As part of our new Urban Workshop Series, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), Delhi are delighted to invite you to a workshop by Dr. Kaveri Gill, Senior Program Officer, Think Tank Initiative, IDRC SARO Mundka in the Time of ‘Development’ and Change: The Pressure to Relocate ‘Polluting’ and ‘Non-Conforming’ Industries.Titled, ‘Bourgeois environmentalism’, the State, the Judiciary and the ‘Urban Poor’: The Political Mobilization of a Scheduled Caste Market’, the last chapter in the speaker’s book, ‘Of Poverty and Plastic’ (OUP 2010) documents the impact on, and the means of resistance of, the informal plastic recycling market located in Mundka to the Supreme Court industrial relocation order of 1999-2000, an outcome of an ‘environmental’ PIL which ruled in favour of the petitioner (M. C. Mehta vs. Union of India). In early March 2010, the Delhi High Court again ruled that an area between Nangloi and Bahadurgarh in northwest Delhi – including Mundka and its plastic recycling units – hosts a number of ‘polluting’ and ‘non-conforming’ industries, as defined by the Master Plan of Delhi and instructed the Delhi government to act immediately in accordance with the Supreme Court order of 1999-2000. Shortly thereafter, the Mundka metro station was formally opened, and a few instances of ‘sabotage’ fires were reported in the recycling market. The talk will outline the trajectory of these events, including the publication of an op-ed by the speaker on 13 March 2010, the immediate response of the petitioner’s advocates to it, and her subsequent attempt – with the help of activist and lawyer friends – to act as amicus curiae on the case. It will seek to relate these happenings to the broader canvas of rapid ‘development’ and change in Delhi, and what it might mean for those living and working literally and figuratively on the edge of the city.Kaveri Gill is a development economist and social scientist, by training and sympathy respectively. Since her return to India in 2007, she has been with the Planning Commission and subsequently with UNICEF India, during which time she worked on various aspects of flagship schemes of the Central government. She is currently with IDRC Delhi, as Senior Program Officer for the South Asia region, on their Think Tank Initiative. Her research interests are poverty and deprivation in developing countries, the changing scale, nature and role of the unorganised sector and the political economy of urbanisation, development and the environment in economies of the developing world. Her latest publication is ‘Of Poverty and Plastic’ (OUP 2010). Kaveri obtained her PhD from Cambridge University, UK.
