Chennai at the Crossroads

11. Conclusion: Closing the Gaps

Will the real Chennai please stand up?

If the vignettes of life in Chennai that I have chosen suggest a split personality, it is only because I am trying to convey faithfully the impression that the city conveys to me. Which then, is the real Chennai? Is it floor after floor of glittering gold in the spanking new jewelry shop immodestly named Thanga Maaligai (Palace of Gold) or the heart-melting face of the little beggar girl outside in the parking lot? Is it the smiling face of Gopalan as he recounts his son’s recent trip to Italy, or the dim prospects that Vijaya, the ex-housemaid could face when she is old and sick and unable to afford her rent? Is it the gleaming new models in the Mercedes Benz showroom on the main thoroughfare of Anna Salai, or the unsavory memory of a dozen two-wheelers and autorickshaws panting impatiently on a sultry afternoon at the intersection of Thirumalai Pillai Road near Valluvar Kottam, the fumes from their exhausts mixing with those from the garbage processing plant next door in a nauseous miasma? Is it the smiling efficiency of my mother’s dentist who accommodated us with three appointments at 9:30 pm on successive days to enable my mother to get dentures fitted in time for her trip to the USA, and all that for a total cost of Rs. 8000/- ($200)? Or is it the frustration of four trips to two BSNL offices and a whole lot of paper work just to get the name on a telephone connection changed?

The answer, of course, is that Chennai is both of these extremes and everything  in-between.

Throughout my life, India has remained an experience that one cannot be indifferent to. She overwhelms you with her extremes of progress and poverty, with the beguiling friendliness and the utter indifference of her people, with the soaring complexity of cultural achievement and the most venal corruption. Shashi Tharoor has argued convincingly about the enduring legacy of India, the country and India, the idea. As elusive as these concepts are, both have survived  and succeeded, in some ways beyond the hopes of our founding fathers. The continued survival of India six decades after achieving independence requires that its plurality be preserved even in the context of progress. Unlike the United States of America, India could never be a melting pot. The one-ness of India is a different type of one-ness; it is an ineffable and elusive one-ness, a binding glue that appears unexpectedly within the interstices between the multi-colored and multi-faceted tiles representing her cultures, communities, cities and villages, religions and creeds.   

Of course, as stubbornly plural as India remains, Chennai, for all its distinctiveness,  also remains a quintessentially Indian city defying easy categorization. Chennai today faces unprecedented challenges at the beginning of the twenty-first century, just as India does. As I wrote at the beginning of this essay, the sparkling wine is struggling to escape the confines of its old bottle. The butterfly is cracking the shell of the cocoon. The new city is bursting the confines of the old and the process is exciting, but not pretty.

Imagine the city as a tapestry, a carpet  on which the distinctive marks of its citizens are woven. Economic reform and globalization have created a powerful wind that has lifted this magic carpet and everyone, whether they like it or not, are on the same wild ride. As the engine of progress pulls at the corners of this colorful fabric, the fabric stretches. Sometimes it seems that the gusts are stretching the fabric almost to the breaking point. The gap between the haves on the leading edge, and the poor at the trailing edge widens. But every citizen shares the same city and the same planet, and no one can get off.

The Limits of Growth: Three Gaps

The outer contradictions of my narrative, the juxtapositions of extremes of prosperity and putrefaction, and of dynamism and dysfunction, can be understood and resolved only by a deep understanding of how the forces of growth have interacted with the existing fabric of society, imposing constraints on that very growth. If we stay with the magic carpet analogy, these constraints, to my mind, can be thought of in terms of three gaps that have opened up in the fabric of the carpet. They are the gap between the inside and the outside, the gap between private and public, and the gap between the rich and the poor. These gaps, which are implicit in my narrative, are related to each other, and if not dealt with,  they threaten to rip apart the complex tapestry that holds Chennai’s society together and will hold the city back from achieving its potential.

Inside Versus Outside

The first gap is the one between inner luxury and outside squalor. It is an almost schizophrenic contrast between how many Indians conduct their lives on the  inside and the outside. People whose home is spick and span will think nothing of dumping their garbage in a higgledy-piggledy heap right outside their window. People openly spit on the road. The same person who is incredibly gracious to you if you visit his home won’t stop to help you if you get into trouble on the street. This sad story manifests a characteristic of our society that puzzles many foreign observers. And in Chennai, it means that on many otherwise nice streets and open areas, one literally has to hold one’s nose to get by the garbage.

Before continuing, I should first say that the characteristic is not universal and there are many public-minded and ccourteous citizens who defy it. But it is still sufficiently common that it is a stereotype with a degree of justification. I will resist the temptation to venture some easy pop-psychology explanation, since this essay is not intended as a sociological treatise, and I’m hardly qualified in the field. Further, its not all bad news. I notice a gradual change for the better as India’s population becomes more literate and modernized. For example, the  habits of urinating and defecating on the streets have decreased over the decades, although this may be as much due to the better availability of public latrines as it is a result of citizens’ increased concern about their public areas.

But much more is needed, and urgently. As Chennai prospers, the quality of life for all its citizens will suffer unless this contradiction is resolved. There are no prosperous cities in the world that can indefinitely tolerate such poor external conditions, and the impetus to improve can only come from the collective consciousness of the citizens. The gap between a strong personal code and a weak civic sense must be closed through the development of a social compact. Only then will Chennai’s citizens take steps to alleviate the congestion on the roads, to clean up the canals that are open sewers, the mountains of garbage.

This type of social compact requires two key ingredients. The first is that enough citizens must acquire a stake in improving the quality of public life. When most people are poor and just trying to survive or make their lot better, this is hard to achieve. But as rising fortunes raise everyone’s standard of living and increase the proportion of the middle class, it should become more feasible.

The second, equally important ingredient is the more elusive concept, an increased stake in citizenship. In short, Chennai’s residents are wonderful individuals, but most are lousy citizens. So long as people view their homes as belonging to them but the city as belonging to someone else, they will never invest the money, time, energy and love required to raise the city’s public standards, even if the resources are there. The two  most important catalysts to bring about an increased civic sense are a reduction in inequality and  a sense of participation and empowerment in government. This brings us to the discussion of the  other two gaps.

Public Versus Private

The most obvious manifestation of the inside-outside divide shows up as the second gap --  that public investment lags private. Beautiful shopping malls, multinational office building, sky-high private sector wages coexist with a creaking public infrastructure, impending or existing crises in the provision of water, sewerage, and garbage services. Chennai’s  government budgets are shrinking as a fraction of the city’s economy. An impoverished government that struggles to run 24 government hospitals contrasts with a thriving medical private sector with overflowing revenues and profits.

The question that Chennai’s well-off and middle class citizens need to ask themselves is simple: Is this the kind of city they want to keep living in? Is this the legacy they wish to leave for their children and grandchildren? At least at present, many Chennaites seem more focused on getting ahead personally than on the improvement of the city and its public spaces and services. This is understandable in the beginning stages of growth. But many people I talked to argued that the trend towards cutting out the government and replacing it with private sector initiatives would be the solution to the problem.

It is undoubtedly true that private initiatives have alleviated the lack of public infrastructure. Whether it is digging private wells and bore wells for water, provision of electric generators to supplement the public grid, or the building of private toll roads, the private sector has tried its best to overcome the deficiencies of the public sector. Another aspect is the privatization of medicine that I described. In each case, such measures can help the specific group that it targets, but the beneficial effects to the public are sharply limited in the long run.

It only takes a  moment’s reflection to realize the limited nature of the benefits from replacing essentially public investments with private ones. Utilities and other such goods are public for a very good reason. Private water, private electricity, private roads, what’s next? Private data networks? Private sewers and garbage? Private guards? Private taxes? Entire walled cities? Must those enjoying these not live with, interact with, and share the natural resources of the land with those without? After all, how far can a society go in this direction without creating vast, unbridgeable divides? And will those not privileged to enjoy these private benefits allow them to continue? Is there a single example of a democratic society anywhere in the world which has attempted to completely cut out its have-nots through privatizing its amenities and survived amicably? Even if such a society were possible, would we want to live in it?

So the key must be the public sector. As imperfect as it may be, government is the answer. And it is only government that can provide the four  elements of a prosperous and lawful society: a) provision of public infrastructure including utilities, b) enforcement of law and order including respect for property rights, c) urban planning and regulation of public spaces and amenities, including environmental regulation and d) the provision of a safety net for the poor and dispossessed. That is why removing corruption and improving the efficiencies of the executive, legislative, and justice arms of the government is such an urgent matter. All of the successes in the private sector will be for nought if this cannot be accomplished.

Taking ownership for the public sector is something Chennai’s citizens are loath to do. I heard the constant refrain about “them”, “they”, “those people” – when referring to the courts, the government, and the utilities. The dialectic of the “other” has always been a convenient human escape mechanism. In this case, it is simply a way of abrogating the responsibilities of citizenship. It is time for Chennai’s citizens to embrace responsibility for the public aspects of their lives, as much as they do the private. If Chennai is unable to do this successfully, it will find that private enterprise will simply move to other cities and towns, probably smaller ones, whether in India or elsewhere, where conditions are better. There is already some evidence that this is occurring.

Rich Versus Poor

The last gap is that between the rich and the poor. As we have already documented, there is good and bad news on this front. The good news is that the unprecedented success of reform and the forces of globalization have given India the wherewithal to begin to tackle the problems of the poor, giving them access to education and careers, providing healthcare, and providing a safety net for the dispossessed. Furthermore, measured in absolute terms, more and more people are climbing out of abject poverty. Hunger has been vastly reduced and so has disease and malnutrition. But the bad news is that this has been achieved in the context of increasing gaps between the poorest and richest parts of society, as we saw earlier.

Looking for examples around the world today, and looking back in history both suggest that it would be to Chennai’s and India’s advantage to reduce the degree of inequality.  First, the huge disparities in income are morally reprehensible, paired as they are with equal mismatches in education and economic opportunity, access to healthcare, childhood mortality, and living conditions. Thus as citizens of India and Chennai, we have an obligation to address them. If we don’t do so, we must be warned that there are no rich countries in the world with these levels of inequality. The difficulty of arriving at a social compact and the ineffectiveness of government in poor countries has a lot to do with overall living standards. India is a democracy, and hence it is obvious that it cannot survive without a social and political cohesiveness. To  maintain and enhance that cohesiveness, the alleviation of poverty and inequality is essential.

Watch the competition!

Over the past two decades, I have traveled extensively in many poor and middle income countries. It pains me to say that among all of the emerging countries I have visited (and admittedly I have not been to Africa yet), India is still at the dead bottom in terms of public infrastructure and cleanliness. This may have been understandable when we were truly poor and had more urgent priorities – feeding the hungry, educating our illiterate, housing our homeless, and providing healthcare for the indigent sick. And these problems have not been completely solved – far from it. They must in fact get first priority, and I do not have the knowledge or the space to address them here.

But the issue of livability in our most precious spaces, our cities, is important as well.  Unfortunately, the quality of urban life has deteriorated markedly over the past decade. This cannot continue if Chennai is to keep on prospering, for a very simple reason. We live in a globalized world. Our competition, looking out from our perch in Chennai, may seem to be in Bangalore. But it is actually in Shanghai, Taipei, Bangkok (pictured in photo on the right), Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, and Moscow. So the bar is far higher. Bangkok too has bicycles, two-wheelers, autorickshaws, overbridges, stop-and-go traffic, street vendors, and huge crowding issues. But I can personally attest that it starts off with a huge advantage over Chennai when it comes to traffic chaos, waterway pollution, and squalor. Chennai’s residents may not fully realize this, but they have no time to lose. They are in a race with every up-and-coming city, not just in India, but throughout the developing world.

India is now a global leader in services, is growing at 9% a year, and wishes to overtake the industrialized world in the next few decades. The current state of traffic, of the waterways, and of the garbage, is simply incompatible with the image of India as a global power, as a place where people will want to visit, to do business, and ultimately to live.

Signs of Hope

As difficult as these challenges seem, they are good problems to have, for they are essentially problems created by growth rather than by the lack of it. Victorian London in the mid-1800s, in many ways, was just such a place as Chennai is today. The juxtaposition of opulence and squalor was at least as violent. London was a mélange of horse dung and chandeliers, of fine silk clothes and rags, of prostitution and fine society, of slums and mansions side-by-side. In the narrow streets of Mayfair, behind the tony offices where hedge funds now make their money, I see the evidence of those slums of yesteryear. There are narrow alleys, now-charming pubs, and impossibly narrow, contorted streets barely enough for a single car to traverse– it is easy to imagine a time when thousands of ragged street children clogged these narrow alleys and terraces, when what is picturesque today was merely pitiful and redolent with the heavy scent of unwashed millions from the rest of England.

There is every reason to think it will not take Chennai the 100 years it took for London to shed its slums. For progress is much faster today, and we have the luxury of learning from the mistakes of the past. Chennai, and India, may be further behind in closing the gaps with the industrial world. But India is also growing faster than every other major country except China, and that is our brightest hope. I am a firm believer that economic growth is the sine qua non for social progress.  Without it there is no hope of creating an egalitarian society.

Even with economic growth, such a society is still not guaranteed, of course. We still need the inculcation of the elusive quality of citizenship. We still need the citizens to take responsibility and fight back. We need people’s concept of  home to expand from within the confines of their four walls to encompass the city and the country. But this can and has happened elsewhere in history and I see no reason why it should not happen in Chennai.

Luckily,  in this age of the internet and worldwide travel, young middle class Indians already seem to recognize the issues. For example, on the website Metroblogging Chennai, young Indians share their frustrations and their suggestions and solutions. The site is my favorite symbol of youth, of cosmopolitan sensibility, and of globalization at its best. Economic globalization has brought Chennai the jobs and economic dynamism. Cultural globalization, as Chennai’s new middle class joins with the cosmopolitan middle class around the world, is the inevitable next step.

As a lifelong member of that cosmopolitan class, I am myself a product of that globalization. It has given me my identity, and together with my Indian heritage, has forged my character and values. I am convinced that it is a force for good, and it gives me hope that Chennai will find its place among the great cities of tomorrow.

Go to Chennai Table of Contents

Email Arvind Rajan