I grew up in Jammu, a small city tucked into the foothills of the Himalayas. Like many others, I left for bigger cities in search of better opportunities. But after years of studying and working across India’s metros, I felt a pull to return. That urge brought me back to Jammu, where I began working with the city government, eager to apply my experience to local challenges.
My work focused on the physical fabric of the city—streets, public spaces, neighbourhoods. The projects I worked on aimed to improve the infrastructure, mobility, and aesthetics of the city. But something kept breaking down between the plans we made and the lives they were meant to impact. That disconnect became strikingly clear during a street redevelopment project which aimed to redesign a key commercial street to make it more functional, walkable, and vibrant. Soon after the project implementation began, resistance surfaced. Residents faced significant disruptions, including restricted access to their homes, pollution, and safety hazards. Small businesses suffered from temporary road closures and reduced foot traffic, severely impacting the livelihoods of these businesses. Complaints piled up. So did delays and costs. Why? Because the community had not been involved in the project planning, people felt excluded from decisions that directly affected them.
This wasn’t an isolated incident. Across most projects I worked on, people’s participation was either tokenistic or limited to inter-departmental coordination. Rarely did the public—the very people meant to benefit from the project—had a say in decision-making.
This experience led me to rethink urban development beyond roads and buildings. Who are we building for if not the people who live there? Why aren’t there clear systems to involve citizens and communities in the development of their neighbourhoods and cities? Why does participation feel procedural instead of powerful? My focus began to shift—from the physical to the institutional, from design to governance aspect of our cities.
These questions propelled me to explore the ecosystem of Participatory Governance in India. As a U-CAN Fellow, I embarked on this journey with Janaagraha- an organisation that has spent decades working to transform how Indian cities are governed. Their focus on citizen participation, transparency, and accountability offered a clear lens to explore these issues. Through this platform, I began to examine the structures, policies, and legal frameworks meant to support participatory governance.
Through this deep dive, I came to understand that participatory governance is not just an abstract concept—it’s the foundation of inclusive, democratic, and resilient urban development. The 74th Constitutional Amendment legally mandates citizen participation, establishing platforms like Ward Committees to give citizens and communities a voice in local governance. However, despite this strong legal framework, the ground reality is far less encouraging. These structures often exist only on paper, with limited awareness, weak implementation, or no real authority.
This disconnect between what is promised and what is practised raises a deeper set of challenges: Why do these platforms fail to function as intended? What keeps citizen participation from becoming part of the everyday governance of our cities? And how do we move from symbolic inclusion to something truly substantive? As I continue my work in this space, these are the questions I am trying to find answers to.
