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Journalism of Courage
Cause for alarm
Environmentalists warn that the greatest threat to mankind in the new millennium will be the destruction of the rain forests and the catastrophic effect it will have on our environment. It is not just the ozone layer and the imbalance of the weather cycles but the deforestation of large tracts of land in heavily populated countries like China and India that cause real concern. Is it my imagination or have the trees and green all but disappeared from Mumbai? I remember Nana Chudasama8217;s single-minded, determined effort a decade ago to green Mumbai. He would actually send a plant instead of flowers on an occasion or celebration. Unique but pointed, the message was perhaps lost then but today it has deep significance. Our city is dying on us and if every citizen doesn8217;t take it upon himself to plant a tree we may be presiding over the city8217;s swan song.
India8217;s burgeoning population touching a billion is another key cause for alarm. The urban poor are adding to the population figures more than rural India. Mumbai contributes to this unhealthy trend in no mean way, our slums are producing a mini metropolis a year. The disparity between the haves and have nots has never been as wide and yawing a gap as the present. In a recentstudy published in the USA, a definite correlation was found to exist between crime rates and teenage pregnancy amongst the blacks and Hispanics. It was found to be a conclusive fact since abortion was legalised that unwanted pregnancies had occurred less 8212; as teenage mother8217;s in crime-prone areas, where poverty was acute, had the option to terminate the pregnancy thus not bringing into the world another child prone to crime. The Heredity vs Environment debate would obviously be negated in this situation as most of the colonies the urban poor reside in have become the centrifugal point of crime syndicates since generations.
My friend Jackie Shroff voices deep concern for the street children of Mumbai. In them he see8217;s a rebellion and animosity which bodes ill for our city in the years to come. He wants to see all the street children rehabilitated on a war footing, before the menace of wanton violence, that these children are prone to, gets out of hand. I share his concern. He has a deep understanding ofour urban poor. He can frequently be found sharing a bidi and chai with them. His is the lone voice of true understanding. The urban poor live cheek by jowl with enormous wealth. Within this disparity a social order is being created, which is born and bred into depravity and violence. Unless this vicious chain is broken we can kiss the city, as we know it, Goodbye8217;. Mumbai needs more than flyovers. It needs an inner cleansing, a need to re-examine her soul.
The lone voices of Shabana Azmi and Sunil Dutt to help slum dwellers has to find an echo in every single citizen of this metropolis. Why is it that members of our film fraternity are able to isolate and identify this problem? Does having acted the role of urban poor have anything to do with it? Or is it that being celebrities we are prone to listen to them? Be that as it may, let us make the greening of Mumbai and slum re-development the order of the day and make our vote count this election by questioning the representatives we send tothe Assembly and Parliament on how they plan to tackle this pincer squeeze that these two issues have on our decaying city.
If we don8217;t act now, we may forfeit the right forever. We may forgive ourselves, but our children never will. Think before you vote. Make your vote count.
