DOES URBANISATION LEAD TO HUMAN DECAY?

DOES URBANISATION LEAD TO HUMAN DECAY?

SCENE 1:

Year 1938. My father arrives from Pudukkottai via Madras to Bombay in search of a job and livelihood. He was 24 years old, had a wife to support and Bombay was the Mecca of commercial world even then. But at that time Bombay was also a very small city. The length and breadth of the city was covered in 15 to 25 square miles. As told by my father, it was relatively a clean and affordable place for everyone from all strata of society. For every new comer like my father, there was a local guardian and a good samaritan who made life easy to adjust in an alien atmosphere for the young man and his wife.

SCENE 2:

Years between 1938 and 1970. It looks like a long period. But it is a typical active life span for my parents in their best years in Bombay. One scene still stands out in front of my eyes very clearly. We had a small family function, like a thread ceremony of my elder brother. We were living in a typical Bombay chawl sharing a single floor with eight other families. There were only two common toilets for all the nine families to share in each floor. Typically each family had an average of 3 to 4 children apart from the parents. The typical space per tenement was hardly 240 Sq. ft. Despite such limitations, when we had this function, it was festive time for all the remaining families. Their doors were open to all visitors who had come to attend the function; every one shared all the roles of the host family to such an extent that we never felt the limitation of the place where we lived. The function was a great success.

SCENE 3: The year 1996. I had left Bombay by 1974 and for various reasons, which I shall narrate later, I never went back to Bombay except for occassional business visit. During one such visit, recently, I decided to visit my old neighbours at my birth and child hood place in Bombay. It was evening hours. The lights were dim. However there was not a single bulb burning on the common passageway. The individual houses/tenements showed reasonable signs of relative affluence compared to my younger days. But the neighbours generally kept to themselves. When I queried about the contrast between the inside of their homes and the lack of maintenance of common facilities, my old neighbour lamented that they do not cooperate with each other any more like the good old days. Each family looks after itself. In fact, out of the old nine families, only five remain with old roots. Others are totally new to that neighbourhood in the last decade. They don't feel the sense of community togetherness any more. The younger generation of the remaining families have gone away in search of better prospects, leaving only the oldies behind to fend for themselves. There was clear sign of absolute decay both in the facade as well as the inner portions of the building. I also felt, may be this decay also has spread to the human beings living there.

My father had informed me that the concept of slum living was not heard of in Bombay when he first came. Most people lived in proper housing facilities appropriate to his financial status and capability. The basic infrastructure was reasonably adequate to take care of average man's needs.

The concept of criminal mafia managing the city portels emerged only after 1960's when Bombay started growing as a mega city. Along with the extensions of the infrastructure, the pressure on the city due to extensive influx of population also increased with the result that today despite having the best facilities, barring a few localities, any other part of the city makes you feel that you are living in a slum. The dehumanising aspect of the life in the excessively urbanised Bombay has to be experienced to understand what I have proposed as a Hypothesis in the beginning: "Urbanisation leads to Human Decay".

I already mentioned that I left Bombay for good in 1974 when I left for Bangalore to pursue my studies in Management. Having experienced a quality of life quite different from Bombay, I realised that while Bombay would give me lot of money, it cannot offer the quality of life I want. Hence I could never go back to Bombay. I chose Hyderabad in 1977 when I came here on transfer and instantly liked the city for all the reasons which contrasted with Bombay. While Bombay was big, Hyderabad was small. The life in Bombay was hectic where as it was laid back here. The weather in Bombay was sultry while it was dry in Hyderabad. While, as a management trainee, I could hardly afford Bombay, I could support not only myself but my wife too very comfortably. There was warmth in the people whom I met then. And on lot of occassions I experienced the kind of personal touch in relationships which my father talked about Bombay in his early days.

But today Hyderabad is growing to be a megacity. But in the process of growth I also realised that it has taken the worst aspects of urbanisation. Some of the symptoms which made me think of an alternative to Bombay in 1974 are to be seen in Hyderabad today. For example while the city spread geographically in Bombay, the original infrastructure did not grow at the same pace leading to substandard quality of life. I find a similar situation in Hyderabad. Today new housing projects are promoted in areas where there is neither roads, water supply, drainage, nor electricity.

The personal contact between people is also getting reduced to business level. In fact today if you ask a Bombayite whom does he meet more often in his daily life even socially, chances are that 90% would say people with whom they have work or business related interaction. I am already getting a similar feeling about Hyderabad. However a lot of you may disagree; it is only a matter of degree. But the positive trend towards this is very much there.

In Bombay the only basis of human relationship is money. In fact whatever may be your background and intellectual prowess or capabilities, if you don't have money and do not display it you are no better than the paraiah dog moving around the city.

While Hyderabad has not yet come to this state, to me the positive trend towards this is already visible. The growth of Country Clubs and Treasure Islands and the quality of members who patronise them are typical symptoms of this trend.

While pondering on these lines I came across an interesting TV programme a few years back based on the famous book by John Kenneth Galbraith titled CIVILISATION. In one of the episodes Mr. Galbraith presents the history of modern megacities. In a lucidly presented narration he states that what made mega cities attractive to talented people was money. And talented people having made money in the mega city started moving away from these very cities to live in the suburbs leaving the poor, who have no other alternative to languish in the squalid wastes of the mega city. And the worst part of it all was that the very rich, who lived in the suburbs, did not bother to contribute to the upkeep of these very mega cities which sustained them, leading to their eventual decay.

Looking at the fate of modern megacities like New York, Chicago, Tokyo, London, Paris and closer home at Calcutta, New Delhi and Bombay and reading about general trends in urbanisation in places like Bangalore, Hyderabad and the recent civic tragedy at a small town like Surat, I am left wondering: Is urbanisation really necessary for the growth of human civilisation?

With the latest developments in technology of transportation and communication, can we not reverse the decaying process of urban growth by spreading back civilisation to the original land mass from where they all migrated to the urban jungles over centuries?

I am throwing these issues at all of you readers for a healthy debate.

PS: I wrote this article for a local Newspaper in Hyderabad, Deccan Chronicle, some time in 1996, when I was having a weekly column to write what ever I can think of on subject connected with Management. When I look back in 2023 today, I wonder was I making a prediction of future to come as we see in many big cities it has become difficult to move around and the general pollution levels have become life threatening. I am once again asking my readers for a healthy debate.

R. Srinivasan

(Photo courtesy Google Stock Photos)