India has ambitious economic growth aspirations, aiming to become the third largest economy by 2027 and a developed one by 2047. We are also seeing an emphasis on highlighting and preserving our culture and traditions. However, if we truly want to become a developed country, we need something else apart from high incomes and keeping our civilizational culture. We also need to have an aesthetically beautiful country.
This aspect seems to get little attention when we think about the India we want to have in the future. For many would agree, many of our cities continue to become uglier over the years because of haphazard planning, no ground rules on city aesthetics, short cuts, poor civic sense, and in many cases, just poor taste.
Sure, there is something exciting about an organically growing, wild spirit economy. However, if it comes at the cost of ugly cities and an ugly country, I am not sure if it is worth it.
India is blessed with a lot of natural beauty and countless beautiful historical monuments. However, barring a few exceptions, we are not able to keep our cities beautiful. Maybe we don’t care. After all, beauty is an indulgence in a country where survival is hard.
However, keeping a city beautiful may not be expensive or indulgent. It requires recognizing the problem, placing value on aesthetics, involving experts who know a thing or two about beauty and taste, making a few simple rules, and keeping the discipline to follow them.
Using Mumbai as a high-profile, representative example, where ugliness has reached epic proportions, here are some things we need to do (and not do) to keep our cities looking good. This is not a political issue. Every party and every government wants our cities to look beautiful. Here’s what we need to do:
- No hoardings:Hoardings eventually become eyesores. They generate revenues for the city, but they look horrible and clutter our already crowded cities. A few designated spots may be okay. Delhi has a hoarding policy in place which has served it well. Please apply it to Mumbai, and other cities.
- No harsh LED lights: Yes, I understand they save electricity. They also give people a headache and make the queen’s necklace look like it is made of cheap plastic pearls. Mumbai also has these cheap LED lights (Chinese imports which you buy by the meter) wrapped around every pole at the Sea Link (one of the few Mumbai pretty spots, ruined now with these lights). There are cheap LED peacocks all over Mumbai too. Please, for the sake of commuters’ eyes, stop! Cities like Paris would never light up their landmarks with disgusting LED lights. India has amazing talent of architects and lighting experts. A few monuments in Delhi are lit up extremely well, with soft, subdued lighting. Please remove the cheap LED lights from Mumbai and do a visarjan of them as soon as possible.
- Dustbins and related infrastructure:Merely placing dustbins is not enough (though there’s a scarcity of those too). There needs to be a plan in place for garbage collection as well. The city authorities have to place enough resources for this, especially in crowded, popular spots. Yes, Indians have to show civic sense and use them too. We have all seen idiots throwing snack wrappers out of their BMWs. Seriously, is that developed country behavior?
- No street dogs:Dogs are wonderful animals, man’s best friend and more. However, dogs should be cherished companions, not street dwellers. No developed country has them. If you like dogs, keep one at home (and clean up after them when you take them for a walk). However, we cannot as an aspiring developed nation have street dogs (or cats, or rats, or other mammals other than humans).
- No supari stains:First, supari chewing is horrible for your health. It can literally kill you with cancer. Second, the spittle that people spit out leaves a terrible stain that has literally made our entire nation dirty. Yet, millions of Indians continue to spit this out, hurting themselves and making the country uglier. Please, for your and other Indian’s sake – stop!
- No short cut infrastructure: Mumbai has some overbridges, but in a year they are creaky, rusty, and of course, ugly. If the ugliness is pointed out enough, a paint job is done to hide the rusty tin roof. Instead, if proper solid materials were used, a nice-looking overbridge could be created that has minimal maintenance. Ditto for roads, where potholes pop up every rainy season. How hard is it to look up on the Internet how other countries are doing it better? What is solid and functional is also beautiful. Wrapping up the city with a paint job and cheap LED lights (gosh those ugly lights) is like placing flowers in a house with a leaky roof. It is not a solution nor is it going to make a city beautiful.
It is time we Indians, along with GDP and cultural ambitions, develop a sense of city aesthetics. Aesthetics can’t be measured in GDP terms, but ugliness shows and prevents a country being seen as developed. We have been able to make some beautiful airports and highways. It is time we focused on making our entire cities beautiful too.