Spaces & Flows: Ninth International Conference on Urban and ExtraUrban Studies

Abstract

This paper outlines the dynamics of urban citizenship in the national capital of India- Delhi, against the backdrop of a growing anticipation associated with the transfiguration of most metropolitan cities triggered by the neoliberal reforms that the nation has undertaken in the past twenty-five years. In what can be termed as a “spatial re-ordering” following the economic and political re-ordering that has taken place, cities are becoming key destinations for the flow of transnational capital. In this context, the middle class imagination of an ‘ideal’ city and the manifestations thereof, are congruent with that of the state and seen to be getting a disproportionate priority in policy and practice led by the state. Increasingly, the two social classes namely the middle class and the urban poor come at logger heads with each other when what the former conceptualises as an ideal city most often than not is exclusive of, and therefore, comes invariably, at the cost of the lives and livelihoods of the latter. In this regard, the research tries to deconstruct the conceptualisation of urban citizenship by the Indian middle class home owners in the south- west district of Delhi. This is done using four basic grounds. The first basis is conception of an ideal city; the second is relation to democratic processes; third is mutual perception and fourth is citizens’ take on residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) as an important means of collective action and their operation in the civil society.