Mumbai’s resilience: Cure or Curses?

The bomb blasts were not an isolated incident. They were closely linked to the riots in which hundreds lost their lives and property. Currently there is much speculation about the fate of the report presented by the Srikrishna Commission that was set up to go into the riots. There seems little to argue about. Most sane people would agree that the report must be made public and the guilty must be punished. But who will punish a society that tacitly or otherwise sanctioned the violence? The actual killing and looting may have been carried out by a few, but the majority also participated: the bystanders who rejoiced when shops were burnt and people maimed; those who gave in to feelings of hatred and mistrust to form armed vigilante groups; those who simply shrugged their shoulders and carried on.

What kind of city doesthis to its people? A city, I think, that has grown so huge that rumour can take the place of fact. A city where people have lost touch with each other to such an extent that a neighbour’s loss causes no pain. And in this respect nothing has changed. The city has, if anything, grown larger. And we, in our race to connect with people millions of miles away, have less and less time for problems closer to home. How many people know the names of their MLAs or their ward officers? And when was the last time you took a lazy stroll down your road?

A long time ago, I am willing to bet.But where is the time most people would ask. After long hours at work and a tiring commute where is the time? And then there is the fear of paperwork and institutions. I admit I feel a twinge of fear every time I pass a police station. But does it have to be that way? Belatedly during the riots and more spontaneously after the blasts, Mumbai’s innate humanity did surface.In the first case, the government’s passivity and the grimreality that the fires spreading all over the city conveyed finally forced people out of their homes. Some set about collecting essentials and distributing them the journey taking them to parts of the city that they had never even known existed. Another lot manned emergency telephone services trying to pressurise the police and the fire brigade to respond to distress calls.

And still others lobbied with the government for vehicles, space and army intervention. Similarly, after the blasts there were heartwarming tales of common people rising to the occasion, ferrying victims to hospitals, donating blood and doing whatever else needed to be done. If Mumbai needed any affirmation of its heart or its professionalism, this was it.But there were sobering lessons to be learnt as well. It was clear, for instance, that there needed to be greater interaction between various parts of the city, that citizens needed to forge co-operative links with the authorities and that the privileged had to lobby hard andpersistently to secure even basic protection for the less fortunate.

Unfortunately all these lessons seem to have been swept away with the debris of those dark days.

Apart from a committed few, most people have gone back to their lives more experienced perhaps, but not necessarily wiser.

Which is why I was intrigued to hear about the recent launch of the `Clean Mumbai with Dignity’ project. The project has senior citizens working with the BMC to supervise, identify problems and find solutions on keeping the city clean. The project, conceived by the Dignity Foundation, an organisation that provides life-enrichment services for senior citizens may have had the interest of the latter in mind while planning the project.

But it could be the start of something significant — a renewed interest among citizens in their own city. It is something we sorely need. We’ve shown ourselves to be good crisis managers. It’s the times in between we seem to have a problem with.