Dreaming Big: Spectacular Events and the ‘World-Class’ City: The Commonwealth Games in Delhi

Abstract

Urban transformation generally unfolds slowly, allowing conflicts to be resolved, and compromises to be negotiated along the way. However, they can be accelerated through ‘critical events’ (Das 1990); occasions such as major disasters and accidents, ethnic violence, national elections, summit meetings, and international sports contests come to be encapsulated in a ‘special time’, a sacred period set apart within the temporality of secular politics (Gilmartin 2009). This chapter examines the Commonwealth Games 2010 as one such spectacular event, meant to hasten Delhi’s transition to a ‘world-class’ city. The Games legitimized social and spatial changes that would have been more difficult to achieve through routine political and administrative processes. This speed and efficacy were enabled by focusing on the importance of the Games for national prestige and, in particular, the Indian state’s ambition to be recognized as a global superpower.