Often, the story of post-colonial development is told through the experience of the Nehruvian developmental regime. In its most romanticised version, the urban building projects like Chandigarh, Delhi, Gandhinagar or Bhubaneshwar were a mighty adventure; and industrial towns such as Jamshedpur, Bhilai, Durgapur were dreamworlds. In these hagiographic retellings, the clear separation and distancing of state from middle-class bourgeoise influence are extolled as the virtue of Nehruvian regime. In fact - if secularism was the one central tenet of Nehruvian modernity- the socialist policies and containment of middle-class were central to post-colonial nation’s legitimization process. Consequently, the histories of planning highlight the towering role of political leadership, bureaucracy and state agencies in its retelling. Interestingly, even the most critical accounts - often sponsored by World Bank following the liberalization of Indian economy- attributed the Indian poverty to ‘missing middle-class’ and the socialist pretensions of Nehruvian state.
This essay seeks to unravel the role of this ‘missing’ middle-class in the chequered histories of developmental planning in post-colonial India in decades of the 1950s and 1960s. It looks at the informal ways in which Indian middle class associated themselves with the planning regime. The urban planning and architectural associations/professional bodies like Modern Architectural Research Group (MARG), Indian Institute of Architects (IIA) and Institute Indian of Town-Planner (IITP) provide an interesting instance of earliest middle-class intervention in the post-colonial developmental state. To influence and impress upon state authorities, these bodies published their journals such as MARG, Design (Bombay), Indian Architect, Journal of Indian Institute of Architecture (JIIA) and Journal of Institute of Town-Planner (JITP). Though professional association, with middle-class background, shared the euphoria of planning, they also, on occasions, accused bureaucracy of high-handedness and demanded professional freedom from the dictates of state. This paper argues that, while formally placed out of the state-sponsored planning exercise, middle-class organized themselves into professional bodies to carve out space for themselves in the post-colonial politics.