The Medha Journal

Amit Chaudhuri could have recently ruffled a few proud Kolkatan feathers when he suggested in a Dalhousie Institute news and reviews post that Kolkata as a city is fast vanishing. One highly readable response appeared in the Hindu today. www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2904488.ece?homepage=true

The author, Manas Ray has been active with the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, and the Law and Social Sciences Research Network wrote about him on 27th May 2008 thus:
Manas Ray is a Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. He has written on cultural and film theory, ethics, governmentality, the Indian diaspora, and post-partition Calcutta and has been published in collections like Global Television: views from the periphery (OUP, London, 1998), Floating Lives: negotiating cultural identity through media (Rowman and Littlefield, New York, 2002), Media of the Diaspora (Routledge, New York, 2003), City Flicks (Seagull, Calcutta 2004), Partitioned Lives (Pearson Longman, Delhi, 2007) and Penguin Anthology of Writings on Calcutta (New Delhi, 2008). At present, he is working towards a monograph entitled, Theorizing the Illiberal: essays on sovereignty and (neo)liberal technologies of governance.

I have no idea whether the monograph referred to in the last line of the above bio has been published yet. The LSSRN which wrote the bio is known to be fully against the action taken recently against Prof Ashish Nandy by his employers and is known to have collected signatures from likeminded intellectuals to protest against the action. I am presenting these data for background only as I believe that a Kolkatan's feel for his city is unlikely to be coloured too much by his political ideology.


Ray's main thesis that the people of the greater part of the city must be brought into the picture if its dream of self improvement is to be realized could be true for all developing metropolises around the world. But his pangs for Kolkata have been powerfully expressed. The calm, all-academic beginning of his posting changes into strident finger pointing in the last third of the article.
We can hope for meaningful comments from medhavis who also have their reasons to love this magic city.

What exactly is Ray saying? How can one involve people living in the greater part of the city? How will that help? Very Puzzled!!

The labour class who constitute the 'other' city since they cannot afford to reside in the central area, will of course be involved as the workforce implementing the changes that the metropolis plans and dreams up for itself. What Ray expects is that economic development, more modern amenities, better looks etc reach also the living areas of the other city. This has been halfhearedly implemented in the planning of cities in developed economies, alright. There are no shortcuts possible in bringing about cultural inclusiveness which is beyond mere economic disparities.
While satisfying aesthetic aspirations, what exactly would constitute improvement to each of our cities and will not become a long term punishment to the citizens is another question altogether.

It is impossible to change Kolkata for the better in isolation to its hinterland. Let us see why.

It's central area sports a population density of about 100,000 persons /sq km. The average population density of Kolkata is about 30,000 persons /sq km. West Bengal's population density is about 1000 persons /sq km. It is a myth to think that the labor class does not stay in the central area. The entire city is dotted by slums. It is the periphery that is currently liveable.

The first step is to de-congest central Kolkata by bringing down its population density below 10,000 persons/sq km. This is only possible by building planned cities all around Kolkata. This is politically impossible as shown by the stunning victory of Mamata B. In fact land issue is now stopping the building of power-plants, widening of existing roads, building of new roads, building of new factories etc. The current Trinamul policy would lead the state to ruin in a very short time

So getting the workers of Kolkata involved is the least of the worries. There is no simply no politically available land to do anything constructive.

Thanks dear Pradip for the focus on the priority and the difficulty in getting to it. Kali Ma will have to intervene and help fair Kolkothan aspirations about the city.