By Anubhi Srivastava

Abstract:

In the guise of modernization and beauty, cities in India often undergo beautification campaigns that hide a more profound politics of exclusion. From flyovers painted with murals to sanitized lakefronts, these initiatives tend to hide the displacement of slums, the eviction of street vendors, and the criminalization of urban poverty. This paper critically analyses the political economy of beautification in India, contending that it serves as a means of socio-spatial control based on neoliberal ideologies and elite notions of cleanliness and order. Drawing on the slum settlement of Dharavi, the paper discusses how beautification projects legitimize gentrification, disrupt informal economies, and reinforce various socio-cultural hierarchies like caste, class, and gender. The article highlights how there is a selective construction of informality as illegal while facilitating market-led urban growth. At the end of it all, it invites a reimagining of urban futures; one that prioritises dignity, inclusivity, and participatory governance above sanitized spectacle.

Introduction:

In recent years, urban beautification initiatives have gained prominence in India’s policy and planning. Murals on concrete walls and lakefronts are reimagined as pedestrian paradises, slums are hidden in the name of “order,” and street vendors are swept away for occupying “illegal” spaces. Under modernization and aesthetic renewal, Indian cities are undergoing transformations that seek to render them “world-class.” Yet, behind this “cleanliness” and “order” lies a more troubling truth: urban beautification often entails a process of selective exclusion, erasure of informal livelihoods, and reinforcement of socio-spatial hierarchies.

This article explores the political economy of beautification in Indian urban spaces, underscoring the socio-legal elements that legitimizes displacement and gentrification. Using Dharavi (Asia’s largest informal settlement in Mumbai) as a key case study, this article argues that beautification, while framed as an aspirational public good, is often a process that marginalizes the urban poor under the guise of progress.

Ideology of Beautification:

At its core, urban beautification is not merely about aesthetics. It is an ideology rooted in notions of cleanliness, order, and modernity; values historically associated with upper-caste and upper-class imaginaries of the city. The concept of a “clean city” often becomes an image for a city devoid of the poor, the informal, and the non-conforming. In this light, beautification becomes a tool for constructing urban spaces that cater to elite sensibilities and global capital while invisibilising or criminalizing others.

This ideological foundation draws heavily from neoliberal urbanism, wherein the city is imagined as a site of consumption, investment, and spectacle. Under this model, public space is increasingly privatized or commodified, and urban development becomes synonymous with real estate-led growth. Within this framework, informal settlements, street vending, and working-class neighbourhoods are perceived as barriers to investment rather than vital parts of the city’s social and economic ecosystem.

Spatial Exclusion – who belongs in the city?

Urban beautification raises crucial questions about belonging: who has the right to the city, and who gets excluded from it? It often reinforces classed, caste-based, and gendered hierarchies of access and visibility. Informal economies, largely run by lower-caste and working-class individuals, are frequently evicted under anti-encroachment drives. Women, especially those from marginalized backgrounds, lose both income and social networks, facing further vulnerabilities when displaced.

Moreover, the sanitization of urban spaces often coincides with the policing of “undesirable” bodies. Hawkers, beggars, waste-pickers, and the homeless are portrayed as a question to the city’s image, leading to policies that either displace or institutionalize them. These practices reflect what urban theorist Ananya Roy has called “the urban informality of power,” where urban informality is defined as a form of state power geared to deregulated markets where informality is harnessed to state strategies of economic growth. Rather than a separate sector that lies outside state control, urban informality is a ‘state of exception’ to formal state planning.

Case Study: Dharavi

Dharavi exemplifies the contradictions and conflicts embedded in Indian urban planning. Home to over 700,000 people, it is a slum with a bustling ecosystem of informal production, recycling, leatherwork, and textiles. Its economy contributes significantly to Mumbai’s informal sector, and its residents have long sustained networks of labor, housing, and community life.

However, Dharavi has been represented as a site of urban decay, disease, and danger or as a blot on Mumbai’s modern image. The 2022 Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP) is the latest in a long line of attempts to transform the area. Spearheaded by a Dubai-based developer, the DRP proposes a complete overhaul of Dharavi’s landscape: vertical housing, commercial zones, and integrated infrastructure. While pitched as a “win-win” for residents and developers, the project raises serious concerns.

First, the DRP threatens to displace tens of thousands of individuals, many of whom are tenants and new migrants without access to cut-off dates for rehabilitation. Second, the verticalization of space profoundly reconfigures the social life of Dharavi, breaking up existing networks of work and community. Third, by favouring commercial and real estate interests, the project reinforces the exclusion of informal economies that cannot be made part of formal systems.

Eventually, Dharavi is transformed into a site of conflict between two visions of the city: one based on community, flexibility, and informality, and the other on global aesthetics and corporate investment.

Criminalizing the Informal:

Despite the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, municipal authorities continue to conduct eviction drives under vague pretexts like “public nuisance” or “illegal encroachment.”

The contradiction here is stark: the same cities that thrive on the services of informal labour (food stalls, recycling, transport) consider these workers as eyesores. The visual ordering of the city prioritizes upper-class comfort over working-class survival. In Delhi, for instance, beautification ahead of international summits has led to mass hiding of informal settlements. Similar trends have been observed in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Chennai.

Legal Frameworks: Protection or Complicity?

India has legal provisions meant to safeguard vulnerable urban populations; the 2014 Street Vendors Act, housing rights under various state schemes, and the Directive Principles of State Policy. However, the implementation is uneven and exclusionary. 

Moreover, courts have at times reinforced exclusion. In the infamous Almitra Patel v. Union of India (2000) case, the Supreme Court upheld the eviction of slum dwellers as necessary for environmental protection. Though progressive jurisprudence has emerged in cases like Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985) where the right to livelihood was affirmed. The balance between environmental, aesthetic, and human rights concerns remains a contested topic.

There is an urgent need for legal reform that centres the rights of the urban poor in planning and policy decisions. Participatory urban governance, social audits, and mandatory impact assessments should become prerequisites for any beautification or redevelopment initiative.

Beautification as Gentrification:

Informal settlements have often been asked to relocate to make way for infrastructure, tourism, or investment projects. Often couched in terms of “slum-free cities,” these initiatives reflect a neoliberal consensus that sees urban land as a commodity. Gentrification, in this sense, is not just about the influx of wealth but the systemic exclusion of the poor. It produces a sanitized city where diversity is curated and not lived. 

Toward Inclusive Urban Futures:

Is it possible to imagine beautification that does not marginalize? Can Indian cities be made more liveable without being less just? These are not merely technical questions but political and ethical ones.

A shift is needed. This entails recognizing the urban-poor not as problems to be fixed but as citizens with rights and knowledge. Instead of top-down redevelopment, participatory planning must become the norm. Cities must invest in upgrading informal settlements, improving sanitation, and infrastructure without immense displacement. Policies like community land trusts, cooperative housing, and decentralized urban governance offer promising alternatives. 

Conclusion:

Beautification as practiced today reveals more about who the city is for than what the city should be. By privileging sanitized aesthetics over social justice, Indian urban policy reproduces caste, class, and gender hierarchies in spatial form. The story of beautification is thus a story of erasure.

The task before us is to listen, learn, and legislate in ways that prioritize people over profit, justice over judgment, and dignity over decorum.

Author’s Bio: Anubhi Srivastava is a B.A. LL.B. student at Jindal Global Law School and a columnist at CNES.

Image Source: https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/city-and-architecture/a2592-a-history-of-the-slums-of-dharavi/