Whose Mumbai Is It Anyway?

THERE are two ways to navigate the stretch from tony south Mumbai to the bustling, suburban north. One passes by the sea, by Haji Ali and Mahalaxmi through Worli and Prabhadevi and Mahim. The other passes through a grey-black mosaic of mills. The latter is a longer road 8212; and a longer journey, one that makes all the difference between south Bombay and central, entrepreneurial and working class. This road takes you through Girangaon, literally, the village of the mills, and this is the road that Mumbai-based journalist Darryl D8217;Monte takes.

Beneath the mass of numbing statistics, project reports and lengthy quotations from government policy documents is a book that takes a position on a very simple question: whose Mumbai is it anyway? And how should the 500 acres of prime land that the mills are perched on be developed? These are questions that have divided the government, city planners, unions and workers, corporates and urban sociologists. In land-greedy Mumbai, where God spells out to FSI and lives are lost and made at the altar of real estate, the question of the fate of its struggling mills 8212; said to number 58, though union activists peg the figure at 50 8212; gets answers from every quarter.

It is D8217;Monte8217;s case that the 50,000-odd mill workers, down to one-fifth their size after they lionised the city8217;s workforce in the 8217;70s, have a stake and a say in answering that question. He makes his preference clear in his dedication itself: 8220;To Mumbai8217;s mill workers, for their fortitude in the face of adversity.8221;

A great deal of Mumbai grew and wasted away through its mills. The city8217;s explosion as a financial centre, its place under the sun as the country8217;s financial and industrial capital, its lure for migrants miles and villages away, have owed to its textile industry. The Story of Mumbai8217;s Mills played out through most of the 8217;80s and 8217;90s, through the crippling 1982-83 strike, the insane, speculation-fuelled boom in land prices, the entry of the underworld in the mill districts to break the back of striking workers, the murder of mill owners like Sunit Khatau, the change in development rules to permit mill owners to sell off part of their land for commercial purposes, the sudden eclipse of chimneys and smokestacks by skyscrapers.

The book is an important document of reference, an accessible slice of urban sociology writing that enhances the ongoing debate. It is by no means as easy read, though. It may also be a bit unsettling for those not familiar with Mumbai8217;s history and geography 8212; one wishes the writer hadn8217;t taken the readers8217; knowledge of, or interest in, the twists and turns in the city8217;s fate for granted.

D8217;Monte argues that the gentrification of Girangaon 8212; a recurring theme and a very real problem for anyone involved with the issue 8212; is a matter of concern, rather than celebration. He takes apart the dream 8212; some dismiss it as an illusion 8212; of converting 8216;Slumbai8217; Mumbai into 8216;8216;Singapore and Hong Kong8221;. 8216;8216;It is only by reconciling the interests of different stakeholders that the city can forge ahead8230; the workers and their children have to be accommodated in the new dispensation.8217;8217; The jury is still out 8212; they should read this book before they deliver their judgement.