Whose Mumbai?

So, three hundred and forty years later, when the city’s municipal corporation proposes to sell a 138-year-old market in a Grade I UNESCO heritage precinct to a private ‘developer’, we take it in our stride. The resolution, incidentally, was passed last September with record alacrity — in just under a minute and there were no public tenders. Or protests.

It was left to a handful of activists to point out that no one would benefit — officially, at least — from converting beautiful old Crawford Market into a twin towered, multi-storied mall: the BMC, which has ‘agreed’ to sell it at a fragrantly undervalued rate of 73 crore stood to lose roughly Rs 1,000 crore, and the city would lose a world-class heritage structure.

No one, that is, except Mumbai’s favourite scoundrel: Babu the Builder.

This week, the little group of protesters stood silently inside the corporation headquarters dressed in funereal white for the final hearing, while outside, noisy, colourful Mumbai did what it does best: minded its own business. And so, their plea to reconsider the controversial project was rejected without a discussion, again in a matter of seconds. “It is the biggest failure of a democracy, when even a discussion on such a significant matter does not take place,” says Shailesh Gandhi, Mumbai’s chief civic revolutionary.

But then, apart from the Crawford Market Development Project, the Shiv Sena-led BMC has also offered to hand over 25 per cent of Mumbai’s public grounds to private clubs, gymnasiums, restaurants and bars under a ‘Caretaker Scheme.’ Again, quite incidentally, the municipality already has a Rs 400 crore budget to take care of a mere 49 recreation grounds, but is happy to pass the buck to these eager wardens.

Good old land grab? Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh thinks so too. He should know. His Congress led state government hasn’t done badly either. In fact, the government’s Slum Rehabilitation Scheme has all but gifted Mumbai’s sprawling shanties to private developers in a scam rumoured to run into thousands of crores. Meanwhile, 273 acres of the city’s 320 acre mill lands have already been converted into swanky skyscrapers, malls and offices, leaving only 47 acres for parks and low cost houses for mill workers. Plus, a string of ‘minor amendments’ in housing laws and floor space indices have made it ‘legal’ for builders to tear down and ‘revamp’ old buildings, chawls, gaothans and housing societies. Now it’s time to eye 5,500 acres of eco-sensitive salt pans, with possibly another ‘revision’ in environmental laws to please the land sharks.

In short, between them, our public servants in the government and the municipality have already carved up most of the Mumbai pie, and offered it on a platter to the builders lobby.

None of our business? I don’t think so. For one, because Mumbai is not theirs to sell — it belongs to us. Because more buildings mean less living space, water, electricity and infrastructure for our children. Because this unscrupulous, unbridled, unplanned ‘development’ will eventually asphyxiate not just our city, but your life and mine. And because, ultimately, our indifference is as good as complicity.

farah.bariaexpressindia.com