14 Logics of Segregation

Binti Singh

Introduction

Socio-spatial segregation may be defined as “spatial distinctions among the residential zones of population groups living in the same [urban] agglomeration’’ (Dupont 2004:158). 1Maloutas and Fujita (2012) point out that while discussions of segregation often refer to residential separation of groups, it can occur equally in schools, workplaces, public space and so on.2 Spatial segregation has been widely studied in the North American cities such as Chicago and New York where processes of “ghettoization” and “hyper-segregation”were the most visible manifestation ofsocial discrimination towards African Americans and Hispanic communities (Maloutas and Fujita 2012: 5). In India, spatial segregation has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. Two reasons appear to underpin this lacuna. One, studies on caste, gender, religion and other forms of ascription typically overlook spatial dimensions. Therefore bringingtogether the analytical frameworks of spatial segregation and 1Dupont (2004) translates this definition from the French of Brun (1994).

2  We are thankful to Dr Jules Naudet for suggestions and advice on the themes o this module. All errors are our own. social stratification in India into a single unifying lens presents a challenge. This module is an attempt in that direction.While this module will not survey the methodological and theoretical approaches to segmentation, a few conceptual notes may be in order. First, a note on how segregation has been understood in the discipline of urban sociology: as Mahadevia (2007: 345) notes the earliest models of urban ecology at the Chicago School by scholars such as Park (1926) and Burgess (1925) evolved to “explain the social homogeneity of localities within cities”. Though these authors approached the concept of segregation differently,An ecological understanding saw the city and its spatial organization in organic terms as the outcome of processes of selection and competition among different social groups for scarce resources such as land….The ethnic enclave [was] produced by the geographic clustering of ethnic, particularly immigrant, groups around common economic activities or industries…[W]ithin the heterogeneity of the early twentieth century city, the neighborhood was an island of homogeneity and social cohesion. (Sood 2011).

Another understanding was suggested by Burgess, who argued that segregation also applied to competing land use in Chicago. Differential land and rental rates served to segregate as residential zones from commercial areas and high income from low income residents (Mahadevia 2007). These early Chicago School ideas came to be challenged, but they have also proved very influential(Sood 2011). Methodologically, the study of urban segmentation has used a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods, including ethnography, interviews and others. This module presents both the quantitative and qualitative contributions in this area.

With this as the backdrop, in the module, we analyse the nature of socio-spatial segregation and its impacts. While the next section looks at the evidence and theorization of segregation in the international context, particularly the US. It widens the scope to also look at the nature of socio-spatial segregation in broader comparative context. The following section examines considers the evidence from India and the applicability of the international models to the Indian case. It pays particular attention to the nature of segregation in cities such as Delhi and Ahmedabad, and highlights the implications and origins of these socio-spatial divisions. Socio-spatial segregation: An International Perspective

Ghetto, Enclave, Citadel

The American sociologist Marcuse developed three conceptual categories to describe spatial segregation- ghetto, enclave and citadel. A ghetto is a “spatially concentrated area used to separate and to limit a particular involuntarily defined population group held to be and treated as inferior by the dominant society” (Marcuse, 1997: 231). Ghettoized minorities do not choose to segregate voluntarily and have little influence over how they are viewed by larger society. Ghettos are places that face stigma. Most cities have something resembling aa ghetto. Red light areas like Kamathipura in Mumbai could be termed a ghetto.

Scholars continue to debate the nature of the ghetto and of the exclusion it represents (Galonnier 2014): is class the central diving line or ethno-racial, or in the case of India, communal and caste based exclusions? We return to these questions in a later section.

The notion of ‘enclave’ suggests a different point of origin for spatial segregation. It refers to “ a spatially concentrated area in which members of a particular population group, self-defined by ethnicity or religion or otherwise, congregate as a means of enhancing their economic, social, political and/or cultural development ” (Marcuse, 1997: 242). Spatial segregation in the enclave is “believed to be voluntary and, more importantly, beneficial to the minority: it allows the group to maintain its social cohesion, norms and cultural values” (Galonnier, 2014:95) .

The final category proposed by Marcuse is the citadel: “a spatially concentrated area in which members of a particular population group, defined by its position of superiority, in power, wealth or status, in relation to its neighbours, congregate as a means of protecting and enhancing that position” (Marcuse, 1997: 247). Thus segregation in the citadel is unambiguously voluntary, and based on class distinctions, though these may also overlap with caste or ethno-racial distinctions. Contemporary “gated communities” provide a perfect example of the citadel in that they are intended to exclude the poor from the high quality amenities available to residents (Galonnier, 2014: 95). Analyzing the link between segregation and spatial inequality

The study of the impacts of segregation along ostensibly identity lines has received the most sustained and rigorous examination in the US. The work of Wilson (1987; 1991), alone and with his student Loic Wacquant (1989: 9) analysed the economic dynamics underlying poverty in ghettoes, “dilapidated territorial” areas “ that epitomize acute social and economic marginalization” where the “urban poor” were increasingly concentrated. Whereas previous commentaries had tended to blame the poverty and social dysfunction of the ghetto on the culture of African Americans in the ghetto, Wilson and Wacquant argued that it was the loss of opportunities through joblessness and economic exclusion that led to such a process of “hyper-ghettoization” – a “social and spatial concentration of poverty” (p 9). Yet, the social ills were not the only symptom of this process. Such hyper-ghettoization was in Wilson and Wacquant’s (1989: 10) view accompanied by loss of jobs and working families as well as declining housing, healthcare, schools, businesses, recreational facilities and community organizations. Deindustrialization was one of its root causes.

Douglas Massey’s landmark work on American Apartheid tackled head-on the bifurcation of American society into “separate but unequal” racially determined segments (Massey and Denton 1993: 15) by asking how such deprivations intensified in the first place. Massey and Denton (1993: 15) argue that in fact residential segregation provided the foundation for a regime of “racial injustice”.

Massey’s (1990: 329) works shows that “rising rates of poverty and high levels of residential segregation” show “strong interaction”. In fact, when poverty rates among African Americans rise, poverty becomes more spatially concentrated under conditions of segregation, feeding into a vicious cycle that ends in the creation of a stable underclass. Massey’s findings derive from quantitative simulations to demonstrate this cycle.

As residential segregation, measured by the dissimilarity index, rises (for a given level of poverty among blacks) so does the geographic concentration of poverty among them. Massey thus argues that as residential segregation increases, the geographic intensity ie concentration of poverty, also increases. This is because a given rise in poverty is experienced more intensely in poor minority neighbourhoods, the higher the levels of segregation. Further disparities between majority and minority neighborhoods continue to widen, and majorities are shielded from the effects of minority impoverishment. In other words, privileged groups gain and underprivileged groups lose as a result of segregation.

Such spatial concentration of poverty can have drastic effects – as purchasing power declines in minority neighbourhoods, health services may withdraw and school quality may fall, leading to worsening health and education outcomes in a “mutually reinforcing and cumulative” cycle (Massey 1990: 350). Massey ’s contribution lies in underlining the central role of residential segregation in concentrating black poverty in the US in the 1960s and 1970s but holds interesting implications for processes of ghettoization in Indian cities as well. From a policy perspective, this suggests that policies that aim to address income and wealth inequalities alone would be insufficient to address spatially concentrated poverty, where it also has an ethno-racial, caste or communal element.3

3  It is useful here to note a link of Massey’s and Wilson’s work on segregation with a related “neighbourhood effects” literature in sociology (Sampson et al 2002: 443) that take seriously “neighbourhood-level variations in phenomena(eg, delinquency, violence, depression, high-risk behaviour), especially among adolescents”. Segregation in Comparative Perspective

Maloutas and Fujita (2012) note thatscholars are less attentive now to residential segregation in itself and more as an outcome of the urban transformations associated with neoliberalism and globalization. One strand of this thesis, proposed by Sassen (1991) is social polarization – “the assumedoutcome of economic restructuring for global cities, which become the strategic spaces for globalcapitalist management” and “the rapid development of high-end producer services thatgenerate high profile and highly paid jobs” alongside “simultaneous growth ofmenial jobs related to the low level tasks in the expanding sector of producer services, but also inthe service of the expanding occupational elite, while the loss of secure and averagely paid jobs inindustry completes the polarization trend by depleting the middle of the social hierarchy” (Maloutas and Fujita 2012:1). This social polarization in turn leads to spatial polarization, with corporate capital taking over prime spaces in the city, as rental and land values rise.One example of such market mechanisms that foster segregation is gentrification – “the dominant way of remodelling central urbanareas affected by deindustrialization” by commodifying land to attract profitable land uses and high income residents, while at the same time, driving away low income residents and low surplus generating land uses (Maloutas and Fujita 2012: 16).

Sassen’s thesis has been challenged, but its contribution lies in highlighting how market mechanisms in some cases determine, and in other cases reinforce patterns of segregation. Thus, even where there are no discrimination-based or institutional barriers, the price of housing in different areas may serve to keep out low income residents and uphold class-based segregation.

Maloutas and Fujita (2012) make another interesting point that assumes importance as we evaluate the evidence on segregation in Indian cities. Although studies of segregation typically focus on groups that face discrimination and ghettoization, higher social groups in fact have more agency and control over their own and others’ patterns of segregation. Thus, considering only segregation of underprivileged groups may provide a misleading picture of the processes that drive segregation.

Investigating the attitudes of affluent groups towards the urban poor in a comparative study of Delhi, Paris and Sao Paolo, Cousin et al (forthcoming) show how the self-segregation of the rich leads to differences in the “socio-spatial mosaics” of the three cities (p 9). While health and cleanliness considerations increasingly isolate Sao Paolo and Delhi elites in “bubbles” (“their neighbourhoods and other areas they frequent)”, Parisian elites are concentrated to the centre of the city and are able to take advantage of the city’s public spaces.

Indeed, looking at evidence from around the world – from sub-Saharan Africa to China and Brazil – Davis (2006) points out that “postcolonial elites have inherited and greedily reproduced the physical footprints of segregated colonial cities.” In this work and in his classic study of Los Angeles City of Quartz, Davis (2010) suggests that the rise of a “planet of slums” and the rise of exclusive, heavily guarded battlements of the rich are two sides of the same coin.

In the neoliberal era, spatial segregation has increasingly taken the shape of what the noted urbanist Saskia Sassen (2010) calls “gating”, which represents another form in which the rich self-segregate. Gated communities – which involve signing up to “communally agreed arrangements” that allow for money to be charged for services(Bagaeen and Uduku 2010:2) – are an increasingly visible feature of urban landscapes both in the global North and the global South (Glasze, Webster and Frantz 2006; Blakely and Snyder 1997). A number of theorizations have been proposed for this phenomenon, from increasing urban crime and elite desire for safety to a demand for exclusive spaces (Blakely and Snyder 1997). In the case of Sao Paolo, Caldeira (2000) has shown how the rise of gating has given rise to striking juxtapositions of poverty and enclosed wealth, and led to the erosion of public spaces (See also Module 6.7)Segregation in India Given the multiple faultlines that mark Indian society – those of religion, language, caste and class – it is no surprise that Indian cities are deeply fragmented places. Some data from a recent quantitative analysis of ward-level Census 2001 data by Vithayathil and Singh (2011) highlights the extentto which seven major Indian cities – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai — are divided by caste and class.

Sociologists such as Vithayathil and Singh (2011) who use quantitative methods employ a metric called the dissimilarity index, which represents “the proportion of the majority (or minority) population which would have to be redistributed so that each parcel would have exactly the same composition as the city as a whole” (White 1983: 1009). Clearly, the higher the dissimilarity index, the higher the levels of segregation. Moreover, note that perfect segregation with pure community clusters are also rare, but near-perfect segregation is sometimes seen in Indian cities such as Ahmedabad.

Computing dissimilarity indices by gender, caste and socio -economic status (SES), Vithayathil and Singh (2011: 63) find that in Kolkata, the dissimilarity index by case is 0.364 ie, 36.4% of Scheduled Caste (SC)/ Scheduled Tribe (ST) populations would have to move to produce a more even caste distribution across the city. In Ahmedabad, it is 0.325. Hyderabad has the lowest dissimilarity index of 0.194. The SES dissimilarity indices are lower and vary within a smaller range, with Ahmedabad at the bottom with 0.098 and Kolkata at the top with 0.211.To the extent that existing Census wards are too large to show variation within each ward, for example, localities or slum clusters that house particular castes, Vithayathil and Singh (2011) analysis very likely underestimates the extent of segregation. Moreover, it does not take account of religion-based segregation, which has a growing presence in Indian cities.

In the next sub-sections, we first delineate how divisions of caste/class and religion have manifested themselves in Indian cities, looking in detail at iconic examples such as Delhi and Ahmedabad, which have been extensively analysed by scholars. Next, we consider the more general mechanisms that generate and reinforce patterns of segregation in the Indian city, in particular, the role of conflict, housing discrimination and not least, the applicability of the ghetto-enclave- citadel categorisation introduced by Marcuse in the Indian case.Caste versus ClassClass-based spatial segregation and attendant inequitable access to basic services remain unmistakable and highly visible features of urban India.

To take but one example, tracing out the processes of “class separation”, Peace (1980|2006:149) has highlighted how structured social inequalities are manifested in the spatial layout of Jaipur city. In particular, he shows how as the middle classes moved to the predominantly residential and well-provisioned modern suburbs in the south and west of the city, the urban poor have been concentrated in the dilapidated mixed use spaces of the Inner City. Although this analysis is primarily focused on class, Peace notes how the middle classes derived largely from the twice-born castes. The suggestion that the old city areas of Indian cities have become ghettos for the poor is echoed by the notification of slums in Shahjahanabad and old Hyderabad (Bhan 2013; Naidu 2006) (see Module 4.2).

Yet, how do these economic inequalities reflect or correlate with casted, gendered and communal forms of segregation? Yet, while the social categories of gender and religion have evident spatial manifestations, the spatial markers of caste are often assumed to be dying out in urban India. In fact, some scholars like Béteille (2012) and Chhibbar and Varshney (2013) studying caste dynamics in urban India have argued that city residents are gradually leaving behind their caste identities. However others like Madheswaran and Attewell (2007), Vithayathil and Singh (2012) contend that spatial segregation bolsters caste inequalities and perpetuates social stratification in India.

As we have already seen, contrary to the popular belief that caste inequality in India is being replaced by class inequalities, Vithayathil and Singh (2012) in their study on Pune found high levels of residential segregation by caste in India’s seven largest metro cities—Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore,Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.

Caste-based segregation often manifests itself as occupational segregation. Many occupations like fishing, leatherwork are considered as ‘polluting’ work and usually engage people who are lower in the caste hierarchy. Communities engaged in these professions live in segregated spaces. For example Dharavi, in Mumbai, the largest slum in Asia, still houses kumharpara or potters colony and koliwada or fishermens’ colony even today. Fishermen’s colonies exist in many parts of big cities like Mumbai like Malwani and Juhu.

Indeed, slums often represent processes of ghettoization for the low caste urban poor (Mehra 2011a). In the late 19th century, Dharavi represented the outermost periphery of Mumbai, literally built on garbage dumped in marshy lands, where polluting activities and undesired migrants were shunted off (Saglio-Tazimirsky 2013; Weinstein 2014; Vora and Palshikar 2003). Similar dynamics turned the tracts near Chembur and Ghatkopar into Dalit ghettos in the mid-1960s (Vora and Palshikar 2003).

It may be argued that these patterns show continuities with the spatial organization of Indian villages, where in accordance with the prescriptions in ancient texts, Dalits were relegated to hamlets outside the centre (Dupont 2004). Yet, as Dupont (2004) argues, caste in the contemporary Indian city is a far more complex phenomenon. While on the one hand, agglomerations have expanded to encompass dalit-dominated peripheries, residential clustering on the basis of caste persists. Dupont’s (2004) work also shows that Dalit populations tend to be clustered in slums rather than planned settlements in Delhi, in localities that are identifiable through names such as Harijan Colony or Ambedkar Nagar.Interplay of caste and class in Delhi Case studies such asDupont’s (2004) analysis of contemporary Delhi help illustrate the complex interplay of caste and class in contemporary Indian cities. Dupont (2004) notes that the patterns of spatial inequality that have come to characterize contemporary Delhi find their earliest origins in the construction of New Delhi as the imperial capital in the early 1900s. From the beginning, the new capital was spatially and physically differentiated from the compact and densely packed spatial design of the old city, creating in essence two cities in one (Dupont 2004).

Post-independence governments continued policies that intensified spatial fragmentation. In particular, the development of “ colonies” for government employees, created new patterns of segregation that some scholars even called “salaried apartheid”, for the cleavages it created between government employees and other residents but also among different tiers of government service (Dupont 2004: 160). These colonies reproduced the colonial approach to cementing “civil service hierarchies” by separating the British from Indians, and higher ranked employees from lower tier ones (Dupont 2004:160).

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) was equally implicated in fostering these patterns of polarization. While it provided housing largely to middle income groups, the process of land acquisition also brought in more than 100 “urban villages” with much lower levels of service provisioning (Dupont 2004). Moreover, the DDA’s inability to provide adequate housing both to lower middle and low income groups encouraged the rise of unauthorised colonies and squatter settlements.

There continued to be strong spatial segmentation to the city, with the south emerging as a “ magnet” for middle and upper class residents and high end commercial activity, while the north and peripheries becoming home to working class and less privileged populations.

A closer analysis of the MayurVihar-Trilokpuri area in Delhi by the researcher showed another dimension to such spatial polarization. While the area attracted few new migrants, it did serve as a relocation site. New residents tended to cluster close to their kin and regional/linguistic groups in a process driven by family and social networks. Social and professional networks similarly shaped co-housing in cooperative apartment societies and led to homogeneous caste and religious profiles in these middle class gated neighbourhoods. What Dupont’s (2004) pioneering account thus reveals are the multiple caste, class, linguistic and kin group fissures along which Delhi is divided. Moreover, class- based segregation is the most visible face of such division but it conceals long-standing exclusions based on caste and ethnicity. Delhi’s case elides the salience of religion-based segregation, a form that comes to the fore in cities such as Ahmedabad. In the next section, however, we consider the spatial impacts of such segregation.

Spatial inequalities

In previous sections, we have looked at landmark studies of American cities by scholars such as Massey and Wilson and Wacquant.Given that these studies speak to the very different ethno-racial cleavages that characterize American society, what can we learn from them about the effects of segregation in Indian cities?Segregation on identity or caste lines is closely correlated with segregation along class lines, and leads almost invariably to spatial inequalities. In other words, segregation is not simply a matter of “separate but equal”; segregation concentrates poverty in the ghettoized community. With that background, what is the nature of spatial inequalities in Indian cities?

Sidhwani (2015) takes a larger perspective on the literature on segregation in Indian cities and uses Census 2011 ward-level data to estimate measures of segregation (modified dissimilairity indices) for Indian cities.He finds that that there is high spatial segregation by caste in big cities of India and a “high degree of segregation by access to a basic public good, in-house drinking water, and by access to a basic private good, in-house latrines”(2015:61). Although this paper draws on the methodological approach of Vithayathil and Singh, it expands their analysis of segregation levels to spatial disparities in basic services provision.

In their analysis of spatial inequality and its implications in the cities of Delhi and Bangalore, Bhan and Jana (2015) estimate two indices of spatial inequality using Census 2011 data – a proxy wealth index (PWI) and a quality of housing index (QHI). They find that compared to Bangalore, Delhi has more unequal assets distribution across wards, as measured by the PWI; ie, its wealth is more concentrated. Similarly, echoing Dupont (2004), they find that better housing in Delhi is concentrated in the centre, south and east.

Cities with many borders: Communal Segregation

So far, we have looked at socio-spatial segregation from the lens of caste and class. Yet, the Hindu-Muslim divide is a major fissure in many Indian cities. Scholarly research has especially highlighted the patterns it produces in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a city that has witnessed periodic riots and increasing polarization culminating in the horrific events of 2002, when the minority community came under sustained assault. Quoting RajdeepSardesai, Thapan (2010) recounts the processes that have led to an intensifying dynamic of segregation:[A]number of families from both communities moved out to “safer” areas, safety being defined by their desire to stay with their co-religionists. Invisible “borders” have been drawn with clear rules of engagement: members of either community will not cross into the other’s territory unless absolutely necessary (Sardesai 2008 in Thapan 2010).The implications of such ghettoization are starkly visible as far as access to basic services is concerned. Thapan (2010) alludes to the inability of “Muslim students to gain admission to Hindu schools, about the lack of opportunity for employment, and about the denial of entry to housing that is not divided along religion” in Ahmedabad (ibid:45). This is accompanied by spatial exclusion and ghettoisation of the dalit and other low caste communities.

As Vithayathil and Singh (2012) have shown, Ahmedabad sees relatively high levels of caste-based segregation. Ahmedabad’s spatial organization reflects the troubled history of multiple fissures. The city, according to Mahadevia et al (2014) encompasses three distinct sub-cities, each of which sees its own dynamics of group segregation. The historic walled city has seen increasing separation between Hindus and Muslims. East Ahmedabad was once the industrial heart of the Ahmedabad but even here,Muslims have increasingly moving out of Dalit -dominated chawls into their own ghettoes such as Juhapura and Dani Limbda. Meanwhile, the middle classes have self-segregated in gated communities in western Ahmedabad, an area that remains better provisioned in terms of basic services than the rest of the city. As Mahadevia et al (2014: 16)conclude, “The city is therefore segmented in terms of class, caste and religion, as well asquality of housing, its typologies, and levels of services and amenities.”

How does segregation arise?

We have considered the faultlines along which segregation occurs in India, and the spatial ramifications of such social fragmentation. Yet what are the specific mechanisms that have led to these socio-spatial patterns?

At the start, it is important to note that segregation was the hallmark of modern urban planning introduced by the British in colonial India (See Module 3.1). The native town where the indigenous population resided was clearly demarcated from the areas populated by Europeans. The British modified the urban landscape of earlier times substantially with the introduction of what were known as civil lines and cantonments, both of which existed “as adjuncts to the native city to accommodate the British civilian and military personnel” (Ramachandran, 1989:65). As both the city- level case studies, and data analyses show, these colonial divisions have only been consolidated in the post-Independence era. In this section, we consider in more detail how the process and dynamic of segregation works in Indian cities.

Conflict and Segregation

The relationship between patterns of segregation and ethnic conflict has been widely studied. This relationship goes both ways – while group conflict intensifies patterns of socio-spatial segregation, segregation may further increase the likelihood of conflict, thus potentially generating a vicious cycle of violence between communities.

Recounting the testimonies of the riot- affected in 1992-93 in Mumbai,Punwani (2003) has shown how the violence created distrust and bitterness among neighbours as rioters targeted Muslims in Hindu areas and vice versa. As a result, neither community felt safe living in areas dominated by the other; substantial numbers fled to Hindu or Muslim-dominated localities. The mixed cosmopolitan culture of Mumbai, with the shared celebration of festivals such as Eid and Diwali, increasingly came to be compromised. In other cases, migrants lost the businesses they had painstakingly built in the city and had to start afresh. Educated Muslims were particularly affected as they were forced to move to crowded Muslim ghettos.

Similarly, Mahadevia (2007) traces out how successive waves of riots in post-Independence Ahmedabad, particularly over the 1980s and 1990s, led to intensifying socio-spatial segregation along communal lines. Muslims were relegated largely to the peripheries, in areas such as Juhapura and Dani Limbda, which evolved into de facto cities within the city, with guarded and walled “borders” (p 342). Other Muslim areas became poorly provisioned ghettoes (Jaffrelot and Thomas 2011).

However, if riots and inter-group conflict drives segregation, segregation further reinforces such conflict. In other words, the communally determined “borders” of Ahmedabad do not solve the problem of communal violence; they may in fact make it more likely as distrust between communities grows. The importance of “intercommunal civil engagement” for preventing such violence is a key lesson to emerge from Varshney’s (2001; 2003)seminal work(Ghose 2010: 45). While “everyday forms of engagement” – informal interactions between communities — are helpful in preventing conflict in rural settings, riots according to Varshney(2001) are predominantly an “urban phenomenon”. In cities formal “associational” forms of engagement are far more effective (Ghose 2010: 45; Varshney 2001: 363).

This work has also suggested practical implications: political scientists and economists have become interested in analysing how neighbourhood characteristics affect the likelihood of ethnic conflict. In particular, this research has highlighted how “networks of engagement” between ethnic groups decreases the likelihood of ethnic conflict.Ghose (2010) examines the large number of civic initiatives such as the Mohalla Committees that have used similar logic to circumvent ghettoization among Mumbai’s Muslims.

Housing discrimination

Reports of young professionals being denied rental housing simply on account of their caste or housing discrimination, particularly in renting, along caste and religious lines is often in the news.

Thorat et al (2015) discuss the forms of discrimination experienced by even highly educated, well-paid and well-placed Dalit and Muslim home-seekersin the rental housing market in the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi. Landlords have specific preferences pertaining to the caste and religion of the prospective tenant. Even when Dalit or Muslim home-seekers were willing to pay the market rent or more, they were still denied housing. Thus, the decision to (not) rent to Dalits and Muslims rests almost exclusively associated with their caste and religious identity and not determined economic reasons alone. A landlord’s choice in most parts of the NCR generally goes in favour of the high-caste Hindus. (Thorat et al 2015: 50, 51).

Ghetto and Citadel in India

We now return to the theorizations discussed in the first section.

While the categories proposed by Marcuse are intuitively appealing and at first glance, seem to describe the forms of segregation seen in Indian cities, they do not necessarily fit well on close inspection. We have already noted the empirical difficulty in separating out voluntary from involuntary segregation, i.e, distinguishing between an enclave and a ghetto. In her study of Muslim upper-class residential choices in Aligarh, Galonnier (2014: 92) takes on the critique that Marcuses’s categories, framed in an American context, do not apply in Indian conditions. Her study shows that although the spatial clustering of Muslims academics in areas such as Sir Syed Nagar appears to emerge from a desire to live in a Muslim-dominated environment, it simultaneously also represents a kind of “elite ghetto” (p 17). In fact, for Aligarh’s upper- class Muslims, all three motivations — threat of Hindu -Muslim riots (ghetto), a desire to continue Muslim cultural traditions (enclave) as well as sharp “socio- spatial differentiation” from poorer Muslims — lead to “ spatial concentration along religious and class lines”. Galonnier (2014: 92) concludes that Marcuse’s categories are less useful as “fixed spatial entities” and more as “segregation logics”, the dynamics of aspiration that shape such areas (p 107-108). For instance:

In Sir Syed Nagar,…the idea of the ‘ citadel’, … is part of residents’ aspirations but remains an unattained goal (because of the inevitable presence of ‘undesirable’ working-class Muslims and the dilapidated state of urban infrastructure).

In Brief

Spatial segregation on the lines of caste, gender, and class has implications for the questions of urban inclusion. By urban inclusion one understands the equitable access to basic amenities such as like shelter, sanitation, water, solid waste management. Cities that perpetuate caste, religious and gender based inequalities from the past and new extensions of class based inequalities become hotbeds of inequalities, and by extension, also of violence and crime.

We have considered the patterns and correlates of segregation in the Indian city against the backdrop of evidence and theorization from the American and comparative international context.While theorizations of segregation derived from the American and intzernational context may not apply directly in the Indian case, they offer useful insights into the ramifications of segregation in India. Most importantly they suggest that ghettoization is an important force for segregation in Indian cities. Even where segregation is not based explicitly on class lines, it can produce patterns of profound spatial inequality and group conflict.

For Further Reading

• Bagaeen, Samer and Uduku, Ola (2010): “Gated Communities: Social Sustainability inContemporary and
• Historical Gated Developments”, in Bagaeen, Samer and Ola Uduku (ed) Gated Communities: Social
• Sustainability in Contemporary and Historical Gated Developments. London: Earthscan.
• Béteille, André (2012): “The Peculiar Tenacity of Caste,” Economic and Political Weekly, 47(13): 41–48.
• Bhan, G. (2013). “Planned Illegalities: Housing and the ‘Failure’ of Planning in Delhi: 1947-2010’”.Economic and Political Weekly, 48(24), 58-70.
• Bhan, Gautam and A Jana (2015). Reading Spatial Inequality in Urban India. Economic & Political Weekly, 50 (22): 49 -54
• Blakely, E. and Snyder, M. (1997) Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States, Washington,DC: Brookings Institution.
• Body Gendrot, S. (2001) The Politics of Urban Crime. Urban Studies, 38 (5-6), pp. 915-928
• Cousin, Bruno, Camila Giorgetti, Jules Naudet and Serge Paugam(2016 forthcoming)“How do rich neighborhoods see the urban poor? Investigating the meaning of inequality in Paris, Delhi and São Paulo”, in Hilary Silver (ed.)Comparative Urban Studies.Routledge
• Caldeira, T. (2000) City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Chandhoke, N. (2009). Civil Society in Conflict Cities. Economic and Political Weekly, 99-108.
• Chatterjee, P. (2003). Are Indian cities becoming bourgeois at last?.body. city: siting contemporary culture in India, pp.170-85.
• Chhibbar, Pradip and AshutoshVarshney (2013): “Citizens of Tomorrow,” Indian Express, 31 Oc-tober, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ citizens-of-tomorrow/1189417/0.
• Davis, M. (2007).Planet of Slums. London: Verso.
• Davis, M. (2010).City of Quartz. The Blackwell City Reader, p.193.
• Dupont, V. (2004). Socio-spatial differentiation and residential segregation in Delhi: A question of scale.Geoforum, 35(2), pp.157-175.
• Evinson, N. (1989). The Indian Metropolis: A View Towards the West. Yale University Press, New Haven.
• Maloutas, T. and Fujita, M.K. (eds.) (2012). Residential segregation in comparative perspective: Making sense of contextual diversity. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..
• Galonnier, Juliette (2014). The enclave, the citadel and the ghetto: the threefold segregation of upper-class Muslims in India. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research , 92-111
• Gayer, L., &Jaffrelot, C. (2012). Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of Marginalisation. Columbia University Press.
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