Sustainable Delhi: A Bazaar
Rahaab Allana

A City Space

The cornerstone of a city or metropolis is its capacity to provide for all citizens, accessibility and the promise of growth, whether economic, social or cultural. But even before accepting such an assumption, the transition from a village to a town, a town to a city is an essential starting point as it addresses some of the notions that link us to our environs. This might also constitute our identity as citizens or individuals who for reasons, mostly social, are able to create an infrastructure, able enough to support a variety of professions and communities. Nevertheless, this generalisation apart, it is imperative to concur that every city is unique, a discreet entity occupying a definite space and outfield in history.

Statistics and facts relegate allocations of space to a grand structure, connecting the ethos of living habits, of conditioning and inhabiting, to the progression of our civilization in universal terms; a vantage-point for diagnosing formal differences. To locate that part of society that inhabits towns as a significant pointer to the urban mainframe, gauged with ground analysts who work in the field, eventually navigates a vast arena concerning our individual spaces vis-à-vis the public domain. Carving the first arc in this discussion, we know for instance that rural localities generate a majority of their income from agriculture or are at least associated with the production of crops. Alternatively, the rise of commercial enterprises within such regions mediates (or is an index to) the progression of a city, of what a city is and stands for. However, the economic factor doesn't completely justify the city as a signified or significant ‘other', even though it is a necessary facet for the existence of one. In order to approach a complex where materials are exchanged and reciprocated, there is a combination of factors that juxtapose and discriminate the village from the metropolis. Within India, the latter virtually inscribes the former in its lexicon and determination.

On January 9 th , 2003, Hindustan Times published a small article that adumbrates the lines on which a village can be calibrated as an industrial unit. It reads ‘ Shiela Dikshit today announced that any village with more than 50 per cent industrial units would be declared an industrial area…the services of 1200 Resident Welfare Associations and Market Associations have joined hands… to get problems resolved by coordinating with official agencies .' It mentions that the Congress had already taken steps to hike compensation for the acquisition of land to 24 lacks per acre; a sum that would be given to farmers as a safeguard. This highlights the tendency of a city to branch and retrieve backward areas in order to self-proliferate.

It is with these curiosities in mind that the reality of “bazaar” regions bears more than a functional anomaly, related to lifestyles that have a way of projecting a festive yet fragile image of their selves. For a city such as Delhi, these are essential, as the areas that surround Delhi, ie. Haryana, Gurgaon, Mehrauli have become satellite towns (as opposed to villages), more so in the last decade. Individuals associated with them come from relatively remote areas, a distance they will travel to sell and purchase goods. This also brings to the fore the idea of land distribution i.e. how spaces are occupied or certain businesses placed in relation to their surroundings. Consequently, migration to the suburbs in the last 5 years is also interesting, as many companies have also shifted from the main city to the suburbs of Gurgaon and Noida (Global Services, with American Express, InfoUSA) (HT Estates, Delhi, Saturday, Jan 11, 2003, pg 11). Real estate, purchase properties and the residential market have a strong bearing on the transforming face of the city and the places we identify with it.

Delhi as a Capital city however, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Could it then be possible that Delhi was unfit to assume the mantle of ‘capital' status of British India in 1911? To what extent was it conceived with the intention of confronting or incorporating the binaries implied by the ‘urban village'?

After the Revolt of 1857, a sizeable sector of the British administration believed that Delhi, as a historic city should be razed to the ground, as it was a forthright symbol of the Mughal power. However, after the submission of a paper by Gordon Sanderson in 1916, listing approximately 410 monuments of interest in Delhi, a kind of protection and restoration of the state took root. E.B Havell among others, tried to revise urbanism sensibilities enmeshed with a rural bias when he stated ‘ the best architects in England are now endeavouring…to revive the old system of co-partnership between the architect and the craftsman .' (Evenson, Norma, 1989, The Indian Metropolis , Yale Univ. Press, pg 102-104). Apart from Lutyens and Baker, many officers including the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, felt strongly about the incorporation of ‘indigenous' elements in the reconstruction of Delhi.

Within such a framework, it is even more intriguing to explore avenues and localities in Delhi that are somewhat alien to their own surroundings. The stark contrast compounded by slum areas has been viewed as a teething-process in city life and “metropolitanism”. Consequently, there are extremely noticeable localities that take the city into its past, havelis that open out into large courtyards, streets that wind along the edge of an inner sanctum of dwellers, smells and colours that recall our past, having their own distinct character in the midst of advertising labels and signposts. The latter has always created a ‘distancing' visually, particularly for dwellers, of not being able to relate to Delhi. However, such contrasts are managed with the help of bazaars that rehabilitate and relocate people with a familiar frontier, a rural alternative.

To cite just a simple reference in this regard is Nehru Place. While moving in the direction of the Nehru Place complex from Greater Kailash-2, just ahead of the untidy yet organised parking space off Ring Road, one comes across a Hanuman Mandir on the right, preceded by a petrol pump. This would have been an inconspicuous sight if it wasn't for the sheer number of sadhus one sees in the market on a daily basis, not chanting sacred bhakti hymns, but rather begging or living in the hope that their livelihood has better chances there than at Ansal Plaza for instance. The social history of markets and cities in the 19 th Century provides traces of similar situations and patterns. Donations made to Hindu priests were considered auspicious for businesses, and temples, whether Shaivite or Vaishnavite, were considered hubs for the rise of commercial centres. Even bhatiyaras, as a community, gained financially closer to shrines on the processional pathway to the Red Fort. As a result, the mercantile society became a backbone of such ‘centres of growth' and sustained the so-called spiritual pulse of the nation. Politically perhaps this was bolstered when Delhi became a buffer state in the 17 th Century, generating an enhanced trading facility that could be regulated. The fact that shop-owners, workers etc. rely on shrines and temples close to work for personal benefit and reassurance is also a part of market dynamics that cannot be ignored. Accordingly, the scheme of things today is the culmination and outcome of a prior reality that has found a new balance among people and power.

Curiously, the importance of such monuments is being driven to the government. The recent declaration of a Kakaji Temple to fall under the purview of the Protected Monuments Act of 1958 is one example (Hindustan Times, Pg 1, ASI to Protect Kalkaji Temple, May 15,2003 Thursday). Though the ASI has been empowered to clear the area around it (approx. 300 meters), the reasons for the existence of market areas are perhaps focussed on the mandir itself. Illegal or not, since the temple attracts thousands of people from all over Delhi, it is probably very lucrative in terms of employment opportunities for the poor and even uneducated populace.

The Movement

The schism between workplace and home, the extension of suburbs and the intensification of land use are some of the irrevocable factors that affect bazaars in Delhi, as well as, on a larger scale, the mass movement of people.

Many individuals who own shops in Nehru Place live relatively close-by or at least within the union territory of Delhi. But this is not true of employees. The latter usually come from suburbs such as Faridabad and Badarpur in search of stable earnings, which they eventually find many miles from home. Rentals and living spaces are more affordable in the suburbs. This in turn introduces the problem of transportation to the frontlines. The over-congestion of vehicles in marketplaces is due to the rising consumer market as well. The number of employees shuffling between regions adds pressure. Even the small park at the rear end of Khan Market has been recently converted into a parking lot. An article in the HT supplement, HT South Delhi, dated May 8, 2003 ‘Master Architect has Designs on Delhi' highlights Sarat Jain, Chairman of the Architect Bureau, who has designed many of the flyovers we see today, including the Dhaula Kuan one. Besides pinpointing faulty development plans, he believes that transportation problems in Delhi should have been designed on those schemes adopted by Singapore and Hong Kong!

Accessibility to the suburbs accelerates schisms at another level. For instance, in a locality such as Shapur Jat, just off Khelgaon Marg, we find ruins of the fortified walls of Siri. These are the remnants of the Imperial city founded by Alaluddin Khilji in 1303. To the right of it is the Panchshila Community Centre, a complex of offices and shops that adds a visual and social layer to the ruins. Much of the area today also comes under the jurisdiction of the DDA parking complex that has been hazardous to the village (Lewis, Charles & Karoki Lewis, Delhis Historic Villages: A Photographic Evocation , 1997, Ravi Dayal, pg. 90). We already notice from the name, Shahpur Jat that it has a sizeable amount of the Jat dwellers and farmers who came to the region almost 800 years ago. Now the dwellers have opened sweet shops and wealthy settlers have installed multi-storeyed buildings adjacent to the fort. Its almost like seeing suburbs within the city that confuses and re-organises set binaries - rural v/s urban, the ‘peoples market' v/s the mall.

Such a collage of structures that reworks local and national affiliations via commercial means, also manages to divest both, city and suburb of completion or absolute-ness. Furthermore, I mention these aspects in order to emphasise the scope and determination of an enlarging city that is able to incorporate histories, in material terms, and even misuse them to generate a large shopping centre so as to increase the saleability of the state at the expense of its antiquity or true worth. For instance, land sold in this complex in the 1960's was approximately Rs. 600 per square yard, while now it has risen to almost 10 times that amount. Eventually, people bear the brunt of this. Furthermore, archaeological areas should not be auctioned at any cost.

Managing spaces

There are perceivable reactions to expected growth that have been articulated for the preservation and restoration of the cityscape. In Delhi for instance, there is the preservation of green belts. The Lotus Mahal further ahead of the Nehru Place area is surrounded on all sides by greenery, providing space against the cluttered ambience of the market. This is one way of putting a lid on development that would hamper rather than help the area. The second aspect is the centralisation of the population. Delhi has congested and un-congested areas, which is also based on the distribution of communities. The Chittaranjan Park area has a majority of Bangladeshis who are refugees from Pakistan. One should see such neighbourhoods as positive adjuncts rather than restrictive zones as they create a sense of social benefit that rises out of community.

Historically, similar measures were taken when one considers the idea of the garden city. The Garden city was conceived of by Ebenezer Howard and realised in Europe and America during the 1940's. His ideas however, were executed at the end of the 19th Century in order to combat the proliferation of the industrial town. The garden city proposed a series of recommendations, which became compulsory architectural elements in the city without which the latter would be deemed unmanageable. As an allusion to our understanding of it, the garden city was never an unfamiliar phenomenon. In the early 19th Century in Luknow, traces of the same can be found under the rule of Wajid Ali Shah who constructed the Kaiser Bagh, (now used as the office of the Department of Revenue of the government of India) as his administrative council. Therefore this idea of a planned city within a larger park is not entirely a foreign one.

At the turn of the last Century, Delhi was a relatively green city. The soil and the lifestyle were complimented with vast colonies and broad settlements. At a more sociological level, even in the 18 th Century, the arrival of agriculturalists known as bhattis from Haryana generated and inscribed hybridism into Delhi territory (Bayly, C.A., Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars , Oxford Univ Press, 1983, Pg 129 ). They came in large groups and settled on the peripheries. Some found their way to the very heart of the Capital. Many settled in areas like Mehrauli (now farmhouses). As is common knowledge, this land was previously owned by those very people, removed in recent years in order to retail land to highest bidders. The land still remains rightfully theirs. However we find lavish houses in the midst of large parks with swimming pools with not only personal water supplies but electricity as well. Illegal in a word, according to Anita Soni, who in her essay entitled ‘Urban Conquest of Outer Delhi' (Veronique Dupont, Emma Tarlo, Denis Vidal, Delhi: Urban Space and Human Destinies , Chapter 4, 2000, Manohar) also outlines the grievances of minorities in Delhi. She further highlights two motions that are important for consideration here.

The growth of a city is maintained with the actual allocation of certain areas to remain undeveloped, spacious and most importantly, green. As the city enlarges, areas that came under this review have been bought or illegally acquired. The jhuggis that one encounters along the road to Mehrauli are not slums, but rather ad-hoc residences of displaced people. Some of the people in the Shahpurjat region, involved in construction-work are also from that region, whose former employment was tilling the soil for vegetables. This constant interaction between the peripheries and the centre, creates a pressure, more so on the city than the outskirts. Therefore a lot of the complexes involved in sale and purchase, incorporate commodities and goods that favour and employ people from large distances around with a broad variety of taste. The sheer number of such displaced bodies (localities) according to recent statistics bears an appalling margin of about 1600 units.

Since, it appears, compensations are not made by a section of society towards the well keeping of others, bazaars provide a certain functionality needed for the city to perform at multiple levels. In A.M Hocart's ‘Caste A Comparative Study', he mentions, within the context of the raj (a generalised word to signify the warriors and cultivators of early Indian history), that ‘kingdoms' (particularly Hindu kingdoms of the east) were created and fuelled on a ‘vast machine of sacrifice'. This sacrifice is exposed in markets that provide networks between consumption and desire. Suburbs, as a consequence, become extremely important, as new towns are not only used as ‘retreats' from the congested city but are a way of managing its growth as well. Bazaars, in a sense, navigate this void.

‘Seeing with' Nehru Place

Just off the outer Ring Road, to the left is the more than opulent Paras Cinema, foregrounding the area of investigation. Briefly, Nehru Place was planned as the first business district in Delhi under the master plan of 1962. 14 more were in the pipelines, though a revision of the plan was undertaken in 1982 and seven more were added.

The first aspect that struck me was its sense of enclosure. A parking lot has been created after the Nehru Place flyover to the left. This conveys a sense of being outside a greater inner sanctum. Though riddled with small shops, heaves of construction material and small corridors leading into the serpentine entrails of this complex, the outside is fairly unobtrusive. Though stout and firm in its business-like attire of the late 1960's, the inner domain of the site is completely unlike what one sees otherwise from a distance.

Walking in from one of the various entrances on the southern face, the alleys are packed with hardware, software and menswear, juxtaposed out of sheer incoherence it seems. Only later did I realise that the “ wears ” sections were established at an earlier stage than the surrounding shops. In fact, there are several clothes and textile columns that lie under the complex. However, once in the open arena, its neighbourhood-like quality merges with a concave phantasm of stalls and stacks. Sufficing the needs of buyers and shopkeepers alike, the former encounters shops on all 4 sides. Its multifaceted structure with a number of exits and entrances on all sides provides a perfect hybrid of bazaar and mall, though usually the latter is completely housed in a large structure. There is also, when viewed keenly, a logical segregation of functions and provisional services which complements Nehru Place as a receptive, open centre.

Activity and business in Nehru Place is not exactly linear, as one must also accept up and down as viable directions to follow. Shops grow in number by supplanting additional segments. But these additions at times infringe on the central path meant for pedestrians bringing objects and goods further out at people. The relation between sections is somewhat abandoned as the importance of keeping a central spine that runs through like a corridor, keeps people on a steady course, wherever they might proceed. This is probably the reason why, in Nehru Place, the nerve centre of interaction and business is always insipient and different. It shifts almost organically from day to day. One such encounter was in early February, in a corridor, looking onto the west end of the Park Hotel.

One of the State Banks in the area had shut shop. There was confusion at first among the people around, but soon it was clear that the furniture from a bank was being displayed in front of fellow shop-owners and passers-by for auctioning. A man stood on a wooden table and started bidding, shouting prices at willing participants around. There were two other individuals managing accounts in front of him. Within an hour, almost all of it was sold. This was one of the many incidents that decentred the focus of the complex and created alternative frameworks that enhanced customer interaction. That is to say, rather than a core that withholds all attention or a linear progression that leads to a final centre, there are variations in margin-centre relations. This will probably be accentuated with new plans for further construction in the region, such as a Plaza.

High densities of population are part of the experience. Without the sheer mass and concentration of people from different regions, there would never be such hybridism or infusion of backdrops and signage as one ordinarily sees. One would assume, considering its sheer vastness, that commodities would be difficult to locate. However everything is available almost immediately, within a 50-metre parameter from any entrance. This is one of the defining points pertaining to Nehru Place that eventually concedes to a logical yet organic system of sustainable marketing. A regular grid dispersal of shops has been overcome, as goods are themselves, dispersed. The entire establishment is an urban-galaxy of centres that undercuts stayed elements of the suburban and the city by bringing their most important elements under one banner. By creating a kind of face-to-face spontaneity, the relevance of varied objects on sale is matched by human encounters that might be sustained or severed. The fact that they ought to go hand in hand, and do not at all times, hinges on causality rather than our compulsion to meet desired ends.

In Nehru Place, the products sold today keep and enable various parts of the society with the technology/products they require, at subsidised prices, whether official or off the racks. In such a case interaction becomes the lifeline on which availability and accountability rest. Therefore, sufficient market know-how and the ability to allay suspiscion of the ‘bazaar-people' is a becoming quality in this region. What matters here is simply the availability of goods at affordable rates. This is what creates awareness among people. However, such a sensibility is perhaps one of the oldest and most instinctual ones. As we know, there was considerable specialisation among merchant classes even in the 18 th Century (C.A Bayly, The Imperial Impact , 1978, Pg 92, London). The circulation of goods was conditioned by the prevalence of ‘periodic markets', as Bayly puts it, as they reached a large audience via other merchants and even religious fairs. Therefore, during the 18 th century, the connection between merchants and markets was not uncommon. Similarly, in today's market there are associations not only with wealthy owners who lease land to run businesses, but a network of mutual exchange that is so integral to bazaars. The adaptability of merchants with artisans, technicians etc., essentially cogs in the wheel of market business, creates all the more ease between what is bought and sold but not always, easily regulated.

The above stands only as an aside to the idea of how spaces are used for the prosperity of business and the popularity of bazaars, as opposed to malls one sees today. These two are binaries. In a shopping mall, human beings seem only too subsidiary to the objects around. Succinctly, since directions are confused and obliterated inside the Nehru Place complex, certain spaces are acquired by mochis etc. who provide a further dimension of interactivity. The form and significance of bazaars is highlighted here, as the central focus is not only the product but people, not only the need for objects, but also a need to create a suitable ambience.

Finally, the scheme of creating social, interactive arenas in markets, treating them as entertainment parks in order to attract younger people is slowly becoming the order of the day. The self-awareness of social status and the steady rise in commercial sectors is slowly creating a breed, similar to western countries of student workers with summer jobs so as to widen the market to younger generations, those who are more likely to keep it alive.

Confronting Polarities

On March 31 st of this year, the surprising response of several bazaar complexes, including Chandini Chowk, Nai Sadak, Kashmere Gate and CP, against VAT (value added tax) led to a standstill of business in some areas. The emigrant rift between government policy and the demands of the open market were clearly stated. However, there were a number of localities that did not take part in the bandh instituted by the Bharat Udyog Vyapar Mandal, due to ideological rifts.

In Nehru Place, the contrast exists within as well. A distinctive aspect, apart from its unmistakable architectural form and impact, are the items. At the corner of almost every block there are cartridge refills and pirated CD software on sale at affordable prices. A vast majority of made-to-fit shirts and trousers are also part of the racks. Surprisingly sometimes big brands such as JC Penny or Calvin Klein also find their way to the piles. However, the market these “retailers” target is quite different. A majority of the people who buy these wears are the lower middle class office goers, while the CD software retailers target the younger freelance community, which is growing day by day. This is also placed along the lanes of authentic hardware and software companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Samsung and HP. One of the managers of Compaq mentioned how hard it had become to target people who were already buying workable merchandise at lower prices. Most of their cash inflow, he said, came from services rather than sales. The HP go downs are often broken into and missing objects are sold in the same locality at cheaper prices.

There are a certain number of rejected items every year or season of faulty goods. Those rejects are meant to be junked or to be replaced with better performance products. However, not making it to the authorised dealers/retailers, they are sold in the grey market at lower prices. Most of the time, various owners, proprietors, dealers and manufacturers are aware of this fact and get a substantial cut of the business, which accommodates a large part of their livelihood. Everyone seems to be a part of it; there are only relative percentages that could really separate one kind of business from the other, especially when it comes to computers. There are however, visible disjunctions between those pirated materials that are IBM and those Macintosh.

The latter has managed to organise a system, especially in the new OSX systems that do not enable piracy without a penalty. If individuals using the same booting system (serial number) are on the Internet at the same time, the information is sent to the Macintosh office abroad and both individuals are held liable. I refer to this because the market has become competitive enough for companies to secure their own benefits rather than leave it to the enlarging black market. Nevertheless, the number of such security or contingent systems is few and far between. In offices and universities abroad, where Internet access is free, there is a penalty for using computers for downloading music! Anyhow, resale-able items hit the pipelines of these markets defining the thin line of a shaken economy – how it prospers for functional reasons alone.

If one considers notions of pre-industrial or rural elements as homogeneous, then how could one possibly explain the vibrant heterogeneity instituted within a city's limits, in its phenomenology and lexicon. This is not a quest to locate the urban as progressive or the rural as static, but to review what kind of hybridism initiates so much activity. Such would also lead to the notion that my findings actually pertain to rural elements within identified market complexes in Delhi. Can this also be a meeting point for both zones, leading to a creation of underhand groups, of a culture such as our own that is regarded as agrarian/village rather than metropolitan in many cases? What kinds of pressures does it put on the market and how often do similar strains in history reveal themselves through the bazaar system?

For the sake of this argument, Muhammad Khan Bangash was one of the outstanding Pathan warriors, someone who carved the notion of a modern city by using market resources in order to make a more complex and workable system of state. As we know, the agrarian state was then considered the most prosperous form of state. Settlements near water bodies and canals that ensured fertility and transportation were considered imperative. The second aspect was the question of autonomy. He invited people from Bangladesh and other client communities to settle in this region in order to ensure heterogeneity and increase his independence from the growing Rajput forces round him. (Bayly, C.A., Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars , Oxford Univ Press, 1983, Pg 118) The city, as in most cases was organised in circles or spheres of influence. At the very centre was his sultanate- his private hall, bodies that reinforced his authority and outside this domain one would find the ganj areas, illegal market places where merchants arrived from all places, selling their goods and enforcing their respective identities. Brick walls usually contained these market places. Sometimes they were discontinued on account of the incumbent pressure from the authority of the state. However, there are references to one Nawab Yuqut Khan (Minster of the area) who built many such market places in the Farrukhabad district in the mid 18 th Century. Though there were tensions even then between periphery and centre, there was a concomitant need for binaries in order to facilitate the strength of the sate as a unified body. A place for the negotiation between conflicts and culture that emanated from authority and identity was as urgent as it is today.

Therefore, when looking at bazaars as an extension of the city, it became essential to confront the idea of man in the city. Though composed of high-rise buildings and a series of administrative elements that attempt to create a semblance in which individuals and groups alike might find a balance between their private lives and work places, the city is an altogether human landscape. In order to shape the face of anything we see, there are not only energies but also the character of every individual that composes a composite and complete picture. This is perhaps why the study of urban societies has become an essential part of academia through social and cultural anthropology. That is, urban societies create as well as reflect the city and its ‘mechanism' by supporting the will of people. The predominance of society that fashions such spaces symptomatic of itself is where the bazaar confronts various polarities, a place where we might observe order in discrepancies.

Public domain and consumer society are sensitive and open to change. That is to say, they are organisms that consume ideas about living by preference. By becoming a technology of the self, Delhi itself has come closer to homogenising social systems, constructed to marvel at how similarly we function. But there are enabling and disabling issues that manifest themselves in metropolitan society, which is itself an amalgam of rural, refugee and exiled communities. By enabling I mean those aspects that make the city and its inhabitants truly ‘engage' in a forceful manner in order to absorb forms of their selves. There is little scope for balance here, just a matrix of world-views at-large in the world, waiting for more bait.

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