World class

Through this time of uncertainty, nobody in India has needed to ask one particular question: why Mumbai? That answer is known. Expressed abstractly, the city8217;s welcoming nature, its reputation as a melting pot is like a red rag to fundamentalists. More prosaically: any terrorists seeking to attack those from the West or those who are Jewish will seek out places where they congregate and are soft targets. As part of the India Growth Story: Mumbai status as the entrepocirc;t for crucial foreign capital, means those who view India8217;s success as a threat will seek to undermine it. Whichever way it is expressed, the answer is the same: Mumbai is where India opens to the world; it is India8217;s global city.

Only it isn8217;t yet. The response to the attacks made that woefully clear. We saw dozens of railway policemen protecting a station that sees 40 lakh passengers a day outshot by two terrorists 8212; because the policemen had rifles that couldn8217;t match the terrorists8217; semi-automatics. We saw firemen heroically battling blazes in a hundred-year old structure 8212; but doing so under fire, without bulletproof jackets. We saw the only security force capable of taking on the terrorists room by room was a thousand miles away. Mumbai simply doesn8217;t have the infrastructure to match its profile.

This is a failure of governance. More, it is a failure to put in place institutions that could make governance possible. The institutions of New York City, and its mayor, were heroes after 9/11. After the attacks on London8217;s public transport in 2005, Britain rallied round its council and its mayor, Ken Livingstone. Those men and the institutions they led mattered, they were visible, and they were accountable. They were there to fight to keep their city8217;s infrastructure at par with the world8217;s. Can anyone claim the Brihanmumbai Mahanagarpalika, with a powerless mayor and corporators who worry about little more than lighting and cemeteries, is comparable? States starve cities, because they do not want rivals for power. But without basic reform to how we govern them and the devolution of genuine power, we cannot expect the cities we think are global to be anything more than pretenders.