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LES MOTS

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Cahier / Working paper / Cuaderno no 4 Décembre 1999

Sommaire

Plurilinguisme, histoire urbaine et puissance étatique page 3 JEAN-LUC RACiNt

Urban vocabulary in Northern India page 7 DENis Vidnl, NARAyANi &~TA

Words and concepts in urban development and planning in India: an analysis in the context of regional

variation and changing policy perspectives page 23 himbk KuNdu, SOMNAT~ BASU

Stigmatization of urban processes in India: an analysis of terminology with special reference

to slum situations page 33 AMiTAbk Kwdu

CiTY woRds

LAS

PAhbRAs dE LA

ciudad

1

C.thims “LES MOTS dE Lt villr” Mai~n Méditerranéenne des Sciences de I‘Homme 5, rue du Château-de-I’Horloge B.P. 647 13094 Aix-en-Provence cedex 2

Diarcrruu dE IA publicnrion Jean-Charles Depaule

Véronique Dupont

Fondatmn Maison des sciences de l’homme

Misr EN pnqt ET impnrssion (ait)

DÉjÀ paru : Cahier n” 1 - Regktrm de lenguu yprdrlicas lingukticas. Persprct~vu.~ de invrstigution sobre lus pdabras de la ciudud en Arn&ica Latina, Susana Peïielva, février 1997, 167 page\. Cahier n’ 2 Barrios, rolonia~ yfrrrcçionamirnms octobre 1997. 44 page\. Cahier n” 3 - Nommer la wlk et ses territoires, 19YY, 215 pages.

- -

CAkiER

dEs MOTS dE LA VillE N” 4

*'t'vdE du blond”

Plurilinguisme, histoire urbaine et puissance étatique JEANILUC RAciNE

Dans le cadre des diverses aires culturelles prises en compte par le programme “Les Mots de la ville”, l’Inde apparaît sans doute comme l’un des champs les plus complexes. L’ampleur même du phénomène urbain en rend compte au premier chef: l’Union indienne d’aujour- d’hui approche le milliard d’habitants, qui étaient urbains à 26 % en 199 1. La part d’urbains a grossi depuis le début de la décennie: les citadins indiens, petites villes et gigantesques métropoles confondues, seront sans doute un peu moins de 300 millions en l’an 2000.

La pluralité linguistique de la Babel indienne ajoute au facteur démographique le paramètre de la diversité. Dans les limites de l’union indienne, des dizaines de langues comptent des millions de locuteurs. Le hindi, langue la plus parlée, est pourtant minoritaire en tant que langue maternelle de quelque 39 % des Indiens (328 millions en 1991), mais il est vrai que beaucoup de bilingues ou trilingues, en particulier dans les villes de l’Inde du nord, ajoutent de facto à ce chiffre. Si les autres langues comptent moins en pourcentage (télougou, bengali, marathi, tamoul, pour ne donner ici que les plus importantes), elles n’en sont pas moins parlées par des masses considérables de locuteurs (de 55 à 70 millions, pour les quatre langues précitées, en 199 1, les sept suivantes, par ordre d’importance (ourdou, gujarati, kannara, malayalam, oriya, punjabi, assamais), comptant à cette date entre 15 et 44 millions de locuteurs.

Les péripéties de l’histoire politique récente, troublée par deux sécessions successives, celle du Pakistan se séparant de l’Inde à l’heure même de l’indépendance, en 1947, puis celle de 197 1, quand le Pakistan oriental se sépare du Pakistan occidental pour devenir Bangladesh, ajoutent à la complexité. Car ces entités étatiques, Inde, Pakistan, Bangladesh, ne sont pas des entités linguistiques homogènes ni exclusives. Au Bangladesh, comme en 1’Etat indien du Bengale occidental, on parle le bengali. Au Punjab pakistanais comme au Punjab indien, on parle punjabi, et l’on pourrait poursuivre plus avant l’analyse de ces pluralités linguistiques, et souligner comment, facteur d’identité essentiel, l’appartenance linguistique a

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parfois aussi suscité des troubles urbains. Pour ajouter à cette complexité, il convient de noter la place de l’ourdou, langue très proche du hindi par sa syntaxe, mais plus riche en mots d’origine persane, écrite en alphabet arabo-persan, et marqueur de l’identité musul- mane. Or les princes musulmans, des sultans du Gujarat, de Golconde et de Bijapur aux empereurs mogols, ont été de grands bâtisseurs. L’ourdou marque de sa présence le champ urbain, tant dans sa dimension visible et paysagère que dans sa dimension administrative. Pour autant, et quelle que soit la magnificence de l’apport musulman à l’architecture indienne, l’ancienneté du fait urbain est bien l’une des caractéristiques de cet immense pays, riche en vieilles villes parfois millénaires, dont les plus chargées de sens furent autant villes de pèlerinage (Bénarès, qui a retrouvé aujourd’hui son nom ancien de Varanasi) que villes princières (Indraprastha par exemple, sur le vieux site de Delhi, mais aujourd’hui disparue). Des villes rajpoutes célèbres pour leurs palais (Jodhpur, Jaipur) aux villes du sud, réputées pour leurs temples (Kanchipuram, Madurai), large est la gamme des types urbains inscrits dans une très riche histoire, dont l’origine remonte au début même du fait urbain, avec les sites de la civilisation de l’Indus : Harappa et Mohanjo Daro (IIIe et IIe millénaires av. J.C.), aujourd’hui au Pakistan.

Et comment oublier l’impact de la colonisation britannique, grande bâtisseuse elle aussi, et elle aussi très soucieuse de classifications et de typologies? A cet anglais colonial, qui a laissé de fortes marques dans le vocabulaire urbain, se surajoute depuis les années cinquante, l’anglais transculturel véhiculé par les grands organismes internationaux (Banque mondiale, instances de coopération, organismes de développement) qui, contribuant au financement d’opérations d’aménagement urbain, y distillent un vocabulaire dont l’universalité (pensons au mot slum) masque trop souvent des diversités essentielles sur le terrain, diversité dont rendent comptent les langues autochtones.

On le pressent, le poids des forces étatiques, très ancré dans l’histoire indienne de fort longue date, et maintenu dans les choix de politiques économiques retenus par l’Inde indépendante, contribue à la création langagière, et ajoute sa marque aux registres populaires multilingues. Pour résumer, plurilinguisme, vieille histoire urbaine et puissance étatique se conjuguent pour donner au champ urbain indien une taille, une richesse conceptuelle et une diversité tout à fait remarquables.

En pareil contexte, il était naturellement impossible à une modeste équipe de porter attention à l’ensemble du champ linguistique urbain indien. Il s’agissait simplement de laisser pressentir cette richesse du vocabulaire, l’épaisseur de ses strates historiques, ses significa- tions socio-économiques, voire politiques, en lançant des coups de sonde dans un champ qu’on a limité à une part de l’Inde hindiphone. Incluant entre autres cette ville de Delhi qui symbolise à merveille les flux et les reflux des peuples et des empires au fil d’une si riche histoire politique, du moins ce fragment de l’Inde du nord est-il porteur de fortes significations.

Le présent recueil regroupe ainsi trois textes qui furent présentés par les membres de l’équipe lors des deux séminaires internationaux “Les Mots de la ville”, organisés à Paris en 1995 et en 1997.

Le premier texte, de Narayani Gupta et Denis Vidal, propose d’abord un réflexion sur l’hétérogénéité linguistique du vocabulaire urbain de l’Inde du nord, avant d’aborder le cas majeur de l’aire hindi/ourdou. Mais on le verra, dans les nomenclatures proposées, nourries d’exemples, les radicaux, soit hindi dérivés du sanscrit pour une part, soit ourdou issus du

persan ou de l’arabe, se retrouvent parfois hors de la zone hindiphone, en Inde de l’Est (Bengale occidental, Orissa, qui du moins relèvent de la même grande famille linguistique indo-aryenne) mais aussi en Inde du sud, intrusions intéressantes dans l’aire de cette autre famille linguistique, celle des langues dravidiennes, qui a toutefois entretenu avec l’Inde du nord des rapports culturels, commerciaux, militaires, religieux et intellectuels au fil des siècles. Typologie des villes, nomenclature administrative, subdivision du champ urbain, vocabulaire des constructions et des aires ouvertes offrent ainsi un premier glossaire, à dominantes hindi et ourdou, mais où s’entremêlent, toujours indiquées, des origines diverses: sanskrit, prakrit plus tardif, arabe, persan, anglais, anglo-américain, mais aussi néo-sanskrit et néo-persan, marques, en ces deux derniers cas, d’une volonté de recréation d’un vocabulaire par emprunts et néologismes délibérément marqueurs d’une identité culturelle spécifique.

Le second texte, d’Amitabh Kundu et Somnath Basu, plus focalisé, porte sur le vocabulaire de la planification et de l’aménagement urbain dans la zone hindiphone de l’Inde du nord. L hétérogénéité linguistique reste présente. L’attention porte davantage, en pareil domaine marqué par le rôle de la puissance publique, sur les registres de langue (populaire, admi- nistrative) et sur les processus de standardisation ou d’évolution d’un vocabulaire, spécialisé en un sens, mais essentiel à tous, puisqu’il ne s’agit rien moins ici que du champ sémantique des politiques urbaines. Un glossaire thématique enrichit et illustre cette analyse.

En focalisant toujours davantage le champ d’investigation, le troisième texte, d’Amitabh Kundu, montre, en se donnant toute l’épaisseur historique requise, comment les mots des langues vernaculaires permettent de dépasser les concepts généralistes universaux - tel slum - pour une approche bien plus fine des réalités physiques de l’habitat défavorisé, mais aussi des implications culturelles et sociales que charrie ce vocabulaire.

On espère ainsi, par ces coups de sonde, donner à voir ou à pressentir la richesse d’un seul fragment du champ urbain indien, et l’apport du recours au vocabulaire, à la langue, aux langues en jeu dans cet espace pour la compréhension du fait urbain. Pour pousser plus loin le souci lexical affiché dans ce recueil, signalons enfin un autre travail collectif, d’objectif plus opératoire sans doute, mais tout aussi fondé sur l’écoute des mots de la ville: le Glossaire français-anglais-hindi des terme.~ de 1 ‘urbanisme, de l’aménagement du territoire et de la gestion urbaine, établi par Véronique Dupont et Shalini Gupta, sous la direction d’Amitabh Kundu et Jean-Luc Racine.

LES AUTEURS :

SOMNATH BASU, docteur en géographie de la Jawaharlal Nehru University de New Delhi, est chercheur de l’Unité de Sciences sociales de I’Operation Research Group, Calcutta. NARAYANI GUPTA, historienne, est professeur à l’Université Jamia Millia Jslamia. New Delhi. AMITABH KUNDU. économiste urbain. est professeur au Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. JEAN-LUC RACINE, géographe, est directeur de recherche au CNRS. membre du Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. DENIS VIDAL, anthropologue, est chercheur à l’Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (anciennement ORSTOM), Paris et chercheur associé au Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, EHESS, Paris.

5

Urban vocabulary in Northern India DENis VidAl, NARAyANi CUpTA 7

I - THE WORDS OF THE CITY IN NORTHERN INDIA: A PROBLEMATIC

1. Liwhs of T~E AREA of swdy

This study concerns itself mainly with the geographical zone in Northern India where Hindi is predominantly spoken. The tore of this zone is made up of four northern Indian states (Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan) and includes Delhi, the capital city of India. According to the classification used in the 198 1 census, this zone constitutes at least one third of India’s cities and towns (1 116 out of 3245).

In India, as in every other multilingual society, language plays a determining part in the making of regional identities. Thus, for instance, the language criterion has played a decisive role in the long-drawn-out historical process which has unfolded in India since Independence and which led to the geographical and administrative reorganization of the states inside the Indian union. But, beyond every classification, it is important to observe that this whole zone (the Hindi belt) is frequently given a common identity in a great number of studies about the very diverse aspects of Indian society.

2. LiNC$JiSliC kETEROCjENEiTy Of TkE unbaN vocAbhRy

The criterion of the dominant language allows one to define a relevant geographical area for our research. But, paradoxically, the same criterion loses a11 its validity as soon as the concentration is on its very abject. The urban vocabulary of northern India cannot in any way be restricted to Hindi only.

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The first characteristic of the urban lexicon is indeed to be found at the junction between a variety of languages (Hindi, Urdu, English, regional languages,...) which sustain more or less distant ties between them and whose respective vocabularies overlap in some measure. This is specifically the case with the urban vocabulary.

Before Independence, the “common language” in the northern Indian towns and cities was Hindustani - a kind of synthesis between various languages, dialects and means of expression that gave a11 its richness to the linguistic universe of this region. Hindustani vocabulary was heterogeneous; it included in different proportions terms borrowed from the many regional languages of northern India, from Arabie, from Persian and, in certain specific domains (pertinently to our study), from English and from Sanskrit (and its direct derivatives). After Independence, however, the linguistic policy of the Indian government - which was not seen through to completion - was to promote Hindi not only as one of the Indian union officia1 languages, but also more specifically as what was to become the only national language of the country. The terms borrowed from Arabie or from Persian were more or less officially bowdlerized and replaced - when necessary - by Sanskrit ones, or by terms constructed from a Sanskrit base. The same policy was carried out, to a lesser degree, for English terms that had been incorporated into the common language. Indeed, it had been initially planned in the Indian constitution that English would cesse to be used as one of the officia1 languages of the country ten years after Independence.

Had such a policy seen radical results, our research would have been simplified: the contemporary urban vocabulary would then have been exclusively constituted by sanskritized terms, or terms still in use in regional languages of Northern India. But this was not to be the case, and even less in the domain of urban vocabulary than in any other. That is why we cari find today in the urban glossary terms that derive from Persian and Arabie as well as English and the different regional languages of Northern India.

Many reasons explain the particularly syncretic nature of the urban vocabulary. Here are some of them: - the importance of the role played in the “handling” of the urban issue by the successive administrations of Northern India, especially when they imposed the use of a foreign lan- guage (Persian, English) in officia1 transactions. This influence has crystallized in some of the terms that have outlived the political and administrative powers which introduced their use. - the very diversity of the towns that make up the urban landscape and that illustrate, in various degrees, the styles and influences combining with each other in the region. Therefore, be it in Benares (Varanasi) or Jaipur, where urbanism is closely associated with hinduism and the power of Hindu monarchs; in Ahmadabad, testament of a pre-Moghul islamic architecture; in Agra and Delhi (ancient capitals of the Moghul empire, and later of British India and the Indian republic in the case of Delhi); or in Lucknow (a first-hand account of the ruling Nawab) and Chandigarh (deliberately chosen as an architectural symbol of the newly independent India): each of these cities bears witness, in its own way, to the periods and styles characteristic of Northern India urban history. - the coexistence in these cities of clearly distinct neighborhoods which have preserved not only the morphological features of the cultural influence and historical period of their conception, but also part of the vocabulary that was traditionally attached to them. In Delhi, for example, the contrast is striking between the Indo-islamic inspired Old City (Shahjahanabad), the parts of towns that are legacies of colonial urbanism (Civil Lines and New Dehli) and a11 the neighborhoods that have grown since Independence. And this contrast is reflected in the way the urban terminologies are used: distinct terms are used, for instance,

to refer to notions such as “street”, “lane”, “ block” or “neighborhood”, depending on the part of town. - the great social, regional, cultural and linguistic diversity of the populations who live together in the northern Indian cities. Not only do these populations express themselves in languages that may more or less vary from one another (Hindi, Urdu, English, Punjabi, Marwari, etc), but above all, the different groups of the population put a varying emphasis on distinct terms of the urban vocabulary. The term “lane” (gali), for example, still has an extremely powerful sociological connotation in Old Delhi, whereas in the other parts of town, social identity is defined rather at the level of the neighborhood. - lastly, the diversity of registers and contexts in which the urban vocabularies are made and the way in which some terms pass - sometimes in a surprising manner - from one register to another, as shown in various examples in the glossary.

Consequently, every study of northern Indian urban lexicon is compelled to take into account, on the one hand the effects brought about by the diversity of languages and idioms from which this vocabulary is made up, and on the other hand the variability of the vocabulary used according to the backgrounds and contexts.

In this perspective, it becomes particularly important to make the distinction between: - the considerable potential of available lexicographie resources, given the multiplicity of the languages that might be or have been brought together to constitute the urban vocabulary - the actual selection that took place in this vocabulary according to its uses and the backgrounds.

It is only by crosschecking these two dimensions that one may specify the range and content of the northern Indian urban glossary, and also the status of the terms included in it.

3. SANSkRiT, URdu, PERsiAN, HiNdi, ENc,hk: hjAciEs ANd USES

In India, there is an important Sanskrit vocabulary for architecture and ancient urbanism available, thanks to a corpus of ancient classical treatises - often very normative ones. Notwithstanding some terms still in use to date, the interest in studying this corpus lies mainly in history and should not, in theory, be included in our research. There are however contemporary uses of this corpus that must be considered: - a deliberate policy from the administrative authorities to impose the use of terms coming from Sanskrit (rather than their English equivalents) to name a11 sorts of contemporary elements of urbanism - the re-use of terms and concepts stemming from such a corpus by some Indian architects and urbanists to redefine a style of architecture and urban plannifïcation inspired more directly from their own tradition.

There is, as well, a whole urban lexicon that we know about, thanks to the works of historians, on the rich corpus of manuscripts and documents written in Persian and Urdu. There again, the bulk of this corpus has no real place in our glossary, though one has to consider: - the terms still widely used by Urdu speakers - those used in Hindi as well, but that remain associated with an urban environment marked by the muslim presence - the terms whose use is now undifferentiated and that have virtually lost the more specifïc connotations they might have had in relation with Urdu or islamic culture.

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Quite similar distinctions might be made when it cornes to the use of English: - some terms are almost exclusively used by urban planners and administrators - other terms are preferred in certain milieux, owing to connotations related to their use (social status, modernism,...) - other terms, finally, have imposed themselves upon a11 the speakers and are now completely indigenous.

4. PUTTiNc, TkiS AIl iNT0 PERSPECTiVE

Because of the particular urban history of this part of the world, the urban lexicon of northern India is, as we have seen earlier, the resuh of a complex process of synthesis in which operate conceptions of urban space and a terminology borrowing several elements from Sanskrit and Prakrit, as well as Indo-persian and Anglo-saxon vocabularies. There is therefore a striking contrast between the vast lexicographie resources generated by such a situation and the relatively restricted number of terms whose use has spread beyond their original language or cultural, social and professionnal background.

SO, most of the issues with which we have been confronted in establishing an urban glossary of Northern India seem to be more generally an echo of the issues that face the whole “the words of the cities” project. Such as: - how do equivalences operate between terms that are distinct from one language to another or from one level of speech to another ? - how do terms happen to shift from one language, or one level of speech, to another ? - to what extent do the terms that have shifted keep the meaning and the connotations that might have been associated with them in the original language or in their initial use ? - what is the status of urban vocabulary thus constituted and to what extent does it transcend the social, cultural or linguistic boundaries existing inside urban milieux in Northern India?

It seems that, from this perspective, one has to pay a particular attention to: - the progressive indigenization of terms that slowly lose their classifying meaning, to end up being used as mere toponyms (in Delhi for example: India Gate, Lodhi Garden, Khari Baoli, etc.) - the effects of the stabilization of the urban lexicon in environments where there is a well attested concordance between the urban context and the vocabulary used to designate it (ex: mohallu/basti = small area of habitations and neighborhood, or gali = lane remain spontaneously used by everyone in Old Delhi, whereas the English terms are more spontaneously used for the same reasons in New Delhi) - the impact of the categories and terminology used by the administrators and the urbanists, and above a11 the way in which this impact is actualized through mechanisms of transfer that seem often to be identical to those used for terms borrowed from foreign languages (progressive loss of classifying meaning, banalization of the terms and their frequent transformation into toponyms).

II -CASE STUDY

India is a large country with many languages. In the vast region incorporating North India and Pakistan, the language is Hindi/Urdu. Both these have derived their vocabulary from other languages. Hindi was initially called Hindawi (derived from Hind, the name for the plains, east of the river Sindhu/Indus). Hindi had elements of classical Sanskrit, later Prakrit, as well as elements of popular languages (what is called khuri Mi). Urdu developed to fil1 a need, i.e. to devise a common language, a kind of esperanto for soldiers serving in North India who spoke the languages of Central Asia, West Asia and India. This was called Zuban- e-Hindawi (Hindawi tongue/language) or Urdu (derived from the Turkish ordu = military camp; whence horde is English/ French). Urdu became an increasingly literary language at the same time as Hindi, from the 15th Century, reaching a high point in the 18th and early 19th Century. It is interesting to note that the well-known ‘urdu’ poet, Ghalib (I796- 1869) used the term ‘hindavi’ interchangeably with ‘urdu’. When the British in Calcutta began to study Indian languages at the end of the 18th Century, the scholar J.B. Gilchrist, coined the word ‘Hindustani’ ( the language of Hindustan i.e. North India) to include Hindi and Urdu, although the first was written in the Devanagari script and the second in the Persian script.

From the 19th Century, some European terms were incorporated into Hindi and Urdu. After 1947, Urdu, in Persian script, was made the officia1 language of Pakistan, and Hindi in Devanagari script, the officia1 language of India. Urdu is also taught in schools and colleges in India. When spoken, the two languages are alike in grammar though some of the vocabulary is distinct. Many words of Hindi/Urdu have also been carried over into other Indian languages, in some cases with modifications in the nuances or in the pronunciation.

Words related to towns are found in Sanskrit from the 1st millennium B.C. From the 1 lth Century A.D., terms of Arabie, Persian and Turkish origin also came into use, and were sometimes combined with Sanskrit suffixes to make new words. From the 19th Century European terms came into use, and from the mid-20th Century, American sociological and planning terms were indigenized. After India became independent one of the elements in the creation of an ‘Indian’ identity was the use of Sanskrit terms in urban nomenclature.

Ahbreviutions used in the~following nomencluture

- S : Sanskrit (from 6th Century B.C.) - Pk : Prakrit (3rd Century B.C. until 18th Century A.D.) -A : Arabie (9th Century A.D. onwards, in India) -P : Persian (12th Century A.D. onwards, in India) -H : Hindi ( 10th Century A.D. onwards) -U : Urdu (15th Century A.D. onwards) -E : English (late 18th Century A.D. onwards, in India) - Am : American (mid-20th Century A.D. onwards, in India) - nS : neo-Sanskrit (late 19th Century A.D. onwards, in India) - nP : neo-Persian (late 19th Century A.D. onwards) -1 : India - Pn : Pakistan -B : Bangladesh

Dates for the beginning of any language are obviously not definite, and should be taken as tentative.

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1. NOMENC~TURE ~OR TOWNS

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1.1. The town is defined as an area which has been settled, where the number of inhabitants has increased, which has become prosperous. The Sanskrit verb vusu (to live) became colloquialized into basa and gave rise to the term busti (small town). It has a sense of an urban area small enough to generate a sense of belonging, and not of alienation (cf. Intezar Husain’s novel: Busti). The Persian ubud kurnu (to cultivate, to settle) is the origin of ubudi (small settlement, population) and of the suffix - ubud - attached to the name of the town’s founder.

terms translation exumples

- basa (S) to live cf. basa (Bengali) house

- busti (H/U) small town - ubud (P) to settle

cf. ubud (Bengali) cultivation cf. ubudi (H/U) settlement

Nizamuddin Basti (now a part of Delhi) Firozabad (Uttar Pradesh, 1) Jacobabad (Sind, P)

1.2. Grum in Sanskrit originally connoted ‘community’, hence the word sungrum (inter- communal conflicts). As the community got fixed in place, the word came to mean ‘village’. The suff~x grum/guon suggests that the towns have grown from small rural settlements. A wudu is a houselabode.

- grum (S)

- wadu (H)

village

house

Chattagram, Chittagong ( B) Bhithargaon (Uttar Pradesh, 1) Bhilwada (Rajasthan, 1)

1.3. The act of leveling or clearing an area to establish a town is expressed by prusthu (level ground). The longest surviving suffïx meaning ‘town ’ is the Sanskrit puru (variants: pur; puri, purum). The Puranas (9th Century A.D.) refer to the divine architect Vishvakarma, who built Alakapuri, the city of the Gods (and who is the patron-saint of masons and builders). Sanskrit texts have lyrical descriptions of towns. Another Sanskrit term is nugur/nuguri/ nugurum, a term which is often used for a town founded by merchants. A later term is the Arabie qusbu (market-town). Nugur and pur are supplemented by shuhur, the Persian term for ‘City’, which connotes size and grandeur. Interestingly, its root is kshutru (field), kshetru in Sanskrit. Thus, the suffix in Bulandshahar has the same root as the suffx in Ranikhet since shahur is derived from kshutru and khet from kshetru. The destruction/ decline of a great city is conveyed by the genre of poetry in Urdu called shuhur-ushoob (lament for the City). For the sense of a metropolitan City, nugur is prefixed with muhu (= great, fïrst mentioned in 6th Century B.C.)

- prusthu (S) -pur W

- nugur (S) - qusbu (A) - shuhur (P)

leveled place town

town market town city

Indraprastha (early India) Jaipur (Rajasthan, I), Puri (Orissa, I), Thiruvananthapura (Kerala, 1): mix. Tamil and Sanskrit Chandernagore (West Bengal, 1) Kasba (a locality in Calcutta (1) Bulandshahar (Uttar Pradesh, 1)

~-_._ _ . _.-_--me- -̂-_

1.4. Many urban places originated as religious centers which, in turn, had been built on sites given rent-free to Hindu Brahmins (ugruhurum / devadunum / brahmudeyu) or to Muslim men of religion (mudud-i-muush).

1.5. Urban places / Centers with religious connotations because of specific landscape features (mountains, confluences) are called tirtha (S) (= ford, crossing, used literally and symbolically). A town associated with a Sufi saint often has the prefix huzrut (P) (= excellence, a term also used for individuals and invariably for the prophet).

Specific functions e.g. market, defence, government, give specific suffixes to towns, though later those functions may not have been unduly important/relevant.

1.6. Terms for markets and centers of trade are the most numerous:

a : Huttu (S), hut (H) = periodic village fair Rampurhat (1) Sylhet ( B)

b : Gunj (P), mundi (H/eastern languages), kutru (S), bazaurs (P), refer to market-towns, the first two usually founded, the third suggesting an enclosed space, the last evoking a market- place which has a liveliness which goes beyond simply buying and selling. A serai (P) was an inn with provision for storing goods and stabling animals

- sanj P> Daltonganj (Bihar, 1) - mundi (H) Mandi (Himachal Pradesh, 1) - kutru (S) Katra (Jammu, 1) - buzaar (P) Cox’s Bazaar (B) - serai (P) Mughalserai (Uttar Pradesh, 1)

c: Bandar (P) = port, supplemented the older Sanskrit pattanam (= emporium) which was used for inland towns as well as ports. This word has many variations: putun, puttunu, putnu, pattu, pet.

- bundur (P) - pattunum (S)

Porbandar (Gujarat, 1) Masulipattanam (Andhra Pradesh, 1), Patna (Bihar, 1) Patan (Gujarat, 1) Royapetta (a locality in Madras, 1) Chingleput (Tamil Nadu, 1) (put = English writing)

1.7. Defence was one of the major rationales for founding towns. This could be walled settlements: kot/kotla(S) or gurh (H/Marathi). An army camp (kutak) was derived from the word for an army in Sanskrit (kutuk). Sudr (A) also connoted a cantonment.

- Kot (S) - Kotlu (S) - Garh (H)

- Kutuk (S) - Sudr (A) - Qilu (A)

Rajkot (Gujarat, 1) Kotla (Delhi, 1) Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh, 1) Kotgarh (Himachal Pradesh, 1) Cuttack (Orissa, 1) Sadar Bazar (Delhi, 1) Purana Qila (Delhi, 1)

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Chhuoni (H), the word for cantonment, referred to the act of thatching (equivalent of pitching camp).

1.8. Capital cities were called Ruj dhuni (S), Sadr Mukum Zila (A), Dur-ul-Khilqftit (P), Dar-Ul-Hukumat (P) (= site of government).

2. AdMiNiSTRATiON Of unbAN AREAS

Before the 19th Century, Indian towns were compact areas, usually walled, with administra- tive agencies distinct from those for adjacent rural areas.

2.1. Walls and embankments were essential for the security of towns - the divur (P)lfasif (A) (= wall) was also referred to as shahar-punah (P) = the protector of the City. The wall was broken up by dwurs (S), durwazas (P) and phutuks (Pk) or khidkis (Pk) = gates, wicket-gates/ backdoor). Apart from defining tax-frontiers and legal boundaries, the gateways connoted the idea of threshold, or frontier. Examples: Dwarka (Gujarat, 1) = the many-gated City; Shahdara = city of the royal gateway (Delhi, 1); Darbhanga= gateway to Bengal (Bihar, 1).

2.2. In officia1 records, the area within the walls was referred to literally as that - as underun-fusil (P/A). In the last fifty years, planners and journalists have used the term ‘walled City’ (E) pejoratively to describe areas where in many cases, the walls have been destroyed.

The intra-mural area was divided into thunas (from sthunu (S) = wards). These were atomized into mahullas (A) = neighborhoods (later on written as mohulla in North India. 18th-Century Delhi had 18 thanus and 600 mohullus, which are still identifiable though their legal identities are gone. Before the Indo-British government established municipalities (1860s) the intramural town was under the kotwul (S-P) (town-magistrate), with thunadurs supervising mohulludars (-wul,-walu,-dur, a11 Persian, indicate functionaries) and durogus (P) = policemen/prefects. The major towns of North India in the medieval centuries were ruled by families of WestKentral Asian descent, hence the Persianised terminology. These are also to be found in South Indian towns like Bijapur and Hyderabad, the governments of which, in the medieval centuries, welcomed many Persian scholars and soldiers.

2.3. Extra-mural settlements grew/were established either to serve as wholesale markets or to accommodate an increasing population. These had usually suffixes listed above in 1 (wuda, pur; mundi, ganj, buzaar; pet).

l Examples: - in Delhi: Teliwara, Trevelyanpur, Sabzi Mandi, Paharganj, Sadr Bazaar - in Pune (Maharashtra, 1): Budhwarpet

2.4. Land ownership in towns, as in rural areas, was by the State (nuzul) or religious trusts (~a@). Inalienable persona1 ownership was instituted by Indo-British rulers.

2.5. In European settlements in India, and later in Indian towns ruled by the Indo-British, distinct areas of jurisdiction were defined. Thefuctory (E) was where the factor, the trading company’s representative, had his office (usually a walled enclosure). Later, the cuntonment, militury lines, civil lines, and notified ureus were designated. In some towns, white town and bluck town were used to indicate predominantly European and Indian areas respectively.

2.6. In the jargon of planners in Independent India, ‘slums’ i.e. areas of dense habitation became an administrative category, often overlapping with ‘walled cities’. Urban villages (shahari gaon = P+H) was an awkward term used to designate the territory of a village, the land-use of which had changed from rural to urban. Resettlement colonies were groups of houses for the poor displaced by urban improvement/‘development’. Translation into Hindi was de rigueur in a11 officia1 documents. Neo-Sanskritic/Persianized phrases have corne into use in the past 30 years: ‘urban land’ is nagar avas hhoomi (ns) or shahari rihayashi Zameen (nP). An urban area is nagar kshetra (ns) and small urban settlement shahari hasti (P+H). A metropolis is mahanagar (ns).

3. UNin wihh Jack UnbAN AREA, pARTicul4Rly iN TkE LW 200 ~EARS

3.1. British Indian towns were different from older ones in respect of their area and population. Many units became enclaved in larger settlements (Daryaganj, Yusuf Sarai or Taimur Nagar in Delhi; Agraharam Road in Madras; Gariahat in Calcutta ) - a11 parts of larger towns. Some words undergo a change of sense: bastis (spelt hustees) were used to mean the shanty towns that spread in open areas around big mansions in Calcutta.

3.2. Neighborhoods were laid out in the British period, not always contiguously, since space was freely available in their open cities. Terms like town, park, gardens, were imported from the English l examples in Delhi: Mode1 Town, Green Park, Mayfair Gardens

3.3. These English terms were translated in independent India’s names for neigborhoods : puri (S) = town; hagh (P) / Udyaan (S) = garden; Kunj (S) = woods and Viharas (S) = sanctuary are also terms used frequently, if inappropriately, for housing estates. l examples in Delhi: Inderpuri, Motibagh, Vasant Kunj, Vasant Vihar.

3.4. As towns expanded by accretion, different terms were used to distinguish one section from another: - Scheme, Colony indicate the units

l example in Delhi: Safdarjang Development Scheme, Defence Colony - ‘type quarters’, HIG/MIG/LIG/janata flats indicated quality (High, Middle or Low

Income Groups) l example in Delhi: Masjid Moth M.I.G. flats

- ‘phase’ indicate the chronology of building programs. l example in Delhi: Sheik Serai, Phase 1

From 19.57, the superimposition of American zoning ideology on the Indo-British hierar- chical cantonment-like planning has made recent Indian urban development very different from the organic towns of earlier centuries.

4. Buildhqs ANd ENClOsEd STRUCTURES

In towns previous to or not touched by British rule, there was no great variety in building structure. The home and the place of prayer were distinct, but secular public functions did not necessarily need the appendage of many and distinct buildings. During the British period and subsequently, there was a great expansion in public buildings, This Will be obvious from

15

the following lists. The (E) sign makes it clear that most public buildings originated with British rule.

10

4.1 . AdMiNiSTRATiON

term literal meaning

- daftar (A) office - secretariat (E) Secretary’s office - bhavan (ns) abode

4.2. EducATioN

- madarsa/maktab (A) - pathshala (S) - school (E) - college (E) - university (E) - vidyapeeth (ns)

place of education room for lessons

- viswavidyalaya (ns) - akhara (S) - library (E) - reading-room (E) - museum (E) - stadium (E) - auditorium (E) - cinema (E)

place of wisdom world-school place of assembly

4.3. IiospiTAhy

- dharumsala (S) room of piety

popular meaning

office block of office buildings public buildings

school school

university university gymnasium

inn - sarai/musafrkhana (P/A) inn inn - hotel (E) restaurant/hotel - guest-house (E) small hotel - lodge (E) small hotel - baraatghar (H) wedding-hall

n.b. The word khana (P) = room is appended to define spaces: gym-khana = an equestrian event; in India, a place for stabling horses; baithak-khana = sitting-room; kahwa-kana = tea- house; karkhana = workshop, etc.

4.4. COMMERCiAl

- hatuu’hatti (S) - dhaba (H)

- dukaan (A/P) - katra (S) - chhatta (S) - mandi (H)

small market broad eaves on outer walls shop enclosed piece of land covered passage way wholesale market

shop small shop/eatery

shop enclosed shops covered shopping alley wholesale market

- sanj (P> small market town cluster of shops

- bazaar (P) - sadar bazaar (P) - market (E) - stores (E) - place (E) - Commercial Center (Am) - District Center (Am)

4.5. REh$ON, CUh*CENlRES

- masjid (A)

- mandir (H,S)

- Idgah (A/P) - Imambara (A)

- dargah (P) - gurudwara (P)

4.6. RESidENCE

- haveli (A) - jhuggiohompri (H) - makaan (A) - quarter (E)

shops army commissariat

place where one bows one’s head place, temple

place for Id festival house of Imans (Shia divines) threshold guru’s house, entrante

shopping precinct wholesale market

small provisions shops forma1 shopping precincts

Islamic place of worship Hindu place of worship (also used for shops) used for Id buildings used to house tazias (used in Shia processsions) shrine of a saint Sikh place of worship

house of brick or stone thatched hut placelbuildinglhouse

large house hut house house provided by employers

5. OPEN AREAS

In the north Indian climate, streets, open areas and gardens play an important role as places for relaxation and conviviality. More time (and much unstructured time) is spent here than in forma1 interior areas.

5.1 . PASSAqES, OPEN AREAS

gali (H), kucha (P) lune (E) lane marg, veethi, sarak (S,nS) street/avenue rasta (P) road, way chowk (S) place place (E) square (E) circus (E) maidan (P) open area used for military display, nowadays

simply an open area

17

n.b. gali and chowk figure prominently in Urdu/Hindi poetry and stories.

5.2. ÇARdENS

18

vatika, upvan, udyaan (S,nS) bagh 0’) bageecha (P) garden (E) Park 03

garden large garden small garden

5.3 WATER bodiEs

diggi (S) oblong tank talab (S-A), hauz (A), tank (E) tank nahar (A) canal nalah (P), canal (E) ditch ghat (S), embankment (E) embankment

Hindi/Urdu words have not only used derivations from different languages but have quite unconsciously combined terms from different languages to make ‘portmanteau’ words. This was done even with English words. It is too early to say whether these terms Will be edged out by more ‘pure’ Sanskritic terms in India and ‘pure’ Persian words in Pakistan. If SO, this Will be as a result of the periodic waves of enthusiasm for renaming places in order to erase the memory of foreign rule. This is a meaningless exercise, because such gestures do not promote patriotism certainly do not erase history. In any plan for urban conservation (which in the last fifteen years has begun to appeal both to policy makers and to citizens), respect for nomenclature and for older forms of civic organisation Will or should have high priority. Their value for historians, architects and town-planners is self-evident.

III - A LARGER CLOSSARY. UN PLUS LARGE GLOSSAIRE

TO the examples given above one cari add a longer, more thematic list of ‘words of the town’ with their equivalents in French and English: though not, of course with a11 their nuances therein. The terms which we consider particularly signifïcant are shown in bold. Aux exemples donnés ci-dessus, on peut ajoindre en annnexe une liste plus large, et thématique, de ‘mots de la ville’ avec leur sens approximatif le plus commun en ,français et anglais : toutes les nuances ne peuvent évidemment être données ici, et il serait très réducteur de considérer les vocables frangais et anglais donnés ici comme de réelles traduction.~. Certains termes dont l’usage nous semble être particulièrement sign$catij apparaissent en caractère gras.

URbAN AREAS ANd T~~ES of doMici[E e SEClioNS URbAiNES ET T~~ES d’hAbiTA

- abadi (abad) (P) - agraharam (S) - ahata (A) - bandar (P) - basti (H-U) - block (E) - brahmadeya (S)

quartier quartier brahmane petit quartier port quartier bloc, îlot quartier brahmane

neighborhood Brahmin neighborhood small neighborhood port neighborhood block Brahmin neighborhood

- cantonment (E) quartier militaire colonial - chatta (H) lieu couvert - civil Zinc (E) quartier civil colonial - cohy (E) lotissement - complex (E) complexe commercial - gaon (H) village - garh (H) fort - ilaqa (A) aire administrative - jompri (H) bidonville - jhuggi (H) bidonville - katra (H) cour fermée (résidentiel et

commerciale) - kot (S) fort

- kunj (S) bois (suffixe) - lines (E) quartier (suffixe) - links (E) quartier (suffixe)

- mal1 (E) avenue - mahalla (A), mohulla quartier - nagar (S) cité, ville - pattana (S) ville de marché

- pu< puri, puram (S) cité, ville (suffixe) - qasbah (A) ville de marché - resettlement colony (E) lotissement au profit de

personnes déplacées - sector (E) quartier - shahr (P) cité, ville - slum (E) bidonville - town (E) ville petite ou moyenne - urban village (E) village urbain - vihar (S) quartier - wada (H) quartier

URbAN RoAds / ~koRou~kfARts 0 VoiEs URbAiNES

- avenue (E) - bridge (E) -flv-over (E) - gali (H) - kucha (P) - lune (E) - marg (S) - naal (H)

- phatak (P) - street (E) - rasta (P) - sarak (H) - vithi (S)

avenue pont passage surélevé ruelle ruelle ruelle voie passage adjacent d’une haveli (Rajasthan) porte (au sens de rue) rue chemin voie avenue

colonial military neighborhood sheltered place colonial civil neighborhood housing estate set of commercial buildings village fort administrative area slum slum closed yard, residential and commercial fort wood (suffix) neighborhood (suffïx) neighborhood (suffïx) avenue neighborhood City, town market town City, town market town housing estate for displaced people

neighborhood City, town slum small or medium town urban village neighborhood neighborhood

avenue bridge fly-over lane lane lane

way passage bordering a haveli in Rajasthan gate street path

way avenue

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20

GATES/ ENTRANCES y ENCEiNTES, PORTES

- darvaza (P) porte - divar (P) porte et enceinte - gate (E) porte - khirki (H) issue - phatak (P) porte

gate wall and gate gate exit, way out gate

hhRkETp[AcE TERMS ’ TERMES bis AU MARChÉ

- bazaar (P) - ganj 07 - godown (E) - hat (S) - mandi (H) - market (E)

Buildhqs 4 Édifice

- akhara (S/H) - asrama (S)

- attalika (S) - baradari (P)

- baratghar (S) - bhavan (S) - chhatri (H) - community centre (E) - daftar (A) - dargah (P) - dhaba (H) - dharamsala (S) - district centre (E) -five star hotel (E) - goshala (S)

- hammam (A) - haspatal (E) - haveli (A) - hotel (E) - idgah (A/P) - imambara (A/H)

- imarat (P) - karkhana (P) - kotha (H) - kothi (H)

bazar marché entrepôt marché hebdomadaire marché marché

bazaar market warehouse weekly market market market

gymnase gymnasium refuge ou demeure à vocation religious refuge or residence: religieuse : ashram ashram gratte-ciel (édifice en hauteur) sky scraper, high building grande demeure (litt : douze portes) salle de mariage édifice coupole centre communautaire bureau tombe de saint musulman ‘café-resto’ auberge chef-lieu de district hôtel cinq étoiles étable pour recueillir les animaux abandonnés ou malades bains publics hôpital grande demeure restaurant lieu de célébration de 1’Id bâtiment construit par les Chiites pour la célébration de Moharram édifice fabrique, atelier hutte (sens spéc.) fort

mansion (litt: with twelve doors) wedding hall building dome communautary tenter office Muslim holy man tomb cheap restaurant inn district headquarters five star hotel stable/cowshed for abandoned or sick cattle

public bath hospital mansion restaurant place of celebration of Id building constructed by Shias for the celebration of Moharram

building factory, workshop hut fort

-.- -_-. -.

- madrusa (P) - mahal (A) - mandir (S) - masjid (A) - palace (E) -pandaZ (H)

- prasadu (S) - qila (A) - sarai (P)

- thana (S/H) - wf (4

TYPES Of housiruc, 0 DEMEURES ET kux d’hAbiTATioN

ecole musulmane palais temple mosquée palais tente, structure provisoire à fins cérémonielles palais fort auberge (pour marchands de passage) poste de police propriété d’une collectivité musulmane

- apartments (E) - bungalow (E) (bangla) -JZats (E) - jhuggi (H) - jompri (H) - ghar (H) - house (E) - kachha (H) - khokha (H) - makan (A) -pucka (H)

OPEN AREAS 0 Lkux OUVERTS

- angana (S) - bagicha (P) - bagh (P) - chahar bagh (P) - chowk (S) - garden (E) - krida staal (RS) - maidan (P) - place (E) - udyan (S)

WATER I EAU

- baoli (P) (bowri)

- bridge (E) - canal (E) - ghat (S)

- hauz (A)

immeuble rédisentiel maison de style colonial appartements taudis taudis maison, foyer maison matériaux temporaires hutte maison en dur

cour intérieure jardin jardin jardin (litt. = à 4 côtés) rond-point jardin aire de jeu vaste place (ouverte) place jardin

puits (auquel on accède par des marches) pont canal marches sur une berge pour accéder à l’eau réservoir

Muslim school palace temple mosque palace tent or provisional shed, for ceremonial purpose palace fort inn for travelling traders

police station property of a Muslim community

block of flats colonial styled house flats slum slum home house lightly built up hut house strongly built

inner yard garden garden garden (litt.= four sides) roundabout garden playground large open area place garden

well (with steps for access)

bridge canal steps on a bank for reaching water tank, reservoir

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22

- johara (marwari ?)

- kuan (S) - nali, nallah (P) - PU1 (P>

réservoir pour recueillir reservoir for collecting les pluies de mousson monsoon rains puits well ruisseau (petit canal) rivulet, small canal pont bridge

REFERENCES

- Acharya, P.K. (ed.): Indian Architecture Accord@ to the Manasara Silpasastras, London, 1928.

- Dictionary of Hindu Architecture : London, 1927. - Agrawala, V.S.: Samarangana Sutadhara of Maharajadhiraja Bhoja, Baroda, 1966. - Blake, S.P.: Shajanahad, Cambridge, 1993. - Begde, P.V.: Ancient and Medieval Town Planning in India, Delhi, 1978. - Bhattacharya, T.: Study of Vixtuvidya, Calcutta, 1948. - Bose, P.: Princ$es of Indian Silpasastras, Lahore, 1926. - Dagens, B.: Mayamata : traité sanskrit d’architecture, Pondicherry, 1970. - Dutt, B.B.: Town Planning in Ancient India, Calcutta, 1925. - King, A.D.: Colonial Urban Development, London, 1976. - Nurul Hasan, S.: ‘Morphology of a Medieval Indian City - a Case Study of Shahajanabad’

in Banga, 1. (ed.) City in Zndian Histo-, Delhi, 199 1. - Pillai, G.K.: The Way of the Silpis, Allahabad, 1948. - Thakur, R.: ‘Urban Hierarchies, Typologies and Classification in Early Medieval

India c.750- 1200’ in Urban History, Vol. 2 1, 1, Avril 1994.

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Words and concepts in urban development and planning in India: an analysis in the context of regional variation and changing policy perspectives AMiTAbh KuNdu, SOMNATh BASU

Absrnm:

This paper proposes an analysis of the types of words used in the North Indian towns and cities of the Hindi belt, with emphasis on urban development and planning. Hindi words, but also Urdu words of Persian lineage and English terms are used in this area which has a long tradition of multiple cultures and a long history of urbanisation. Attention is paid to the various levels of languages: popular parlance or urban’s planners terminology for instance. Regional variations are also taken into account, through a few significant examples. The use of words borrowed from the general vocabulary, the strength of vernacular terms, the process of standardisation and, on the opposite, the impact of policy changes on terminologies are assessed, as well as the acronyms which symbolize today the importance of the state inter- vention in urban development.

The second part of the paper offers a thematic and commentated glossary which, while not aiming at exhaustivity, offers a significant panorama of the diverse terminologies found in Northern India, be they in Hindi, in Urdu/Persian, in English, and even sometimes in a mix of two languages. These samples - 68 of then - are grouped in four categories: process of urbanisation, urban economy (mostly refering to types of employment visible in the urban landscape); physical aspects of urban development, and intervention of the state and administration in urban development.

URBAN TERMINOLOGY AGAINST A CROSS-CULTURAL BACKCROUND

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Understanding the evolution of words and concepts (used in urban context, changes therein through cross-cultural interactions and exogenous interventions etc.) in a vast country like India is a complex and ambitious job. There are, of course, regional variations in urban

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processes because of the differences in socio-economic conditions. Even when the basic process and its causative factors are the same or similar, their manifestations vary significantly across states and districts due to regional specificities. Also, there are perceptual cultural differences. Above ah, articulation of a11 these through different languages and dialects adds further diversity. Al1 these factors make the task of analysing citywords extremely challenging.

The trends and patterns of urbanisation, the nature of economic activities, land management practices, etc. vary across regions due to differences in physical, social, political and legal situations and these have an impact on urban terminology, as noted above. A few examples would be in order to illustrate the point. In cities, for example, where land acquisition by the state is common, as in case of Delhi, muhabza or compensation paid to the land owner for acquisition of his land, is the popular term. Further, as a result of restrictions on land transfers due to legal provisions there, land title is passed on from one person to another through informa1 channels, commonly described as benami transactions. Such words are, however, absent or not in common usage in situations where the “Delhi Model” of land management have not been adopted. Similarly, in West Bengal, where protection of the rights of the tenants and slum dwellers is a major concern of the state, the vernacular words like thikadar (viz. a person who has been given rights through a contract) is part of the urban terminology.

lt is common to note different words being used to describe the same or similar phenomena in different regions. For instance, it is a practice in most of the large cities in the country to take a certain amount as advance when renting out a house/flat, the amount varying with the demand and supply situation. The modality of the payment, however, varies across cities/regions. In the city of Bombay, the amount, known as pugree, is generally as big as the value of the house and is not refundable. Payment of pugree makes the tenant a virtual owner of the premise which he cari rent out by receiving a pugree. In Delhi, however, the amount is a few month’s rent and is adjusted against the monthly rentals, damages to property or refunded at the end of the tenancy. lt is called “deposit” or “advance”. In Calcutta, such payments are often described as selami. Similarly, one word may have different connotations in different places or contexts, bustee, for example, would imply any habitation in Hindi speaking areas, while in Bengal it refers to a slum. In the Hindi speaking areas a slum Will be called a gandi basti or a dirty locality.

EVOLUTION OF URBAN TERMINOLOGY

lt is important to understand and analyse the complex process of interaction among peoples of different regions and cultures - the process of acceptance/rejection of terms or phrases and the emergence of new words. Certain words from the local language or dialect, acquire general acceptability over time through the process of their use by academicians, administrators, policy makers etc. These words sometimes transcend language boundaries and their usage cuts across regions as a result of multilingual and cross cultural interaction. These, thus, become a part of the common parlance and many of them also end up in officia1 documents.

The process cari work in the reverse order as well. Words, introduced in officia1 literature by planners and policy makers, may slowly gain acceptability across regions and over a period of time become a part of the mainstream vocabulary. A large number of other terms,

however, remain restricted to a small region, language or a dialect. Similarly, several words designed by researchers, academicians or used in officia1 and legal documents remain confined to small groups or specific pur-poses. These, then, do not become a part of the tore of urban vocabulary. A few such words have, however, been included in the appended list as an illustration of an argument or to bring out regional variations in usage.

In practice, however it is difftcult to identify and distinguish the terms in the tore from those not in it. Also, several words may be used in the same language, describing the same or overlapping phenomena, varying as to their degree of acceptability. lt would, therefore, be difficult to prepare a list of a11 the tore terms and standardise their definitions for their day-to-day usages removing a11 ambiguities, since the task would largely be subjective. lmportantly, words acquire their meaning only through a process of use over time. Any officia1 judgement as to which words are in common parlance and their connotations, and which words are to be excluded from it, would be erroneous and risky.

CITY WORDS AS A SUB-SET OF GENERAL VOCABULARY

25 Urban vocabulary is a sub-set of general vocabulary and a large number of words used in normal communication are found in the former. However, terms that only have the popular/dictionary meaning (in Hindi, Urdu or English) and have not acquired a specific meaning through their use in lndian urban context have not been included in our list of urban vocabulary. As, for example, words like yojana or niyojan imply a plan or planning or vikas means development. The same is the case for terms like octroi, property tax etc. Al1 these words, although part of officia1 urban jargon, do not have any separate/specifïc connotation in urban context. Such words have, therefore, not been analysed here. However, certain terms, although used both in the rural and the urban context have a specifïc meaning in the latter. Adda, for example, implies a gathering in several regional languages; but a bus-adda in a town or a city is a bus terminus, an important term in urban planning literature.

VERNACULAR TERMS IN CITYWORDS IN INDIA

Hindi was declared as the national language in the country after lndependence in 1947 although English remains the medium of much of the intra-governmental communication even today. In building up the urban vocabulary, it would, therefore, be worthwhile starting by considering the English terms that have frequently been used in officia1 communications to describe a typical lndian situation, institution or policy instrument and have thereby acquired a special connotation. The words having only the dictionary meaning are less important. “Public School”, for example, means a private school mostly for the children of urban elites in lndia, which is a definition not applicable to a11 western countries.

Sometimes, the British planners and policy makers used vernacular terms to capture the local specificity of the situation. Since at the time of colonisation of lndia, the indigenous system of urban taxation and administration were fairly well developed, some of the legal and administrative provisions adopted during the British period were based on those of their predecessors. Consequently, Hindi and Urdu words are abundant in the officia1 documents, laying down the foundation of urban governance in the country. lt is worth mentioning that these words have acquired special meaning in the process of their use that now have general acceptability across a large number of regions and languages. Currently, some of these words

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are in use along with their corresponding English words. However, for several of these that describe specific local phenomena, appropriate English equivalents do not exist. In any case, Hindi/Urdu words have much greater acceptability amongst ordinary people, particularly in non-metropolitan urban centres, where English is less prevalent. An attempt has been made here to include a11 these English, Hindi and Urdu words in the illustrative list given below.

STANDARDISATION OF TERMS FOR COMPARATIVE RESEARCH AND URBAN POLICY

The ambiguity in identifying or defïning terms and specifying their coverage cari be a problem when these are used for generating data for spatio-temporal comparisons or for taking administrative and legal decisions. As a result, often, efforts are made to define the relevant terms rigorously SO that there is no ambiguity in the officia1 information system or administrative decisions/orders. This helps provide an unambiguous terminology for communication among policy makers, researchers and administrators associated with urban governance. This is not to suggest that a11 the terms, currently being used in planning, administrative or legal documents have clear-tut definitions, or that the data generated by using these terms are strictly comparable over time and across officia1 agencies.

Urban planning being state-related means there are variations in the officia1 terminology as well, between states. And the interpretation of certain terms proposed by a central agency may vary from state to state. Even a central data gathering agency like the Population Census may change the definition or effective coverage of certain terms or concepts over time. Nonetheless, attempts should be made to fïnd consensus on the crucial terms, if used for administrative, legal or research purposes. lt is relatively easy to prepare a compendium of such officia1 terms as the definitions of most of these are available, although they are not necessarily without ambiguity, in the officia1 publications.

REFLECTION OF URBAN PROCESS AND POLICY CHANGES ON THE TERMINOLOGY

Scrutiny of urban terminology, as given below, helps in identifying the characteristics of the process. of urbanisation, its manifestation in different regions, its basic problems, recent policy interventions and related governmental efforts/schemes. Many of the terms have been taken from policy documents, officia1 reports and standard academic literature.

The words commonly used in discussion of urban processes reflect a concern about concentrations of urban growth within a few cities and regions. The emergence of terms like “urban agglomeration”, “out growth”, “standard urban area” etc. is an indication of this concern. These also indicate a process of limited urban-industrial dispersa1 around the large cities. Urban expansion has generally led to legal or illegal conversion of rural land for urban use even within the la1 dora limits that defïne the permissible boundary for residential construction. Such practices have continued despite attempts to control these by “notifying” lands in the periphery of growing cities as “development areas”. The poor have found it relatively easy to occupy and squat in these areas and effectively expand the urban limits, as they do encounter less resistance from the authorities than in the inner City. These areas are of interest, also, to speculators whose activities (occupation, development, construction and sale) result in urban expansion and dispersal. The growing importance of these terminologies in urban literature reflects the importance of urban sprawl and expansion around large cities.

There has been much discussion lately regarding the lack of infrastructural facilities and basic amenities in small and medium-sized towns. These towns, described as garzjs, muffassil towns, mandi towns, kasbas, etc. depending on their economic and administrative attibutes, have increased in importance in recent years, due to their phenomenal demographic growth, particularly in less developed regions. It has been envisaged under the policy of economic reforms that their problems cari be solved largely by enhancing their interna1 resources. lt is in this context that terms such as kar; chu@, nzandi shulka, sankia etc., that were already in the literature, have regained currency in recent years. One could, therefore, argue that the economic reforms in lndia, instead of creating new words in the area of urban finance, have only popularised the use of certain existing words.

The policy of globalisation and reform and their effect on urban vocabulary are apparent when it cornes to urban economy. Terms like marginal or casual workers, badli etc. in contemporary literature indicates a process of casualisation and informalisation of the urban economy. lnterestingly, with the process of structural adjustment, launched in a somewhat ad-hoc manner during the eighties in the urban sector, various types of casual jobs, generally with a low wage/earning potential have emerged in urban areas. The popularity of words like thelawala, pheriwala, khomchawala, is understandable, reflecting the growing importance of such jobs undertaken by males within the informa1 tertiary sector. lt may be noted that the percentage of casual male workers has gone up in the urban workforce from 13.2 % in 1977- 78 to 16.2 5% in 1993-94.

This informalisation has grown within urban economy, also, because people, confronted with a plethora of regulative and administrative controls, have resorted to various semi-legal and illegal working methods. The popularity of terms like benami transaction, pugree, hafta, etc. indicate that avoidance of legal systems in day to day dealings has become quite a common part of urban life. lt is, moreover, unlikely that, with liberalisation and the curbing of the jurisdictions of the public agencies, such transanctions and resulting terminologies Will disappear. However, with the changes in the system of governance and regulations, the nature and agencies involved in such transactions change and SO do the meanings of some of the terms.

A major problem in urban centres is the population pressure on a limited basic services, resulting in growth of slums, poor living and working conditions and the deteriorating quality of life. The usage of the terms like katcha, jhuggi/“honpri, bustee, chawl etc. reflects the unsatisfactory housing conditions of the people, particularly the poor. The shift from mass housing progammes to incremental housing has made a term like barsati (viz. one room set in the terrace) popular. There has been, at the same time, investment in housing by the elite, resulting in emergence of luxurious dwelling units, often described as bhawans, sadans, farm houses etc. TO an extent the spectrum in the vocabulary reflects this inequality in urban structure.

The government’s scepticism as to the efficiency of market forces solving the problem of housing and the quality of life for the poor led to the launching of programmes for low cost housing, slum upgrading etc. in the sixties. lt tried to improve the living conditions of the slum dwellers by delivering to them the minimum basic services. Acronyms like EWS (Economie Weaker Sections), LIG (Low lncome Group), MIG (Middle lncome Group), HIG (High lncome Group) were designed to classify the beneficiary households and give them differential subsidies. Terms like yojana, niyojan, awas, samiti etc. were employed in the formulation and implementation of schemes and projects through which the government

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sought to intervene. The names of the schemes in their abbreviated forms like IDSMT, EIUS, UBSP, NRY etc. have also become a part of urban vocabulary due to their use by planners, administrators and ordinary men and women. Al1 these terms indicate the growing importance of planning and state intervention in urban development in recent years.

It is diffrcult to measure the impact of “structural reform” launched in the country formally in 1991 but informally in the early eighties (particularly in the urban sector), on urban vocabulary. This is because the government has been careful not to convey to administrators and people at large that such drastic changes were being introduced or about to be introduced. The language of politicians and planners designing urban policy and bureacrats administering it have shown no major transformation or departure from the past. Also, many of the tools of reform have not impacted on the existing system, SO have not been appreciated by the masses and therefore not captured in their vocabulary. Even those that were relatively successful did not bring about perception of real change. The reaction of the man in the street to changing situations or new policy perspectives has not been strong or long enough to be refected in his language, except for the few examples quoted above. Also, it should be said, a decade is a very small period in the life of a society to expect signifïcant restructuring in the vocabulary of the common man.

A THEMATIC CLOSSARY

Terms selected for the urban glossary here, have been placed in four categories, viz. (a) process of urbanisation, (b) urban economy, (c) physical aspects of urban development and (d) urban planning. The letter in brackets following the words listed here below indicates the language it belongs to or it originates from: (A) = Arabie, (E) = English, (H) = Hindi, (P) = Persian.

A 0 PROCE~S of URbANiSAliON

1. Census TownsRJrban Centres (E): Besides the Statutory Towns, settlements having (a) a population of five thousand or more, (b) a minimum density of 1000 people per square kilometre and (c) at least seventy five percent of work force outside agriculture, are known as towns and treated as urban centres by the Population Census of lndia.

2. Charge (E): An area with definite boundaries, identified for administrative purposes, subdividing the city into a number of smaller units.

3. City (E): Large towns in common parlance. In the urban planning definition, towns with a population of one hundred thousand or more.

4. Ganj (H): A market centre which has not grown into a fully-fledged town. 5. Kasba (P): A subdivision town, next in hierarchy to a district headquarter. 6. La1 Dora (H): Literally red thread; used in the past for demarcating the jurisdiction of

a village. Presently implies the boundary of the territory of village within which norms and controls of a municipality or urban development authority are not applicable.

7. Mandi (H): A market centre found in an urban area for trading agricultural products, generally having storing and warehousing facilities. A town where trading of agricultural products is the most important activity is called a Mandi town.

8. Mufassil Town (A/E): A rural township wherein the rural folks go for certain types of services.

9. Nagar (H), Shahar (P): Nagar is a Hindi word and sahar a Persian word for City. Thus

mahanagar or badi sahar would imply a metropolitan or large city and chota sahar would imply a small town.

10. Outgrowth (E): Conglomeration of houses outside the forma1 limits of a town (not constituting a settlement/village on their own), having a high degree of interdependence with the town.

11. Shahar (P): see Nagar 12. Standard Urhan Area (E): An area with a town of at least 50,000 people with

continuous growth around it, encompassing a number of smaller towns and rural settlements based round the tore town, with the possibility of being urbanised within the next couple of decades.

13. Statutory town (E): A settlement having an urban local body viz. Municipality, Corpo- ration, Town Area Committee, Notified Area Committee, Cantonment, Town Panchayat,...

14. Urhan Agglomeration (E): A city with continuous spread around it encompassing a few other towns and outgrowths, based on the tore town.

B I URbnN ECONOMY

1. Anudan (H): A grant (interest free loan) transfered from a higher to a lower office, for developmental purpose, within the government.

2. Badli (A): Casual workers but employed mostly by the same employer and hence recruited in a more personalised way.

3. Bhatti (H): Establishments that brew and sel1 country liquor. 4. Casual Workers (E): Employed generally by small entrepreneurs on daily or weekly

basis on a low wage rate. 5. Chowkidar (H): Security person responsible for the safety of a building or a locality. 6. Chungi (H), Octroi (E): Chungi, the Hindi word for octroi has been retained in officia1

documents in many of the northern states. 7. Dhaha (H): A small open eating place on the road side, offering inexpensive Punjabi

dishes. 8. Hafta (P): Payment, mostly illegal, made on a weekly basis to offcials in authority by

petty industrialists, traders or slum dwellers. 9. Kahariwala (H): A person who trades in waste or used materials, rags and junk for

re-cycled use or second hand sale. Thus kabari ranges from old newspapers to used furniture and electronic items.

10. Kar (H): see Shulka 11. Khomchawala (H): Hawkers selling generally food products on a khomcha. 12. Marginal Workers (E) (see Worker): In administrative and statistical urban termino-

logy, persons who have worked but not for the major part of the year or the working season .

13. Pheriwala (H): Hawkers selling small items or providing household services going around the localities, attracting their customers through loud calls. They carry their products on shoulders not necessarily in a cart; they may repair household goods or offer persona1 services.

14. Pugree (H): Literally means a piece of cloth tied over the head for protection or as a mark of honour. In housing transactions, it means the sum of money deposited with the property owner by the tenant to gain right of occupation, to be returned to the latter at the time of vacating the premise. In large cities like Bombay, the sum equals the market value of the property which is never returned to the tenant. The latter receives pugree from the next tenant for vacating the premise, giving him the occupancy right.

15. Rehriwalla (H): see Thelawalla

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16. Rojgar (P): Employment; often implies employment generated through governmental programmes and schemes, mostly for the people in the low income strata.

17. Shulka (H), Kar (H): A common word in municipal finance, though not exclusive to the urban sector, kar principally refers to a tax realised by the government. Thus aaye kur would mean income tax and j& kar (commonly seen in municipal finance balance sheets) would refer to water tax. Shufka generally refers to a cess or fee payable to a public agency for using its premises or services. Thus traders in a mandi pays a mandi ,fee or cess to the mnndi (samiti) authority.

18. Teh Bazari (P): Tax collected on a daily basis by local authority from small traders for selling their items in a weekly market or any other public place.

19. Tekha (H): Contracts, generally in the context of middlemen or labourers in the construction sector. Tekhedur is a person who organises the building materials or labourers at the construction site. Tekha cari also imply an establishment selling country liquor.

20. Thelawalla (H), Rehriwalla (H): Mobile vendors generally selling their wares from a thela or rehri (viz. a cart with a squarish platform). They generally stay at one place for a few hours or for the whole day and do not generally go from door to door.

21. Worker (E): In administrative and statistical urban terminology, a person engaged in economically productive activities for most of the year or the working season.

22. Zamadar (H): A sanitation worker cleaning toilets, streets and the neighbourhood.

C H PkysicAl Aspms of URbAN DEVE~OPMENT (hchdiq AMENiTiEs)

1. Ahata (A), Bara (H): An enclosure in a built up area, with small tenements let out on a rental basis, existing mostly in the cities of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

2. Bara (H): see Ahata 3. Barsati (H): A one-room or two-room habitation on the terrace of a building usually for

renting purpose. 4. Basti (H), Bustee (in E): Congested settlement with a high population density, having

grown in an unplanned manner and facing problems of infrastructural deficiency. Some- times the word is used for a slum (e.g., in West Bengal), but in Northern lndia the latter is generally described as gandi hasti.

5. Bus Adda: (E/H) A major bus terminus in the City, for buses either working within the town/city or between cities across districts.

6. Chawl (H): A set of small multi-storied residential units, constructed mostly in the nine- teenth Century, to accommodate industrial workers particularly in Bombay. These are sometimes described as “inner City, run-down, walk U~S”. Due to lack of upkeep, degradation of the area and high density most of the chawls are now part of slums.

7. Jhonpri (H), Jhuggi (H): Informa1 structures built with bamboo, thatch, old building materials or raw bricks for residential purposes by the poor.

8. Katcha (H): Literally means uncooked; often used as adjectives for houses of non- permanent nature, built with mud and bricks with thatched roofs and used materials etc. The term serves as an adjective also for employment without job security.

9. Khokha (H, Punjabi): A temporary small counter for sale of various items; but most commonly cigarettes, beedis and betel leaves. Sometimes in commercial areas cheap lunch is also sold from khokhas.

10. Mal1 (E): A major street used by the gentry for shopping and recreational activities. 1 1. Nala (H), Nali (H): An open drain which commonly supports the sanitation system of a

small or medium town. A nafi carries a11 domestic and industrial refuse and sullage water from the town to a nearby river, often causing major environmental hazards.

_-...---.. _-_ .-.. .--~~-- ._... --- --.. __. ._-

12. Parivahan (H): Generally refers to public transport (system). 13. Public School (E): Generally an English medium school managed by private organisa-

tions, trusts etc. wherein the tuition costs and other payments are very high, thereby admitting the children mostly from the elite class.

14. Pucca (H): Opposite of katcha. A third category viz. semi-pucca, has been used for denoting the houses having some characteristics of both katcha as well as pucca houses.

15. Resettlement Colony (E): A colony created by removing a group of households from the congested city tore or an encroachment in public places and locating them generally in the periphery of the City.

16. Rickshaw (H, E from Japanese): A type of transport (which may resemble a cart) drawn either by a cycle attached to it or by a man (as in Calcutta).

D H INTERVENTioN by ~TATE iN URbAN DEVE~OPMENT ANd %NNiNq

1. Annual Rateable Value (ARV) (E): A measure of the ARV is carried out by a municipa- lity to determine the value of property in a town or a City. Based on this value property tax in an urban area is fixed.

2. Ashray (H), Awas (H): Residential units. In planning terms, these often refer to residen- tial units built for the poor.

3. Benami transaction (H/E): A method by which a person becomes the virtual owner of a house through the power of attorney (see below) although legally the property is not reported as bought or sold, consequently, the taxes due to the government at the time of such transactions are not paid.

4. EIUS (Environmental Improvement of Urban Slums) (E) IDSMT (Integrated Development of Small and Medium Towns) (E) NRY (Nehru Rojgar Yojana) (P/H) PMRY (Prime Minister’s Rojgar Yojana) (E/P/H) UBSP (Urban Basic Services for the Poor) (E) IDSMT, EIUS, UBSP, NRY, PMRY are schemes in the central sector for urban areas in the Eighth Plan.

5. EWS: Economically Weaker Section (E) LIG: Low Income Group (E) MIG: Middle Income Group (E) HIG: High Income Group (E) Income categories created by the public housing agencies for the purposes of providing subsidised land and capital inputs in a differentiated manner. Over the years the Upper and lower limits of these categories have been revised upwards. Due to various laxities in administration, many richer sections of the population registered themselves under lower income categories. At present, the houses meant for the lower income groups are occupied by a mix households from different income brackets.

6. Khasra (P): Refers to a plot of land which is numbered in the Master Plan of a City. Any developmental plan sketched on the basis of the Master Plan refers to a khasra number. If the khasras in a Master Plan are not properly numbered developmental plans gets hindered.

7. Nagar Nigam (H), Nagar Palika (H), Nagar Parishad (H): Nagar Nigam refers to a Municipal Corporation and Nagar Palika or Nagar Parishad (nomenclature varies from state to state) refers to a Municipal Council. A corporation is higher than a council in the hierarchy of municipal administration. There are no strict norms for giving a municipality the status of a corporation or council - the decision is mostly political.

8. Naka (P): Points on the boundary of the town, located on the main roads, used for

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monitoring and controlling the entry and exit of goods and people. Nakabandi means prohibiting a11 movements into or out of the town.

9. Nazul Land (PIE): Land vested with the public authority for developmental purpose as per the stipulations of the authority.

10. Notified Area (E): Any land area earmarked with the help of legal provisions for the purpose of future development, as stipulated in the Master Plan.

11. Patta (H): Title to land. Under the slum upgrading and resettlement schemes, land title is being given to the residents in the hope that they would make further investment to improve their own housing conditions and living standards. This is also a guarantee against future eviction.

12. Power of Attorney (E): Supposedly a legal provision through which the right of occupancy, management, and transfer of a property is given by the owner to another person. The Law Ministry has doubts about the validity of such transfer deals ; never- theless, a large number of properties, particularly in north Indian cities, are changing hands, using this provision.

13. Rain Basera (H): A scheme of night-shelter by the government to provide sleeping arrangement to houseless people at night.

14. Samiti (H): A community-based organisation, responsible for resource mobilisation, management of basic amenities, payment of instalments etc., generally recognised by the public agencies as a partner in the implementation of certain schemes.

15. Standard Rent (E): Worked out on the basis of the value of land and cost of construc- tion when built, as per the provisions of the Rent Control Act with the objective of protecting the tenant from exorbitant rent and eviction.

16. Vikas Pradhikaran (H), Development Authority (E): Every big city (mostly of more than a million inhabitants - but again there are no strict norms) has a Development Authority which supervises various aspects of Urban Management including land, housing, services etc. They also oversee legal aspects pertaining to building bye-laws, Master Plan norms etc. and develop perspective plans for the future.

l-_.lll-l ----_ _ll-_-. . _“.-__-_----.-_~-l_--~~

S tigmatization of urban processes in India: an analysis of terminology with special reference to slum situations hhnbk Kurudu 33

INTROdUCTiON

Negative words in the urban vocabulary of India is of recent origin. Possibly, this dates back only to the advent of British rule in the country. It has been argued that the urban centres in the ancient and medieval period functioned as administrative and trading centres and provided multifarious services to the people living both within as well as outside these centres. They always looked towards these centres with expectations, seeking solutions to their problems in periods of crisis. There was, therefore, no stigma attached to urbanisation which explains the limited number of negative terms associated with it in ancient literature.

Acknowlrdqmrnr:

It may also be argued that the political set-up of that period permitted history or political The author ha\ henrtïtted from

economy to be written by only “knowledgeable men” owing allegiance to the rulers and elite dl\cu\\ion\ with Prof.

class. The same is true for the writers of literature. In the absence of democracy, the views B. D. Chattopadhaya in the dcvelopment of

and perceptions of the common people or those not benefitting from the towns or cities could argument\ in the papa.

not possibly fïnd expression in the entire body of forma1 knowledge.

The process of urbanisation in colonial India led to two distinct distortions and, as a consequence, two types of negative terminology emerged on the scene. One, those that view or describe urbanisation itself as a negative phenomenon - a process of generating problems. These problems concern exploitation of resources, destabilising the agrarian economy, pollution, accentuation of regional imbalance etc. and have an adverse impact on the entire society. A number of the negative citywords, notable in the academic and policy documents and literature of today cari indeed be traced back to the colonial period.

Several of these have been coined by academicians, policy makers, novelists, poets etc. in the process of describing and analysing the problems posed by the cities to the people in the region and to the in-migrating population. Some owe their origin to officia1 documents drawn

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up to regulate urban growth or find solutions to the urbanisation problems. But they originate also from the rural people in the hinterland who had to “bear the brunt of the negative consequences of colonial urbanisation” like the destruction of their agrarian economy, the degradation of ecology and social values, the loss of able bodied manpower etc. Some of these terms are, thus, coined by these people who rightly or wrongly felt aggrieved or considered themselves at the receiving end of the problems created through urbanisation. Documentation of the people’s perception and articulation of their anguish, frustration etc. through coinage of new words over the last two hundred years is scanty but it does exist. It would, nonetheless, be worthwhile instigating further studies on the oral tradition, folklore etc. of this period to understand the evolution of negative citywords.

The second type of negative terminology is due to segmentation of space within the cities and emergence of slum areas. There are terms used by the gentry to describe these areas, their nature and socio-economic characteristics. These capture the unhappiness but apathy of this elite class towards slums as well as their apprehension about their adverse impact. Besides these, people residing in the slums developed their own vocabulary for describing the city life in general and their own existence in particular. This, in several ways, reflects their sufferings, helplessness and anger.

This paper makes an attempt to examine the evolution of “negative urban terms” and to place these in their historical and socio-cultural context. It also analyses how certain neutral terms have acquired negative connotations in the process of their use in urban setting. This helps in understanding the contemporary conflict of interests and values in the urban scene and their possible role in the dynamics of future development and in designing a strategy for intervention.

The second section, following this introductory section, looks at the concept of the City, its role and functions for its residents, as emerging from the texts in ancient India. The third section presents the distortions in urban structure brought about during British rule and the emergence of negative words as a consequence. The last section discusses how the interactions of researchers, administrators and institutions in India with those outside the country have led to the enrichment of urban vocabulary and, in particular, contributed to the stigmatization of the process of urbanisation. The active presence of international agencies in the Indian urban scene during the last few decades has also brought several negative terms into common use. This, it is argued, may distort our understanding of urban dynamics and policy perspective.

CONCEPT of Chy iN T~E TEXTS of EARLY INdiA

2. Ser Rümünu~an (Quoted in

Chattopadhaya, 1997). Scholars studying ancient Indian history point out that Indian urban structure was characterised by a rural urban continuum,

3. In Bh<rrl<i backed up by a healthy system of spatial

U/~/~rr~~rhhi.\urikrr, the city of Patliputra

interactions. The terms pura and jampada, that is the city and countryside, were often

(prcwltly Patna) i\ mentioned as two points on a continuum.’

dsvxhed a\ the rilrrko (vi?. ma\k of glory/

decoratmn mash on thr fbrchead) of Earth.

Importantly, to the majority of the writers of that period, cities represented a moral order

wcming lihe heavw determined by the ruler, religion or the priest blessing the kingdom.2 These, therefore, were it\rlf (Gho\h. lY7S). accepted as having everything that was good, meritorious and worth coveting such that here

“even gods cari find happiness after quitting heaven” (Ghosh, 197.5)’ Statements abound in literature, explicitly and implicitly, that the people, goods and services in the cities are

unquestionably superior to those found elsewhere. There were many different, good places on earth to live and achieve professional and persona1 fulfilment but the best was the City.

Some writers, however, did not accept that cities necessarily represented a11 that was good and holy and argued that they could house evil and corruption as well. Indeed, a few feared that Dharma or religion was in jeopardy in the cities. They argued that no one with their body covered with city dust would ever attain salvation (Ghosh, 1990). Furthermore, cities were places where established norms, rituals, codes of good conduct were constantly questioned and were often replaced by new practices. They were where the values prescribed by Dhurmushustrus, or the religious scriptures, were doubted and even be ridiculed (Buhler, 1879, as quoted in Chattopadhaya). This, according to the scholars, made some cities unsuitable places for Young graduates with tender minds or those seeking salvation.

Despite this divergence of views on the morality of cities, there is unanimity that the urban system in the country reflected a planned hierarchy - a well defined technical order. Images of a city emerging from research on the ancient period clearly reflect that of a carefully planned settlement. A normative text like Arthushastru of course prescribes the detailed layout for different segments of a City, conforming to the political and social values of the regime. The city was the ideal place to reside not only for the king or the Bruhmins, who were at the top of the vurnu hierarchy, but for people of ah vurnus and occupations. The layout plan of the city not only specifies the residential zones for people in different vurnus but also suggests how interaction for work or pleasure would take place across vurnus and occupations (Rangarajan, 1992). Planning norms, thus, allowed mixed land use and certain production and trading activities to be carried out within residential zones. But all these interactions had to take place within a well defined framework. There was mention of extremely high density and people residing in the cities like “reeds and rushes” in a jungle. And yet, there seemed to be little scope for the unwieldy growth of slum settlements within cities (Chattopadhaya, 1997).

Of course there were certain areas in the City, mentioned in even Arthushustru, for which the layout pattern and design norms were not spelt out clearly. Such areas have been described as Vnstuchidru, which is basically non-residential in character, as opposed to Vustubibhugu - the residential zone of the City. kstuchidru basically provides the space for interaction of the city dwellers with the rest of the world. There would of course be certain enclosures within this non-residential area, providing accommodation to traders, tourists and travellers. No regular resident of the city was supposed to live in this zone.4

4. Fordrtail\ \ec

There was a third area where people were supposed to or indeed lived and that was outside Chatt»padha;ü (1997)

the city limits. The safety and security concerns of city dwellers necessitated restrictions of entry and exclusion of certain people from the cities. This resulted in settlements outside the limits of the City. Here the outlaws, chundufus (who were responsible for cremation) and travellers, who were seeking or denied entry to the City, would reside. Possibly this zone was not very safe for rich city dwellers, but the authority of city administrators, nonetheless, extended to caver this zone.

The idea of different segments of cities coexisting with different characteristics cari be found not only in Arthushustru but also in some relatively positivistic literature available about a few south Indian cities. In the context of Puhar, Kusumapura etc. the segmentation and characteristics of different zones have been described in great detail. Either an open space or a row of shops would separate two zones, helping them maintain their distinct identities. The

5. “Eva in üctuül ctties. outstdrrs may bave

heen unwelcome thnqh thcir gate\ and

moüt\. to üuthor\ of texh the ideal City quce

~,a\ me \çhich wi,\ open and which could

accommodatç eien ü \tranger:

Chattopadhaya, B.D. ( 1997).

6. “Literaturc thu\ give\ tw« mitlal impresiona

about ths city. A\ an apex centre, it 15 net iit il

distance from other settlementx in other

words, the e\\ence of thr uty is m its centrahty m

the togrtherne\a of xttlement\. Second

there is a graded hierarchy, hetween

village\, t«wn\ and royal city and n«t Gmply a

sharn di\tincti»n hetwcen th; \illage and

the City.” Chattopadhaya. B.D. (lcJ97).

7. “The revdent 01 thr village \h»uld narrate

the style of the nqcymko, the city

dwrller, among those who are horn

m village\ and who are curiow and

discriminating: he \hould encourage them

genernte twpccr (among them about thls stvle of

Itving) and make them imitate (this style).”

Quoted in Chattopadhüya (1997).

differentiated residential zones, market place, courtesans’ quarter, harbour etc. were laid out within a well conceived framework. Cities thus represented planning with heterogeneity.

The positivistic literature describes these cities as more open and hospitable than those in Arthushustru, (although the former, too, talks of planned lay out and identifiable zones, as noted above). Cities like Puhar have been described as dynamic entities attracting the best of everything: goods, talents and styles from all directions. People did not have to go out of the city for any reason. The cities were the centres of industry, trade, culture and entertain- ment and hence everything, therefore, gravitated towards and converged on the city.5

General understanding emerging from the ancient texts of different types is, thus, that the urban system had certain hierarchy which provided a basis for the organisation of space. This notion of hierarchy is to be noted not merely in the normative literature like the Arthushustm but also in the positivistic literature of that period. The shared perspective was that urban structure linked up settlements in a manner SO as to promote healthy development of the regional economy.

As a consequence, citywords from the ancient and medieval period do not have very many terms articulating the negative aspects of urbanisation. There is no clear mention of slums; of people living on pavements, or in temporary or physically dilapidated structures, without access to basic amenities. Income disparity appears to have been significant but that did not result in the poor living in unhygienic conditions that could become a health hazard for the entire city population. In the Harappan civilisation, there are indications that the working class lived in small “barrack-1ike dwellings” in close proximity to their workplace. But even that reflected a well thought out layout and co-ordinated planning. The style and structure were such that researchers have described these as examples of “cantonment planning” or “government planning” (Vats, 1940).

Towns and cities in the ancient period, thus, emerged out of the economic and social needs of the kingdom and, as a consequence, socio-economic disparity between rural and urban areas did not manifest itself sharply in the language or culture. Furthermore, there was not much difference in rites, rituals, values, etc. in urban areas from those in rural areas, as the former were just more refined and sophisticated versions of those already prevailing in the region. Urban vocabulary, therefore, did not owe its origin to an exogenous source and was not imposed from outside but developed as refined, sophisticated and ubanised expressions of those existing in the region. The dichotomy between rural and urban terminology, therefore, was not distinctly visible.6 Understandably, the vocabulary in rural areas was limited and language somewhat “inferior” but communication was always possible and enabled the “good values” and cultural trite to transcend the urban limits and gradually transform the rural culture.7

STiqMATiSATiON Of URbAN PROCESSES duniq COiONiAi RULE

The process of urbanisation and creation of cities in colonial India cari be described as a breaking of the continuum. This discontinuity happened in two significant ways. One, the growth of cities - determined by exogenous factors like the setting up of a giant trading centre, or a massive public sector project or a national or multi-national company etc. - i.e. the creation of a physical and social structure which is often alien to the region. New urban centres, established through policy decisions of a foreign government or that of one of a few

multi-national companies, brought in not only a different physical form but also new social values and culture. Similarly, but possibly to a lesser extent, cities and towns set up by the colonial government, responding to domestic policy needs, were different from those evolving over time through spatial interactions within the region. They were mostly linked to the outside world and responded to exogenous factors. Urbanisation, thus, broke the continuum in space and made rural and urban settlements disparate entities.

The second manifestation of distorsion was in terms of the segmentation of cities into blocks, wards and colonies, whereby people in similar socio-economic brackets came to live together. The poor were pushed out to urban peripheries or marginal lands within the cities, resulting in the growth of slums. This spatial segregation of the rich and poor made it easier for the government as well as private agencies to determine the level and quality of basic amenities to match the affordability of the local community or the power structure and, thereby, effectively, to institutionalise the disparity.

37

The break down of the rural-urban continuum and the segmentation of the cities into zones during the colonial period left their impact on citywords. Clearly, it is not only the emergence of slums which explains the negative terms. The very process of urbanisation has often been considered as unhealthy due to distorsions of the first type, mentioned above. As a consequence, the word “urban”, even without any qualifying adjective, has corne to acquire a dubious connotation in several Indian languages. The word Shahari, implying “of the town”, is often used to suggest an attitude or a person which/who is casual, superfïcial and disrespectful of norms, values and their elders. In Urdu poetry, Shahar is often used metaphorically to describe a place or a situation which is lonely, alienated and unfriendly. The same is true in Bengali, Oriya and several other Indian languages.’

8. In Bengali, therc is a word Bombete which

Several institutions that are an integral part of urban life have negative connotations not only for rural folk but for ordinary citizens. In several Indian languages, the word Dada implies

~;$&“i~;,; ofthewordmay

elder brother or grandfather. In its urban context, however, the word is often used to imply a possibly be traced to the uty of Bombay.

slum lord, a bully, a man using his authority for extorting money or services, generally over presently known otlicially as Mumbai.

the houseless people, pavement dwellers or unorganised sector workers etc.

There are several other terms that have acquired negative meanings in urban context although the original meanings are also in use. For example, Pugree, in north Indian languages would imply a turban or headgear, but in the metropolitan housing market (particularly in Maharashtra), it implies a lump sum payment (illegal) made to the person holding the title of a house, for the purpose of renting the premise. Similarly, the dictionary meaning of H@a is a week, while in its urban context, it also implies a weekly payment - again mostly illegal - made by small industrialists, shop keepers etc. to policemen or local Dadas, in lieu of certain “favours”. Many slum dwellers have to make such payments for protection against eviction or physical safety.

Most of the negative citywords are, however, associated with slum situations or distortions of the second category, as mentioned above. A large majority of the rural migrants, who were displaced in the process of colonial development, arrived in the large cities seeking employment. A few fortunate ones got absorbed in the factories, basically processing raw materials for exports or producing consumer goods for the local elite. These industries were under no obligation to provide adequate shelter or a reasonable quality of life for their workers. The city administration was too politically and fïnancially weak to take up this responsibility. And central government was more concerned with the extraction of wealth

and the maintenance of law and order to address to the problems of the slums, or the health or sanitation therein.

38

In some cities, particularly in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat, large industrial units tried to attract and retain their workers by providing small tenements or multi-storied row houses in the pattern of army barracks, as discussed above for the Harappan period. The difference was, however, that these row houses, called Chuwls, came up without any co- ordinated planning and were deficient in basic amenities. These units, built mostly in the

9. The term kutru ah nineteenth Century, were found reasonable by the industrial workers who lived there but that aignitïes simtlar

dwelling units in north increased their dependence on their employer. Over time, however, due to lack of upkeep, India that are currently

In an extremely dilapidation etc. most of the chawls have become extremely poor in terms of quality of life.’

delapidated condition.

Jhuggi and Jhonpdi are two words that signify huts or structures build with bamboo, thatch, raw brick, mud, old building material etc. Such structures are.common in rural areas and, therefore, the two terms do not necessarily have negative meanings. In their urban context, however, these are stigmatised and imply structures in slum colonies, mostly unfit for human habitation. Jhonpud patti would literally imply a corridor of Jhonpuds or a slum colony.

The most common term in north Indian languages for slum settlements having temporary structures or dilapidated or tottering physical units is Basti. The word has its origin in a sanskrit Word. The verb Bus means to inhabit or settle down. Basati should therefore mean a habitation or a settlement, rural or uban. The word Basti, a distorted form of the Busati, however, is associated with a congested settlement with high density, facing a detïciency of infrastructure and basic amenities, in several languages like Bengali, Oriya etc.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to demonstrate how a neutral term like Busti, or several others noted above, have been corrupted and similar words have emerged with negative meanings. It may, nonetheless, be pointed out that in many regions, the word Busti still denotes a settlement and not a special kind of settlement. In Hindi-speaking states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, etc., Busti would often be a normal colony with certain shopping facilities. Slums would be described as Gandi Busti whose literal translation would be a dirty locality. Al1 these may suggest that the emergence of negative terms is a recent phenomenon and have not yet become uniform across states and regions.

IMPORT Of TERMiNOlOQ’ md TkE NEqATiVE PERCEPTiON Of URbAN P~ENOMENON iN hdiA

It has been argued in the preceding section that stigmatisation of the urban process and the usage of negative citywords in India have started largely during the colonial period. In earlier years, the manifestations of urbanisation in India was SO different that the need to coin such terminology did not arise. However, in the case of several European countries, these words had become a part of general vocabulary much earlier, due to the serious problems of squalor and ghettos in their large cities. It is needless to point out that acquisition and absorption of negative terms in citywords in India has been influenced heavily by those in western countries. Furthermore, the process of urbanisation has remained structurally the same in the post colonial period - the foreign elites being replaced by local elites - and SO the importance of negative citywords has not diminished.

Unhappiness about the physical and socio-economic development in cities and their role in

- . .__-__ - . . - . . . . - . . - I . . _ . __- .l_l-lp--

. - . _- . -

the regional economy are retlected in academic literature. As early as the thirties, Kincaid (1938) argued that the colonial city of Calcutta had grown in an unhealthy manner since it “thrived on the strength of the (East India) Company’s creed of corruption, licentiousness and want of principles”. Kingsley Davis and Golden (1954) used the term “over- urbanisation”, wherein “urban misery and rural poverty exist side by side with the result that the city cari hardly be called dynamic”. This they thought was the situation in several countries in Asia that had been under the British rule. Breese (1969) talked of “pseudo urbanisation” to depict situations in several less developed countries including India, wherein people arrive in the cities not due to urban pull but rural push. Kundu and Raza (1978) talked of “dysfunctional urbanisation” and “urban accretion” which results in a concentration of the population in a few large cities without a corresponding increase in their economic base, as happened in India during colonial and post colonial period. Al1 these terms, in a way, voiced the dissatisfaction of the researchers, policy makers and administrators with regard to the process of urbanisation and its manifestations.

Negative views on the deteriorating physical quality of life in the slums of India seem to have gained prominence in the eighties and nineties with the growing interests of multi-national companies and international agencies in a few large cities. The present strategy of liberalisation and globalisation has attracted several foreign companies already into the country and many more are knocking at the door. The key problem seems to lie in the presence of the slums - sometimes in the centre of the city which is where the proposed development of the commercial centre is destined - and their associated lack of hygiene, and lack of law and order. Their existence is often considered as a threat to prospective investment and, consequently, to the future of city growth.

The national government has also given high priority to improving the quality of the urban environment through slum improvement/relocation as this is considered important for attracting foreign investors. Significant changes in administrative and institutional structure are being introduced for this put-pose. Strategies are being proposed and implemented to improve the conditions in slums through self-help approaches and commercially viable schemes. The thrust is on strengthening urban governance SO that the public and private agencies cari provide shelter and basic services to slum dwellers in a cost effective manner, based on their affordability. There are also proposals to relocate the slums on the outskirts and utilise the land currently occupied by them in the central city for office space, commercial plazas and residential complexes for the Upper income classes. Slums are thus the focus of concern of academic research and also of policy debate. Given these developments, negative words are less conspicuousnowadays in Indian urban literature.

There are, of course, some dangers in this massive importation of terminology and standardi- sation of concepts that are taking place at the initiative of international agencies like the World Bank, UNDP, the Ford Foundation etc. Behind the standardised jargon, there is a package of schemes which is being advocated to every country in the world for providing shelter and services to people in slum areas or for relocating them outside the City. These schemes, in general, do not have inbuilt flexibility to adjust to the changing socio-economic circumstances of different countries. Standardisation of concepts is also implicit in the indicator based approach, being advocated by UNCHS for project planning and their implementation, which is based on a given set of indicators.

39

Standardisation of citywords across countries for the put-pose of implementing a package of schemes runs the risk of oversimplifying reality and clouding the specificities of local

40

situations. Accepting an international term for a regional phenomenon may dislocate the latter from its historical roots and distort the understanding of a researcher or policy maker. As a consequence, the solutions proposed could be erroneous as they might not take the very socio-economic context which has caused the problem into consideration. There is, thus, need for great caution when standardising urban vocabulary, and selectivity in using western terms when describing local Indian conditions. Such attempts by certain agencies are in danger of homogenizing the overall perspective of urbanisation and prescribing uniform solutions to widely differing situations without taking their historical context properly into consideration.

REFERENCES: Breese, G. (1969): Uuhanisation in Newly Developing Countries, Prentice Hall, New Delhi. Buhler, G. (1879): The Sacred Laws of the Aryasas Taught in the School of Apastamba, Gautarna, Vahistha and Boudhayana, Sacred Books of the East, Oxford. Chattopadhaya, B.D. (1997): “The City in Early India: Perspectives from Texts”, Studies in History, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Ghosg, A. (1990): The City in Early Historical Indiu, (Reprint) Delhi. Ghosh, M. (1975): Glimpses of Sexual Lije in Nanda-Maurya Indiu (Translation of the Canturbhuni together with a Critical Edition of Text), Calcutta. Kingsley Davis and Golden, H.H. (1954): “Urbanisation and Development in Pre-industrial Areas”, Economie Development and Culturul Change, vol. 3 n” 1. Kincaid, D. (1938): British Social Life in India, Routledge and Kegan Paul, Boston. Moonis Raza and Kundu, A. (1978): “Some Aspects of Dysfunctional Characteristics of Urbanisation”, Socio- Economie Development Problems in South and Southeast Asiu, Popular Prakashan, Bombay. Ramanujan, A.K. “Toward an Anthology of City Images” in Fox, Richard G. (ed.) Ut-ban Indiu: Society, Space und Image, Monograph and Occasional Paper Series (N” 10) Duke University. Rangarajan, L.N. (1992): Kautilya: The Arthasastru, Penguin Classics, New Delhi. Vats, M.S. (1940): Excavations at Haruppa, Delhi. Wagle, N. (1966): Society ut the Time of the Buddha, Bombay.

L e programme “Les mots de la ville”, initié en 1995 par le PIR-Villes, bénéficie du soutien

de IUNESCO (MOST), q ui est son partenaire principal, du ministère français de

l’Éducation, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche, ainsi que de l’appui de la

fondation de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris. Depuis 1997 il constitue un

groupement de recherche (GDR 1554) du CNRS.

Le programme a pour obiet les systèmes lexicaux qui sont en usage dans divers registres de

langue pour nommer la ville et ses territoires. II étudie différentes aires linguistiques et prend

en compte la longue durée. II veut susciter non seulement des monographies rigoureuses,

mais aussi une réflexion comparative.

À cause de son angle d’approche - la ville à travers ses mots - diverses disciplines sont

mobilisées: celles qui s’intéressent spécifiquement à la ville, dans ses multiples dimensions,

mais également des sciences du langage.

les Cahiers des mots de la ville sont conçus comme un instrument de réflexion et d’échange

dans le cadre de ce programme.

T he “City words” programme, initiated in 1995 by the CNRS (PIR-Villes), benefits from

the support of UNESCO (MOST), ‘t I s main partner, as well as the French Ministry of

Research and the MSH Foundation.

The subiect of this programme is to study the lexical systems used in various language

registers to denominate the City and its territories. It tackles different linguistic areas and

takes into account a long period of time. It wishes to elicit not only rigourous monographies,

but also a comparative reflection.

Because of its angle of approach - the City through its words - various disciplines are

mobilized : those which specifically deal with the City, in its multiple dimensions, but also

language sciences.

The City words working papers are conceived as an instrument of reflection and exchange

within the framework of this programme.

E I programa “Las palabras de la ciudad”, iniciado en 1995 por el CNRS (PIR-Villes),

cuenta con el patrocinio de la UNESCO (MOST), que es su principal contraparte

institucional, y del Ministerio Francés de Education, Ensefianza Superior e Investigation,

como asi también con el auspicio de la Fundacion de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme

(MSH), Paris.

El programa tiene por obieto 10s sistemas Iéxicos que se hallan en uso en diversos registros

de lengua para denominar la ciudad y sus territorios. La actividad que asi se desarrolla

estudia diferentes areas lingüisticas y toma en cuenta la larga duracion. La misma procura

suscitar no solo monografias rigurosas, sino también una reflexion comparativa.

En razon de la optica de analisis del programa - la ciudad a través de sus palabras -

diversas disciplinas resultan convocadas: aquellas que se interesan especificamente en la

ciudad, en sus multiples dimensiones, pero asimismo las ciencias del lenguaje.

Los Cuadernos de las palabras de la ciudad son concebidos como un instrumento de

reflexion y de intercambio en el marco del programa.