The Hindu : Whose city is it anyway?

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Monday, May 26, 2003

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Whose city is it anyway?

By Kalpana Sharma

The Shiv Sena's anti-outsider rhetoric is not new. What is different is the effort to segregate the acceptable "outsiders" from the unacceptable.

THE SHIV Sena is once again playing its favourite game — making non-issues into the burning topic of debate. So, beginning with the launch of the "Me, Mumbaikar" (I am a Mumbaikar) campaign by the newly-anointed Shiv Sena chief, Udhav Thackeray, Shiv Sainiks are already on a controlled rampage. The operative word is "controlled". One will recall that during the 1992-93 communal riots in Mumbai, following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Shiv Sainiks were ordered to stop rioting by Bal Thackeray and suddenly peace descended on the city. Without doubt, the spurt of street demonstrations seen in the last few weeks is but a dress rehearsal to the final act.

The latest manifestation of the obedient Sainik acting on his master's diktat was the demonstration in front of advertising personality Alyque Padamsee's house on May 19 because he told the Shiv Sena mouthpiece, Saamna, that he identified with Bombay, the city of his birth, and not Mumbai. Mr. Padamsee also apparently said that the city should have its own government. As a result, his house was surrounded, and he was "warned" by the local Shiv Sena shakha pramukh, the redoubtable Bal Kaleskar, who had led demonstrations against all-vegetarian societies last month, that "the Shiv Sena would not tolerate any suggestion that the city should be separated from the State".

But why has Alyque Padamsee been chosen as the target of the Shiv Sena's ire? People are constantly using Bombay and Mumbai interchangeably. Just as people still call Pune, Poona, many in Mumbai still think of it as Bombay because in their vision of the city that existed pre-1995 and the name change, "Bombay" represented more faithfully the mixed parentage of this extraordinary metropolis. Indeed, just a few days before this incident, a city newspaper prominently featured on its front page a first-person account by writer Ardashir Vakil, who was born in Mumbai but now lives in London. The headline read: "Beach Boy revisits Bombay". But there were no Sena demonstrations outside the newspaper office. Mr. Padamsee, however, happens to be a Muslim. He is also someone who played a leading role in Citizens for Peace, a spontaneous response by civil society during the 1992-93 riots. Therefore, the demonstration outside his house was meant to give out more than one message.

But apart from the issue of the name, the signals emanating from the Sena Bhawan strike at the heart of the unique mix of cultures that makes Mumbai what it is. As a Mumbaikar, Mumbai-ite, Bombay-ite, Bambaiya, whatever, I must admit to feeling irritated at the recent survey done by a weekly magazine in which Delhi fared better than many other States, even in the criteria of security. Delhi? Where a woman who intervenes in a street brawl is pulled out of her car and shot dead?

Surely, many people in Mumbai, apart from Mr. Padamsee, must have thought that Delhi's statistics were better than other large States like Maharashtra because it was small, it was a city, it was the national capital, and it was hugely pampered. And that if Mumbai were to be declared an independent city-state, it would certainly rank higher than Delhi.

This is because Mumbai is a city of enterprise. It survives through the hard work of its inhabitants, drawn from many parts of the country. For women, it is one of the safest cities in India. Rich and poor have held this city together. Hindu and Muslim, Marathi and non-Marathi, pauper and millionaire have written their stories into the fabric of this metropolis, a thriving urban conurbation that can energise and defeat you at the same time.

Udhav Thackeray says that his party's "campaign is not directed against those who have been living in Mumbai for decades and enriched the city in various ways. We are opposed chiefly to the lumpens who come in with ulterior motives of milking Mumbai". But who are these "lumpens"? According to Udhav Thackeray, they come chiefly from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Obviously, Marathi-speaking "lumpens" are a separate category. His central message is that anyone who has money, a house and a job is welcome to the city even today. The "outsider" label will not apply. But all others, especially non-Maharashtrians, are not welcome.

While Udhav Thackeray reaches out to the professional middle-classes, his cousin, Raj Thackeray, continues to imitate the rhetoric of his uncle, Bal Thackeray. "Biharis and U.P.-ites, even Bangladeshis, occupy space in prime areas without tax. They live on pavements where they cook, defecate and, in no time, build illegal huts. All this in the name of the right to freedom of movement, which has been guaranteed by the Constitution. This is disgusting. A Sena-type stir will have to be started to save Mumbai," he exhorts. He goes on to urge, "Buy only from Marathi vendors and tighten the screws on non-Marathi vendors."

So what is the Sena game? The anti-outsider rhetoric is not new. What is different is the effort to segregate the acceptable "outsiders" from the unacceptable. There is fertile ground for such a weeding out process. Over the last decade, there has been an increase in the propaganda that has laid the blame for all the ills of the city at the door of the "outsider" slum-dweller. Few speak of skewed priorities in city planning. No one looks at the waste of public funds in unnecessary infrastructure at the cost of basic services such as water and sewerage. The majority of the middle class in the city prefers to ignore the politician-builder nexus that has contributed to the mess in property development and the absence of affordable housing. Instead, everyone of this class wants to find a scapegoat — and who better than the poor slum-dweller, whose presence cannot be ignored?

The media has also contributed to this imagery of the "other" as the root of all problems by constantly writing about "citizens" and "tax-payers" as opposed to "slum-dwellers", as if they were a separate category. The fact that people living in regularised slums pay a regular tax to the municipality, pay for water and electricity and often pay the local slumlord/politician is completely ignored.

Also ignored is the data, available through official Government documents, that clearly establishes that the migration into Mumbai for many decades has largely been from other parts of Maharashtra and only a much smaller percentage from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

When Raj Thackeray was confronted with these facts, he reportedly said, "Ground realities are very different from such statistical reports". And when told that the majority of migrants are from Maharashtra, he stated, "it is their right. How can we stop them?"

Facts are inconvenient when you have a political agenda. With elections looming on the horizon, the Sena is set to push its "Me, Mumbaikar" agenda in different ways. It aims to reach out to a complacent middle class that envisages Mumbai free of poor people. At the same time, it wants to hold on to its traditional base of Marathi-speaking urban poor.

In the process, the serious issues that Mumbai does confront will be overlooked. The city planners need a vision that incorporates the contribution of the poor and their needs with the reality of the changing nature of the city's economy. Mumbai will never become a modern, global city if it ignores the ground beneath its feet — the millions of urban poor who have slaved to service the needs of the city.

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