How would you feel if you awoke one day to find that the entire Indian cuisine is no longer available to you because you cannot afford it, and that all you can afford is factory-made bread?
There is already a world where the great Indian diversity of tradition, culture, flora and fauna of our twenty-eight states and eight union territories has been reduced by the trident of economics, industrial processes and regulations to a single, industrially produced standard product, far removed from our history, culture and way of life. It is here since it is all we can afford! The world in question is of ‘affordable housing’, and the standard product is an apartment of twenty-five square metres, stacked in multi-storied buildings.
Where we live defines who we are. There was a time when we built in local styles that arose from cultural practices, climate, topography and local resources. It was possible to distinguish and identify locations in photographs from residential architecture in them. ‘Identity’ came from ‘place’. In our ancient culture, interpretation of form and space even in the simplest of village homes has been climatically and culturally sophisticated. It carries evolutional wisdom of thousands of years. Phenomena such as courtyards and articulated ‘thresholds’ exemplify locational and cultural intelligence in our architectural tradition. These, in conjunction with the multitude of spatial patterns of our indigenous architecture, have historically provided us that value which is central to civilized human existence: dignity.
Modern architecture finds it difficult to retain the connection between place and identity. It can be hard to tell from pictures of modern multi-storied group-housing towers whether they are located in Miami, Sao Paolo or Mumbai. They can all present similar skylines. Airports, hotels, malls and hospitals etc. across the world can look disconcertingly similar. These as ‘transnational’ spaces, created by modern globalized economies and their industry, divested of the gene code of location.
Large government programmes, such as those for affordable housing, can sever people from ‘place’ in more ways than one, since nothing is required of beneficiary families except their money. In return nothing more than absolute minimum subsistence space is provided, with design that is often oblivious of location, culture and identity. Parameters such as these are usually not part of empirically oriented design-briefs governments tend to write for themselves. Beneficiary families, who will pay for such homes for a number of years, can feel divested of control and influence on the nature of homes and spaces they will inhabit. This is especially true for Indian families which carry rich traditions, practices and culture.
Two worlds collide head-on. The first, of aspiration where Indian families search for a better life, dignity and opportunity. The second, of economics where governments and the market search for financial feasibility and returns on investment. This collision causes obvious damage, to the dreams of beneficiaries on the one hand and the objectives of government on the other. Earlier public interventions in this sector, both in India and elsewhere, stand testimony to such damage. Prominent examples include beneficiary-selection gone awry, low demand caused by high distance to work locations, accrual of benefits by the wrong group, and a quick descent into disrepair where functional maintenance mechanisms are absent.
Recently, a press-article in the pink papers discussed India’s ambitious ‘housing for all by 2022’ initiative which could construct up to nine crore houses by 2022. It stresses the need to keep homes under this initiative ‘affordable’. As a possible method to side-step speculative and commercial interests, it suggests delinking the price of land from the price of homes. It further suggests ring-fencing such housing developments through declaring their land to be ‘community land reserves’, allotted only to families considered ‘eligible’, and further sale, if any, solely to families in the ‘eligible category’.
Such language reduces our rich social fabric to targets, numbers and money. It is the poor empirical language of exclusionary economics. It seems unable to value the wealth of tradition and culture that nine crore structures need to foster if they are to become genuine homes which address aspirations of Indian families. While India may be a developing nation economically, it needs to be recognized that spatially India has been a highly developed nation for centuries. If the developed spatial sensibilities and wisdom of our traditional settlements will be reduced to the bare minimum physicality of tiny flats packed along thin corridors in multi-storey buildings by projects such as ‘Housing for all by 2022’, their stature is irrevocably diminished because of the dignity they take away from resident families.
Is economics designed to serve the interests of people? Or are people to serve economic frameworks that serve the market?
More conscientious economists of our times have on occasion red-flagged issues that exclusionary economics creates. Some have spoken about how markets and the State can leave people behind. They have opined that economists can often understand their field as the relationship between markets and the state, leaving less tangible though critical social issues for other people. As an example, an arithmetic sum that divides the amount of money a family can expect to earn in its productive phase divided by the average cost of construction may not be the best way for determining the size of a house. Apart from an impact on psychological health, it does not account significant gains including potential intangible increase in productivity on the one hand and the economic opportunity represented by a few extra square feet of space on the other. The latter is critical in supporting income-generating potential for beneficiary families who operate largely in the Indian informal sector.
We must learn from failures of our recent past, where the State and markets have indeed left people behind.
A rural ‘awaas yojna’, or housing programme, named after one of our erstwhile prime ministers, provided new twenty-five square metres homes to rural families. Often the location of these new homes, built by empanelled contractors with the lowest bid, was out of earshot of the main village.
Could any family that was out of earshot of village residents consider itself safe from wild-life, or other humans with ill-intent? No. Was a size of twenty-five square metres appropriate for a rural family? No. A rudimentary understanding of village homes would reveal spatial requirements for livestock and storage would far exceed twenty-five square metres even before getting to the needs of the family itself. Was the quality of material and construction satisfactory? No. Any self-made home in the village, crafted by family members themselves using local resources would be qualitatively superior on key attributes of performance.
Through its approach and attributes, this programme showed it did not care for those it was meant for. It fulfilled targets that were empirical and financial. The almost unconstitutional absence of assurance of dignity of life in structures provided by the programme often contributed to their remaining unclaimed or unoccupied by intended beneficiary families.
In another instance, Delhi’s first public private partnership (PPP) initiative for affordable housing went into construction after delays caused in part by the beneficiary community seeking legal intervention for amendments to the proposed design. The final resolution retained the original planning arrangement. Three thousand families will live in sixteen storied towers featuring twenty-five square metre homes on either side of a thin corridor, which in its longest part could be two hundred metres long.
This is another example of an exclusionary economic model rather than a socioeconomic one. Though it is a public private partnership, the ‘partnership’ represented by the relevant development authority seemingly abdicated, reducing itself to a vehicle for nothing more than procedural compliance. This in turn relegated interests of beneficiary families to a secondary position, and therefore a future replete with known challenges associated with families of limited means living in high rise towers. Well documented examples in recent history show us how such projects, conceived as assets, can become liabilities over time when not centred on the interests of residing families.
Keeping in view the impending explosion of new affordable homes in India and the crying need to get it right this time, here is what may be a more appropriate version of ‘the ABC of affordable housing’.
‘A’ must be for ‘Acceptability and Accessibility’ before it is for ‘Affordability’. B must be for ‘Beneficiary’, before it is for ‘Builder’. C must be for ‘Community’ before it is for ‘Construction Technologies’.
There is a ‘D’ involved, and it must stand for the Dignity that finds mention in the preamble to our constitution, applicable in a very central manner to our homes and lives. D is also for Design, which must create the framework for dignified living.
‘E’ tops it off and must stand for Ecology and Environment before Economics takes over!
Economic and social imperatives of ‘Housing for all by 2022’ do not run mutually exclusive paths. Both can not only co-exist but together can become more than their own sum. Good planning and design, when directed well, can meet and perhaps exceed our current expectations. Newer planning models and regulatory frameworks such as the transit-oriented development can create progressive frameworks that are within reach and can help meet the challenge India’s rapid urban expansion.
In addition to the ownership model, shared ownership, employer-housing, rental, hostels, serviced apartments and new India-specific offerings from the hospitality sector are models that can together comprise a basket of diverse options that together comprise an effective shelter and housing net for Indian families. Such ‘dispersed initiatives’ need not only identification and recognition as different instruments in the orchestra of ‘Housing for all by 2022’, but also unhesitating endorsement and support.
This hour that passes us is a golden one. Our stars seem aligned. Forces that can work in our favour are with us. India’s demographic profile at this time can launch us into high orbit. Imagine the economic potential of a large population like India’s when it is securely housed and able to grow. Making the necessary effort to include aspiring Indian families, the core constituency of affordable housing, in different aspects of programme-design will make a virtual certainty of securing that synergy which can be relied on for the success of not only this programme but also our larger development goals.
This window of opportunity can propel ourselves to the next level. As a corollary, losing the moment can mean not realizing healthy and aspirational living for Indian families. It is the difference between national gains from the former and the costs of the latter that make the current economics of affordable housing unaffordable.
