Absent Leadership, Dying Cities

In many of our discussions, writings, and casual conversations, the topic of ‘urbanisation’ is often mentioned with a highly negative connotation. And rightly so—because all our cities are essentially dilapidated, unplanned, and overpopulated human settlements. They lack the quaint calm of villages and also the energetic buzz of a well-planned urban hub. What we have are cramped colonies where people live out of compulsion, not choice. Why has it come to this?

There are many reasons, but I want to highlight four primary ones:

1. Lack of Timely and Appropriate Policies, Rules, and Laws

Take the example of Singapore: a city that created a development plan in 1971 and reviews it every ten years to make necessary changes. In contrast, even after ten years since the establishment of the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA), we still do not have a finalized development plan for the region!

2. Apathy of Leaders Across All Political Parties Toward Implementation

This is most evident in the case of delayed local body elections. Some cities have completed entire five-year terms without any elected local governance. While the Constitution, municipal corporation laws, and election regulations all exist, implementation is utterly lacking. The government has not even taken a strong stance that elections must be held and pending court cases should be expedited to prevent local democracy from being kept on life support. Politicians from all parties—engaged in a game of musical chairs for power—find it convenient to keep control of city budgets worth thousands of crores without having to answer to elected representatives. Even basic rules aren’t enforced. For example, there’s a rule that whenever there is digging or construction work in the city, boards must be put up to inform citizens. If not, there are penalties. While the authorities are quick to impose penalties on citizens, they fail to follow or enforce these rules themselves. Whether it's a big law or a small one, implementation by the government is abysmal.

3. Lack of Government Consistency

Look again at the issue of municipal elections. Depending on what suits a political party or alliance, the structure of elections keeps changing—from single-member wards to four-member wards. There is no logical, consistent policy or approach. In the last 25 years, no two consecutive elections in Pune have followed the same method. This naked political self-interest of those in power is plain to see. When court petitions delay elections, our sly politicians simply shrug it off, indifferent to the erosion of democracy.

4. Absence of an Independent Evaluation Mechanism for City Governance

There is no autonomous body to quantitatively or qualitatively assess city governance. Neither municipal corporations nor the state’s urban development department conducts such evaluations. Massive schemes worth thousands of crores are launched, but no reports are available on what goals were set, how much was achieved, or why objectives weren’t met. If an independent organization, research group, or university wants to evaluate performance, even basic data is not made transparently available. Despite managing large municipal budgets, not a single corporation presents its budget in a citizen-friendly format that enables research or scrutiny. The unspoken strategy seems to be: don’t provide information, and you eliminate the possibility of independent evaluation. And because there’s no evaluation, we’re stuck at the first step—unable to make appropriate policies. Without accurate data or performance reviews, what kind of policy-making is even possible?

So, are citizens responsible for all this? No. The real culprits are our irresponsible, all-party political leaders. Currently, there are no city councilors in any of our cities. Commissioners appointed by the state government are managing urban affairs. That makes the state government accountable, particularly to the MLAs who sit in the legislative assembly. In Pune, there are about 150 to 175 corporators and only eight MLAs. This means that one MLA is effectively responsible for the work of at least 20 corporators—which, of course, is unmanageable.

Officers don't respond to citizen complaints because they don’t fear losing votes in any upcoming election. Even a look at the minutes of Pune’s ward-level mohalla meetings shows that small tasks can take six months or more. The administration is lost in its own arrogance, and the leaders whom we could hold accountable are nowhere to be found.

In such a scenario, is it any wonder that our cities are on a ventilator, gasping for survival?

(Published in Daily Sakaal on April 11, 2025)

We, the people of India...

Often, we do not quickly understand the difference between the two national days of India, 15th of August and 26th of January. The 15th of August is our Independence Day, so it’s easy enough. It was the day we earned our freedom from Britishers. But what exactly does a Republic Day mean? ‘Republic’, ‘Constitution’ sound like such big, baffling words, don’t they? The truth is, they are not as difficult and burdensome as we believe. Let's see why.

 Our country gained independence from the British on 15th August 1947. Until then, they were running our country. When they left, the governance came under our control. Then we Indians had to decide how to run our own country. More than three hundred and fifty people from different regions, from various castes and religions, who spoke numerous languages came together to make this decision. And two and a half years later, after a lot of discussions, arguments, and dialogues, they wrote a book. It is called the Constitution of our country. In this book, they wrote down all the rules for governance. When you buy an electronic device, you also get a manual along with it. It provides detailed information about using that device. It tells you how to take care of the equipment. And also, what to do if it breaks down. Our constitution is like the manual to run our country. It has instructions for the distribution of responsibility to look after it. It also tells you what to do if something goes wrong. So 26th January 1950 was the day we decided to adopt the Constitution. This day is as important as or rather more important than Independence Day. Because the constitution helps protect and preserve the freedom we have earned.

The Indian Constitution was prepared after studying the Constitutions of various countries, different laws and regulations, and the thoughts of many philosophers. It is the largest, most detailed Constitution in the world. But the interesting part is, it's not just a gallimaufry of things. It was written keeping in mind what applied to our country, our people, and the culture. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, and many such experts played a vital role in shaping our Constitution.

I really like the very first words of our constitution. "We, the people of India ...". It means this set of rules, the manual to run the country, is not gifted by anyone; it hasn't been borrowed from anywhere. But we, the people of India have prepared and accepted it. This part of the constitution is called Preamble. It explains what this book is all about. ‘We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a ‘sovereign’- means truly independent; ‘socialist’- means inclusive of people from all walks of society; ‘secular’- means non-discriminatory on the basis of religion and sect; 'democratic republic' - a government of the people elected democratically. It further states that in this country there will be justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity. This Preamble is as useful as a compass that indicates the direction. We need to keep a check on everything that occurs in our country, everything the government does, and see whether it's going in the direction showed by the Preamble. It is our duty as a faithful patriotic Indian citizen.

We can amend the constitution as per the need, time, and situation. More than a hundred such changes have been made till today. Though its basic structure cannot be changed. Nobody can make any amendments that may compromise the rights given to the Indian citizens or harm the basic framework of the Constitution. And this is its greatest strength. Just like the Preamble states the direction in which our country should lead, the third part of the Constitution states exactly which rights the citizens enjoy. They are called fundamental rights. But the constitution does not stop here. It also tells us what we, the citizens, should do. They are called fundamental duties. Every Indian is expected to fulfil these duties to take the country in the direction we have set for ourselves.

The benefit of understanding the constitution is, if we want to enhance our lives, it tells us exactly what to do. From our history of about two hundred thousand years, we can see that we invented several things. Fire, the wheel, steam engine... millions of such tools! And the purpose of it all was to make our life comfortable and happy. But only inventions were not enough. For our life to be safe, peaceful, and happy, we needed to make rules for co-existence. The Constitution and the laws based on it are meant to enrich our lives. The Constitution is as important for a peaceful life together as a compass is for directing a ship at sea. If we want our everyday life to prosper, be peaceful, and happy, then we must try to understand the Indian Constitution, right?!

-      -Translated by Srujana Pradnya

(Original Marathi article is published in Kishor magazine of January 2021.)

The Chaos in Municipal Elections

In the winter session of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly held in Nagpur in December 2019, the new Mahavikas Aghadi government amended the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act[1]. According to this amendment, the system of two to four corporators contesting from a single ward of the Municipal Corporation has been changed to one corporator per ward. But for the past few days, there have been talks in the political circles about going back to the system of two members per ward again. This article discusses the said matter and why the general public needs to pay attention to it.

The Indian electoral system is called ‘First Past the Post’. It means, out of all the contestants, the candidate who gets the highest number of votes, wins the election. A geographical area is agreed upon to decide who may vote for that candidate. The geographical area which is chosen for the MPs sitting in the Parliament and the MLAs sitting in the Legislative Assembly is called ‘constituency’. Locally, it is named ‘the ward’. The idea behind it is that one person from each geographical area should be elected through the voting process. But this system is currently facing a lot of political arbitrary interference. Let’s look at Pune Municipal Corporation as an example.

Till 2002, one person per ward used to be elected from Pune Municipal Corporation. But things suddenly changed since that election. In 2002, the Pune Municipal Corporation adapted the system of electing more than one person from a single ward. Three corporators seats were introduced instead of a single one. Voters needed to cast three different votes for those three seats. In 2007, the system changed again to one corporator per ward. Again the voters voted for a single candidate contesting from their area. Five years later, in 2012 during the next elections, the system was changed again. This time two candidates per ward were introduced and voters cast two votes to elect their representatives. Followed more changes during the elections in 2017! This time it was four corporators per ward. More changes are planned for 2022. No two elections between 2002 and 2017 have been similar. Every single time, the state government has changed the laws about elections. Though this is only Pune’s example, every other municipal corporation except for Mumbai has been through similar changes.

Naturally, one may ask, what’s wrong with these changes? What’s wrong with having more than one corporator per ward? Now let’s see what really is wrong with it. The law specifies how many corporators should be there in a municipal corporation and also if their number should increase in proportion to the population of the region. If the ward has more than one corporator, the size of the ward itself also increases. Municipal corporations are called ‘Local Self-government Institutions’. In this definition, the word ‘local’ is important. It is a governing body that takes care of the local issues at the root level. Clearly, it is always better to have the people’s elected representative (corporator) from the same area. But when the ward size increases immensely, the representative comes from a distant area instead of the nearby one. My corporator is no longer someone who lives in the same locality as I do, who knows the local issues, and not someone whom I know either.

Another important point is, if there is more than one corporator in the same ward, the responsibility cannot be determined. As they say, ‘everybody’s responsibility is nobody’s responsibility’. It is exactly the case in the wards with multiple corporators. Since it’s unclear who is the true representative of the people, the credit for the completed work is claimed by everyone. On the other hand, they all blame each other for uncompleted tasks. But the citizens cannot hold any of the corporators accountable for it. Answerability and responsible government- the very backbone of democracy- are harmed. Over the years, it has been consistently observed that even though all the corporators in a ward are from the same political party; the differences, competition, and discord among themselves also affect the development work. Let’s not even think about the situation if they are the representatives of different or opposition parties.

There’s another point related to the uncertainty of responsibility and area of work that needs to be mentioned. Which is of ‘Area Sabha’. The 73rd Amendment in the decade of the 90s gave the people in rural areas the right to hold a ‘Gram Sabha’(village council) to take direct decisions about local matters. Urban citizens still have no such right. But the law that goes closest to it is the one to hold Area Sabha. The law stipulates that these meetings need to encourage the direct involvement of the citizens in the local decision-making process. It is mentioned that the chairperson of this meeting should be the corporator of that particular ward. But since there are four corporators in a single ward in Pune, officials and political leaders privately confess facing the intricacies about who should be the chairperson. This bill was passed by the Legislative Assembly in 2009 but it still hasn’t been implemented till date.

The fourth and most important point is - it is difficult for a common man, an independent worker, to contest the election from an enormous ward. In a democracy, it is insisted that at the local level, candidates working at the root level should be elected and political parties should come into the picture later. It is secondary whether that candidate is the representative of a political party or is an independent one. This is the reason why there is no party representation in Gram Panchayat elections. Should this be the case at the city level too, is another issue altogether. One needs to be regardful that the electoral mechanism shouldn’t be unjust towards the independent candidates. When the ward size and the number of voters are increased because of the multiple members' ward system, it becomes almost impossible for a common independent candidate to reach out and campaign in such a heavily populated area. On the other hand, it is comparatively a lot easier to contest the elections for a candidate who has money, party workers, and other means of campaigning. Besides, because of the constant changes made during every election, a common man who wants to stay put at one place and work sincerely, is easily side-lined. Elections are made difficult for such a candidate. This is a threat to democracy.

One of the excuses given in favour of multiple members ward system is – the reservation for women and backward classes. Had this been the real reason, this same rule should have been applied to all the municipal corporations together. In reality, apparently, there is only one corporator per ward in Mumbai Municipal Corporation; but in Pune, this ratio is four to one, whereas at other places it's two to one and even three to one. So obviously this reason is given just for the sake of it. Another excuse is, if there is only one corporator, he starts considering himself the king of the ward. But this can also be the case with MPs and MLAs. So should four or five constituencies be combined in order to hold elections? On the contrary, instead of having a cure worse than the ailment, if measures like ‘Area Sabha’ are implemented effectively, it will help change the feudal mentality of our representatives.

The truth is, there is no rational, deliberate thought, research put behind these changes. The method that is convenient for the political parties in power in the state at that particular time is implemented. It is a shameless political calculation that the electoral system that will allow as many corporators to be elected as possible, will be brought into action. So it varies according to the local political situation in each city. It is crystal clear that all our party leaders have a selfish interest in only taking the decisions that help them elect as many candidates as possible in the Municipal Corporation. It is the need of the democracy that the state government stops this arbitrary and selfish practice and keeps the people-oriented, accountable system of one member per ward permanently in all the Municipal Corporations. As citizens, we need to be aware and insistent on this.

-Translated by Srujana Pradnya.

(Original Marathi article is published in ‘Sakaal’ on November 20^th, 2020.)

---

[1] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/maharashtra-passes-bill-to-scrap-four-corporators-

per-ward/article30369956.ece

Smart people, Smart cities.

The fantasy to see our cities getting ‘smart’ is a welcoming thought. There’s no harm in

fantasising about our cities decked out with the best facilities, at par with the developed countries. We should unabashedly dream more and have the will to pursue them dutifully against all odds, making the necessary sacrifices. The smart city schemes won’t revamp the cities in a night, just like a human doesn’t evolve in a touch after owning a smartphone. Everyone involved in system must contribute fearlessly and proactively, right from the administrators, people who elect them, social organisations who monitor them. There should be acceptance to new ideas and ability to shed off the old ones, enduring all troubles, to build smarter cities.

The 10 primary municipal facilities that makes a city ‘a smart city’, include, (1) Water (2) Electricity (3) Cleanliness- Sewage and Waste Management (4) Public Transport (5) Affordable housing (6) Computerization (7) Public interest & e-Governance (8) Eco-friendly systems (9) Security and Safety (10) Health & Education. This information is available on official government website. Incidentally, except for computerization, it is no different than the municipal or state tasks mentioned by the constitution. Still, it has regressed than any progress. The only factors are responsible, the dirty politics, and the dormant people. (Well, that’s us.)

One example that speaks for itself, if policy and execution are kept dissociated is public participation. The previous government brought in Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to secure funds for developing urban areas. One of the regulations to allot the funds was, that the ward sabhas should be held based on Gram sabha and the law should be changed accordingly. Maharashtra state government was smart enough to acquire the huge funds creating the law but never formed regulations to execute it. With these funds, roads were paved again and again, old but fully functional street lights were replaced with new ones, bicycle tracks were built that not only cyclists find hard to ride on but the pedestrians can’t walk too. Neither the ’renewal’ ever happened nor the cities ever got smarter.

Though the current government does mention public participation in the smart city schemes, the question is whether the government will comply by the schemes. It is necessary to uproot the old ways of administration and more laws should be issued and executed in public interest, posing strong rules and regulations play a key role in fulfilling such vast dream. If it is treated just like another project, everything will follow ‘Sarathi’s path. ‘Sarathi’ was an impressive project started by of Dr. Shrikar Pardeshi in Pimpri-Chinchwad, which was gone to dogs post his service. The current state government must build stronger municipal systems. It should not tolerate the corporators who think of the ward as acquired kingdom in feudal allegiance and bear no duty towards its well being. The laws should make them worry about the urban development than the percentage share with contractors.

While pointing out the rotten politics, we should be aware and responsible citizens too. The city revamp begins right from separating the waste in wet and dry, to fearlessly question the corporators. If the corporator doesn’t budge, we as citizens should make him sit at home since he deserves it. We should bring about a change in the way we think and perceive. More than the wide roads, wider footpaths symbolize development. More than the number of cars running in the street, the efficient public transport shows the progress of the city. We should demand its use so the government has no choice but build better public transport systems.

Recently, my friend Harshad Abhyankar, shared an true incident on social networking website. At the inaugural speech of Smart City Scheme, central minister Mr. Venkaiah Naidu stated that the funds were secured for Bus purchases, BRT, bicycle and pedestrian facilities. In the Q & A session, a question was raised if the funds are for flyovers too. Mr. Naidu’s baffling reply was “No, because they are not smart solutions!” Until all of us stop the superfluous expenses and apply the long lasting, eco friendly and smart solutions in its truest sense, only then, there is a possibility that we can build better cities, smart cities!

-Translated by Madhuwanti Vaidya

(Original Marathi article was published in Maharashtra Times of 23rd July 2015)

Curtain Call

“Hello, I am speaking from Pune, Maharashtra. May I take two minutes of your time?” was how the calls began. The person on the other end, a voter from Delhi, would suddenly pay attention to this person from Pune who personally called them. The voice from Maharashtra would humbly request them to cast their vote to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) – a request that would take many Delhi voters by surprise. They found it delightful that someone from another state is so concerned about the betterment of their state. While some of them promptly replied with a, “yes, my family and I are voting for AAP,” while there were others who engaged in discussions over the issue. They would ask about the various allegations against the AAP and from the other end, the person from Maharashtra would address these concerns. Majority of the recipients of these calls gave a positive feedback at the end. Those who were staunchly against the party also mellowed down to a point where they would say, “We will think about the AAP. Thanks to you, we did learn a few nee things about them.” After the call, a pre-recorded message would ask the caller which party the voter was more inclined to vote for. These answers were then recorded and used to get an estimate of the inclination of the people of Delhi. This is the Calling Campaign that played a major role in AAP’s success in the capital.

While AAP’s volunteers from Delhi and rest of India were in Delhi’s streets and mohallas, volunteers from other cities as well as Indians from foreign nations aided them through the calling campaign. When the campaign started, around 2000 calls were made during a day. However, this number exponentially rose to around 75,000 calls per day towards the end of the campaign. The people of Delhi received thousands of calls daily from AAP’s volunteers in Maharashtra – and throughout the campaign, the calls that were made from Maharashtra outnumbered all other states. A lot of effort went into ensuring volunteers’ active participation in the campaign and the volunteers themselves were so enthusiastic that some of them spent their weekends and off-days repeatedly calling voters in Delhi and urging them to vote for the AAP.

One can estimate the success of this campaign by simply taking a look at the numbers. Total number of calls was more than 1,022,000. That means as few as 1 million homes were spoken to. 21% of those calls were made from Maharashtra alone. In the last two weeks of the campaign, 95% of the people said their vote would be for AAP. And now, if you take a look at the results, you will see how flawless the polls done by the calling campaign were.

All this may sound glorious, but it is a Herculean task to pull it off. Setting up this infrastructure that is capable of withstanding the quantity of calls and to achieve the goals that were set when the activity was undertaken was an elaborate process. Let’s take a closer look at it.

There were three fundamental techniques used, one of which was set up on the smartphones by Arvind Kejriwal’s aide from the IIT – Prasonjit Patti. The second tech, developed for the internet was provided by Mohanraj Thirumalai. But incase these two ways fell short, the volunteers bought a toll free server just in case. There was a team looking after social media marketing, recognition, reporting which was supervised by Shashank Malhotra (Delhi), Kartikeya Maheshwari  (Philadelphia, USA) and Gopal Krishna (Patna). Shrikanth Kocharlakota was the US based volunteer who had the responsibility of promoting the calling campaign on social media. A team to train the callers for the campaign was led by Amitabh Gupta (Rourkee) and Alka Harke (Delhi). Apart from this, a team led by Akash Jain was responsible for supervising that the calls are successful. There was a helpline set up for the volunteers participating in the campaign which was under the supervision of Alka Harke which was operated by volunteers in cities like New Bombay, Baroda, Aligarh, Anand, Punjab and Haryana. Communication between departments was given a lot of importance and throughout the campaign; Mahesh Kedari from Chinchwad was overseeing the department that ensured smooth communication between members and volunteers. The calling campaign took place in 25 states; therefore a Coordinator was placed in each state. In Maharashtra it was Amit Khandelwal who handled that responsibility initially and carried forward by Ajinkya Shinde. A Coordinator to look after all the states’ Coordinator also existed – Vikas Shukla (Bengaluru) and Ashish Jain (Chandigarh). And then there was Gopal Sharma in Pune who was looking after all these teams. In Delhi, Bhaskar Singh formed a link between Gopal Sharma and the Party’s high command. All these members are in the age group of 25-35. Most of them volunteered for this campaign while juggling their full time jobs in the IT sector. Being from different cities, a majority of them haven’t even met one another yet; but they were all united by the one conference call and a dream to win Delhi that they all shared.

The biggest fear we had was what if the opposition parties use the infrastructure set up by us to promote themselves. The reason for this fear was the bad experience of the elections in 2013, where 33% of the calls were made to promote BJP or to create a negative perception about AAP using the AAP campaign infrastructure. That mistake would not be repeated this time around. There was a team in charge of the security of this infrastructure and every call made was recorded. If it was noticed that a volunteer is being counterproductive, he/she would be blocked immediately. Initially, many of the calls made were made to existing members of the party. Using all these elements, it was easy to supervise whether anyone is badmouthing the party or bringing it to disrepute or simply promoting an opposing party. Most of these bad apples were caught before we reached out to any voters. Hence, during this election, the negative campaigning was brought down to as little as 0.00001%

The expense incurred in carrying out this campaign was hardly over 1 million rupees. And a major part of that was simply in setting up the hardware for the infrastructure required for its functioning. The campaign on social media was totally free. This calling campaign ran by the AAP will go down in history as a revolutionary way to propagate a political party for an election using the modern media. The discipline and belief with which every single member trusted the party and propagated its ideology and vision for Delhi, it seems only logical that the AAP won in such an unprecedented manner.

The highlight of this initiative was the fact that these weren’t paid tele-callers. These were common people with an extraordinary drive to change the status quo. No one shrugged the work saying “the elections are in Delhi, why should we help?” These were the people who are so infuriated by the political scene of the nation that they were keen to start the process of change, albeit in Delhi, while they wait for their turn in their state and the next lok sabha elections. And most importantly, they did so without any personal vested interests.

Jagdish Bellary from Gulbarga was one of these people. Confined to a wheel chair, he was upset he won’t be able to go to Delhi and work in the field, but he participated in the calling campaign and made phone calls for 8 hours at a stretch. He also managed the calling campaign in Karnataka. Rakesh Dwivedi from New Bombay shares Jagdish’s enthusiasm. He would start talking to three Delhiites on three separate mobile phones and turn it into a group discussion and would convince all of them to vote for AAP. He also pulled an unimaginable feat of making 826 calls in a day. To get a perspective, people have lost their seat for lesser votes. Sanjiv Jindal from Nanded made a whopping 1011 calls to Delhi during the campaign. There is no doubt that this historic win was only made possible by the dedicated and perseverant task force of volunteers that worked behind the curtain.

This is a very positive and important phenomenon that people from all across the country are willing to participate in the process of honest governance in such large numbers with no regard to caste, religion, region - in the true spirit of this nation. People from various corners of this country reached out to more than a million homes in Delhi and urged them to vote for change and a better tomorrow and the people of Delhi responded by voting for AAP candidates in 67 out of the 70 constituencies.

When a play ends and the curtain closes, the performers re-appear on the stage for one last hurrah and accept applause. AAP’s calling campaign put an end to the archaic way of politics and governance in Delhi and announced a change in the way politics will be in the future. To these performers of the calling campaign, my humble applause.

-Translated by Omkar Rege
(Original Marathi article was published in Maharashtra Times of 15th February 2015)