial and Postcolonial: India and Pakistan in Transition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 1Google Scholar.

140 Town and Country Planning Organization, “Review of Master Plan for Delhi,” (Delhi, 1973), 14.

141 Ibid., 11, 58.

142 Ibid., 59.

143 Vidyarthi, “Inappropriate appropriations,” 122–23.

144 Ibid., 185–90.

145 Ibid., 186.

146 Poulomi Chakrabari, “How Rise of Middle Class Activism in Indian Cities Is Changing the Face of Local Governance” (MA thesis, Urban Studies and Planning, MIT, 2007).

147 Mehra, Diya, “Associational Activism and the Management of Neighborhoods in Post-Independence Delhi,” in Sundaram, Ravi, ed., Delhi's Twentieth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

148 Chakrabari, “How Rise of Middle Class Activism,” 85.

149 Mehra, “Associational Activism.”