Shirish Patel: A Sensitive Urban Planner Who Looked Beyond Mumbai’s Vanity

Many years ago, like every student of the city, I learned that Shirish Patel was the planner of Navi Mumbai. He was a distant, almost legendary figure, someone you read about in books and talk about in terms of someone you know who has actually met him. 

In the literature on planning and urban theory, in seminars and conferences, we were told that planners are hubristic, that they come with top-down solutions that fail to understand how cities work. They are naive utopians, who think that decent living conditions and social justice can be achieved by good planning. They are foolish in their efforts to regulate the market. Or worse: they are anti-people in their harsh attempts to reorder the city. 

But then, while doing some research on the history of evictions in Mumbai, I discovered a clip from The Times of India from 1975. It was written by Shirish Patel, addressed to the editor, in response to a report about the demolition of 1,000 tenements at Cuffe Parade. The evicted households were offered alternative accommodation in Deonar. Shirish Patel asked:

“Has anyone asked how many of those who lived in these huts were gainfully employed and where their jobs were located? […] Those who move into expensive buildings…Do they even ask where, whom they employ, actually live? Do they even know where Deonar is? 

People don’t migrate into cities because they want to become thieves or beggars. They do so because there are real jobs to be had, more and more new ones every day. They do not want to live in slums but have no choice…Clearing hutments or moving them to where they cannot be seen is no answer to the problem of slums in our cities. It is jobs that must be regulated. In other words, jobs must be dispersed to other towns and, within the city, to other localities. It is this which will help the common man.”

This short unsolicited letter, written by the famous planner of Mumbai, with clarity and understanding about the plight of ordinary people in the city, taught me more about how cities work, who shapes them and how they ought to be planned than what I read in the hefty volumes on planning theory and obscure ramblings in academic journals. 

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I was amazed by his output as well as insights. At one point, I was working on an article on the Backbay reclamation in Mumbai. Sure enough, I found his article, this one written as a 35 year old as far back as 1967. The area was being reclaimed for construction of office blocks to make it a prestigious business district – what is now known as Nariman Point and Cuffe Parade. The Backbay reclamation, he said, was a mistake – a “Redoubling [of] the Error of History.” In his conclusion, he wrote:

“Every city has its poorer and better localities, but nowhere are the geographic lines drawn quite as clearly as they will be in Bombay…The consequences of this blatant discrimination in favour of the wealthiest classes can only be disastrous in the long run. With so much to lose and so little to gain by implementing the Scheme one fact emerges with relentless and distressing clarity: that the men responsible for the Scheme, whatever else their motives, do not have the interests of this city at heart.” 

Shirish Patel taught his readers not just why something deserves to be critiqued, but how to critique it well. He was an agent of Mumbai’s transformation, but also its most eloquent development analyst. For many of us, he was the embodiment of social justice planning in Mumbai. As I read more of his work, I often considered writing to him to express my admiration, but I couldn’t. He was too important, and I did not think he would care. 

In 2015, there was a lot of excitement about a proposed coastal freeway project on the western shore of Mumbai. A colleague and I wrote an article arguing that it was a welfare project for the wealthy, and would be disastrous for the city. A few days later, we got an email from Shirish Patel. We were surprised that he read it, and even more that he wrote to us to say that he liked it. But we were most taken aback by his humility, when he said ours was a point of view that he was “sorry” to have “missed out on completely” in his own article about the project. This was quite unexpected. He was, after all, an established authority on urban affairs, and we had learned so much from him. He had probably never heard of us, and had no reason to write to us. Yet, he reached out with a compliment and an apology. 

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So, I was wrong. He cared deeply, not about what important people are saying, but about what is important, regardless of who says it. He therefore did not hesitate to challenge his contemporaries (and even friends) publicly on any issue. He could spot an error or an analytical misstep instantly, and then he would proceed to ruthlessly and brilliantly dismantle it. It was always fascinating to see him take apart the arguments of well-known planners by declaring them as “nonsense” or “meaningless” followed by two or three crisp paragraphs explaining where they have erred. 

Shirish Patel was an atypical member of his social class and his profession. He wrote academic articles regularly and his commentary appeared in newspapers and online news platforms. There is not a single sentence or passage in this enormous corpus of writings where he seems to be holding back or being vague. He was an embodiment of classical literary values: of thought disciplined by coherence and logic, love of truth, relentless pursuit of knowledge, and a commitment to progressive social transformation – all expressed through clear, forthright and effortless prose. 

When thinking and writing about the city, I would occasionally find myself asking: “how would Shirish respond to this?” I was fortunate enough in recent years to be able to correspond with him regularly on issues that were of common concern to us. I sent almost everything I wrote about Mumbai to him for critical comments. He was always generous. He replied promptly, was brutally honest in highlighting points of agreement and disagreement, and he even corrected all the typos (which I am told he despised). But once he approved, there was never a doubt that I was on the right track.

And he always seemed to have time. A little over a year ago, he allowed me to interview him at length about his life experiences and his opinions on Mumbai. Thoughts and ideas flowed freely and lucidly, uninhibited by age. After two hours of interviewing, I asked him if he was tired. “Not at all,” he beamed. We continued. Some of the anecdotes were intriguing. One in particular, was about his ability to speak French fluently:

“I started my career as an apprentice to a French firm in Paris, working on arch dams…[but] I couldn’t speak French very well…The French engineers would look blank if I used a single English word. Then, later when we went to London for conferences, I found they spoke perfect English! So I decided that I must learn French, and the only way to really learn it is to think in French. So I decided to think in French, and spent the most miserable three months of my life because I didn’t have the vocabulary for a single thought – it wasn’t there – but anyway at the end of three months it was alright, and I could speak French, reasonably fluently, and that was a very rewarding experience.”

He remained an engineer through and through. Any problem could be solved if one diagnosed it correctly, devised creative solutions, and took up the task of getting it fixed – be it learning French, building an arch dam, dealing with a difficult traffic intersection, unavailability of affordable housing, frequent urban flooding, location of industries, worsening urban inequality, or flawed land policy. He could analyse problems better than anyone, but he always went a step further. Responding to one of my academic articles he once said:

“My only critique – and this applies to a great deal of academic writing, not just your article – would be OK. Understood. So where do we go from here? I would love to see this followed by a statement of what needs to change. Clear, practical directions of what to do…I think the powers that be could do with dependable advice – to be incorporated in their manifestos, why not?”

Mumbai’s recent transformation frustrated him constantly. In 2015 a few of us invited him as a Commissioner for an Independent People’s Tribunal on the Coastal Road project. He agreed with all of the issues people raised, but urged us to ask why such projects are being pursued. In Mumbai, he remarked “we have a government of the builders, by the builders, for the builders.” 

It does not matter which political party is in power, and policies and projects will be pursued on a long-term basis without threat of deflection. There was a time when bureaucrats would stand up to politicians when necessary to protect the public interest, he reminisced. “I think that is gone. I haven’t heard the word public interest in discourse for the last 20 years.” 

When his lung-infection flared up earlier this year, he reassured friends he is okay after commenting ironically about the scene outside his window: “I’m in hospital, with a spectacular view of the nastiness that Mumbai is becoming.” Only once have I come across a rare bit of helplessness in his email, which he quickly snuffed out with an optimistic afterthought:

“Sadly, I don’t see attitudes changing. Our antediluvian systems of social stratification run too deep, and changing governments will make no difference. Too bad we seem to have been born ahead of our times and are doomed to be able to change nothing. Which of course is no reason to stop trying…And as it happens there are some hope-lifting sparks now…”

In August this year, I requested him to talk to some of my students and give them some directions for designing a rehabilitation project for about 1,400 low-income households in Mankhurd. He invited all of us home, and spent a lot of time discussing initial proposals, and explaining the concept of a Community Land Reserve – an idea that he has developed and expounded for many years. He then invited us again a month later to show him detailed plans. 

In September, we visited him again. He looked at every drawing carefully, asking questions, making suggestions. Some of the students had designed toilets as a single unit with a wash basin, WC and bath area. He explained that a low-income single family household is better served by a wash basin outside the wash-room and a bath and WC that can be used simultaneously. Children need to go to school, and parents need to go to work. An apartment with multiple toilets can be designed like that, but it is impractical in a single-room tenement. “I have seen well-known architects, who claim to work for the poor, design toilets like this,” he said. “They have no idea how the poor actually live.” 

After a while, I sensed that he wasn’t feeling very well, but he was too polite to say it. We thanked him for talking to us, and left. He stood at the door, smiling, and waved us goodbye. That was the last time I saw him.

After hearing about his passing, a friend regretfully said: “It feels like an entire way of thinking is coming to an end.” 

She was right. Shirish Patel was an unexpected ally of a voiceless public, and the most articulate voice of common citizens. He represented the high-minded ideals of progressive city planning – a way of thinking that planners today casually dismiss as being outdated.

Shirish Patel inspired many who knew him with his limitless optimism, and enriched their lives with wit and intelligence. Unfortunately, I got to know him personally only in the last few years of his life. But in this short period, he became a good friend and a cherished mentor. I can only envy all those who knew him more intimately, or knew him for much longer. But for all I could get, I remain most grateful.