Dhaka's awkward burden
Cities have always been important to Asia. As Charles Tilly remarks, "Cities emerged in Asia, and in terms of sheer man-years lived in cities, Asians have more urban experience than the rest of the world put together". South Asia has its own pre-history of flourishing urban centres, and some of those which have been excavated still produce wonder and awe.
Muslims brought their own urban tradition to the region. Cities have been central to Islamic history because of military and strategic reasons, commercial interests, the fulfillment of inclusive ritual obligations, and symbolic imperatives. Walter Fischell has argued that "Islamic civilisation owes its very existence to cities, and it is cities that made Islam the great power it is in world history".
It is reasonable to expect that the combined heritage of India and Islam would foster extensive urban growth. In terms of sheer numbers, it did. The percentage of people living in the urban areas was higher in 17th Century India than in Europe (15 percent to 13 percent), and at a time when only three European cities had populations over 200,000, the cities of Agra, Delhi and Lahore had populations well over 500,000.
But the number of people living in Indian cities did not lead to the same developmental trajectory that European urban settlements followed. First, as Marx had pointed out in his discussion the Asiatic Mode of Production, there was no "opposition" between town and country. Thus, a prime condition of economic differentiation and class formation was absent, and social and economic stagnancy was inevitable. As Marx put it, "Asian history is a kind of undifferentiated unity of town and country" with the large city "as a princely camp super-imposed upon the economic structure" unlike in Europe where economic forces gradually led to the "urbanisation of the countryside, not the ruralisation of the city". (The last insight is as true today as it was in Marx's time).
Second, medieval Indian cities did not have the corporate character, municipal institutions, exemptions or charters, or the legal personality that European cities came to exemplify. There was no burgher class, no autonomous source of revenue, and the relationship between the State and the cities remained ambiguous. Consequently, the delivery of services and the implementation of the rule of law was arbitrary and ineffectual. That history continues to cast a long shadow over current realities in Bangladesh.
Third, and most importantly, Europe was radically transformed through the industrial-capitalist revolution in the 18th Century, and the evolution of democratic institutions, habits and attitudes that followed. Cities began to be more prosperous which allowed greater resources and better planning. They also began to be democratically organised which provided the residents a sense of pride and ownership. Moreover, a notion of time that was linear and specific helped to organise their activities and expectations and became part of the urban ethos.
A civic culture developed - mindful of the rule of law and respect for the rights of others, dedicated to the notion of shared spaces, committed to a concern for collective well-being, and confident about a self-governing arrangement where decisions could be consensually taken and authoritatively implemented. Cities had to balance the respect for individual autonomy (which capitalism had heralded), with the orderly management of social life that collective existence demanded (which entailed some personal adjustments and sacrifices).
If the rise of the Protestant ethic was fundamental to the development of capitalism as Weber had asserted, the development of this attitude of being part of a new, complex, time-sensitive, impersonal community in a spirit of accommodation and mutual support, became the defining hallmark of a cosmopolitan world-view, a civic-mindedness, an urban sensibility, which not only became associated with, but indispensable to, the development of modern cities.
In South Asia, as in Dhaka, while urban growth occurred, this transition did not, either because of the weaknesses inherent in its internal dynamicor because of the subversion of colonial forces. From the city's side there was little preparation or planning in terms of acquiring new infrastructural and managerial capacities, delivering appropriate services, or being responsible to the public or responsive to its needs. On the receiving side, many of the new migrants to the cities did not have the social experience, "rationalist"orientation, or participatory values to inculcate the sense of attachment and awareness that their new domiciles demanded. Most of the residents retained their "home" identities, habits and attitudes (as the old expression goes, they may have left the village, but the village had not left them). A commitment to the collective good, shared spaces, and timely performance of duties, essential for the functioning of a modern city, was neither clarified to them, nor required from them. They were in the city, not of it.
Thus, the lack of enforceable rules and laws, and the undeveloped nature of civic norms and curtsies, led to behaviour that was often offensive, selfish and illogical. It is important to note that both the marginalised and the prosperous engaged in "anti-societal" conduct. The poor would only "encroach" on sidewalks to set up their little stores and trades, the rich would simply incorporate the sidewalks into their own property. The poor would use the trees and boundary walls as toilets, the rich would throw their garbage in the streets, and litter with impunity. The poor would scamper across busy roads as they endangered themselves, the rich would routinely and arrogantly violate traffic laws to have their way and thereby cause gridlock and chaos. The poor would create messy and unhealthy slums, the rich in predatory greed would take over precious lakes and open spaces to construct buildings that were an affront to the landscape and costly to the public. And both would spit copiously and nonchalantly in public areas - an act that was as gross as it was perhaps indicative of their feelings towards the city.
The city administrations in the past also tended to cling to their sense of feudal entitlements, more interested in displaying their power than in serving the public. They ignored the inefficiencies and corruptions around them and perfected the art of shifting blame and pointing fingers rather than in resolving issues, or doing the right thing. This was facilitated by a Kafkaesque bureaucracy of endless paper-shuffling, constant bickering between government agencies with confusing and overlapping jurisdictions, and political pressures for nurturing patron-client networks and protecting entrenched interests. The "system" was never user-friendly, and destined, perhaps designed, to be dysfunctional.
The argument of this essay is that if we seek to make Dhaka more livable, beautiful, sustainable, then some understanding of its political culture, and the historical and structural baggage it carries, may be necessary and relevant. This is not to suggest that we should give up our dreams about re-envisioning Dhaka to achieve both aesthetic and utilitarian objectives. Indeed, such projects of reform and redesign must be pursued with renewed vigour and courage. But we must realise the political cynicism and psychological resistances that such efforts may face, and emphasise the cultivation of civic virtues to make them possible today and meaningful in the future.
The writer is Professor Emeritus, Black Hills State University, USA, and Director of Gyantapas Abdur Razzaq Foundation, Dhaka.
Email: [email protected].
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