Arvind Singhal: Wishful thinking

MARKETMIND

In recent months, the fancy of most of the urban Indians seems to have been taken up by the movement of the Bombay Stock Exchange and of the escalation/appreciation of property prices.

Even the daily non-business newspapers and major weekly news/lifestyle magazines have regular pages and frequent cover stories touching on these two themes.

The obsession with real estate in particular is absolutely amazing with even lay persons now getting into the act of "investing" and "forecasting" the future trends.

Bureaucrats and politicians, not ever averse to making quick money, are in the act as well, whether it is to do with re-developing the "Taj Mahal" or with blatantly fixing up the draw of lots for allotting residential plots in Noida.

Alas, the government of India itself (and various state governments) is now steadily veering towards becoming property speculators and developers, having tasted success with some recent high-profile auctions of government/PSU land, including the most recent ones carried out by the perennially loss-making National Textile Corporation (NTC).

Buoyed by the success of these auctions in Mumbai, wherein record prices were paid out by some private builders for prime real estate in the heart of the space-constrained Mumbai, it is very likely that more such land will be put on the auction block, and the prices fetched will further exceed the levels achieved in the last auction.

It seems that the only use of land these days is for building shopping malls, office blocks, and relatively high-end residential apartments.

In this frenzy for exploiting this valuable (national) asset to fund populist schemes of our self-serving politicians, there is no pausing to reflect on the other needs of society at large, such as the development of space for more schools, colleges, and universities, or for sports and recreation for the public at large, or for cultural and artistic pursuits, or just merely "community" spaces where the average citizens can merely congregate and spend leisure time.

India cannot ever become a great nation merely by having steel-and-glass sky scrapers and glitzy shopping malls. Great nations have great souls, and their major cities reflect the vibrancy of their civil society.

One only has to look at some of the most developed and economically and culturally vibrant nations such as the US, the UK, France, Italy, and Spain to draw a contrast with India.

In the last decade, each of these countries has seen major redevelopments in many of their major cities to reflect the importance of creating spaces which foster creativity, attract and disseminate the energy of the youth, and provide a diversion for the public at large from getting carried away with the so-called material pursuits.

One only has to travel to New York, London, Barcelona, and Paris and spend some time in Greenwich Village, Covent Garden, Las Ramblas, and Sacre Couer, respectively, (or for that matter, Central Park in New York and Hyde Park in London) to get a feel of what life can be beyond work and home!

As we build or rebuild India with a newly-acquired economic resilience, I believe it is time for us to rejuvenate Indian society. By a quirk of circumstances, India may well be the last big country in the world whose major cities (such as Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata) have large tracts of undeveloped (or with redevelopment potential) land in the heart of such cities.

NTC alone has about 500 acres of land in Mumbai, about 375 acres in Kolkata, and about 150 acres in Delhi. The Indian defence establishment would have hundreds of acres of land in the centres of major cities in India, a substantial part of which could be released.

The Indian Railways and other government-controlled entities also hold hundreds of acres of under-utilised or badly utilised land in most major cities in India.

Why can't we come forward and put some pressure on the local and central governments that our increased populations also need more museums, theatres for performing arts, town squares that can attract street artistes who perform not only for commercial reasons but merely to express themselves, and streets that have nothing more than just cafes and bars and easy-dining restaurants where the average citizen of that city can come and spend a leisurely evening or a weekend or a holiday?

PSUs like NTC do not (and should not) have to sell their entire land holding to property developers""some of this land can never be reclaimed by society for a non-commercial purpose once it has been auctioned off to the highest bidder who in turn will have no other consideration but to maximise the financial return from their investment.

The communists in India and other misguided souls may well argue that a poor India cannot afford the luxury of indulging in cultural pursuits while hundreds of millions struggle to get two square meals a day, and such luxuries have no place in a socialistic society.

I would like to argue that a relatively poor India has practically no means of finding a release for its tensions and pressures of their tough life.

Spaces such as those mentioned above would be accessible to all, and can provide to the less privileged an oasis of peace and relaxation in an otherwise frenetic existence.

Being accessible to all strata of society, such spaces may promote more tolerance and harmony in society, and help in enhanced respect for fellow citizens, besides providing much-needed moments for happiness, laughter, and a feeling of well-being in general.

Would the planners of modern India ever find the need and justification for earmarking this scarce resource""land""for non-commercial exploitation? I sincerely hope so.