Last week, SM reader “S” emailed us a tip about the October issue of National Geographic:
Just wanted to send a quick link to a story I worked on for ngm.com (National Geographic magazine). It’s a story about India’s highway project and has some amazing photography. The photo map has photos submitted to our site by readers.
The highway project is called the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ), and it is
…the brand-new, 3,633-mile expressway linking the country’s major population centers of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata. [ngm]
Some history behind the project:
Announced in 1998 by then Prime Minister Atal B. Vajpayee, who is credited with giving the project its grandiose name, the Golden Quadrilateral is exceeded in scale only by the national railway system built by the British in the 1850s. For decades after its 1947 independence, India practiced a kind of South Asian socialism in keeping with the idealism of its founders, Gandhi and Nehru, and its economy eventually stalled. In the 1990s the country began opening its markets to foreign investment, led by a pro-growth government and staffed by an army of young go-getters who speak excellent English and work for a fraction of the wages paid in the West. Yet India’s leaders realized their decrepit highways could hobble the country in its race toward modernization. “Our roads don’t have a few potholes,” Prime Minister Vajpayee complained to aides in the mid-1990s. “Our potholes have a few roads.”
Ten years after Vajpayee’s announcement, the GQ is among the most elaborately conceived highway systems in the world, a masterpiece of high-tech ingenuity that is, in many ways, a calling card for India in the 21st century. Seen on a 48-inch flat-screen computer monitor at highway administration headquarters in Delhi, the GQ seems as beautiful as a space capsule. Its designers describe it as an “elegant collection of data points,” or a gleaming, “state-of-the-art machine,” a technologically advanced conveyor belt moving goods and people around India with seamless precision.
It’s easy to be swept up in their enthusiasm for a system so technologically advanced that one day, any rupture in the pavement could be detected by sensors and maintenance crews dispatched; where tolls would be computerized and instantly tabulated against long-term projections; where accidents trigger an instantaneous response from nearby emergency teams. And there is no doubt that the highway and the development it has generated have quickened the pulse of the nation, boosted traffic volume, and brought millions of workers pouring into medium-size and large cities from the countryside. Yet the GQ has also brought old and new India into jarring proximity, challenging the moral and cultural underpinnings of a nation founded on Gandhian principles of austerity, brotherhood, and spirituality. It’s sharpened India’s appetite for material possessions–especially cars–and many Indians, especially those over 30, have a hard time recognizing the India they see advertised on television and billboards, which comes in a wide choice of designer colors and does zero to sixty in under ten seconds. [ngm]
Our Amardeep wrote a series of posts about Ramachandra Guha’s “India After Gandhi”. Guha is quoted in the National Geographic piece, here:
“I see the GQ as a metaphor for modern India, speeding along today at a hundred miles an hour,” says historian Ramachandra Guha, author of India After Gandhi. “Imagine we stop at a traffic light and roll down the window. There’s a path next to the highway, and a little old guy riding past on a bicycle. As we wait impatiently for the light to change, he calls to us to watch out, slow down, don’t be so reckless and single-minded in our pursuit of growth and affluence and material goods. Well, that chap on the bicycle is Gandhi. He’s our conscience, and even with all that’s changed in India, he cannot be ignored.” [ngm]
The pictures– as one would expect from National Geographic– are gorgeous and the article is well-worth a read. Ranging from car/scooter pujas (which, to be fair, isn’t such an exotic concept…my Mom had our priest douse my last car with holy water, right after we took delivery of it in NorCal) to the tale of a truck driver named Rakesh who chews masala-tobacco to stay awake, to stories about the farmers whose ancestral lands were confiscated to create the pavement Rakesh drives upon, the article offers a compelling glimpse at how India is growing– and who is affected, along the way.
My only wish is that they had included more about Chandini, the transgendered sex worker/educator whose photograph is above. I couldn’t forget hir picture:
Posing with his relatives, a transgender sex worker named Chandini, 23, lives on the outskirts of Delhi in Kalandar Colony, a community of 5,000 families engaged mainly in the sex trade, servicing truckers and others along the nearby highway. HIV/AIDS in India is epidemic, and Chandini has worked to educate other sex workers, and their clients, about prevention efforts, funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Indian government. [ngm]
I have brown, trans friends who aren’t as accepted/loved by their family members, so I’m glad Chandini has such support– and that ze is doing such important work. As roads grow smoother, more trucks will race over them, and that means more men seeking out diversion. That makes me think that India’s truck drivers and sex workers need education about the prevention of HIV/AIDS now, more than ever.
Apt description of a few DBD’s I know and love!
good hair
are we talking about you again?
3 · bess said
I walked into the party like I was walking onto a yacht. My hat strategically dipped below one eye…
chandini is hot.
the song ain’t about you nor your good hair, Manju.
is that all the poetry you can muster, khoofia, what gives? Anna, thanks for featuring this article. Must admit I got carried away with the India photo map. I heart NGM!
this is all very exciting! But even as India lives up to its potential, the building of the highway brings up certain issues. I couldn’t help but notice the construction workers and their lack of safety gear, even shoes…and of course the issues of the loss of land from private owners.
It’s incredible to think how many people this will connect, how it can improve business, tourism, everyday lives of people, as it gives them new job opportunities, etc. But I do hope, among other things, that the govt and india’s hardworking gr groups are ready also to increase the need for effective sex ed.
Finally! The potholes in North India will be semi smoothed over! I was shocked during my last visit to India (2005) that Gujarat had some nicely paved highways!! They almost reminded me of the Ameerikan ones. Then I wnet to Dehli and saw the potholes….Now if they could only improve the Mumbai and Dehli airports!! They made nice improvements to AMD one….
Although short, it does do a good job reporting the pros and cons of rapid industrialization in India.
“Being a driver is filthiest of filth. If you have an enemy, don’t kill him. Teach him the profession and you’ll get complete revenge. “
Though GQ is undoubtedly useful and needed to replace the godawful roads, with the increasing prices of crude oil, I have a sneaking suspicion that wouldn’t the goal of cheaper, more efficient transportation of goods and humans be better served, if the road system was built to complement the existing rail system which could also have been upgraded?
Regarding Shawn99’s comment, the job of a long distance driver is tough. I have a nephew who works for a charitable organization doing eye surgery for tribal people of Orissa. He drives a “trekker” from Cuttack to Malkangiri transporting these folks. He often covers 800 KM in 24 hours in difficult road conditions. He is only 19 years old. I feel pity for him. He was so fond of cars that he decided not to go to school – not a smart idea.
This reminded me of a series the The New York Times published a couple years ago. They did a really interesting piece on the implications of the Golden Quadrilateral as a part of the series titled India Accelerating. The article described some of the consequences of this aspect of modernization, both expected ones like cheaper transportation costs and such and then other surprising trends like the disturbing increase in HIV/AIDs infections along the route.
Both the article and the post kind of make you think about other unforeseeable, potentially catastrophic effects of the GQ – rapidly widening inequalities, rush to the cities, et cetera, no?
Look, (a) the Indians should do what they want (I’m an ABD, after all) and (b) yeah, I guess there could be some negative consequences, but (c) seriously, worrying about whether a national road network is good or bad, is kind of (IMHO) crazy–yes, one does in fact need (with no qualifications) a good national road network if one wants to in fact lift (literally) millions out of poverty and into the modern economy which, warts and all, promises a better life for millions of fellow desis.
I completely agree with you, Rob. A good national road network is essential to lift people out of poverty. I’m just pointing out there are some other things to consider. The road should definitely continue being built and finished, but someone, government and others, should look into addressing these other issues at the same time.
Shivani, Yes, I agree–gotta get done, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore the distributional consequences! Just not let the former be swamped by the latter–e.g. perhaps we should do the road, and then tax a bit more the beneficiaries of it.
13 · rob said
why literally?
Good point, boat rising–strike the “literally” and my point stands–I just stick in the “(literally)” to get as many propagandized PoMo’s on my side as possible. (I.e., where is Manju on this topic–he’s much better than me!!)
17 · rob said
setting out his yardsale for hank.
pardon my tangential quirk. The GQ Project provides different symbology for different sets of people.This, for me-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyendra_Dubey
Just noticed that of these four cities, THREE of them have had their name changed in recent decades. Isn’t it time that we rename Delhi as Indraprasth? Or at least “Dilli”? Just kidding…
That GQ has changed and saved lives of many Indians. For example, medical emergencies can be addressed in bigger cities in matter of hours now instead of in days. Driving practices are also changing: drivers tend to use the headlight as indicator instead of blaring the horn.
really love your posts…always something interesting and thought provoking…lol i think uve jus taken over the lead from amardeep in the number of articles from sepia ive fwded to family and friends
hir…heer…as precious as diamonds.
“Our potholes have a few roads” was ingenious. It may be years before the polarity between the Golden Quadrilateral and the old man in Prof. Guha’s comment is satisfactorily resolved.
This is indeed super exciting. I’m wondering whether it will be heavily armed or which parts the Maoists will blow up first.
and mad props for the genderqueer mention.
I’ve lived all over India. “It” isn’t really as pretty as many of these Picasa’d/Photoshop’d photos suggest. There’s a lot more to it than that (of course), but that’s prob not what a Western readership wants.
I didn’t read the full article, but I also found some of the quotes to be decently ignorant, likely from a reporter who isn’t sufficiently familiar with the project or its history (nor the nation).
(please don’t read any of this negativity as being directed towards anna, I in no way mean for that to be the case)