[Reader-list] 25.8.2001: Positioning Mumbai Globally

[Mumbai Study Group]

Dear Friends:

In our next meeting, we welcome SULAKSHANA MAHAJAN, Doctoral 
Candidate at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, 
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A., who will give a 
presentation on "Positioning Mumbai in a Globalising Economy: 
Public-Private-Sector Participation in Infrastructure Delivery in the 
Mumbai Region".

Ms Mahajan is a former lecturer at the Academy of Architecture, 
Rachana Sansad, and is currently pursuing her doctorate on the 
economic restructuring of cities, state policies and the role of 
public and private sector participation in delivery of services and 
infrastructure. Her present research is on information and 
communications technologies. She is the co-author with Hemlata C. 
Dandekar of "MSRDC and Mumbai-Pune Expressway: A Sustainable Model 
for Privatising Construction of Infrastructure?" (Economic and 
Political Weekly, 17 February 2001). Her study of Mumbai has also 
taken her to Nashik, Pune, London and Rotterdam to see how these 
urban regions are redefining their economies locally and globally, 
and in this presentation she will share her observations from her 
perspective as an urban planner.

This session will be on SATURDAY 25 AUGUST 2001, at 10.00 A.M., on 
the SECOND FLOOR, Rachna Sansad, 278, Shankar Ghanekar Marg, 
Prabhadevi, Mumbai, next to Ravindra Natya Mandir. Phone: 4301024, 
4310807, 4229969; Station: Elphinstone Road (Western Railway); BEST 
Bus: 35, 88, 151, 161, 162, 171, 355, 357, 363, to Ravindra Natya 
Mandir, 91 Ltd, 305 Ltd, A1 and A4 to Prabhadevi.


ABOUT THE GROUP

The MUMBAI STUDY GROUP meets on the second and fourth Saturdays of 
every month, at the Rachana Sansad, Prabhadevi, Mumbai. Our 
conversations continue through the support extended by Shri Pradip 
Amberkar, Principal of the Academy of Architecture, and Prof S.H. 
Wandrekar, Trustee of the Rachana Sansad.

Conceived as an inclusive and non-partisan forum to foster dialogue, 
discussion and criticism on urban issues, we have since September 
2000 held conversations about various historical, political, 
cultural, social and spatial aspects of Mumbai in the context of 
globalisation. Our discussions are open and public, no previous 
membership or affiliation is required. We encourage the participation 
of urban researchers and practitioners, experts and non-experts, 
researchers and students, and all individuals and groups in Mumbai to 
join our conversations about the city.

The format we have evolved is to host individual or panel-based 
presentations in various arenas of urban theory and practice, and 
have a moderated and focussed discussion from our many practical and 
professional perspectives. Among others, our previous sessions have 
hosted the following presentations:

* Kalpana Sharma, Associate Editor of The Hindu and author of the 
recently published Rediscovering Dharavi (Mumbai: Penguin Books, 
2000), spoke about slum-dwellers, citizenship, and representations of 
the poor and unhoused in the mainstream media.
* Kedar Ghorpade, Senior Planner at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region 
Development Authority, presented on the business of managing cities, 
the history of urban planning attempts in Mumbai, and the challenges 
of planning in an expanding mega-city.
* Dr Marina Pinto, Professor of Public Administration, retired from 
Mumbai University, and author of Metropolitan City Governance in 
India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000),  discussed with us urban 
administration in the major cities of the country, and the structure 
and functioning of the Bombay Municipal Corporation.
* Dr K. Sita, Professor of Geography, retired from Mumbai University 
and former Garware Chair Professor at the Tata Institute of Social 
Sciences, spoke about the changing economic functions of the city 
historically, and geographical and social implications for planners.
* Dr Arjun Appadurai, Professor of Anthropology at the University of 
Chicago, Director of Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research 
(PUKAR), Mumbai, and the author of Modernity at Large: Cultural 
Dimensions of Globalization (Univ of Minnesota Press, 1996), 
presented on the questions of cities and globalisation: the changing 
social ecologies of consumption, new market cultures, and the 
multiple loyalties and identities being formed by these global 
processes in local contexts in Mumbai.
* Rahul Srivastava, Lecturer in Sociology at Wilson College, spoke on 
the Neighbourhood Project, an ethnographic initiative he has 
conceived through encouraging his students to look at their own 
localities in the inner-city areas of Central Bombay, through textual 
and visual media. In a discussion of the changing contexts of urban 
identity formation, we noted the value of using the city as a 
pedagogical device for students.
* Sandeep Yeole, General Secretary of the Pheriwala Vikas Mahasangh, 
along with several colleagues from various unions of street vendors 
and hawkers in the city, made an overhead presentation and interacted 
with us on issues of hawkers self-organisation, social consumption 
and street commerce in Mumbai.
* S.S. Tinaikar, former Municipal Commissioner of Bombay, Sheela 
Patel, Director of the Society for Protection of Area Resource 
Centres (SPARC),  and Bhanu Desai of the Citizens' Forum for the 
Protection of Public Spaces (CFPPS) joined us for a round-table 
discussion on the Maharashtra Government's new Slum Policy 2001 and 
the competing interests in the process of policy formation on urban 
issues.
* Shirish Patel, one of India's leading engineers and part of the 
planning team which designed New Bombay, chaired a discussion and 
presentation on Mumbai's built environment in the wake of the 
earthquakes in Gujarat, where we heard from Pramod Sahasrabuddhe and 
Abhay Godbole, both structural engineers with long-standing practices 
in Mumbai.
* Dr Anjali Monteiro, Professor and Head, and  K.P. Jayashankar, 
Reader, from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Unit for Media and 
Communications, Mumbai introduced their film "Saacha", about poet 
Narayan Surve and painter Sudhir Patwardhan, both of whom were part 
of the landscape of Left cultural activism in Mumbai. The film was 
followed by a discussion with Sudhir Patwardhan about the changing 
face of Mumbai.
* Dr Sujata Patel, Professor and Head, Department of Sociology, 
University of Pune, spoke on politics, identities and populism, on 
the basis of her ongoing project on culture, consumption practices, 
and the Shiv Sena and her forthcoming edited anthology, co-edited 
with Jim Masselos, titled Mumbai: Bombay's Future?. This will be the 
third volume in the series, co-edited with Alice Thorner, of which 
the first two volumes were Bombay: Metaphor for Modern Culture, and 
Bombay: Mosaic of Modern India (both Oxford University Press India, 
1995).
* Dr Mariam Dossal, Head, Department of History, Mumbai University, 
spoke on nationalist architecture and the  Bombay School of 
Architecture in the colonial and postcolonial periods. Dr Dossal is 
the author of Imperial Designs and Indian Realities: The Planning of 
Bombay City 1845-1875 (Oxford University Press India, 1991).
* B. Rajaram, Managing Director of Konkan Railway Corporation, and Dr 
P.G. Patankar,  former Chairman of the Bombay Electric Supply & 
Transport Undertaking (BEST) and currently with Tata Consultancy 
Services joined us for a panel discussion on public transport 
alternatives for Mumbai: the Sky Bus and Underground Metro.
* Ved Segan, Vikas Dilawari, and Pankaj Joshi, three noted 
conservation architects, featured in a panel discussion on the social 
relevance of heritage and conservation architecture in Mumbai.
* Debi Goenka, of the Bombay Environmental Action Group, and 
Chandrashekhar Prabhu, architect and environmental and housing 
activist, joined Professor Sudha Srivastava, Dr Geeta Kewalramani, 
and Dr Dipti Mukherji, of the University of Mumbai Department of 
Geography, for a panel discussion on the salt pan lands in Mumbai, 
the politics of land use and the Coastal Regulation Zone Act.
* Sucheta Dalal, business journalist, author, and Consulting Editor, 
Financial Express talked to us about institutional finance in the 
city. Dalal has co-authored with Debashis Basu The Scam: Who Won, Who 
Lost, Who Got Away, about the Harshad Mehta scam, a story which she 
broke; she is the biographer of A.D. Shroff, financial expert and 
founder of the Forum of Free Enteprise (Viking Press, 2000).
* Dr Arvind Rajagopal, Associate Professor of  Culture and 
Communications at New York University, presented on "The Pheriwala as 
Encroacher-Entrepreneur: The Aesthetics and Politics of Recent 
Debates on Hawkers in Mumbai". Dr Rajagopal is also the author of 
Politics After Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the 
Indian Public (Cambridge University Press, 2001), which examines the 
impact of the screening of the Ramayana serial on Doordarshan on 
Indian society in the nineties, and the interface between economic 
liberalisation, the rise of Hindutva, and the role of the mass media.
* Dr Gyan Prakash, Professor of History at Princeton University, and 
member of the Subaltern Studies Editorial Collective, presented on 
Indian modernity and the idea of Bombay, part of his ongoing research 
on imaginary histories of the city. Dr Prakash is the author of 
Bonded Histories: Genealogies of Labour Servitude in Colonial India 
(Cambridge University Press, 1990), Another Reason: Science and the 
Imagination of Modern India (Princeton University Press, 1999), as 
well as several articles on colonialism and historiography, and is 
has edited several volumes on colonial history.

These broad concerns have been the impetus for our conversation. We 
feel that it is through marrying such general discussions to a 
focussed engagement with the many aspects of urban life, that we can 
promote quality debate and discussion on urban theory and practice in 
Mumbai. Almost any issue deemed "urban" has numerous dimensions -- 
legally, politically, economically, spatially, historically -- and 
the Mumbai Study Group is meant as a multi-disciplinary forum for 
discussion and mutual criticism by professionals in their respective 
fields of urban practice: whether as architects or planners, lawyers 
or journalists, academics or activists.Through such a conversation, 
we hope to build an inclusive community of urban citizens, which 
while grounding itself in the practices of professionals also has a 
clear critical perspective, situating Mumbai in the theories and 
practices of urbanism globally.

We invite all urban researchers, practitioners and other interested 
individuals to join us in our fortnightly conversations, and suggest 
topics for presentation and discussion. For any more information, 
kindly contact one of the Joint Convenors of the Mumbai Study Group: 
ARVIND ADARKAR, Architect, Researcher and Lecturer, Academy of 
Architecture, Phone 2051834, <adarkars at vsnl.com>; DARRYL D'MONTE, 
Journalist and Writer, 6427088 <darryl at vsnl.com>; SHEKHAR KRISHNAN, 
Coordinator-Associate, Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research 
(PUKAR), 4462728, <pukar at bol.net.in>; PANKAJ JOSHI, Conservation 
Architect, Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, and PUKAR Associate, 
8230625, <pjarch at vsnl.com>.