There was a time in this country when where one chose to live didn’t really matter: it was Bombay versus the Rest of India. The rest included cities as varied as say, Delhi and Allahabad, superficially as different as chalk and cheese (Delhi, a centre of power; Allahabad, a pilgrimage town), but not very different at a deeper level. The Music Shop in Khan Market sold the same pirated tapes which I could buy in any other cassette shop in the country: Paula Abdul on Audio, Kylie Minogue on Billboard and Whitesnake on PRT. Ponytails turned heads on Delhi roads, just like they did in Allahabad. So did white skin. I was once walking with an English friend in a posh South Delhi neighbourhood. A couple of lads arrived on motorcycles and tried to run him down. It was all in good spirit of course; the boys saw a foreigner and decided to rag him a bit, make him jump around. Just like they would have in Gorakhpur.
One of the most important consequences of economic liberalisation has been the rise of the city. It’s not just Bombay anymore. Hyderabad, Pune, Calcutta and Delhi, to take four at random, have become vibrant cities in the last 15 years: there are jobs to do, cafes to hang out in, live music to listen to. These are cities brimming with economic opportunity and young Indians are migrating to them from the hinterland as never before. There is now a clear split between the big city and the small town. This dividing line was fuzzier in socialist India.
This split mirrors a larger divide between states. While certain states have forged ahead, others have remained content to be stuck in low-level politicking. Chief Minister Mayawati throwing out the Reliance Fresh stores in UP, or the new BJP government throwing a spanner in the works of an IT park initiated by the Congress in Uttarakhand, are just two examples of stunted political vision. In Dehradun, each new government announces itself by changing the design of speed-breakers. The roads get more potholed while the speed-breakers get fancier. As the policies of these states become increasingly closed, the future of the north Indian small town looks very bleak indeed.