Contesting inclusiveness: Policies,politics and processes of participatory urban governance in Indian cities

I An overview

India’s attempts at inclusion in the processes of globalization and liberalization in the early 1990s brought about a radical change in the perception of cities and their role in the economy. Cities have become the cynosure for domestic and international investments and, thus, have assumed the role of ‘engines of economic growth’. There has also been a rapid expansion of human settlements in these cities. Importantly, after the 1990s, urbanization in India has been concentrated in developed regions and great pressure has been placed on existing infrastructure as well as on the governance system for such city regions. Many urban residents have little access to basic services such as water and sanitation, solid waste collection, roads and shelter, etc. (HPEC, 2011), and this further undermines their growth prospects. Indian policy makers face a very difficult task of addressing two conflicting objectives—one relates to serving the city population’s needs for basic services and the other one relates to infrastructural needs for making cities ‘world class’, as desired by international business interests (Banerjee-Guha, 2009). This creates scope for confusions, conflicts and fragmentation of urban paradigms and policy spaces in respect of India (Mahadevia, 2011).

The growing recognition of the Indian urban crisis in recent years coincides with neo-liberal public policy shifts among national governments, international financial institutions and many smaller non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and, consequently, there has been a paradigm shift in the urban development policies of India. As experienced by many global cities of the South, the following have occurred: (a) the withdrawal of state and the entry of private capital in urban development with the concomitant change in the state’s role towards establishing the institutional conditions that are necessary for a successful market economy and (b) the rescaling of government from central to local levels through the process of decentralization of government and the private sector, and government and citizens (Harriss, 2007; Kundu, 2003; Nijman, 2008).

In particular, the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) 1993 marked a watershed in the constitution of Ward Committees (WCs) as deliberative bodies at the municipal ward level, so that the greater participation of citizens in local government initiatives was possible. Participatory governance arrangements in major Indian cities have also been marked by the involvement of neighbourhood association/residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) and NGOs. The involvement of these new actors has been justified in the name of ‘depoliticisation’ and the promotion of greater efficiency in the functioning of institutions of governance (Coelho et al., 2011). All these changes mark a complex form of governance, with a variety of stakeholders involved, that influences urban development policies.

Naturally, the new participatory framework requires an in-depth interrogation of three pertinent concerns. The first concerns which actors actually participate in such participatory arrangements and which are excluded. The second concerns the decision-making processes and implementation along with the obstacles that are involved in such arrangements. The third question concerns the outcomes; do these arrangements improve urban services, and, if so, then for whom? In spite of the over-reaching influence of these issues on the situation and prospects of urban (poor) people, not many studies have empirically examined them especially in the context of cities in the global South. This article, drawing on studies of the functioning of institutions under decentralized set-up and partnership between the state and non-state actors in major Indian cities, engages with these issues about participatory processes. While the selected city experiences do not, of course, represent more than a limited cross section of Indian contexts, they do enable us to explore the relationships between the various actors, interests and institutions involved in a set of different participatory arrangements, and therefore, contribute to the rethinking on governance mechanisms for cities of the global South.

The rest of the article is structured as follows. It begins with a brief discussion that explores the link between disparate governance arrangements, peoples’ participation and service delivery outcomes. Salient features of urban governance reforms are outlined in the following section. The subsequent section describes how participatory governance has been practiced in Indian cities and its implications for the inclusion of citizens and other actors in decision-making patterns, accountability and incentive structures, and the effectiveness of such arrangements in terms of the delivery of urban basic services. The final section presents the main conclusions.

II Conceptual framework

Of late, the growing recognition of urban problems in developing countries has coincided with the adoption of neo-liberal policies and structural adjustment programmes which call for reductions in government budgets for public expenditures and redefining the state-centric forms of urban service provision. Until the 1980s, governments used to formulate and implement policies for realizing the developmental goals. However, government’s incapacity in the formulation, implementation and realization of developmental goals and the concurrent paradigmatic shift in the political thinking on the role of the state have given way to a concern with governance (Rakodi, 2002). Under the new mode of governance, government is one of the actors in the process of governance along with civil society and the private sector. These shifts in policy discourses have been hailed by citizens’ movements, civic groups, NGOs and international donors as these changes facilitate the democratization of development through the involvement of local communities and local agencies. Here, the distinction between ‘governance’ and ‘participatory governance’ becomes crucial as the latter places a particular emphasis on the inclusion of the people, especially the poor in the governance mechanism (Mitlin, 2004).

Among the various reform measures, decentralization has assumed a central role in matters of governance in developing countries. Decentralization, by assigning the responsibilities of both the functions and related outcomes to the lower levels of governments/organizations, brings the decision-making process closer to the common people. Active citizen involvement and voice in the formulation and implementation of public policies through local democratic forums demand accountability and responsiveness from the local politicians/officials. Strong decentralized systems can, therefore, make governments more responsive in terms of speed and quantity of responses (actions, projects and outputs) and, more importantly, quality of responses (the degree to which responses from governments conform to popular preferences) (Manor, 2003). Furthermore, the involvement and hence the influence of ordinary people over development projects infuses a great sense of ownership among the citizenry and, therefore, makes the projects more sustainable. Moreover, a public policy decision is not a ‘once-and-for-all’ act. It involves a number of stages ranging from putting an item on the agenda, through technical advice, discussion of favoured proposals, to the enforcement of a final decision. Thus, which segments of population take part in which mode of local decision-making processes and how it becomes important (Klugman, 1994). Democracy can, in fact, be deepened when citizens from all socio-economic strata actively engage in participatory practices and decentralization, particularly its devolutionary variant, contributing significantly to ‘democratic deepening’ (Brinkerhoff et al., 2006). In the end, participation is considered an input to the building of accountability and an output in the sense of empowerment. More importantly, the citizens get opportunity to deliberate in public forums; this will enhance their skills and motivation. Moreover, effective participation is reinforced in nature in the sense that once the process is started, it leads to a further increase in the level and scope of participation and paves the path for developing effective empowered citizenship and building truly democratic institutions (Crook et al., 1999; Gaventa, 1999).

Positive outcomes associated with decentralization and related participatory mechanisms presuppose the existence of institutions and rules providing equal opportunities to all deliberating parties and, importantly, parties could enter deliberations as conscious and empowered forces (Beaumont and Nicholls, 2008). But societies in general and communities in particular are, in fact, spaces of internal differentiation and hierarchies. Consequently, participation would always be open to manipulation by better equipped sections of community in terms of their social position, economic power or better skills (both with respect to information and communication). It is to be noted that, although the existence of a well-designed participatory institution is sufficient for fruitful deliberations, what is absolutely vital is the relative balance of power among the stakeholders. Therefore, to explore the influence that various actors and interests under decentralized set up have for the outcomes of participatory mechanisms, one needs comprehensive understandings of the specific social, economic and political setting and the type of the decentralization process.

Given the socio-economic–political inequalities in developing countries and also for a simple practical reason, it is not possible for all people to actively participate in governance mechanisms. In this context, community-based organizations (CBOs) and NGOs in different forms assume an important role to facilitate the process of democratization and empowerment by encouraging and enabling people to actively participate in the governance process (Beaumont and Nicholls, 2008). In general, the CBOs and NGOs mobilize and organize people on the basis of some common interests, articulate needs and priorities of the group they represent, develop a network of associations to facilitate interaction between those with shared interests and the state and to hold the state to account. In this sense, the ‘grassroots-led urban development’ has the potential to empower people and improve urban service delivery (Mitlin and Satterthwaite, 2004 as cited in de Wit and Berner, 2009).

However, CBO- and NGO-led participatory urban development processes are marred with several obstacles. Critics have pointed out that the urban poor, due to their illiteracy, lack of information and confidence, appear to be reluctant to engage in horizontal organizations or get involved in collective actions. Given the huge mismatch between the supply and demand of urban services and the ensuing possibility of intra- and inter-community competition as regard to access to urban services, the urban poor prefer to rely on vertical patronage and approach different types of intermediaries for obtaining access to institutions and meeting their demands. Local socio-political–economic condition influences the efficacy of such a patronage system. Political linkages of the intermediaries make the patronage relation relatively more efficient since a broker within party enjoys access to decision making regarding public services. Brokers or politicians utilize this patronage relation to build up ‘political machinery’ through large-scale dispensing of private and public goods for the targeted group. In a democratic setup, the ‘machinery’ serves to strengthen the political support base of the patrons. After all, patronage relation is reciprocal in nature and the urban poor have very little to offer to the patrons, except their pledge of support (de Wit and Berner, 2009). The prospect of collective action through CBOs is further constrained by local divisions and inequalities among the poor people with respect to their income, experiences, gender, ethnicity, age, location and experiences (Devas, 2004). Nonetheless, collective action through CBOs does happen in cases where local communities are characterized by a dense network of personal, social and economic relations which may become the basis of trust and social cohesion, and may result in organization building and collective action (Beall, 2001). Moreover, the presence of a genuine grassroots leader, as against the presence of a leader in the garb of a patron/broker providing vertical links and access to persons and institutions, has completely different implications for poor peoples’ interest and capacity to organize and make demand collectively. Naturally, we need to examine issues such as actual representativeness of the CBOs, their rationale and mode of function and their relation with the local government for a better understanding of prospects as well as the blocks that CBOs create for participatory practices.

Critics are also concerned with the role of the NGOs in participatory governance processes. These organizations, because of their institutional and material constraints and sometimes by preference, focus on a specific group of people. In their attempt to depoliticize the governance processes, NGOs refrain themselves from interacting with the local politics, develop closeness to the people associated with higher levels of governments and tend to cater to only the people with high-level connections. The process of selectivity, inherent in the functioning of the NGOs, leads to a finer form of urban–social segregation which can seriously damage the functioning of local democracy (Swyngedouw, 2005; Zerah, 2009).

From the preceding discussion, it is clear that the participatory governance framework embed the practice of negotiation and cooperation among the multiple actors who vary in their mandates and capabilities. Therefore, the very dynamics of relation between the urban people, local government, CBOs and NGOs gives us considerable cause for concern and reflection regarding the nature of governance reforms and the associated outcomes especially related to empowerment, inclusiveness and improvement in services. This concern induces us to interrogate the processes and mechanisms, both formal and informal, which enable the people to influence and thereby to accrue benefit from decisions and actions of various actors and institutions involved in the urban governance framework.

III Participatory urban governance in Indian cities: Structures and processes

To navigate the relationships and interactions among different actors and their implications for urban planning and urban service delivery, this article draws on case studies of participatory practices under decentralized set-up in municipalities of West Bengal and partnership between the state and the non-state actors in middle-class neighbourhood and in slums of some major cities of India. West Bengal is chosen as this state, with its fairly elaborate as well as unique arrangements for democratic decentralization, gives an opportunity to understand the nuances of bottom-up approach to urban planning. In fact, West Bengal is one of the few states in India where municipal elections are being held at regular intervals. Moreover, the WCs are provided for every ward and, therefore, the level of decentralization has been higher at least compared to other Indian states such as Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu where WCs are provided only in corporation areas or for a group of wards (Mathur et al., 2006). Studies on the Advanced Management Locality (ALM) scheme in Mumbai and RWAs of Bangalore have been documented to show how elite- and middle-class residents engage with their city governments to make or press their claims and what implications those actions have for access to services among different groups of urban people. The Slum Adoption Program (SAP) and Slum and Sanitation Program (SSP) of Mumbai and Bangalore Urban Poverty Alleviation Program (BUPP) examine the cases of CBOs/NGOs partnerships with the city governments facilitating community participation and empowerment of poor people and the extent to which these arrangements provide opportunities for poor people to influence decisions and agendas of city governments. Acknowledging the importance of elected councillors in the urban governance structure, the role of the councillor as a mediator between state/city institutions and citizens in Ahmedabad has been discussed to understand the implications of political mediation for poor peoples’ access to urban services.

IV Scope and nature of peoples’ participation in decentralized urban governance in West Bengal

The West Bengal Municipal Act 1993, in conformity with the 74th CAA, provided the citizens an opportunity to actively participate in their own administration and development through a two-tier system of local governance—the municipality and the WC. The former is an elective body at the level of municipality consisting of elected representatives of the people (councillors) and the latter is a nominated body at the level of the ward. Chattopadhyay (2012), using primary survey data from three municipalities, evaluated the implications of constitutional provisions for participation and accountability in urban West Bengal.

An overwhelming majority of surveyed people participated in local election to elect their representatives at the municipal level. In the context of West Bengal’s dominant political culture, high voter turnouts in urban West Bengal may perhaps indicate not just the heightened political awareness of the people but also, in part at least, a sense of unwritten compulsion to cast one’s vote during the election and thereby pledging one’s loyalty and support for one party or another, in anticipation of insuring oneself form any personal and family emergencies. Apart from regular municipal elections, the annual general meeting (AGM) of the WC provides a forum where citizens and elected representatives can deliberate on local issues and, thus, such meetings provide a mechanism by which elected representatives can be made accountable to the local constituents. However, the non-occurrences of the AGMs and poor attendance of the respondents in such meetings seriously undermined the constitutionally envisaged aim of ‘deepening democracy’. Poor attendance in the AGM was explained in terms of peoples’ ignorance about existence, constitutional status and rules and activities of the WCs. Moreover, the non-availability of information on decisions of the WCs and their implementation created a sense of disbelief about the effective functioning of WCs among the local residents. This, in turn, induced people not to participate in any kind of activities of the WCs. Truly, it matters little whether the constitutional provision guarantees decision-making rights of the citizens or not when the people are not aware of what right and opportunity they have, and when people do not know what is going on in their localities. In such situations, people can rarely hold their elected representatives to account.

Experiences of people who attended the AGMs of the WCs revealed that few members dominated the decision-making process. The scenario turned out to be gloomier as most of the participants in the AGMs were found to be close to the ward councillor as well as his/her political party. Those who are critical of the ward councillor’s leadership, including people belonging to other political parties, kept themselves away from such meetings. In this situation, one would not expect a participant to oppose any suggestion or decision made by the ward councillor. This, in fact, was one of the important reasons behind peoples’ inactive participation. In reality, there is a general unwillingness among the local people to voice their opinion publicly as they avoid antagonizing their local party leaders. This indicated the prevalence of ‘clientilsm’, that is, the practice of favouring political supporters at the expense of non-supporters. This seriously dampened the constitutionally envisaged apolitical spirit of the functioning of the WCs as the vibrant policy-making bodies with the active involvement of common people. Nevertheless, in some cases, the experience of deliberating in AGMs on issues such as garbage collection, streetlights, roads, etc. expanded peoples’ participatory skills and induced other people to participate in such public forums and, thus, contributed to the ideal of participatory governance.

Moreover, the WCs, consisting of members to be nominated by the ward councillor and municipal chairman from amongst the different sections of society with a fair representation of people belonging to the socially and economically disadvantageous sections, were envisioned as the separate nonpartisan citizens’ body to provide local residents a much needed platform to make demands and to have them forwarded to the municipality. But it was observed that councillors as well as the chairman of the municipality nominated members for the WC from among their own party supporters. In some cases, members from different political backgrounds were nominated in the WCs. But members having different political affiliations were not informed about the date and time of the monthly meetings of the WCs. Thus, the basic purpose of the WC as an apolitical citizens’ body was defeated at the very onset as the councillors were merely interested to convert the WC into an extension of their party by allotting the majority of the places in the WC to their loyalists. Although deliberations in the AGMs centred on municipal-service-related problems of ‘planning’, ‘location of projects’, etc.; the usefulness of such deliberations was highly limited and very rarely the members proposed any new plan/activities or alternatives to existing plan/activities or opposed any of the proposals of the councillors. This politicization of the WCs is also documented elsewhere in studies relating to the composition and functioning of the WCs (Baud and Nainan, 2008; Chandra, 2004; Pal, 2006). In such situation, the WC meetings lost their significance as the meetings were only held to rationalize the political decisions already made by the higher leadership. The implication is that the successful bottom-up planning process through, for example, WC can only be materialized when initiatives from the bottom are given the necessary political spaces and when the state and the formal political/administrative structure allow them to do so.

V Neighbourhood associations partnering the state: Case of controlled participation

The RWA and other urban neighbourhood association are increasingly visible in recent reform processes in India as actors staking claims on public services and as institutions representing the voice of the citizens. Under the ALM scheme in Mumbai, ALMs provided channels for middle-class residents to deal directly with the executive wing of the municipal government. In these schemes, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) and ALMs (peoples’ association at the street or building level) were the two actors who worked together to improve the cleanliness and garbage collection. MCGM representatives (executive head of the ward administration and department employees) discussed the problems of garbage collection with the ALM representatives in monthly meetings, organized at the administrative ward level. As the ALMs were registered with the MCGM, the latter used to give priority to the complaints from the former. This improved the relationship between MCGM employees and the citizens, and MCGM employees got the opportunities to utilize the local knowledge possessed by the ALM members. Given their relatively better socio-economic background, ALMs were successful in involving engineers, lawyers and financial professionals to supervise municipal works. The services improved with the majority of the people expressing satisfaction with the service delivery.

Later on, ALMs extended their scope of operation and engaged in discussion on larger urban projects in their neighbourhood. They also expressed their inclination to involve in local politics and municipal elections. ALMs actively campaigned to motivate the middle-class residents to vote in municipal elections. They organized meetings at the ward level with both the residents and the candidates and compelled the candidates to voice the needs and priorities of urban residents. Overall, ALMs provided residents, those involved in the process, a new platform to influence the decision-making process and build expertise for exploiting the participatory potential.

However, a close look at the nature of the members and their issues of concern reveals quite a disturbing picture. In Mumbai, mostly middle-class and upper-middle-class colonies and localities housed the ALMs and housewives and professionals from English educated elites majorly took the centre stage in ALM activities. Quite understandably, the associated participatory practices can hardly be considered as ‘inclusive’ and contribute towards ‘deepening democracy’ as a significant portion of the urban residents were left out. In their attempt to influence the process of city restructuring, ALMs endorsed ‘Vision Mumbai’ that envisages ‘modern, clean and efficient city cleared of hawkers, shanties, encroachment of public space and chaos’. ALMs engaged in the judiciary procedure to attain the twin objectives of dismantling spaces occupied by street vendors and displacement of slums. These were justified in the name of protecting tax payers’ rights and environmental concerns which are quite appealing to the middle-class residents (Zerah, 2009).

The RWAs in Delhi under the Bhagidari Scheme and RWAs in Chennai and Bangalore also established partnership between residents/citizens and the municipal authorities to improve the urban service delivery system. However, these associations were found to be dominated by the members of the middle classes who identify the urban poor, urban slums and squatter settlements as nuisance and quite threatening to any future urban development perspective (Harriss, 2010). Disparate political and legal actions pursued by these groups have excluded poor people from their neighbourhood. For example, in Delhi, middle-class groups used public interest litigation (PIL) for pursuing their endeavours for cleaning up and beautifying their cities and thereby transforming them into ‘global cities’ that would be attractive to international capital. In some instances, people setting up dwellings or their businesses on public or private land were described as criminals and so were ineligible to access to public care. These clearly jeopardized the livelihoods of the affected people (Srivastava, 2009). Interestingly, Kamath et al. (2009), in their study of neighbourhood associations of Bangalore, contended the very idea of ‘middle class—urban poor dualism’ and argued that the nature and intensity of middle-class activism vary according to local histories and geographies of the development of specific neighbourhood, internal conflicts, differential economic interests and access to power. This fragmented nature of the middle class shaped the action of different segments in participatory frameworks and thereby influenced the delivery of basic services.

Elite RWAs subscribed to the idea of active citizenship and concerned with peoples’ interests as consumers rather than citizens. Apart from only paying taxes, these RWAs were interested in ‘constructive engagement’ through, for example, self-provisioning of some services. Emphasis was placed on eliminating citizen benefits for unauthorized or illegal inhabitants. These RWAs took judicial route to address the problem of illegality. They preferred to access state officials directly with their problems as retired professionals with elite backgrounds were found to be the active members of these organizations. The scope of participation was limited in the sense that important decisions were often taken by a small core group of people. On the contrary, non-elite RWAs were not found to be driven by the notion of citizenship. They were directly concerned with the non-availability of services in their neighbourhood and employed confrontationist strategies, for example, street demonstrations, at the time of crisis. They preferred to contact the lower and field level government officials and discussed their problems with these representatives in the monthly review meetings. Instead of bypassing the democratically elected municipal council, they cooperated with the elected representatives. In some cases, members of non-elite RWAs campaigned for councillors and offered issue-based support. This good rapport between the non-elite RWAs and councillors has got important implications for poor peoples’ access to services as the former shared a sympathetic outlook for poor peoples’ problems related to access to basic amenities, whereas the latter dealt the same problem seriously out of political compulsion.

VI Role of NGOs and CBOs in participatory urban practices: Participation or patronage?

The SAP of Mumbai provided an opportunity for state–CBO partnership to improve the solid waste management system in Mumbai slums. Solid Waste Management department of MCGM through its 24 ward offices implemented the programme. One of the main tasks of the ward offices was to identify slums/CBOs ready to become involved in the SAP. MCGM provided the CBOs financial assistances for three years with the provision of gradual reduction in assistance once the CBOs become self-sufficient. The main rationale behind CBO involvement was to enhance community participation in managing day-to-day garbage collection in the slums. Accordingly, they were responsible for organizing street meeting involving city officials and local representatives, mobilizing local support, involving community volunteers and paying their wages, managing garbage collection and collecting monthly payments from the residents.

As far as the service outcome is concerned, all slums experienced improvement in garbage collection and cleanliness with the caveat that programme performed much better in socio-economically better-off slums. But if we evaluate outcome in terms of participation and representation, the picture was indeed unsatisfactory. The elected councillor assumes the key role in the selection/identification process of CBOs at the ward level and turned out to be the most important link between the CBO leaders and ward officials. In majority cases, CBOs consisting of leaders and people with some political affiliation or contact got selected for the job. CBOs loosing favour of the locally powerful political party either remained unselected or their contract were not renewed (Desai et al., 2007). The CBOs, their members and residents of the slums they cater—all became ‘political capital’ for the councillors. Also, as the CBOs were entrusted with the responsibilities of collecting monthly charges for the garbage collection, it involved a huge amount of financial gain for all the three parties involved in the process—the councillor, the CBOs and the ward officials (de Wit and Berner, 2009).

Mutual dependence between the councillor and CBO leaders implies the politicization of the partnership arrangement that hardly presented any participatory opportunities for the ordinary people. They failed to distinguish the ‘new system’ as it continued to be operated by the councillor and its party workers. The aspects of community participation and empowerment were also neglected as the CBOs, in general, were found to be disinterested in organizing street meeting and awareness programme at the slum level. Moreover, instead of relying on a community volunteer, the CBOs engaged workers as a garbage collector from outside the slum. So, the garbage collection took the form of many other technical jobs where services are offered against payment. Thus, it appeared that in the entire arrangement, slum communities turned out to be the losers at the expense of benefits made by the CBOs (in the form of [mis]appropriation of public money), ward officials (in the form of bribe) and the ward councillors (in the form of monetary gain and building political capital; de Wit and Berner, 2009).

In the SSP of Mumbai, NGOs were engaged in the construction of toilets in the slums. The participatory approach of the programme was ensured through the provision of the involvement of communities at each stage of the process—designing infrastructure, contributing capital costs, maintenance of toilets through CBOs and payment of user fees. The Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) was the other project that envisaged the state–NGO partnership in the rehabilitation and resettlement programme of 20,000 household in Mumbai. In MUTP, the NGOs were entrusted with responsibility for conducting the baseline survey of people, transferring people to new houses and organizing communities. The MCGM and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) served as the coordinating agencies for SSP and MUTP programme, respectively, and NGOs made contract with them.

The primary responsibility of these NGOs was to organize communities, create participatory forums and facilitate the participation of people. However, the critical examination of the functioning of the NGOs in the two programmes revealed that they acted as the contracted agents of the state apparatus. Under the MUTP programme, in some cases, the affected people did not get the relevant details from the NGO representatives who advocated the rehousing offer of the MMRDA as a golden opportunity that should not be missed. In the SSP, the NGOs were mainly concerned with technical infrastructure and paid little attention to the aspect of capacity building among the communities. One of the contracted agencies outsourced the task of engaging people in the SSP to some social workers conversant with the area. Using their local knowledge and clout, social workers then selectively chose the construction site and successfully mobilized communities to pay for toilets. But such intermediation hardly offers any ray of hope in exploiting the full potential of participatory opportunities.

The failure of setting up of CBOs for maintenance works further undermined the scope of participation in the two programmes. In the SSP, the NGOs subcontracted the management of toilets either to powerful middlemen or to small private contractors. Under MUTP, post-resettlement activities related to housing transactions, renting and transferring of new flats were captured by the middlemen having connections with both the MMRDA and NGO. Thus, in both the projects, community people did not get any chance to influence and to be a part of the maintenance of the infrastructure. Instead, brokers and middlemen seized the opportunities provided by the new governance mechanisms which signified both the presence and influence of local politics in shaping the outcomes of these two projects (Zerah, 2009).

Similarly, the BUPP provided an enabling institutional framework for participation and cooperation among the government, NGOs and community organization. Slum development teams (SDTs), consisting of elected representatives, were formed at each of the slum programme to facilitate the participation and empowerment of people. These SDTs were expected to draft a slum development programme in consultation with the slum community. The slum-level NGOs provided the guidance and support in drafting and implementing the plan.

The programme partially succeeded in achieving empowerment objectives as, in some cases, it was observed that ordinary people elected to an SDT and played a very useful role in the programme. NGOs involved also provided support to build interested peoples’ capacity and helped them in drafting and implementing development programmes. However, in many other cases, existing leaders of other organization or people with political connections got elected as members of SDTs. These members used the SDTs to gain access to government funds and services. Eventually, the participatory and empowerment intent of SDTs were eroded by clientelism as the implementing staff acted as patrons who distribute favours to their clients. Here, again the participatory opportunities provided by the BUPP were usurped by a certain section who was least bothered in addressing the root causes of urban poverty and empowering people (de Wit, 2001).

Against such odds, Nijman (2008) presented the case of a successful rehabilitation programme in one Mumbai slums and pointed out both the constraints and possibilities provided by prevailing governance arrangements. Among the actors involved in the process, state and local governments performed the vital role of ‘facilitator’, quite in tune with the neo-liberal policies, in transferring the ownership of the occupied land to the slum dwellers. Slum Rehabilitation Society—a Mumbai-based NGO—played a vital role in organizing the slum dwellers and persuaded them to form the representative committee (housing cooperative). Because of high density, small size and locational disadvantage, the committee initially found it difficult to attract the private developer for the project. Eventually, the cooperative itself assumed the role of the developer and, with the help of the NGO, succeeded in involving a foreign guarantor and obtained financial capital from the bank. In this entire process, the NGO played a major role in networking with government agencies, financial institutions, builders and other players. Two ‘local’ factors in the form of NGO’s strong local base and homogenous, stable and unified character of the slum community contributed critically in making the NGO intervention a success.

VII Elected representatives as mediators in urban governance framework

Under the present urban governance system in India, the vehicles of participation were seen to be dominated by the interests of the middle class and influential members of the society (Harriss, 2010). In such situation, poor people were left with no other option but to depend on local political leaders and elected representatives to establish links with power structures and to gain access to services (Benjamin, 2008; Jha et al., 2007). They were found to be more interested in claiming voting rights and citizenships by getting registered their names in the voter lists. These rights were crucial for their survival in the city, as politics is often the only resource in a system which may deny the benefits of policy decisions or legal remedies to the poor (Nair, 2005).

Berenschot (2010) discussed the role of the local politician as a mediator between the state institutions and citizens in Ahmedabad, the main city of Gujarat. This description is of crucial importance as it showed how political mediation is embedded in procedures and policies of the state institutions and the associated problems of governance are not unique to the city under consideration, but also prevail in other cities of India. Richer people, being endowed with monetary resources and influential contacts, can easily access the formal structure of governance or they can opt for services provided by the non-state actors. However, poor people found it difficult to access the state resources: they needed to visit the relevant offices regularly; the procedures for obtaining services or making complaints were complicated as well as time consuming; the officials were unresponsive and demanded ‘speed money’ for rendering services. Consequently, they preferred to approach state officials through the elected councillor, and, in such cases, state bureaucrats responded quickly to the poor peoples’ demand and requests. Given the advantages politicians enjoy, for example, in transfer of state officials, etc., the bureaucrats were forced to do works as desired by the former. Thus, the political actors institutionalized their mediating role by undermining the state institutions and forced poor people to depend on them to get things done.

In particular, Berenschot (2010) distinguished between three forms of political mediation— brokerage, patronage and particularization—each having severe implications for poor peoples’ access to state services. Under the first form, the elected councillor provided the municipal departments with vital information about the citizen and these included: putting complaints and requests of citizens in his letterhead to establish the veracity of such requests before municipal officials and providing the people with necessary documents to make them eligible for certain government programmes and so on. Thus, the councillor took credit for both making new services available and for remedying service complaints of the poor. Under the second form, the councillor used his allocated budget to reward loyal supporters and areas. Given the limited resources of the municipal governments and competition among different groups of people, poor people judged politicians on their capacity to help them gain access to these resources. Moreover, elected councillors enjoyed considerable freedom in determining where and how the government budget should be spent. All these made poor people dependent on the politicians who practiced patronage quite deliberately to build up local support. Under the third form, councillors, using his influence, undermined the uniform application of municipal laws to the advantage of private interests. In one case, the councillor with the help of the municipal officials awarded government contract to a private contractor who, in return, promised monetary support and mobilization of voting support during election. In essence, all these forms in some way or other are manifestations of traditional patronage politics under the current discourse on governance and, therefore, reinforce the influences of local politics and associated actors on scope, nature and outcomes of participatory mechanisms.

VIII Conclusion

The potentials of participatory governance mechanisms for promoting citizen participation and empowerment and improving the delivery of urban services have been well acknowledged in the development literature, and India has embraced this path by adopting urban policies that call on the reduced role of the state and the rise of new forms of service provision based on decentralization and partnership between the state and non-state actors. However, the documented evidence in this article puts a question mark against the efficacy of participatory practices for achieving inclusive urban development.

In West Bengal, the political nature of the WC and the thin attendance of citizens in the meetings weakened the prospect of having a more transparent and accountable local decision-making process under the decentralized governance set-up. The RWAs, as representatives of urban citizens, were found to be dominated by the middle and upper middle classes and, thereby, served the needs and priorities of these sections of populations leading to increased gentrification of city spaces. The NGO- and CBO-led-community-based participatory projects were successful only in engraving the incidence of political and elite capture in new forms and sites. The participatory arrangements among municipal councillors, municipal officials and community organizations were dominated by powerful local leaders resulting in the disempowerment of poorer members of the communities. This group of people utilized the participatory opportunities either to misappropriate public funds or to divide and share out the benefits of the programme to a particular section of society being loyal to them. Moreover, given the difficulty that the poor people face in accessing state resources, elected councillors in the decentralized set-up mediated in the day-to-day functioning of the municipalities, developed control over the distribution of state resources and exchanged resources for the poor people in return for their support. The benefits of the targeted delivery of services de-motivated the elected representatives from undertaking any initiatives to provide universal access to urban services.

In essence, the case studies highlight that the purpose of inclusive urban development in Indian cities gets defeated as the participatory practices failed to put the idea of ‘governing from below’ into practice; instead they facilitated the idea of ‘governing by influence’. Accordingly, we point out a number of areas that require immediate attention in developing planning strategies for participatory urban governance. First, the legal and regulatory framework needs to be strengthened to empower local democratic institutions and to prevent the non-utilization of important deliberative such as WCs. A strong national mandate for pro-poor service delivery is necessary for encouraging local government and service providers to intervene in enhancing service delivery for all sections of the urban population. Second, the availability of information on goals, activities and envisaged outcomes of different policies and programmes among all the stakeholders is of crucial importance as people would be able to enforce responsiveness and accountability only when people are aware of what rights and opportunities they have. Third, the outcomes of participatory processes depend crucially on the motivation and capacity of the political and executive leaders who can comprehend the need for reforms and have the courage to initiate as well as carry forward the reform initiatives. Given the widespread prevalence of patronage and clientelism in Indian cities, the mindset of leaders can make city governments truly effective especially for the poor people where leaders are committed to provide benefits to the people not as favours, but as a matter of citizenship rights. Fourth, in spite of the presence of appropriate institutions, rules and incentives in participatory frameworks, a broader kind of capacitybuilding approach is needed at all levels of government and also for the stakeholders involved to engage in a transparent process of designing programme for inclusive development. Finally, inclusive social transformation requires the engagement of the excluded and disadvantageous section of people with the policies, politics and processes of urban development. Such groups need to claim their fair share through persistent lobbying and pressure. The usefulness of such ‘power of organized numbers’ is reinforced by the successful examples of the poor of Delhi as ‘particularly active problem solvers’ (Harriss, 2005) or with the enduring struggles of marginalized citizens leading to the enactment of recent legislation, for example, Right to Information Act, National Rural Employment Act, etc. in India, that empower individual citizens with information and a voice in governance matters (Coelho et al., 2011).