Entry Restricted, Open Public Spaces in Mumbai.pdf - Urban Design ...

OPEN SPACE | 436All work and hardly any play seemsto be the fate of the Mumbai women. As ourresearch on gender and public space in Mumbairevealed, there is an appalling lack of publicrecreational space for women in the city.Parks and promenades lie at the heart of thecity’s open public spaces and the city’s attitudeto them reflects its attitude to its citizens. Theratio of open space per thousand residents inglobally-aspirational Mumbai is a shameful 0.03acres as against more than three acres in NewDelhi and Kolkata. The National Commission onUrbanisation (1988) suggests that the ideal ratioof open spaces is 4 acres per 1,000 persons.Where parks do exist in Mumbai, they are notequally welcoming to all and are often governedby an impulse not to include but to exclude.Given this grossly inadequate and rapidlyshrinking open space, one might naturally arguethat it is unfair for women to ask for space whenthere is hardly any public recreational spaceeven for others. We contend however, thatwomen’s access to open public space is closelyconnected to access for other groups of citizensto these spaces and cannot be seen in isolation.Our research on parks, maidans and seafrontsshows that many people felt uncomfortablein accessing these spaces. These spacesoften tend to be badly maintained or policedstringently, both discouraging popular use.Open public spaces are frequently seen asbeing an invitation for ‘anti-social-elements’who will somehow misuse them. In the pastdecade, the pressures of liberalisation and theconcomitant rise of right-wing regionalist andcommunal politics has ensured that the list ofthose-who-do-not-really belong- to-the-city islarger than ever before. This now includes thepoor, the barely acknowledged lower castes,the typecast Muslims, the ‘immoral’ couples, the‘too different’ gays and lesbians, the ‘outsider’bhaiyas, the ‘encroacher’ hawkers, the ignoredelderly, and the invisible differently-abled.This social segregation and exclusion isreflected in the everyday spatial practices inthe city. Cases in point are the new concepts ofpublic space management in the city such as paidparks and participation of local resident’s groupsin the upkeep of public spaces. These have onone hand aesthetically improved the spacesunder their jurisdiction but on the other hand,they have reduced the access to many groups.In City Park at the Bandra-Kurla Complexfor example, the entry fee of Rs 5 is notmuch for middle-class people from nearbyneighbourhoods who use it regularly. But settinga fee for accessing a public space fundamentallymilitates against the principle of public-ness andalso has the effect of segregating the space onthe basis of class. Those who cannot afford topay the entry fee everyday - if they happen tobe men, hang around outside the park; if theyare women they wait for weekends and publicholidays. Those are the special days whenfamilies from nearby slums in Dharavi, BharatNagar and Behrampada come there. Ironically,our interviews show that on these days thepresence of working-class people, and in thiscase Muslims, marks the space as undesirablefor the local residents, especially women.Thus, while these parks privilege accessfor a certain class of women (at certain times),this is done at the cost of keeping away othergroups of men who are seen as threats totheir safety and comfort, as well as womenfrom other classes and communities. Sucha method however, can only guaranteeconditional access for middle-class women.The creation of the image of some kinds ofmen as the executors of violence againstwomen, provides the indisputable rationality forrestricting all women’s access to public space.Ironically, both the perceived aggressorand the potential victim become outsidersto public space based on this premise; poormen as potential perpetrators and women aspotential victims. The exclusion and vilificationof other marginal citizens from public space isinextricably linked to the exclusion of women.Moreover, even in pure materialist terms,physical barriers designed to keep outcertain people, effectively keep out womenas well. Urban designers and planners haverepeatedly pointed out that the way to makea public space safer is not by keeping out the‘undesirables’ but by encouraging more andmore ‘desirables’. Ironically parks in Mumbaiare proactively designed to discourage certaingroups from accessing them and this has theeffect of making them unsafe for women as well.An example of this is the Oval Maidan,located along one of the busiest pedestriancorridors in South Mumbai, and restored inthe late 1990s though initiatives of a localcitizens group. The project was successful inaestheticising the space; yet fails to engagewith the city in any manner that would befitits scale and location. The maidan is policedmore stringently and closed at night with theintention of keeping out ‘anti-social’ elements.The high iron fence restricts movement acrossthe maidan and creates deep uncomfortablecorners at the longer ends. In our interviews,many women users of the park reported thatthey did not always feel comfortable using thespace. The lighting in the Oval is also foundwanting. In setting up a variety of physicalbarricades against undesirables, women arealso discouraged from using public spaces.In contrast, Shivaji Park – the only largemaidan in Central Mumbai - is a very goodexample in inclusiveness. The maidansupports activities ranging from politicalrallies attended by tens of thousands tothe intimate conversations of couples. TheOPEN SPACE | 437