The de-pedestrianisation of India’s cities since the rise of personal automobiles in the 1980s is a constantly expanding project, and the sole metric of healthy urbanisation is now a continuous flow of vehicular traffic.

In the frenetic life of Indian citizens, being able to walk easily to the local train station or bus terminus, to a park or lake, sit at a quiet roadside cafe at dusk, take children on a stroll, or simply stand and admire the skyline is difficult in most places. Utilitarian, hazardous, and joyless walking is imposed on the pedestrian, who negotiates an obstacle course every day.

The Supreme Court’s recent order in a motor vehicle accident case, emphasising the citizen’s fundamental right to walk under Articles 19(1)(d) and 21 of the Constitution, and giving her the right to restitution and compensation, has stirred some city administrations to announce pedestrianisation programmes. These statements and early measures to remove obstacles have provoked a backlash from some political parties, vendors, rights groups, and groups of citizens, who cite the enshrined rights of hawkers under law and call for a moderate approach.

Indian metros are governed by statutes and democratic processes and do not countenance a Haussmannisation of the city. Georges-Eugene Haussmann, the French civil servant who earnestly took up Napoleon III’s 19th-century mandate of rebuilding the core of Paris, executed his task with strong-arm tactics to partly rid the city of decrepitude and disease but also to create broad avenues if the ruler’s troops had to move against rebels quickly.

While Haussmann’s Paris is criticised by........

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