Ekta Chauhan on 'the City in the Village'.

The following is an excerpt from ; Sheher Mein Gaon: Culture, Conflict and Change in the Urban Villages of Delhi, Ekta Chauhan, Penguin India.' It was published by Scroll.in.

Urban development in post-Independence India can be broadly divided into two distinct phases.

Before and after the, 1992, Seventy-fourth amendment to the Constitution? This established Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), known as Municipalities, as constitutional entities to decentralize urban governance. 

The first, spanning the early decades of independence (1950–1980), saw the state take on the role of the grand architect, actively shaping cities as hubs of industry and progress.

The foundation of Jamhedpur in 1919 was an example of a 'Company town'. Modinagar, founded in 1933 is another example of a City founded by an industrialist. Durgapur, the second 'steel city' of India, was the brainchild of the Chief Minister of West Bengal. Two American architects- Joseph Stein & Benjamin Polk- worked on it and several other projects in India.  

Planned townships like Bhilai, Chandigarh and Bokaro were designed to reflect the ideals of a newly independent nation – secular, democratic and self-reliant.

No. If self-reliance were the aim, foreign architects would not have been involved. There was no mosque in Chandigarh till, in 1969, local Muslims began construction on the Jama Masjid. It took two decades to complete. Previously, Muslims in the area prayed in the open or in a tent put up for the purpose. 

The state was an active mediator, balancing the needs of people, capital and the emerging middle class.

No. All three were Public Sector undertakings directly under the control of the Government.  

Cities were envisioned as modern, rationally planned spaces where industrial zones, housing and public services were carefully integrated.

Or not. Zoning was introduced in 1962 but, as the British had found, it was difficult to enforce. Most Provinces had some sort of Town Planning administration from about 1915 onward. But there was little public support for officials seeking to prevent haphazard development- even of a toxic kind. 

The second phase unfolded after the economic liberalisation of 1991, when the rules of urbanisation were rewritten. The state withdrew from its role as a provider of basic services – housing, education, healthcare and infrastructure –

It did not provide any such thing. Why? It didn't have the money or, if it did, the money got stolen.  

and ceded space to private developers.

Private plots were sold in any and every new urban development. Why pretend that India was a Socialist paradise till Manmohan's evil reforms handed the country over to capitalist bastids? 

The neoliberal city was no longer about nation-building but about land as an asset, a tradable commodity.

It has always been that. Land owners have always been allowed to sell their land. True, some states had restrictions on who could buy agricultural land etc.  

Gated communities, luxury apartment complexes, private IT parks, SEZs and vast shopping malls became the defining features of new urban India.

Residential colonies for Government servants or employees of big concerns- e.g. Bata- were always 'gated'. Delhi's 'Superbazaar' which wasn't particularly super, was set up in 1966.  

Pithamber Polsani, Dean, School of Advanced Studies and Research at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, whose research sits at the intersection of

nonsense 

art, architecture, philosophy, culture and technology, calls this type of urban development “not cities, but a collection of gated communities of townhouses and apartments, secluded office complexes and special economic zones (SEZs), and privately controlled shopping malls and recreational spaces.”

Polsani is actually Che Guevara- right? What is the point to this sort of bogus breast-beating? When new, the developers or occupants may have an incentive to keep things clean and orderly. Then they give up and the thing turns to shit.  

Scholars like Manas Murthy argue that the Indian planning regime jumps from one paradigm to the next, altogether abandoning the previous model in favour of new greenfield projects.

These 'scholars' haven't noticed that there is no Indian 'planning regime'. There never was. India is not a Command economy. There is simply too little to command.  

Nowhere is this contrast more apparent than in Sonipat.

Some people in Sonipat wear nice clothes and drive expensive cars. Others are poor. This is because Neo-Liberalism gives nice clothes and cars to Fascist bastids while denying it to bahishrit people just because they are as poor as shit. 

While new university campuses,

O.P. Jindal Global University, Ashoka University & Dr. B.R. Ambedkar National Law University The first two are private- i.e. very evil. There are about 13 institutes of higher education in the Rajiv Gandhi Education City

private townships and corporate parks rise on what was once farmland, the older villages within Sonipat’s municipal limits remain neglected.

As do newer urbanites. Narendra Modi is refusing to come and wipe their bums. This shows the present regime is completely Satanic.  

The promised urbanisation has left many behind,

Same thing happened to me when a new carpark was built near me. I had expected to turn into a motor-car- maybe a Rolls Royce or a Maserati- but nothing of the sort happened. This is because Neo-Liberalism is very evil.  

creating a stark divide between those who have been absorbed into the new economy

how come a guy with a PhD in Electronics got the job of Professor of Electronic Engineering while the elderly peasant who had specialized in making cow-dung cakes only got to be Professor of Political Science?

and those left stranded in the ruins of the old.

i.e. guys who still have farmland.  

Saloni, a 45-year-old homemaker in Rathdana village, articulated this sense of exclusion when she told me, “The tall buildings where city people live are out of bounds for us.

Whereas she would happily invite any man into her bedroom- right?  

Most of our men have already blown the compensation money on alcohol and failed businesses.

rather than taking the 'donkey' route to America or Europe- while the going was good.  

Our families are back to where we started – with nothing. If instead of just money, the government had given us jobs, maybe we would have also become urban.”

Why stop there? Why not say 'if only the government had given us brain transplants and body transplants maybe we could have become Jennifer Aniston.' 

During my nearly two years in Sonipat and across multiple conversations, this sense of hopelessness persisted among locals.

Everybody wants to be Jennifer Aniston. Evil Fascist government of Narendra Modi is refusing to provide brain and body transplant.  

For them, the glossy new buildings and highways cutting through their ancestral lands do not signify progress.

Yes they do. The fact that you haven't progressed doesn't mean progress is impossible for other people.  

Instead, they stand as symbols of an urban future that has arrived at their doorstep but refuses to let them in.

The same problem occurs in London. Indigenous people stand outside the gates of Bucking Palace. Does the King (who is of German ancestry) invite them in and feed them and burp them and wipe their bottoms? No! Kingji is very evil. This is due to Neo-Liberalism. Fuck you Neo-Liberaism! Fuck you very much! 

The question then arises: Who truly urbanises?

People who build cities which attract a lot of residents truly 'urbanize'.  

And at what cost?

Cost of land acquisition plus construction and other costs. Get an Accountant to run the numbers.   

The process of acquiring and transforming agropastoral land has created a social and political environment filled with resentment, anger and anxiety among those who relinquished their land.

Seller's remorse is a real thing. But so is my resentment and anger that Jennifer Aniston is walking around in the body that should have been assigned to me.  

This is evident in the growing unease and mistrust towards the “outsiders” who now benefit from it. When land was taken from small landholders for urban or industrial purposes, or when they chose to sell it, they often felt regret after losing their land and were unhappy with the compensation they received, as noted by anthropologist Shubhra Gururani.

Moreover dead people are resentful that Shubhra Gururani is alive whereas they are not.  

Apart from their dissatisfaction with the financial aspects of their circumstances, resentment grew over the altered character of their environment, the loss of traditional livelihoods and the diminishing of their spatial and caste-based influence and authority. Ironically, they often longed for the very changes they later lamented, sometimes even actively seeking those transformations.

They would be even less happy if the majority of new immigrants were Muslims who kept building mosques all over the place. 

Within this complex interplay of land, reform, caste and honour are the women of this area.

Ekta's expensive education has not been wasted on her. She is able to distinguish women from men.  

I observed two main categories: local Jat women and “outsider” women

like Ekta. She teaches at O.P Jindal.  

— professionals and students who recently arrived. In the absence of avenues for dialogue between the two, the only relationship they share is often one of mutual distrust.

Ekta studied in Germany. I suppose there were German women who distrusted 'outsiders' like Ekta.  

The road in front of the campus serves as a border: on one side lies “urbanity”, bound by barbed wire and high-security gates, accessible only with a valid ID card.

By contrast, anybody is welcome to walk into the bedroom of a village lady.  

Inside is a world-class campus with top-notch facilities, freedom of mobility (except for the gender-segregated hostels), and the liberty to dress as one wants, forge friendships and romantic relationships and engage with knowledge.

It should be knocked down. Return the land to the indigenous people.

From the outside, this “urban” university is viewed with a range of emotions: shock, disbelief, distrust, aspiration, disdain. A young woman married into my family in Jakhauli once told my mom over phone, “University kay log hamare liye circus hain. Humne aise log kabhi dekhe hi nahi hain (The university people are like a circus to us. We have never seen people like them before).” Her words stayed with me.

To be fair, many people my age think Campuses have turned into politically correct circuses.  

The gap between these two worlds is so wide – and with so few avenues to talk and engage with each other – that the other side appears like a freak show.

Why does this lady think Hindu women from a rural area 'appear like a freak show'? Hindu culture is rural. Even an elderly South Indian man like me can speak to and understand people in Haryana. What is wrong with these young North Indian women?   

The campus, with its glass buildings, manicured lawns and English-speaking students dressed in Western attire, feels like an alien entity, parachuted into a landscape that still moves to the rhythm of agrarian life.

I find this difficult to believe. Haryana has a high percentage of families with TVs. Rajiv Gandhi Education City is modern but not particularly futuristic. Older people do feel new buildings- like the London Shard- are 'alien entities' because we remember a very different sky-line. But such has it always been.  

For the locals, particularly women, the visibility of young people – especially women – laughing freely, walking unescorted at night, smoking or drinking at the local alcohol shop, is unsettling. A middle-aged man selling vegetables by the roadside once asked me whether the girls at the university “had fathers”, because, according to him, no father would allow his daughter to roam about dressed the way they were.

There may be a puritanical backlash in North India similar to the one in Iran. There was a time when girls wore miniskirts in Teheran. It is said that Donald Trump, in his first term, was persuaded to extend America's stay in Afghanistan after his security advisor showed him a picture of Afghan girls wearing short skirts in the Seventies.  

This “distrust” of the other is not limited to the locals. The new “outsiders” of the area are always looking to “protect” themselves from the locals.

Only if they too are locals and have good reason to fear people similar to themselves.  

When I moved into the apartment allocated to me by the university, my parents came along to help settle me in. In an effort to ensure my safety, my mother struck up conversations with all the colony guards and staff, slipping in the fact that “we are from a village”. By sliding in mentions of our caste, gotra and kinship networks in the surrounding villages of Sonipat, she was trying to establish me as a “local” to protect me from the (perceived) dangers that a single “shehri” (urban) woman might face in this landscape.

It is not right to rape a girl of your own gotra.  

This paranoia around movement and safety is a way of life on campus and in the nearby housing societies, as if the only way to live here is within a bubble, completely cordoned off from everything local.

Do men feel this way? Perhaps. It occurs to me that Pratap Bhanu Mehta might have run away from Sonepat because he wanted to protect his anal cherry from 'locals'.  

I have been visiting Jagdishpur and Rathdana, two villages near the JGU campus, for over a year as part of my research.

Why bother? Just Skype with one or two of them from New York or Berlin.  

It is the Jat women of these villages who helped form my understanding of the area. Women, particularly from landowning communities such as Jats, have traditionally been excluded from public spaces and decision-making, their lives regulated by caste, kinship and patriarchal norms. For local women, mobility remains tightly controlled.

Haryana has fifty percent reservations for women candidates in Panchayats (village councils). About half of all villages have a female 'sarpanch'. 

While they have long worked in agriculture, their visibility in public spaces has always been regulated.

By whom? Neo-Liberalism? No! Patriarchy. Sadly, evil Patriarchs are forcing women to become Sarpanchs.  

As historian Prem Chowdhry notes, the “ghunghat” (veil) remains central to Haryanvi social structures, a way of maintaining “social distance” between women and the men who control land, power and resources.

 Ghunghat derives from Sanskrit अवगुण्ठन. It is quite useless for 'maintaining social distance'. This is the reason, even though Nehruji was putting on ghunghat, Chines troops did not turn tail and run awat in 1962. 

One can still observe this while walking down any village road – most married and young women keep their faces covered in public, dropping their veils only when men leave the room. This restriction on visibility is not just about tradition – it is about power.

No. It is about tradition. It isn't about power. You gain none by wearing ghunghat or getting your Mummy or Wifey to wear one.  

The arrival of urban professionals, particularly independent working women, has disrupted long-held ideas of masculinity and respectability.

No. The influx of money has changed things. India is a country which has known foreign conquest. Ideas of masculinity and respectability are useless. That's why people want gun-license not ghunghat.  

Many young women in the villages spoke about how men in their communities often looked at these outsiders with admiration but also suspicion. “Hum bhi dekhte hai unko, par ladkon ki nazar alag hoti hai,” says 29-year-old Sapna from Rathdana, struggling to articulate what was left unsaid:

I'm not Lesbian. Try next door.  

that men stared at these women not just with curiosity, but also with desire and judgement.

Because of Neo-Liberalism, many Indian men now have penises. This is causing Rape of Environmentji.  

Sapna’s words led me to reflect on whether we can make sense of these tensions by looking at the crisis of masculinity unfolding in these villages.

No. There is no such crisis. Th ere may be under-employment but equally there may be profit opportunities for SMEs.  

For generations, masculinity among Jats was tied to land ownership and the ability to provide for a family.

Who is this lady writing for? The publisher is Indian. The writer is Indian. The readers are Indian. Who doesn't know Jats like to own land? But so do non-Jats. Everybody wants to provide for their family rather than to smoke a hookah while watching them starve to death.  

But with land being sold off and agriculture disappearing, many men find themselves without a clear economic role. Compensation money from land sales often disappears quickly – spent on alcohol, gambling or failed business ventures.

Some does. Some doesn't. The argument against letting peasants prosper by selling their grain in the open market was that they would squander the cash on ostentatious marriages or religious ceremonies. 

As 65-year-old Hariram Choudhary from Jagdishpur laments, “Ladkon ne paisa uda diya.

Ladkon bahut muth maar rahe hain.  

Ab ya toh nange hai ya kiraye par jee rahe hain. Kaam bhi nahi hai. Itna khula paisa dekhkar dimag toh kharab hoga hi (The boys have squandered the money. Now they are either broke or surviving on rent. They have no work. When you see that much cash at once, it’s bound to mess with your head).”

This lady went to study nonsense in Germany. That messed with her head.  

This sudden shift has led to a particular crisis of masculinity.

It has led to this lady, who teaches nonsense, writing a wholly worthless book.  

Sociologists Raewyn Connell and James Messerschmidt’s concept of “hegemonic masculinity” provides a useful lens to understand the different ways in which masculinity is performed and contested in the villages around Sonipat.

But it could also apply to suburbs surrounding Chicago. Why not just say 'men in Haryana have penises. Eeeek!' ? 

They define hegemonic masculinity as the culturally dominant form of masculinity in any given setting – one that sets the standard against which other masculinities are measured.

Thus, the thing has never existed. Muscular dudes take orders from smarter people who may be as effete as fuck.  

It is not the only form of masculinity, but it is the most visible and widely accepted. In contrast, men from Dalit and tenant backgrounds, as well as migrant labourers, navigate a more precarious position, often performing subordinate masculinities due to their lack of land and economic power. A new category of men has also entered this landscape – professionals working at the universities, including teaching and administrative staff. These men, many from urban, middle-class backgrounds, possess financial and educational capital but lack the social and political clout that defines local masculine authority. Their presence complicates existing gender hierarchies, as they do not fit neatly into the dominant framework of rural masculinity.

They don't fit into rural Haryana. That is why those who can, run away from Ashoka University. But, more and more immigrants are putting down roots and raising families in Sonipat. It has a bright future.  

However, the absence of traditional avenues for economic and social dominance does not result in men retreating into private, domestic spaces – something often associated with femininity.

Women have to eat same as men. If there is no food at home, they have to go out.  

As Radhika Govinda observes in her work on sexuality in Delhi’s urban villages, masculinity is performed and reinforced through public displays. Acts like eve-teasing, bodybuilding, smoking, gambling and loitering in public spaces serve as ways for young men to assert their presence.

Also they pee standing up which is totes unfair.  

This belt is (in)famous for its extravagant weddings and the flamboyant lifestyles of men. It is common to see groups of young men idling on motorcycles, hanging out at tea stalls or aggressively speeding through narrow village roads in expensive SUVs. In some cases, the displays of wealth border on the absurd – a local man has a decommissioned aircraft parked in his fields as a status symbol.

Plenty of local families have at least one member earning well abroad. Also, local politics is profitable. I suppose some of the farmers are getting loans which are later written off by the Government. n

Another trend on the rise is the formation of local culture “protection” groups; these are typically vigilante groups of young men aligned with local political powers.

Such groups are a feature of multi-party democracy in any developing country.  

In Rathdana village, I met a 29-year-old self-described samajsevak (social worker) who did not want to be named. He claimed his role was to “protect village culture”. His activities included “patrolling” village streets at night and organising yoga classes – but only for men.

That's how Anna Hazare got his start. If he had focussed on doing Yoga with young girls, people would not have considered him a reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi. 

For many young men, becoming involved with local political groups provides a sense of purpose and authority in a rapidly changing world.

Narendra Modi was one once such young man. He seems to have done rather well for himself.  

The journey from rural to urban, then, is not uniform but fraught with tensions and questions of what it means to be ‘urban’.

It really isn't. Just hop on a bus or a train.  

Many Jat families oscillate between these identities – renovating their homes to reflect urban aesthetics, flaunting their many gadgets, yet fiercely holding on to traditional values.

They can do this just as well in the suburbs of London or Chicago.  

Inter-caste and inter-religious marriages remain taboo, female education is still discouraged and patriarchal customs like the ghunghat persist.

Except where they don't. There is nothing informative here.  

Women, in particular, are positioned as the guardians of an imagined rural past.

No. They are pictured as guardians of family religion and tradition. They were never 'positioned' to guard the land from invaders or dacoits or whatever.  

As Sunil Khanna, professor at Oregon State University, notes in his paper “Shahri Jat and Dehati Jatni: The Indian peasant community in transition”, Jat women are expected to uphold purity, modesty and tradition,

Whereas non-Jats are expected to fuck anything which moves- right?  

even as men embrace urban lifestyles. This is why restrictions on women’s mobility, dress and marriage choices remain deeply entrenched. In the eyes of the community, protecting a woman’s “honour” is equivalent to protecting the honour of the village itself. Saloni summarised this double standard succinctly: “Mardon ka shehri modern hona chal sakta hai, par aurat ka nahi (Men can become urban and modern, but women cannot).”

She says this to Ekta. Is this because she understands this is what the 'researcher' wants to hear? Perhaps what she really meant was 'if a dude sleeps with a lot of girls, people say he is a stud. A girl who does so is called a slut. Have you tried not being a slut?'