Longevity may not count for much in itself, but Chennai’s observance on Wednesday of the 379th birthday of its modern avatar — as opposed to its bimillennial history — nevertheless counts as a historic achievement. Over this period, the cumulative cultural capital that the city has acquired has earned it much distinction, and a place on UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network. In many other areas, too, the ability of Tamil Nadu’s capital city to fuse tradition with modernity, and its general aversion to stuffy showiness, has been widely acknowledged as a defining characteristic. Attending a Breakfast with BusinessLine event in Chennai a couple of years ago, Union Minister Suresh Prabhu noted appreciatively that only in this southern city would down-to-earth business tycoons dispense with business suits in favour of bush shirts — a sartorial lead the Minister himself was happy to abide by at the event!
Chennai’s accomplishments, such as they are, are all the more creditable given that they have come despite the many limitations that the metropolis faces in the manifest absence of anything more than rudimentary urban planning. This is particularly galling since Chennai has the world’s second-oldest (after London) civic corporation, formed in 1688. Today, the city is marked by a perennial shortage of drinking water. And as the devastating floods of 2015 showed up starkly, there is inadequate attention to infrastructural needs to cater to the estimated 90-lakh residents of the greater urban agglomeration. The city does not have anything like a Central Business District that could contribute to the ease of doing business; and its transport system is defined by myopic ad-hoc-ism. Chennai recently lost its status as the country’s third-busiest airport, in terms of domestic and international passengers, to Bengaluru. And with cities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana narrowing the lead that Chennai has as an infotech and automobile hub, it is at risk of falling off the map of business-minded metropolises.
For sure, Chennai’s failings are not unique to it, and in a sense, few Indian cities are immune to the curse of urban decay. The political class across the country appears to have internalised the wrong message from the cliché that India lives in its villages. This may be because rural areas account for a bulk of the voter base, and to provide for cities opens leaders to the criticism, however unmerited, that they are elitist. But in fact, it is India’s cities that are the engines of economic growth, and given the rapid pace of urbanisation, it is the cities that will need visionary planning and bigger investments. Across the globe too, urbanisation is linked to economic progress. And as the successful experiment with the National Capital Region showed, it can work, but it needs an alternative vision of urban planning. Age may have withered Chennai, but it may yet be possible, with planning and the right investments, to make it a more liveable, and business-friendly, city.