Anyone who walks through a major Indian city today will eventually notice the small but telling details. Benches split into awkward sections. Pavements dotted with metal studs. Boulders arranged under flyovers. Steeply slanted surfaces where people once sat. Fenced-off patches that look ornamental but serve another purpose. Once you start seeing these shapes and patterns, it becomes hard to ignore what they are doing.
Across Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and other metros, a silent redesign of public space is underway. The intent is rarely spoken aloud, but the effect is unmistakable: certain bodies, particularly the poor, are being discouraged from occupying the city. This approach, known globally as hostile architecture, has slowly taken root in India, wrapped in the language of cleanliness, safety and beautification.
At its core, hostile architecture uses design to influence who can rest, gather or pause in a space. A park bench can still look like a bench, but additional armrests make it impossible to lie down. A flyover remains a piece of infrastructure, but once grills or rocks are installed beneath it, a family can no longer seek shelter there. These cues are subtle enough to blend into the landscape but impactful enough to reshape who feels welcome.
Municipal authorities often defend these decisions as practical. The argument is familiar: the city needs order, streets must stay clean, spaces should not turn into informal settlements. But these claims rarely address the deeper truth that India’s fast-growing cities struggle to provide affordable housing, working shelters or basic welfare systems. When infrastructure fails, public space becomes a fallback. Hostile architecture turns that fallback into a barrier.
The rise of this trend has several roots. A young, aspirational urban middle class increasingly expects cities to look global, tidy and predictable. For many residents, the presence of makeshift shelters or street vendors feels like a mark of disorder. Hostile design offers a quick, visual fix — remove places where people can sit or sleep, and the city appears “managed.”
There is also the growing influence of private developers and gated ecosystems. As malls and corporate campuses shape expectations of what a city should look like, municipal planning begins to mirror that polished aesthetic. Public space, once a shared commons, starts to inherit the logic of private control. Loitering becomes suspect. Resting becomes undesirable. Presence is allowed only when it fits a certain economic profile.
But the people pushed aside are not abstract. They are migrant workers who arrive in cities for construction jobs and daily-wage labour, often without stable housing. They are homeless individuals with limited access to shelters. They are street vendors who depend on footpaths for survival. They are elderly people who need benches that allow them to sit comfortably. In trying to exclude one group, cities often end up making life harder for many others.
The consequences play out quietly. When sitting becomes difficult, rest becomes scarce. When shade is blocked off, heat becomes dangerous. When shelters beneath bridges are removed, people are forced into more unsafe corners. Hostile architecture does not eliminate hardship; it shifts it further from view.
Some cities around the world have experimented with alternatives. Instead of jagged surfaces, they build inclusive benches that allow rest without enabling long-term occupation. Under-flyover spaces are converted into community areas rather than fenced zones. Vendors are integrated into city plans instead of pushed out. The idea is not to abandon order but to pursue it without sacrificing compassion.
India has its own tools to do this. The Street Vendors Act offers a framework for formalising vending zones. Urban schemes can expand night shelters. Thoughtful design can create spaces that are both dignified and well-managed. None of this is impossible. What it requires is a shift in mindset — from policing public space to supporting those who depend on it most.
Every city signals its values through the way it treats its most vulnerable residents. Hostile architecture may deliver a cleaner photograph, but it raises an uncomfortable question: is beauty worth celebrating when it comes at the cost of humanity? India’s cities are evolving rapidly, but evolution need not mean exclusion. The path ahead lies in building places that function for everyone, not only those who can afford to disappear behind a gated boundary.
A humane city is not defined by how efficiently it removes the poor from sight, but by how sincerely it plans for those who have nowhere else to go.
