Zine 1

participatory planning in the Indian Subcontinent

India, being the second most populous country in the world and the largest democracy, has had its independence from colonial powers only for the past 70 years. Post-independence, there was a need to “develop” the country and planning was implemented directly by the government, with little understanding of the needs of the public.

Community engagement has been at the heart of most traditional planning techniques,or any kind of cultural activity. Most of these techniques have been implemented informally, and information gathering has also been done on local levels. In recent times, many planners are becoming more aware of the nuanced approach needed to create sustainable and equitable planning in India. They are acting as liaisons between the public and the government, and creating toolkits for both to understand planning better. Navigating through diverse language and cultural challenges while at the same time understanding the collective want for progress and more inclusive planning techniques is the core of these practitioner’s engagement with the community.

The objective is of this zine is to showcase different practitioners advancing social justice using different participatory planning techniques- how they engage with the public, take feedback, and present it to the governing bodies in order to implement them.

It is to understand the roles everyone plays in the facilitation of a holistic environment and foster a sense of community and achieve collective progress over the course of the future.

(An English ‘grandee’ of the East India Company depicted riding in an Indian procession. Getty Images)

we are all still waking up from our collective colonial hangover.

(Excerpt from A Joint Enterprise Indian Elites and the Making of British Bombay, early map of Bombay )

Historically, India has a strong body of national and local government. As per the Constitutional Amendment acts 73 and 74, there is a system of decentralizing power structure from the National Government and allowing local bodies of power to address local issues quicker and without bureaucracy from the higher level.

Participatory planning is shifting from tokenistic approaches to actual collaboration and engagement between governing bodies and technical experts familiar with the system.

historical change cross-cultural examination shift of power community involvement sentiment of place eyes on the street

However, this may still appear as tokenistic especially to communities that are being served. It is for this reason that many policy makers, urban planners, community activists, and artists are finding new and creative ways of community engagement.

Considering the levels of tools available at our disposal, including but not limited to- internet based sharing, western participatory planning ideas, and sustainable systems, different practitioners are using these tools to facilitate holistic planning and better participation among people in different areas of the country.

Aravani Art Project is a Women and Trans-Women art collective which involves a collaborative Public art/ wall art project to raise voice and awareness of the friendship between Trans-women and Women in public spaces.

“The visibility of the transgender figure has begun to disrupt long-held beliefs about gender and the ways we organize our lives around categories of gender. By making art together we are seeking to gently reshape the politics of inclusion and exclusion that surround gender identities.

The struggle for accepting and understanding the identities of Transgender individuals exists in each society, race, and class.This includes, a friendly bonding for women and trans-women to indulge into public art making.

The Transgender community all over the world are in need of support, exposure and most importantly art.

We also want to recognize the strengths in the arts and find an alternative source of income for the transgender community through freelance art and design projects. In doing so, we develop organizational skills and advocate social change by raising community awareness in public places.

We have a passion for art as a social practice. Through our creative collaborations we want to raise awareness of the social possibilities of art making and the conversations that it enables.” 1 public art community engagement justice gender identity social equity (1,2- excerpts from Aravani Art Project’s official description in the website)

(Co-founders Poornima and Sadhana. Photographer Pranav Gohill)

“Aravani Art project is a collective of diverse women artists who identify across the spectrum as transgender- women, gender-fluid women, and cis-gender women.

We create social interventions into local communities and neighborhoods creating a space for discussion.

We work on a project-by-project basis on research and commissioned projects. The design, imagery and message of an artwork is put together binding the stories shared by our community and clients. We experiment with local colours, patterns, motifs, language, ritual, and story and we respect and embrace local religions and spiritual beliefs.

When we are not on projects, our team researches and documents the unique localised cultures, rituals, festivals, challenges, concerns, and celebrations of the community within their neighborhoods.” 2

Sonagachi For St+art Kolkata, Aravani Art Project painted a mural in Sonagachi, the biggest red light district in Asia. They worked with a group of transgender people to realise a vibrant piece that blends a portrait with local colourful patterns.

The portrait acts as a generic representation of all the transgenders and the sex workers to put forward a message of empowerment. They have the right to be respected despite their work. “We are not what we do but who we are.”

In a participative approach, Aravani Art Project gave light to the marginalised communities while also regenerating the building of the Durbar Committee, which is a clinic providing healthcare to the women in the area.

The intervention into such a place was about disrupting delusions and shifting the general opinion of sex-workers and the lives they lead. It was focused in on how it is that we need to better understand sex-work and the lives of the people who do this kind of work.

Just like anybody else, they deserve the fundamental right to be respected and to lead a dignified life.

In the process of getting to know the community and their experiences, we found that the sex-worker community face compounding issues. They are both marginalised by being a sex-worker and they face further discrimination by being of the transgender community. We were moved by the challenges facing these beautiful human beings.

The process of getting to know the community through the project filled our hearts with a mix of deep sadness and overwhelming joy.

They are strong and fierce in the face of all that they suffer. The mural celebrates these women, their life and their choices. It is larger than life and reaches out into the Sonagachi sky. It cannot be ignored.3 (3, Photograph- From the Sonagachi Project Archive)

Framed in a participatory approach, Aravani Art Project’s work not only allows for creative freedom of expression, but also strengthens bonds within the community. A lot of research and understanding goes into the creation of the art pieces, and provides financial support to the trans artists.

(Photos from the official website of Aravani Art Project. Photographer Pranav Gohill)

“reclaiming public space using art as a community engagement tool.” empowerment visual connection physical space place identity

Everyday City Lab was set up as an urban design and research collaborative in 2018.

Kiran Keswani is a co-founder, Everyday City Lab an urban design and research collaborative in Bangalore that focuses on people-centric urban design and planning.

“There is so much about this lab that has been unplanned and unpredictable, and yet, the journey has been replete with delightful discoveries. The research projects have made it possible for us to engage with others and to see something that we had missed seeing ourselves. The key focus of the Lab has been to understand the everyday practices of people such as the social, cultural, religious, economic and political practices in order to develop a people-centric approach to urban design and planning.” planning policy design research community engagement

(Watch the Youtube video here)

Decoding

Everyday

is an online portal that is using citizen science as a methodological tool to understand streets and public spaces better. The online portal will attempt to facilitate dialogue amongst different people from different neighbourhoods across cities in India.

One of many Youtube videos encouraging civic observation and participation

The website outlines various methods for engaging with the space around you

participation observation experience database collection Internet-based participation tools such as surveys, news bulletins, and YouTube videos make it easier and more accessible for citizen participation.

(Graphics from Decoding Everyday)

Bombay

Greenway

is a collective of architects and planners, based in Mumbai (colonially known as Bombay), India.

In 2012, Anca Abraham and her husband Alan, discontented with Mumbai’s poorly connected open spaces and inadequate infrastructure, founded Bombay Greenway: a series of urban planning and placemaking interventions across the city. In 2018, her friend Tina Nandi had found herself secretly plotting ways to persuade her husband to move to a more ‘liveable’ part of the world. But she was inspired by the efforts of the Bombay Greenway, and together with Anca, began brainstorming ways to put her own skills to use for the city.

10/10/21, 6:42 PM

PROJECTS | Bombay Greenway HOME

As mothers to young children, they decided a good place to start would be to reach out to other families in the city who also needed access to urban green space and figure out creative ways to activate them.

Within two weeks, Anca and Tina founded Love Your Parks Mumbai: a community-led initiative to promote engagement, stewardship and love for public parks through singing and the creative arts.

In December 2018, their fledgling choir performed at two local parks to an audience of about 200 people, who clapped, sang and danced under the setting sun. LYPMumbai has since organised dozens of free pop-up events and mini-workshops in parks and public spaces across the city. Their platform grew steadily, advocating for accessible, inclusive and sustainable open spaces for all Mumbaikars. All this led to an invitation to join a roundtable discussion organised by the municipality (MCGM) in 2019 to elaborate on new park policies. architecture, planning, urban design, beautification

(The official website of Bombay Greenway. Accessible project work and guidelines)

© 2020 by Abraham John Architects

ABOUT

PROJECTS

CONTACT

St.

Stephen’s

Steps

In November 2019, LYPMumbai became involved in activating a new public space project by Bombay Greenway that had been proposed in 2016 and was finally coming to completion. The proposal was to transform a neglected, narrow staircase in Bandra into a public gathering space. The mismanaged space, which was frequented by drug users, had been erased from collective memory and was at risk of becoming yet another backroad in a city built for cars.

It took three years to implement something that should be a no-brainer: to turn a 40-year old garbage dump into a multi-use, inclusive community space, open 24/7 (a rarity in Mumbai!), and accessible to pedestrians, cyclists, prams and the differently-abled. In the early days, the group received discouraging feedback from some local residents, who were initially suspicious of a pro-bono initiative that wanted to re-visit a space that had acquired a lot of negative connotations. Fortunately, some key figures within the community stood up and supported the dream: to give back 1880 m2 of accessible and inclusive public space to the community in a city of less than 1 m2 of open space per person!

A huge milestone was managing to extend the width of the promenade on top of the steps, by taking over a part of the road. In preparation for the inauguration, an open call for muralists helped revive the ample wall space available. Their art weaved together a visual narrative depicting the unique, distinctive and cherished aspects of the area. By then, suspicion had given way to hope.

“We know that the arts play a significant and meaningful role in sparking vitality in communities of all sizes and shapes. We wanted to get people to experience this regenerated space, so we toyed around with the idea of a festival to engage the local community and put the steps back onto the local map,” said Ar. Alan Abraham.

(From the City at Eye Level- Turning Spaces into Places)

out with the old, and in with the new.

place identity architecture and design decolonization programming

Festival At the Steps- an art and culture exhibition in the public space

(Graphics from the official website for St. Stephen’s Steps)

Reimagining Arnstein’s “ladder” of participation, and making civic engagement inclusive and holistic, while acknowledging context and creating bridges between local and global participatory planning techniques.

Re-imagining Arnstein’s “Ladder”

The historical imbalance of power between the stakeholders, decision-makers, and community members impacted by the decisions made, requires a re-imagining of the “ladder”, shifting from a bottom-top approach, to a circular model. This may help look at is as an evolving practice, being sustainable, and giving equal consideration to all parties involved. Everyone gets a slice of the pie.

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It is important for planners and practitioners to provide the technical knowledge to communities and stakeholders, while at the This helpwhat look at ismembers as anhave evolving being sustainable, and giving samemay time regarding community to say. Bothpractice, influence outcomes to a greater degree. equal consideration to all parties involved. Everyone gets a slice of the pie.

It is seen from any project that unless there is a deep understanding of systemic and societal structures, most interventions are only seen as temporary and of little value to the community in the long run.

It is important for planners and practitioners to provide the technical knowledge to communities and stakeholders, while at the same time regarding what community members have to say. Both influence outcomes to a greater degree.

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A Joint Enterprise- Preeti Chopra A Place In the Shade- Charles Correa Aravani Art Project Bombay Greenway St. Stephen’s Steps The City At Eye Level Asia Traversing the City Through an Urban Design Research Practice Everyday City Lab Decoding Everyday Adopted Spaces: How Social Life on India’s Streets is Increasingly Threatened by Top-down City Planning 11. Visiting Every Park in Mumbai in 24 Hours! | Nikhil Kini 12. Participatory planning processes in Indian cities: its challenges and opportunities