ABSTRACT
In their nuanced and numerous uneven expressions at the local-regional level, the processes of globalisation swamped the Indian urban centres at the beginning of the twenty-first century. These processes radically altered the outward appearances of these cities as well as their internal social structures. Cities like Pune saw a spectacular arrival of the new middle class and new sites of consumption for this class, in the form of shopping malls, multiplexes and hotels on the one hand, and flyovers, townships and ‘state of the art’ international airports on the other. These transformations and the ambitions that they nurtured within them generated the metaphor of ‘Singapore’; a metaphor 2 that symbolised a futuristic vision of Pune as a metropolis, conforming to international standards as well as linking the small and medium-sized Indian cities with the global economy. It is a vision of cities like Pune that not only physically mirrors the island state of Singapore (complete with international airports, sky bus as a mode of transportation and exotic townships offering the best of ethnic yet cosmopolitan lifestyles) but also one in which ‘the value systems adopted by the citizens of Singapore like accountability, civic sense and respect for law get spread to Indian cities’ (Nair 2005: 79).
