STAIRWAY to NOWHERE
“An investment in Education, Healthcare (Human Recourses) and Infrastructure set course for a developed Nation”
(People as Resources, NCERT Textbook for Economics class IX)
THE CASE FOR INEQUITY
What is inequity? Typically, inequity in a society comes as a combination of economic measures referring to income and wealth. Entire populations, in the language of statistics, are measured and managed according to their place on the inequality spectrum: patronage for the first class, morality for the ambiguous “middle class,” and austerity for the rest. This economic inequity is, however, inseparable from social disparities of other kinds particularly in the provision of housing. More than just a building typology or a market sector, housing may be a primary architectural act where architecture and design is understood as that which makes real estate real. (The art of Inequality, 2015)
It begins when a line is drawn that separates inside from outside, and ultimately, one house from another. The relation that results under the rule of land development is by its very frame unequal. This is the art of inequality. Its geographies are local and global. Its histories are distant and present. Its design is ongoing. Its future is anything but certain.
In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class which manipulates the culture of that society the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores so that the imposed, ruling-class worldview becomes the accepted cultural norm; the universally valid dominant ideology, which justifies the social, political, and economic status as natural and inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for every social class, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class. (Prison Notebooks, 1930)
THE CASE FOR CAPATALISM
It’s the bleak reality that the current capitalistic order is unyielding and unforgiving. What’s more is that this cruel system can be easily normalized. After all the greatest trick late capitalism ever pulled was to convince the world it doesn’t exist.
Neo-liberal capitalism takes the economic responsibility away from government and places it into hands of free-market institution and private individuals. In this type of society, your value as a person is weighed upon your ability to sell your labor for a wage. What it boils down to is a massive disparity in wealth that regards the wealthy as winners and poor as losers in the free market game. Design practices like hostile architecture prioritizes the needs and aesthetics of corporate enterprises over the needs of hungry and homeless. These defensive strategies become mechanism for hiding the indigent out of site, for fear of disrupting the wealthy social order. The great fallacy of this system is every individual starts with equal access to opportunity and can therefore compete on equal playing field, which in reality is not the truth. When we look at the lower level of classes there’s no attempt or even ability to overthrown the prevailing system of domination but it’s a competition among them that who can be less destitute. The labor job provide proximity to wealth and sustaining conditions but their wage doesn’t provide them enough means to escape the destitution.
Democracy has become such a dominant standard for a fair and just society that countries are now ranked on an index of how democratic they are despite this form of governance has also failed at many instances and there are countries which flourished without it.
THE CASE FOR INDIA
The vision foreseeing India as a human resource power house by 21st century has been blundered by deficient education policy and privatization of higher education. Knowledge, practice of specialized skill and execution of workability which the degree promised doesn’t stand a chance in the global market and for even worse the domestic employers needed to provide fresh graduates with additional training prior joining the jobs. Reflecting to the case of fresh graduates in design fraternity, conditions for preciously underlining Architects is no tale unheard.
As Covid lockdown and social distancing was a necessary measure to contain the virus it jeopardized the economy, unemployment levels are soaring, income gap is at its worst.
Most affected are self-employed and low skilled workers facing the highest risk in current economic climate. While working from home is norm for some, it’s a luxury that many cannot afford in this nation especially if their job involves manual labor. Labor market outcomes, employment prospects and wage distribution will end up being more skewed towards high skilled workers following guides of capitalism who thus benefit over already suffering low skilled section.
For migrant workers of an emerging and developing nation like India this crisis have fallen heaviest as they’re ones who often live quite far away from their home networks, could never save enough to have sustain the pandemic and face larger impact then even low skilled formally employed workers. Employing the right policies only make a difference in narrowing the divide.
THE CASE FOR DESIGN
In reality our impact as creative professionals in real masses of this country, the hundreds of thousands villages and collective of small towns where nearly 75% of India’s population reside is close to null. Bluntly they don’t need us! In return we as a fraternity have always applauded and in fact mimicked their vernacular practices and regional design methods because of its caliber. This also doesn’t mean we got no part in change for better, but requires us to refocus on what’s the actual framework of socio-economic of such a diverse and vast nation is based on. For the remaining percentage of the population, the metropolitans, yet 300 million people who are fully submersed in a world lead by our influence as designers be it urban planners and architects for spaces, visual feeders through graphic, communication and advertisement design we have potential to drive life every second of the day! Other forms to induce psychology and emotions of masses touching even rural settlement such as comic or cinema has a vital role to play.
But for that our own choices of influence need to be morally justified. Whereas today we go by the requirements of late contemporary capitalism which blinds and separate people in every aspect of life for benefits of individualistic upper classes in socio-economic orders.
The people who benefit from capitalism distance themselves from the have not both metaphorically and physically, trying to push the marginalized out of site. Relocating them from slums within the city to outskirt housings, far away from their jobs and livelihoods sustaining on daily wages at midtown. The intention to provide them with better living condition is not questioned as settlements like these have poor conditions of sewage management and electricity supplies, water scarcity and vital spaces of reach to enough natural light and fresh air is absent. But does it really bridges the gap scoped after decades long and only increasing wealth gap among the poor and rich? Is restoration of low laying areas of the city with better services and redevelopment an option to save the millions from relocating? The issue of design for lower classes needs to be addressed undoubtedly but reaching the underling conditions of systems causing this injustice require redo with utmost emergency which would require our participation incapacity far more than just tittle and ability of designers.
THE CASE FOR PARASITE
Director Boon Joon-Ho’s class critic Oscar (2019) winning Parasite brings you the torture from aspiration that’s forever out of reach. The class tensions of the modern society where comfort of the wealthy upper class is accorded to them at the expense impoverished as a byproduct of cool capitalism. Metaphor of class divide as vertical spaces as for (Metropolis, 1927) in which titans of industry rule the city from atop their high rises while the labor masses are stuck underneath the cities. (High-Rise, 2015) based on JG Ballard novel (1975) features class warfare between the higher ups and lower floors in a building that’s presented as a microcosm of society. Parasite has poignantly captured the insurmountable gulf in form of space and design between these higher and lower worlds. The line drawn by dominant side serves in form of literal design in terms of hostile architecture which lately has far exceeded its purpose to maintain order and turned into “anti-homeless”. Whereas they are privileged to exploit the labor far behind agreed terms of working, such what have been witnessed in construction industry of this nation. For a country like ours which is second most unequal country of the world where 55% of all income goes to top 9% of the population. For who can hire us and for who’s benefit we want to have had designed so far and aspire same in future is very well know. Design unfortunately has become a tool to divide and separate, physical isolation into privileged bubbles where poverty and dirt is draped out of site, smell of deprived becomes intolerable. But the 6.7% of the population a lot of 90 million still lives below poverty line which reviles that suffering is nearby. On note architecture has vital role to change not only conditions of underprivileged in spatial and service terms through housing but also an attempt to change the way they view themselves. In this privately owned market one mostly struggles to climb upstairs to almost unachievable heights lifelong and not to pertain together as society to level the whole system on same ground.
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