India’s Urban Transition: Why Constitutional Values Must Shape the Cities of the Future

Over the last couple of years, India’s constitution – especially its preamble – has re-entered the heart of political life. Opposition parties have made it the centrepiece of their politics; protesting young people carry it as a symbol of democratic aspiration; many drawing rooms now have it as a wall hanging and civil society uses it as a moral measure of state action. Yet, invoking the preamble as a symbol is the easy task. The harder one is to employ the constitution as a contemporary, ever-evolving framework – a guiding architecture for the institutions, policies, and everyday decisions that define India today and shape our future. Nowhere is this understanding more essential than in the Indian city.

As the country undergoes one of the largest and fastest urban transitions in the world, the struggle over constitutional values must be viewed as an urban struggle. Urban India today holds easily more than 40% of the population, a figure that will reach 50% by 2050. Cities surely creates economic opportunities but also deepen vulnerabilities, negatively impacting social and environmental parameters.

Constitutional values of justice, equality, liberty, fraternity, socialism, and secularism are denied daily in streets, housing, labour markets, transport, planning decisions and even the air we breathe. India’s urban transition then is not simply demographic or economic shift – the cities are at the frontlines of our constitutional promise and failure.

India’s constitution and the urban crisis

At the time of independence and the framing of the constitution, India was residing in its villages. Villages were seen as the core of Indian society – as autonomous and self-governing units. The freedom movement, rooted in the rural and swadeshi, did not have a clear articulation on cities. The huge challenges facing a newly independent nation also did not allow room for imagining our urban transformation. It was only in the 1980s that the debate on cities gained traction.

The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, enacted in 1993, gave urban local bodies constitutional status for the first time. It mandated regular elections, provided reservations for marginalised groups and one-third women – one of India’s largest inclusion measures – and required states to devolve functions, funds, and functionaries to municipalities. The Twelfth Schedule listed 18 mandatory core municipal responsibilities: from planning and land regulation to water supply, sanitation, environmental protection, and slum improvement. Metropolitan Planning Committees were envisaged to coordinate planning across regions.

Yet, the everyday practice of Indian urban governance bears little resemblance to this vision. The 74th Amendment remains one of India’s most under-implemented constitutional reforms. Many states have devolved almost no real authority to cities. Parastatal agencies – development authorities, transport corporations, water boards, and now the special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) – control almost every major urban function. Municipalities remain financially weak, administratively constrained, and politically sidelined. Under the twin pressures of state governments and national schemes, urban governance in the preceding decade has become more technocratic, top-down, consultant-led, and project-driven, farther from constitutional values. The vocabulary of urban rights is mostly absent in policies, planning, municipal budgets, and infrastructure projects. 

Also read: Whose Cities? India’s New Landscape of Capital, Surplus Labour and Poverty

Urban India faces challenges the framers of the constitution and even the 74th Amendment, could not have foreseen: extreme climate events, spatial inequality, informal livelihoods, platform economies, mobility and housing crises, migrant precarity, and accelerating environmental degradation. The other bulwarks of our democracy – especially the judiciary – have advanced constitutionalism through landmark judgments, but their role has clear limits. A court-centric constitutionalism cannot protect the millions living in fragile urban conditions and is often dismissed as judicial overreach. Meanwhile, legislative discourse in India continues to parrot the cliched “engines of growth” narrative without offering any alternate imagination to our urban futures.

Global examples for shaping urban futures

Globally, countries in different contexts have responded to such transformations by strengthening constitutional protections for urban life. Latin America, with a high urban population, historic urban inequality and strong social movements, becomes an inspiration in many aspects. Brazil’s 1988 constitution introduces the “social function of property,” requiring land and urban space to serve social justice. Its 2001 City Statute embeds participatory planning and the right to the city as legal principles.

Ecuador’s 2008 constitution recognises the right to “fully enjoy the city and its public spaces…sustainable management of environmental,” ensuring safe, healthy habitats. South Africa’s 1996 constitution, emerging from the post-apartheid era, explicitly guarantees the right to adequate housing. Not far from home, Nepal’s 2015 constitution is one of the most ambitious devolution models in the world, giving local governments robust authority over 22 exclusive functions and an additional 15 concurrent functions including legislation, housing, land, markets, water, education, health, environmental management, climate adaptation, taxation and disaster response. These global experiences show that urbanism centred on the constitution is not theoretical – it is practical and implementable.

At home, there are lighthouse examples – though still limited without stronger institutions and scaling. Kerala’s People’s Plan Campaign advances deep decentralisation and participatory planning, now backed by India’s first state-level urban policy. Odisha’s Jaga Mission offers a rare rights-based model through in-situ upgrading and land rights. Pune’s participatory budgeting is another strong example of citizen engagement. All together, they show that cities can be built around rights, dignity, and participation.

What a constitutional city would look like 

Reclaiming constitutionalism in the city requires imagination, as it demands fundamental political and social shifts. A constitutional city would be premised on the constitutional values of justice, equality, liberty, fraternity, socialism, and secularism, and base its future not only in economic terms, but of justice, dignity and quality of life for all. This effort must begin firstly with strengthened local democracy – municipalities with real financial autonomy, accountable leadership, and ward committees and even area sabhas.

Also read: New Study Shows How Class, Religion and Caste Limit Urban Indian Citizens

Secondly, urban planning would be rooted in spatial justice and inclusion, with master plans and zoning laws ensuring affordable housing, accessible public transport, mixed-use neighbourhoods, and should be prepared ground-up. Urban projects and schemes should be planned and implemented along with local democratic ward or even area sabhas.

Thirdly, Informal workers – the 90% of livelihoods like vendors, construction workers, waste pickers, domestic workers, gig workers – would be treated as equal citizens whose right to urban livelihood shapes street design, markets, mobility systems, and social protection. Protection and regularisation of informal settlements as improved housing should also be prioritised. The informality of our cities should not be criminalised, but recognised, regularised, and managed.

Fourthly, public spaces and urban institutions should be reclaimed as common goods: streets, open spaces, parks, markets, libraries, footpaths, waterbodies, and other commons would remain accessible and safe for all, supported by reinvestment in public education, health, and transportation as the backbone of urban justice. Good-quality living in cities would be ensured by liveability standards such as clean air, water, and other essential resources.

Fifth, urgently needed climate action should be led by cities at the local, prioritising vulnerable communities, recognising climate adaptation as a constitutional duty to protect life and dignity. A constitutional city then is simply a city where the constitution is lived – in governance, planning, public space, work, and everyday urban life.

But this requires more than institutional reform; it demands civic imagination and political will. The struggles of workers, the insecurity of slum residents, polluted air and water, shrinking public spaces, and exclusionary development are not administrative failures – they are constitutional failures. To defend the constitution in practice, India must rebuild its cities through its values. As Dr. Ambedkar reminded us, constitution is a “living document”, its life depends on how we translate it into everyday urban policy. We, the people of India’s cities, need a re-imagination of rights, justice and dignity in the city – one rooted in the Constitution itself.

Aravind Unni is an urban practitioner and researcher focused on informality, inclusion, and equitable city planning in Indian cities.

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