Along with "Make in India", "Smart Cities" seems to be the most hyped up and talked about endeavour of the Modi government. In Modi's recent foreign visits, both of these initiatives were brazenly promoted, most notably in Hannover Messe, Germany, the world's biggest industrial fair. These are not conventional policies (like the National Manufacturing Policy or the National Urban Renewal Mission) but seek to market a particular image of India to key global actors. 

But beyond the hype, there is a need to understand what such initiatives seek to do. Just because of the corny sugarcoating, the core idea need not be problematic. Hence, for understanding Modi's "100 Smart Cities" agenda it is useful to look into the Draft Concept Note on Smart City Scheme made available by the Ministry of Urban Development. So what is the government's vision of a "Smart City"? The concept note is very clear that smart cities should provide "very high quality of life (comparable with any developed European City)".

The note states: "Smart Cities are those that are able to attract investments and experts & professionals. Good quality infrastructure, simple and transparent online business and public services processes that make it easy to practice one's profession or to establish an enterprise and run it efficiently without any bureaucratic hassles are essential features of a citizen centric and investor-friendly smart city." Essentially, it is vision of a tech-enabled, red-tape free, utopian world. 

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The absence of any reference to democracy or the Constitution in the concept note does not seem to be accidental. The very idea of "Smart Cities" is based on rhetoric of speed, efficiency and optimisation, all of which are perceived to be absent in our city governments and which technology firms like IBM and CISCO seek to provide. In this context, new institutional arrangements, which are free from politics, are sought to displace Luddite institutions like local governments.

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In census towns and other areas that still have not become statutory towns, Debroy senses the opportunity to create smart cities since these are "no man's land". He argues "Since they don't possess elected representatives yet, there are no vested interests." For the set of smart cities coming up in the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor, including the much touted Dho

lera project in Gujarat, Debroy wants Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) to drive urban reform. Hence, the NITI Ayog member seems to favour a form of urban governance free from the quandaries of local democracy.

In case of Dholera <http://dholerasir.com/>, Modi's showpiece project initiated when he was Chief Minister, a legislation called the Gujarat Special Investment Region Act 2009 was passed to create a system of governance without any local democracy for a stretch of 920 sq.km. This area is deemed to be an industrial township and hence instead of a municipal government, it is the Gujarat Infrastructure Development Board, Regional Development Authority and project specific SPVs that are responsible for governance.

The idea of "smart governance" emerging from the Modi government seems to be that of a technology driven networked system free from all the "vested interests" of democracy and local government. The endless promotion of smart cities as symbols of a new prosperous India lets the state exercise a form of discursive power which can make people reluctant to oppose such measures. However, if we still believe in the ideas associated with democracy, we need to question such techno-utopias.