Why I am in Mumbai: An Overview of the Winter Institute on Sustainable Urban Development

From January 1-15, I am in Mumbai, India participating in a winter institute on sustainable urban development. My group from the Washington University Brown School of Social Work has partnered with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in an effort to create intellectual and cross-cultural learning. The institute focuses on four thematic areas: access to water, solid waste management, financial inclusion, and adequate housing. We are using “group model building” and system dynamics to work directly with the Mumbai slum communities to uncover the root causes to their most pressing problems. I strongly believe this type of work should serve as the cornerstone of our collective efforts to create a sustainable society.

 
When I tell friends and family that I am in Mumbai, their response has typically been “What the heck are you doing there?!?” This (perhaps rather boring) post is my attempt to answer that question.

Although I would have enjoyed going to Mumbai solely for tourism, I was blessed with the opportunity to participate in a winter institute on sustainable urban development through the Wash. U School of Social Work. The winter institute focuses on four key areas in Mumbai’s slums: water, solid waste management, financial inclusion, and housing. As I am an environmental studies and urban studies double major, I have found this institute absolutely incredible, and the perfect fit for my interests in climate change mitigation and sustainable development.

The winter institute has two parallel frameworks: social relations and system dynamics. These two approaches are meant to complement one another and lead to a deeper understanding of the problems facing the most vulnerable populations of Mumbai. With the insights gained from the social relations and the system dynamics perspectives, we are hopeful that our work will help to stimulate real positive change within our focus Mumbai slum communities and ultimately help with crafting new, sustainable policies for the city.

The social relations framework uses the lens of gender inequality to examine critical issues in Mumbai slum communities. The social relations framework uses five “tools” to analyze gender inequalities: power, resources, people, rules, and activities. This perspective provides great insights into larger policy decisions affecting the slum communities, and can generate a legal-policy framework that protects women from discrimination within Mumbai communities. As I am not a member of the social relations program, I still know very little about the methods and approaches this group uses in the field.

The system dynamics method attempts to create simplified versions of reality that can help a community to understand the key drivers of its problems. System dynamics emphasizes improving our “mental models,” or ways that we view the world, in order to eliminate inaccuracies and inconsistencies that lead to poor policies. System dynamics also focuses on feedback processes embedded within the system; most of the observed changes in behavior should be due to “endogenous” or internal variables, rather than “exogenous” or external forces. Through the winter institute, we are using a community-driven method of system dynamics, which gives the control of the modeling process directly to the Mumbai slum communities.

To create the sustainable urban development winter institute, Wash U partnered with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). Tata is the elite Indian social work graduate school, and has about 1200 students. There are many different schools within TISS, covering a wide range of social sciences. We are working with the School of Habitat Studies, which is particularly focuses on urban development, governance, and applied policy within India. The Habitat School is entirely interdisciplinary, and classes include economic theory, analysis of power, philosophies of community organizing, public policy, some technical engineering-esque issues on water and housing, and architecture/urban planning. Students in the Habitat School range from age 21 to 27, and come from backgrounds ranging from sociology to engineering.

Besides the Tata Institute, the winter institute also includes an NGO called CORO (Community of Resource Organizations). CORO has been working with slum communities in Mumbai for over 22 years, and has achieved many successes in community development. CORO originally started as a group of middle class activists pushing literacy in the slums, but has since transformed into a truly grassroots organization that develops most of its leadership directly from the Mumbai community.

CORO practices “research-based interventions” and has six key focuses: 1) understanding of urban community issues; 2) strategies that really work at the grassroots level; 3) community dynamics and politics; 4) identification of individual potential leadership; 5) support for collective leadership; and 6) bridging the gaps between macro concepts and micro realities. CORO is excited to see how system dynamics and group model building can be utilized in Mumbai slum communities, and feels that these tools can supplement their work. Because of CORO’s very positive reputation within the slum communities, we are able to talk to many people and form many personal connections that would not otherwise be possible.

Without the CORO members, the winter institute could not possibly involve residents of Mumbai slum communities. However, involving CORO members makes learning and interacting in the Winter Institute much more complicated, as only a few CORO members are fluent in English. To make matters more difficult, some CORO members speak mainly Hindi (the national language of India), while others are most comfortable with Marathi (the official language of the state of Maharashtra, which includes Mumbai). Because of this constraint, we have sometimes needed to translate winter institute lectures into three languages.

Because of CORO’s involvement, we have been able to place the Mumbai community at the center of the institute process. Each of the eight groups in the program have visited the “field” (ie, real Mumbai slums) at least three times to interview community members and gain insights into the unique problems faced by each community. During these visits, TISS students translate the Hindi discussions into English for the Wash U students. Surprisingly, this process has gone over very smoothly, and the American students have easily been able to contribute to the community discussions.

With only three days remaining in the winter institute, time is running short. The social relations and system dynamics teams met earlier today to collaborate and help each other to better understand the problems faced in the four focus areas: water, solid waste management, financial inclusion, and housing. While all teams have made substantial progress, much work remains in developing novel policy solutions for our final presentations on Saturday. I am confident, however, that we can break through the challenging barriers and generate ideas for that CORO, TISS, and the slum communities of Mumbai can use to create a more sustainable future for everyone involved.

A Brief Summary of My Time in Mumbai

From January 1-15, I am in Mumbai, India participating in a winter institute on sustainable urban development. My group from the Washington University Brown School of Social Work has partnered with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in an effort to create intellectual and cross-cultural learning. The institute focuses on four thematic areas: access to water, solid waste management, financial inclusion, and adequate housing. We are using “group model building” and system dynamics to work directly with the Mumbai slum communities to uncover the root causes to their most pressing problems. I strongly believe this type of work should serve as the cornerstone of our collective efforts to create a sustainable society.

I have been in India for twelve days, and am really getting a feeling for the place. The once overwhelming sights, sounds, and sensations of Mumbai are now somewhat commonplace. While I might still occasionally double-take when cattle appear in the road during our morning bus ride, for the most part I would say I have adjusted to this new city. I know a few Hindi words now, and can say “OK” (tike), “Let’s Go” (chello), and “Thank you” (Tanyevad), although I am still uncertain of the Hindi spelling. Even the rupee currency is starting to come more naturally, and I can tell when a price is reasonable and when I am getting ripped off.

These past twelve days have been a blur of activity, and my busy schedule, lack of regular internet access, and general fatigue after jam-packed days has prevented me from updating my blog. I hope to re-establish a pattern with this post, and will try to give a brief summary of my time in India thus far. Future posts over the next few days will backtrack to cover issues further in depth, and will hopefully allow me to synthesize the variety of incredible experiences I have had since arriving in Mumbai.

On that note, here is a day by day summary of my time thus far:

January 1 (Saturday): I explored the Navi Mumbai neighborhood where my youth hostel is located. The neighborhood is located in Navi Mumbai, a “twin” city of Mumbai located east across a strait from the main city.

January 2 (Sunday): I traveled to the ancient Elephanta Island and witnessed the Gateway to India. I also experienced some harrowing and exhilarating cab rides through the city.

January 3 (Monday): We had our orientation for the system dynamics winter institute at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). I met the amazing students of the Habitat School at TISS, listened to some lectures about Solid Waste Management (my assigned topic for the winter institute), and enjoyed some special Indian food.
January 4 (Tuesday): We had our first day of lectures on community-driven system dynamics, and played the famous SD “distribution game” (look for details in a later post). I also met my fellow team members for the Solid Waste Management SD group.

January 5 (Wednesday): We were introduced to the concept of “scripts” for Group Model Building, which allow system dynamicists to follow a standardized procedure when eliciting modeling feedback from a community. We also had our first field visit to our slum community Rafi Nagar, which was an absolutely incredible experience. I will post much more about Rafi Nagar shortly.

January 6 (Thursday): We had additional system dynamics lectures on stocks and flows at TISS, and analyzed the information we obtained from our field visit. Thursday night, we went out drinking with the TISS students at an American style bar called RUDE Lounge. Let’s just say that Indian students know how to party.

January 7 (Friday): We finalized our reference modes of problem behavior for the community, and embarked on a second field visit to Rafi Nagar. The community was incredibly receptive, and gave my friend Sarah and I Henna (“Mendi” in Hindi) art tattoos. They also proved to be incredible intelligent and adept at system dynamics, and were able to create reference modes for three community diseases entirely on their own.

January 8 (Saturday): This was a very short work day, which involved a short presentation that updated the other groups on our progress in the modeling process. Saturday night, our group went out to an American-style restaurant called “Ray’s Café and Pizzeria,” which felt exactly like the United States. I also experienced the Mumbai public train system, which is very different from an American Metro subway or light rail line.

January 9 (Sunday): This was our day off from the winter institute, and I took full advantage of the freedom. I had lunch with friends, got an ayurvedic massage, utilized the neighborhood internet café, and had a great dinner in Kharghar.

January 10 (Monday): We returned to TISS after the weekend break, and continued developing our stock-flow model for solid waste management in Rafi Nagar. We also visited the community for a third time to elicit feedback on the model structure. On Monday night, I stayed behind at TISS with a friend in order to see what life was like as a Mumbai student. Turns out besides the different density of living arrangements, we have pretty similar lifestyles.

January 11 (Tuesday): I attended a lecture for the TISS class “Sustainable Development and Climate Change,” which justly included quite a bit of U.S. bashing. I also fell ill for the first time in Mumbai, likely due to eating something rotten. Luckily, pepto-bismal kept me relatively at ease during my time of indigestion.

January 12 (Wednesday): We presented our current model to the social relations student group also working on solid waste management. I later got “natural ice” ice cream with some friends, and ate a “veggie franky” for dinner, which is likely the equivalent of an American hot dog (I will do my best to post a picture soon).

Well, that concludes my extremely brief summary of my time here in Mumbai thus far. I will be posting much more over the coming days. I think that the most important thing for me now is to just continue writing; with everything I have seen, whatever blogposts emerge are almost certain to be interesting.

Elaphanta Caves and Gateway to India

From January 1-15, I am in Mumbai, India participating in a winter institute on sustainable urban development. My group from the Washington University Brown School of Social Work has partnered with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in an effort to create intellectual and cross-cultural learning. The institute focuses on four thematic areas: access to water, solid waste management, financial inclusion, and adequate housing. We are using “group model building” and system dynamics to work directly with the Mumbai slum communities to uncover the root causes to their most pressing problems. I strongly believe this type of work should serve as the cornerstone of our collective efforts to create a sustainable society.

 

On Sunday, I visited Elephanta Caves with my new social work friends Jackie and Colleen.  The Elephanta Caves feature ancient Hindu sculptures, which are estimated to have been carved around 600 A.D.   The caves are one of the main tourist attractions of Mumbai, and daily draw many thousands of Indians and a lesser (but still large) number of foreign visitors.  The caves are located on Elephanta Island, which is about an hour ferry ride from the Gateway to India at the southern tip of Mumbai.

Once arriving at Elephanta, we encountered a large assortment of small vendors selling Indian food, sweets, carvings, figurines, jewelry, clothing, embroidered tapestries, and other tourist goods.  The vendors all knew basic English, and were skilled in the art of negotiating.  We bartered over spiced corn on the cob, elephant figurines, and mineral necklaces, and succeeded at least in getting a substantially reduced price compared to the initial ask.  Several times I walked away from a booth, only to have the vendor follow me and ask me to “name my own price,” which led to a new round of haggling.  Even with this effort, I suspect that we still paid a much higher price for the souvenirs than many native Indians.

Interestingly, all of the booths had nearly the same exact items for sale.  While I was awed by the apparent craftsmanship and originality of the Hindu god figurines in the first few shops, the various stores apparently purchase all of their items from the same source, as identical figurines appeared again and again as we continued shopping.  It seems that in India follows the same rules as everywhere else I have visited: tourists gobble up cheap, mass produced souvenirs.

Here is a picture showing one vendor’s supply of figurines:

After passing through the maze of vendors, we finally reached the actual caves of Elephanta.  They are absolutely breath-taking, with massive sculptures of Hindu gods.  The ancient carvings are badly damaged, with many missing arms and many artistic details.  However, the sheer size and majesty of the sculptures are still awe-inspiriting.  The artwork easily towers to 20 feet, and there are fourteen distinct scenes present in the caves.

Hindu mythology revolves around the trinity of Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer).  At Elephanta, Shiva is most prominently featured, as he is seen as the most powerful god all.  Various manifestations of Shiva show him through dichotomies, both male and female, creator and destroyer, somber and joyous.   Above all, Shiva unifies the universe, and through his divine power allowed water and life to exist on Earth.

Below is a picture of Shiva, dancing beside his bride to be Parvati:

Another entertaining dimension of Elephanta was the monkeys. Due to constant exposure to human visitors, the monkeys are completely comfortable with tourists.  In fact, the monkeys have lost all fear of humans, and appear to be almost entirely dependent on visitors for food.  I observed an Indian man trying to scare a monkey away from his lunch.  But instead of retreating, the monkey stood his ground and hissed, scaring the man and his family and leading to a large amount of food for the bold primate. The monkeys have also learned the ways of their human visitors, and can open plastic water bottles or take pictures with cameras stolen from tourists.

Interestingly, stray dogs are also present on Elephanta Island and in Mumbai in large numbers.  However, the dogs are much more passive and docile than the monkeys.  In fact, I have rarely even heard a dog bark when passing them in the street, and have not yet witness any sign of aggression by Mumbai canines.

After spending several hours on Elephanta Island, we took the ferry back to Mumbai.  Mumbai’s air pollution was extremely evident as we sailed through the bay; I could barely make out the skyline only a few miles away due to heavy smog.  The pollution was so bad that I began to feel my eyes stnging during the journey.  This intense air pollution is due mainly to extremely rapid industrialization and development, as well as a lack of enforced air pollution standards for the city.

We finished our day of sight-seeing where we began: the Gateway to India.  This monument was orginally built to commemorate a visit by King George VI in 1911 to Britain’s then colony.  After India won its independence, the gateway served as a ceremonial role for the departure of the British.  As the last of the British colonial rulers departed through the archway, India was formally independent and theoretically free to chart its own destiny.  The Gateway to India is now a major tourist attraction, and is located in the nicest (and wealthiest) area of the city.

Below is a picture of the Gateway to India, with the accompanying crowds:

First Impressions of Mumbai

From January 1-15, I am in Mumbai, India participating in a winter institute on sustainable urban development. My group from the Washington University Brown School of Social Work has partnered with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in an effort to create intellectual and cross-cultural learning. The institute focuses on four thematic areas: access to water, solid waste management, financial inclusion, and adequate housing. We are using “group model building” and system dynamics to work directly with the Mumbai slum communities to uncover the root causes to their most pressing problems. I strongly believe this type of work should serve as the cornerstone of our collective efforts to create a sustainable society.

Happy New Year and greetings from Mumbai!  I am here in the Indian financial capital with the Washington University Brown School of Social Work, attending a two week institute focused on sustainable urban development.  We will be working with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences to examine how to create better policies and programs for Mumbai’s slums.  Needless to say, I am extremely excited about this opportunity.

During the next two weeks, we will use system dynamics modeling to examine four different areas: 1) access to clean water; 2) solid waste management; 3) financial inclusion in the banking system; 4) adequate housing provisions.  In my next blogpost, I will provide a brief overview of system dynamics and ways it can be used to draw new insights in complex systems, such as the provision of social services in the urban environment.

This blogpost, however, is about my first impressions of Mumbai.  After a very long, 14.5 hour flight, I arrived in India from the Newark.  I took a prepaid taxi with two friends to lodging in Navi (new) Mumbai. While walking to the taxi we were quickly identified as tourists, and as such were offered help with our bags for "small coin."  I have a feeling that we will continue to receive much attention during our stay, as are obviously American tourists.

It takes about an hour’s drive to reach Navi Mumbai from the main city, and during my taxi trip I observed the chaos that is Mumbai traffic.  Everyone drives on the left side of the road in India, as the country follows the pattern of its British colonizers.  The roads in Mumbai are jam-packed with a mix of new automobiles, three-wheeled motorized rickshaws, motor-bikes, and pedestrians.  I've never seen such crazy activity happening in a road before.  Although there are lanes, they appear to be more optional than mandatory.  Motor-bikes weave in and out of traffic, while pedestrians crossed with almost no heed to approaching cars.  There is a constant cacophony of honking, which somehow prevents any collisions from taking place. 

I am staying in the YUVA Center in Navi (new) Mumbai during my two week stay.  YUVA stands for "Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action," and is a non-governmental organization that works for social justice and expanding democracy to the poorest citizens of Mumbai.  Our hosts are very gracious and showed us great hospitality, although we had some difficulty communicating since the YUVA workers we first met knew little English.  

So far, I have very much enjoyed the food in India.  For breakfast, we had white bread with jam and a flat bread vegetarian omelet.  We ate the omelet with Indian Ketchup, which has a slightly different flavor than the more bland American variety.  We were also served coffee, which was in a small mug comparable to the size of an espresso.  While the food was simple, it was very delicious.  We later had lunch at the nearby Three Star Hotel, and sampled various vegetables, naan, curries, and marsalas.  All were extremely tasty.

Navi Mumbai is a mix of traditional Indian customs and Western-style globalization.  The streets are lined with shops for electronics, hair cuts, cyber-cafes, food, medicines, clothing, fitness and almost everything else imaginable.  I was particularly surprised by the Western-style fitness centers, which feature pictures of buff white athletes exercising.  There was also a Domino’s pizza joint, which featured slightly different varieties of the American food favorite.  Apparently, globalization means that even halfway around the world, I can still order an American style pan pizza.

We picked up some provisions from a corner drug store, and then stopped by a cyber-café to access the internet.  The internet was extremely fast, but unfortunately the toilet clogged and flooded the floor while we in the café.  I don’t expect that this is a common occurrence for cyber cafes, but it was certainly an interesting first impression.

Most people in Navi Mumbai wear western dress, although we did see several women in traditional Indian garb.  There was also great disparity in the formality of people’s clothing.  I saw Mumbai residents wearing everything from formal suits to casual T shirts and shorts.  The clothing stores matched this diversity, as some sold saris and Indian fabrics, while others had garments emblazoned with Homer Simpson or 50 Cent.

Some other observations initial observations about Navi Mumbai: Dogs are very common in the city.  On almost every street corner, I saw dogs basking in the sun.  Pigeons are also present, perhaps signaling the extreme adaptability of the bird to urban conditions.  Overall, both the dogs and the pigeons were pretty much ignored by the Mumbai natives.

That sums up my first impressions of Mumbai.  Please keep reading the blog for further updates on my experiences in India, and to follow our work on system dynamics modeling and sustainable urban development.