People's struggles, Mumbai and capitalism

 People’s Struggles and  the take over

 Of Mumbai by the  rich

Vidyadhar Date

  Acharya Atre was a central figure in the Samyukta Maharashtra  agitation. And it is a good coincidence that  a novel on the  andolan should have been written in the 50^th year of the formation of   Maharashtra by his daughter  Meena Deshpande, a prominent writer.

The 594 page  novel Hutatma   recreates that period  through many  characters that  participated in a struggle. It captures the human drama of the period  and a novel seems best suited for that purpose. It needs to be  more widely read.

   In a sense   the Samyukta Maharashtra movement was a much larger version of the current uprisings in Egypt and other countries. There was repeated police firing and lathi charge.   During this movement in the mid fifties  thousands  of people came out on the streets  for days , for months together.  It was a major  phenomenon. In the elections  people completely set aside  caste considerations. Such was the spirit that   two  members of the microscopic  Parsi community, living mainly in Mumbai,  got elected to the legislative assembly from  deep interior   districts like  Ahmedangar and  areas like Marathwada.

     This prompts me to   write a few  thoughts on  the  struggle, its impact on Mumbai and the  way  the  moneyed interests have  captured  Mumbai, a city  for which the working class fought so heroically.

 

  A  spectacular display of fireworks and  a  multi media  laser  show was held on  three  km  of  Marine Drive in Mumbai on May  1 in 2010   to celebrate the historic occasion of 50 years  of the  formation of Maharashtra. .  It was an irony  that the  Congress government was celebrating the event with such gusto.  The Congress party actually had   consistently  opposed the  inclusion of Mumbai  in Maharashtra  state . But sensing the  overwhelming tide of opinion , the Congress  had yielded to the demand and  then claimed credit for the formation of the  state

 Pitched battles  spread over  several months  in 1955-56   were fought between the common people and the  police over   the  people’s  struggle for  the right to the city.    There was a mass upsurge over the  proposal to  separate  Mumbai from  the then   Bombay state comprising of   Maharashtra and  Gujarat   and  make it an independent , centrally administered  city .  There were violent demonstrations in which  workers, students, farmers and even businessmen joined.

     The agitation continued   vigorously even after 106 people were killed in police firing and many were injured on the streets of Mumbai .    Marathi regional  and linguistic aspirations did play their part in the agitation but  the vision  was essentially  one of   creating a socialistic state including Mumbai. Mumbai was the focal point.  The agitation was led  by veteran   Communist  S.A. Dange, socialist  S.M. Joshi, and Acharya Atre, a reputed  literary figure and crusading journalist with a mass appeal.

   There was also considerable support from other linguistic groups and among the major leaders of the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti in Mumbai were Nausher Bharucha and Moinuddin Harris.  The upsurge was so strong that  Naosherwan Satha, a  left-wing  member of  the  minority Parsi community, could get elected to the assembly from Srigonda  a completely rural constitutency in Ahmednagar district.

  Nehru wanted a city state of Bombay and he was frustrated by the  near-universal opposition including from his own daughter Indira Gandhi, wrote Inder Malhotra, eminent  political commentator  (Indian Express  3-5-2010). Mr  A.B. Bardhan,   the CPI general secretary, was  a close supporter of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement.

   Nehru’s  normally apolitical finance minister C.D. Deshmukh resigned  in protest against the  proposal and  in an angry  statement accused the government of  surrendering to the moneybags of Bombay. Nehru hit back `We are the children of  revolution. Let  no one talk about moneybags to us.’

  This exchange  between the two leaders  is really the crux.  The popular agitation won  the demand for  Mumbai as the  capital of Maharashtra  but  the vision of  a socialist  Mumbai  is completely shattered .   Mumbai is far more  wealthy than   in the fifties but  far more unequal  and it is  now far more under the control of  big business. Nehru was  a great visionary but   his vision too has received  big blow, especially in Mumbai.  All major parties are now complicit in   the role of big money in  politics.

    The  murder of Communist MLA  Krishna Desai in 1970  paved the way  for wresting control of Mumbai from  the working people. And just as  Paris was reshaped  after the defeat of the Communist uprising in the 19^th century and   New York  underwent its most controversial urban renewal  after  world war II, Mumbai is  being reshaped now completely.

 Urban renewal is the  cornerstone of the  central government’s  vision for urbanisation. There is apparently little  realisation that  in the countries where it has been going on for a long time,  urban renewal  conjures up the  worst visions of the worst misadventures of  post war planning  as  Samuel Zipp points out in his recently published book `Manhattan Projects :  the rise and fall of  urban renewal  in cold war New York.’  After the war  New York had become  the top city in the world but  it was dominated by a vast swath of depressed tenements. And these had   to go   as part of the  take over of the city by big business.

 The media  in Mumbai is now dominated by  reports and advertisements  about  real estate developments and  a phenomenal rise in   luxury housing  amidst an unprecedented  housing shortage for ordinary people.

 

 The inadequate facilities  for  fire fighting  in Mumbai shocked   Thomas Essen, New York’s  fire commissioner during  9/11, when he visited the city..  The city needs at least 250 fire stations  while it has only   33 now.  And the job of firemen is becoming increasingly difficult   as high rises come up flouting all  fire safety norms.  Civic corruption may have reached dizzying heights.

  The rise of   five star hospitals, where you  can’t  enter without a fat bank balance, is contrasted by the  deteriorating state of   municipal and  government hospitals once  known for their highly committed doctors and excellent  health services.  This has a disastrous impact on the poor who really need   basic  services  because they have genuine  health problems in contrast to    self-generated  health problems created by  upper class through   with their  lifestyle.

  There is a mushrooming of art galleries in the city  but  Mumbai’s aesthetic sense would be much better with  proper sanitation. A good sewer  is far nobler and holier  than the most  admired  Madonna ever painted, declared John Ruskin, the eminent   British art critic and social thinker of the 19^th century.   Posh  new multiplex cinema theatres and shopping arcades  exist side by  side with   filthy   open nullahs. It is not just the Mithi river which remains  dark and dirty   despite proclaimed efforts to clean it. Obviusly, a lot of money is literally going down the drain. There are many other    drainage outlets like that.   Many workers   cleaning underground  sewers  routinely  suffocate to death  because of lack of  municipal care, facilities  and equipment.

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   Despite the  rapid economic growth,  ordinary people continue to be treated with contempt and hostility.  For seven million railway commuters in Mumbai  there are woefully inadequate  toilet facilities,, a study by  the  Observer Research Foundation showed in 2010. There should be  12600 toilet seats  for  this population according to international standards. But there are only 600  .  Further humiliation awaits the commuters.  Those standing at the doors of  crowded Harbour branch trains   at the prime CST station are showered with  water dripping from the toilet of one of the buildings of the railways.. Some stations do not have a single toilet for women. These include  some  very busy  and major ones like Andheri. Inexcusable, by any standards, especially considering that the officialdom enjoys   huge perks like  sprawling  houses and  the top ones  have special  luxurious salons  in trains.

   Life for the urban poor  becomes more insecure and some of those displaced by  urban renewal  projects  are relocated in such  isolated spots that it takes them one hour  just to reach   the suburban railway station.   The whole system discriminates against the poor.  A police officer told me that  if   a poor man complains about the abduction of  his  child  and a rich man  complains about theft of  a   music system from his car,   the police will rather attend to the rich man. Many crimes committed against the poor go unrecorded. So it must be  a really bad situation  considering  that  three children in  one  single suburb of Kurla were  found raped and murdered   in the space of a couple of months  earlier this year.  Such is the alienation  between the rulers  and the common people that   home minister R.R. Patil   chose not to visit the families of the murdered children. He probably thought it would not be safe considering  people’s anger. He chose to  call  the families  of the   children to meet him  at  the police station  at  11  in the night. 

Two developments in the U.S. have lessons for Mumbai.   Street vendors alerted the police  about the Times Square bomb plot. The second  incident is   the massive oil spill  causing enormous environmental damage.  Street vendors and pedestrians are most essential to the life of a city   as they  function as the eyes and ears of the  system and can prevent  many  untoward incidents.    The  oil spill shows the importance of  saving our mangroves, plants along the  coast, which are crucial to checking   pollution.  It is  time at least this  will convince   our politicians,  bureaucrats  and  builders about the need to  save  and promote mangroves.

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