When Singapore gained independence in 1964 (shortly after Nehru's death) the city-state was poor. The area now known as the Central Business District (CBD) was a place where over 200,000 street hawkers and vendors plied their trade. Lee Kwan Yew then readied a "design" for the place by which the CBD would be hawker-free - but he also designed residential areas on the fringes of his territory, and built special markets for re-locating the CBD hawkers there. Today, these very hawkers are tax-paying middle class citizens.
In Singapore, furthermore, street food is big business - and a great tourist attraction. There is really nothing much in Singapore worthy of tourism; but they have created their city in such a way - shopping, food and drink, Sentosa Island, underwater park and the zoo - that millions of tourists, including lots of Indian tourists, flock there year after year.
In other words, all this is eminently feasible. It just needs sensible city management. This needs mayors with budgets and authority. It needs Subsidiarity - so that mayors can keep local taxes, and are more important than the Central State or the Federal State. We in India need to re-build all our existing cities and towns, and also create many, many more.
I may add that I am no great fan of Singapore's "authoritarian capitalism" - to borrow Cristopher Lingle's phrase. But Lee Kwan Yew has built Singapore into what it is today, while our rulers have destroyed each and every city and town - without exception.
Welfarism is "economically unsustainable." All welfare is about "consumption" - not "investment." In the final analysis, we in India need Capital investments - and roads are Social Capital. Roads are also "collective property" in the sense that everyone can use them. (I am not referring to highways, which can be private, from which those who do not pay the toll, or who use inefficient vehicles like bullock-carts, can be kept out.)
Thus, roads are the collective property we need - not Air India, SAIL and ONGC. If we privatised the entire public sector, there would be enough money to invest in world class roads. These roads would lead to a re-building of our urban areas, especially all the satellite towns. They would be much more commercial space for all, including all those who are hawkers today. In time, I am confident, all traders would own proper shops.
I have myself seen this happening in a posh South Delhi market. When the market was built in the 70s (Delhi is a "new city"!) there was a chap there who sold salt peanuts from a pushcart. His peanuts were good, his customers liked what he sold, and today he owns a little shop in that very same market.
Of course, New Delhi is a very bad "model." This "planned, new city" has almost no commercial space. There are lots and lots of "parks" - but there are very few markets. The Mughals built Chandni Chowk, the Brits built Connaught Place, but these jerks only built Nehru Place - a disaster. In Delhi, zoning rules are flouted openly - there is no other way - and huftha rules.
These socialist jerks only thought about "housing." They never thought of The City as a commercial hub. Thus, they never built any commercial spaces - like markets. Hence the disaster.
Today, they are talking "welfare." That is NOT what we need. We need cities and towns - and markets. We also need housing - and there is enough space for that. But people will buy houses only after they have earned enough through market activities.
So why just Bengal? The whole of India can be a Nation of Shopkeepers.
"Into that haven of freedom, my Lord, let my country awake."
Amen.
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