Has this happened on the basis of , the French Communist Party's great ideologue, Henri Lefebvre's 'right to the City'?
No. China has used the 'hukou' system whereby rural people remain tied to their place of birth and have only limited 'rights to the City'.
Nevertheless, Lefebvre's ' The Production of Space' remains a popular book.
Wikipedia summarizes its main contention thus-
Space is a social product, or a complex social construction (based on values, and the social production of meanings) which affects spatial practices and perceptions. This argument implies the shift of the research perspective from space to processes of its production; the embrace of the multiplicity of spaces that are socially produced and made productive in social practices; and the focus on the contradictory, conflictual, and, ultimately, political character of the processes of production of space.[26] As a Marxist theorist (but highly critical of the economic structuralism that dominated the academic discourse in his period), Lefebvre argues that this social production of urban space is fundamental to the reproduction of society, hence of capitalism itself. The social production of space is commanded by a hegemonic class as a tool to reproduce its dominance (see Antonio Gramsci).(Social) space is a (social) product ... the space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action ... in addition to being a means of production it is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power.[27]
Lefebvre lived to see the demise of Communism in Europe. Research into the production of Space was wholly useless. Communism could flourish if it used the globalised market to solve the problem of resource allocation provided it resolutely denied poor people 'a right to the city'. Instead, they could gradually accumulate resources and move into nice apartments in well planned cities where they would be safe from invasion by yet poorer migrants who would dilute their entitlements to quality housing, education, medical help and congestible resources or Social Capital.
'The Right to the City' is the right of the squatter to construct shanty towns or to sleep on the footpath. It is also the right of the 'Yellow Vests' who come from small towns and villages to stage riots in Paris against higher carbon taxes. It is the right to anarchy. Does it endanger Capitalism? No. Capital migrates to safe havens. The poor are left to stew in their own juice- a la Venezuela or Syria, post Arab Spring.
Consider what happened to the anti-gentrification movement in London. Some guys trashed a hipster cafe. Then...nothing. Why? Because kids started knifing each other like crazy and suddenly gentrification didn't look so bad. The 'spaces' created by the rich tend to be safer than the 'spaces' constructed by poor people busy knifing and raping each other.
India could, like China, build infrastructure and technology hubs and pay smart people to return home to build up high tech industries. But, that would involve denying a 'right to the city' to the vast majority of the Indian people, though, no doubt, they would benefit later on.
Thus, a better option is to let smart people emigrate to less congested, more economically advanced countries and to run their businesses from there. In this context, Indian Social Science can use Lefebvre's work to show that the resulting shambles helps combat Capitalism and thus is virtuous. Furthermore, by creating 'safe spaces' on Indian campuses, discussing Lefebvre and Foucault can permit some Indians to acquire credentials which they can use to emigrate to some more salubrious campus where they can campaign for 'rights to the City' safe from their poorer compatriots.
That's the Globalised market for you. It overcomes socially created Spaces so Social Scientists can waste Time like crazy.
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