My advancing age hit me hard this weekend, when after buying provisions at Panjim market, I reached the bus-stop in time for the last bus, but there was no sign of it, only the massive traffic jam that has become the norm in this Smartening City.
I turned, planning to park myself and my bags on a bench, and found, instead, a pipe. Three of them, actually. Three pipes, sleek and shining, each rising from the ground, running horizontally for a few feet, and returning into the ground; separated from each other by a couple of feet. The old benches had disappeared.
Two men perched on the pipes, because perching is all that was possible. One was young and comfortable, thanks to youthful joints, ligaments, and balancing power; the other old and visibly distressed, holding on to the pipe with one hand, a knee with the other, and leaning forward to avoid slipping off backwards. A middle-aged lady stood forlornly nearby, as if she had tried sitting and given up. I did not even try. I stood and watched the jammed traffic, and the toy-like little bridge beyond – being built, at the cost of Rs 5 crores, for tourists to take selfies – and imagined the crowd at this critical bus-stop through the day, when both customers and vendors would be loaded with full bags and baskets, and with only pipes to sit on.
This is not, of course, the first example of disappearing seating in Goa. Check out the new public parks, and even some of the old ones, both the new seating there – increasingly uncomfortable – as well as their walls. Now, walls around public gardens are not really justifiable, but they can be a great place to sit and relax. The old Portuguese-era gardens of Panjim had low walls which seemed designed to be just edges than than barriers, since they could be easily stepped over, besides being used as seats. But not anymore. Public garden walls nowadays are higher and designed such that sitting on them is difficult if not impossible. If they don’t have spikes or railings on top, there are at least sloping surfaces which allow you to, again, only perch.
What explains these strikingly bad designs? Why is it becoming increasing difficult to sit comfortably in public? It’s no mystery; everyone knows the answer, from city fathers to even those struggling to perch. Comfortable public seats get ‘misused’, they explain, and hence cannot be allowed. How misused? By sleeping on them. But is taking a nap on a public bench really such an intolerable misuse of public facilities that it has to be stopped, even if it means removing the bench? No, the problem is with WHO takes the nap. The problem is that it is the very poor and homeless who are likely to be looking for public places to rest or nap, or spend the night; and it is their use of these facilities that is considered intolerable.
‘Hostile architecture’ is the term used worldwide nowadays for public architecture that is deliberately designed to hurt or harm people, and thus deter them from using spaces. Benches are one of the most common examples, with all kinds of deliberately cruel designs that make even sitting uncomfortable. But there are also the monstrous spikes, visible in many of the top cities of the world, where walls, ledges, pavements near buildings, or spaces under flyovers are carpeted with metal spikes that prevent homeless people from sheltering or even sitting there. Many of the richest cities in the world, from New York to Stockholm, once known for the friendliness of their public spaces and also for their welfare states, now boast such ugly designs, clearly a response to the growing homelessness created by the neo-liberal economy. But one result has been a public backlash, with local and popular campaigns by citizens against such designs, which has resulted, in some cases, in city authorities removing them.
India is not likely to see such protests. Here, there was no concept of public spaces, open to all, till the Europeans arrived. The nationalists like to blame European rule for all India’s problems, but it was then that the growing cities were provided the first designed public open spaces, and also the consciousness that these are important for public health. But the Indian governments that have followed have been uncomfortable with such things. Because caste society doesn’t believe in equal access to anything. Hierarchy is the norm here, and public spaces don’t go well with hierarchy. Thus, even pavements (which are used by all, but more by the poor) are seen as a waste here. And Bombay, which ranks very low in per capita public open space among the world’s cities, is up there with the rest when it comes to hostile architecture.
The public that is considered worthy of having public facilities here is just the so-called ‘middle class’, which cannot afford the private recreation spaces of the super-elites, but is not much less elite itself, belonging to the top 10-15% of the population in wealth and privilege. That’s why bus stops will have pipes as seating, but not airports – the ‘public’ in the two kinds of public transport is different. That’s also why public open spaces in Indian cities are so few, with none at all in villages – they are aimed at just this 10-15%. And it is a big section of this urban educated ‘middle class’ which demands that public spaces charge for entry, and unashamedly asserts that only this will keep unwanted/ dirty/rowdy people out.
Thus, the new hostile designs do not cause anger; they appear like a ‘common-sense’ solution to the educated sections. We never question why some people need to take shelter in the open, we just accept the situation as normal and natural, that the poor deserve no better, and that public facilities are ours alone. When the society is itself hostile to the weakest, hostile architecture seems – not monstrous – but the perfect solution.
(Amita Kanekar is an Architectural Historian and Novelist)