Globalisation, group autonomy and political space: Negotiating globalised interests in Bengaluru

Abstract

This chapter uses the experience of Bengaluru to gain insights into the way cities that are primarily at the receiving end of globalisation cope with the process. It develops the concept of “group autonomy” to demonstrate how the city can emerge as, among other things, the arena for continuous negotiation between different autonomous groups. Some of this negotiation is through the state, especially when asking for governmental support; but there can be direct negotiations too, such as the norms followed in the sharing of public space for religious functions. In growing cities, like Bengaluru, the negotiations that often gain the greatest attention are over land. On the periphery of the cities there is the negotiation over agricultural land for urban development; within the city there is the negotiation to change land use. This chapter argues that the introduction of the forces of globalisation into the negotiation between autonomous groups in Bengaluru has altered the very process of negotiation. And a major part of this change is the destruction of the credibility of democratically elected institutions within the city, thereby finding space for bodies that are not democratically elected, but supportive of globalisation, in the governance of the city.