Toxic Urbanism: Air, Politics and Learning in Delhi

<strong>CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF LAW AND GOVERNANCE Jawaharlal Nehru University</strong> SEMINAR SERIES <strong>Rohit Negi</strong> Assistant Professor, Ambedkar University, Delhi on&nbsp;<strong>Toxic Urbanism: Air, Politics and Learning in Delhi</strong> The question of the environment, and in particular, the city's toxic air, has, in good measure, shaped the urban agenda in Delhi over the last two decades. That the city is now one of the most polluted conurbations in the world has formed the backdrop to a vibrant public discourse on its causes and on state interventions attempting to clean the air. The present debate, accelerated by the publication of a WHO report in 2014 that termed it the 'most polluted city in the world', however, does not inaugurate the centrality of air to Delhi's urban politics. In the late 1990s too there were discussions and action linked to air pollution. Then, certain chemicals were defined as the problem and an activist judiciary had mediated interventions like the relocation of polluting industries and the conversion of public vehicles to natural gases. These actions were in turn widely criticised by social activists and scholars, who saw them as amounting to 'bourgeois environmentalism'. In contrast, more recent discussions are overdetermined by the saliency of fine Particulate Matter (PM 2.5), the elected government primarily drives policy formulation, and the debate is marked by far less suspicion of environmental activists. This paper reads urban environmental politics through an in-depth analysis of the moments when Delhi's air becomes 'visible'. The aim is to shed light on the vocabulary and concepts, the differentiated interpellation of citizens, and varied state interventions related to air. Our narrative weaves together the deployment of expertise, technologies of governance and popular discourses that mediate air's politics and inform questions of environmental justice and the city's futures. <strong>11 November, 2016</strong> ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Dr. Rohit Negi is Assistant Professor at the School of Human Ecology at Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD). He has a PhD in Geography and MA in Urban Planning. His work is at the intersection of urbanism and ecology in the global south. Rohit is the co-editor of 'Space, Planning and Everyday Contestations in Delhi' (Springer), and has published in various journals including the Economic and Political Weekly, Review of African Political Economy and Geoforum.