Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the politics around urban environmental governance in two small Indian urban agglomerations. While bureaucracy-based governance in Navsari (Gujarat) led to city beautifications, in Bardhaman (West Bengal) political and civil society appear to leave urban space less enclosed.

Paper long abstract:

Urban environmental governance has recently been reshaped in India through decentralization, neoliberal policies, central urban renewal (infrastructure) programs but also an increased political involvement of an emerging urban middle class. While recent research on India's metropolitan areas indicates growing social polarizations and the marginalization of the urban poor as a consequence of city beautification schemes, very little is known about the political processes underlying urban environmental governance in small urban agglomerations with less than 500,000 inhabitants, where more than half of India's urban population lives. This paper examines the politics around urban environmental governance in two small urban agglomerations: Navsari in Gujarat and Bardhaman in West Bengal. It is based on ethnographic field research with diverse political actors, including municipal bureaucrats and engineers, local councilors and politicians, representatives of civil society organizations and ordinary residents. Our research points to different political processes and socio-environmental changes in the two cities. In Navsari, the municipal bureaucracy has strong influence on urban environmental governance with effects that resemble the beautification processes in the metros. Green spaces are created in public-private partnerships, and other urban spaces are enclosed. In Bardhaman, it is rather the local councilors, political society and the numerous local clubs that shape urban environmental governance. A mix of formal and informal rules continues to regulate access to urban space, such as water bodies, and spatial exclusion processes are less evident. The type of environmental politics in Navsari and Bardhaman seem to reflect the different political trajectories of the two Indian states.