Are we building a city of ghettos?

The city’s builders and brokers are hawking flats as exclusive dwellings for certain communities.  Speak Up asks Mumbaikars if they agree with the idea of segregated housing societies

Let us not institutionalise  the culture of intolerance
I participated in a film festival which was based on the theme 'Mumbai food'. Food is known to bring people together and very rarely does it keep them apart. But actually it can and does in Mumbai. To say that Mumbai is a cosmopolitan city is a mythology. It has always been known to be one but now it just remains to be a fragile cosmopolitan city. The truth is that there is a lot of division and tension among people living in the city. Extensions of these have come to surface because the economy has become tougher in the last 10 years. The idea of having a vegetarian building has always existed. But now the idea is being imposed on the public space, with aggression. So citizens don’t have a choice but comply.

There was an instance when a Domino’s Pizza outlet at Walkeshwar was not allowed to serve non-vegetarian pizzas because a resident of the building was upset by the idea. Another example, from Napean Sea Road, is of a building called 'Matru Ashish'. It housed Roti, a restaurant which served both vegetarian and non-vegetarian fare.

Residents and neighbours objected to this and one day staged a violent protest outside the restaurant, throwing stones at guests inside. They shut the eatery down soon after though no one demanded its closure.

These are all examples of extreme intolerance. People like to live with people who are like them. That's okay, but institutionalising intolerance isn't. The act of asserting the point of view that 'my way is the best way' is unacceptable. What is worse is that it is being couched in the fake language of 'private space.'  
—Paromita Vohra. Documentary filmmaker

All of us have the right to choose
We live in a secular country where everyone has the freedom to choose. A person has the right to decide where he/she wants to live. I live in a cosmopolitan building in Vile Parle. According to me, for a person's overall growth, it is necessary to interact with people from various backgrounds. I know of people who prefer to stay in buildings that are dominated by vegetarians/non-vegetarians, depending on personal choice. But I think food preferences are just a cover-up. People just gang up against certain communities. The government can't possibly keep track of all property transactions that are insisting on a definite community profile. These practices cannot be stopped unless society itself voluntarily shuns them.
—Sophie Kothari

Non-veg is off our plates now
I live in a building near Elphistone Road station. Our housing society is dominated by Marwaris: about 99% of the residents belong to this community and the few remaining are from other communities such as Gujarati. I am a Gujarati myself and you could call me a minority in my housing society! I used to eat non-vegetarian food before I shifted to my new residence. But none of the residents in this building are allowed to cook eggs or meat or even get them into the premises. I don’t want to hurt the sentiments of my neighbours. So I avoid eating meat at home. If I feel tempted, I go to a restaurant. But besides this one restriction, we have not faced any problems in the building. We live happily together and celebrate festivals as one community.
—Bhavesh Shah

There is comfort in uniformity
I live in Tata colony at Elphinstone. The colony is meant exclusively for Parsis. When the colony was set up, it was ruled that only Parsis would be allowed to buy or rent houses there. No one ever challenges the rule because it was stipulated from the very start. I know many colonies in Dadar that were made by Marwaris and Gujaratis only for people from their own communities. There are many positive things about living in a colony that houses people belonging to a particular community. Look at it this way, we all belong to the same background, have similar mindset, ideas, beliefs and notions. We celebrate festivals together and are always there for each other. Parsis are a small community and it helps us all to stay connected at all times.
—Pervez Kapadia

Co-exist and enrich your life
I live in a cosmopolitan building in Borivli. There is no restriction on people from different communities seeking an accommodation in our housing society. I have been living here for the last 15 years. In societies such as ours, you learn so much about other cultures. We have formed a working committee in our society and I am a member. This committee is in charge of organising all the festivals, across communities. We have around 100 flats in our society and this means a large and varied population. When we organise a puja in our society, everyone participates, including Catholics and Muslims. But we do have a few residents who are not happy with present arrangement. The tolerant elements are in a majority so we don't let that bother us.
—Rohini Soni

Intolerance is abhorrent, but it cannot be legally banned
If a builder is doing a private project then he is free to act according to his own will. The rules allow him to have provisions for a particular community or caste in transactions involving the building. You cannot prevent the builder from imposing community pre-conditions on the purchase, sale or leasing of houses in such projects. But if it is a public contractor, such rules and regulations cannot be imposed on who can live in the building. I know of one such project at Prarthna Samaj, on Charni Road. Here, the predominant community is Jain. The Jain faith strictly forbids its followers from consuming non-vegetarian food. So, the residents of this particular building will not allow people within approximately 50-metre radius of their homes to consume non-vegetarian food. Morally and ethically it is not right to ghetto-ise communities. How can we have such distinctions in a cosmopolitan city such as Mumbai? I find it totally abhorrent.
 —MS Kamath. Consumer lawyer

Want to become truly global? Encourage pluralistic living 
Choosing or refusing to give living space to one or another community space is a starkly crude aspect of the ghettoisation and segregation of our cities. Malabar Hill Gujaratis have driven minorities out. The whole issue has reached dangerous proportions.
Young professionals from the Muslim minority are not given rental space. What we need is a national debate on housing cooperative laws that pre-date our Constitution and do not discourage discrimination. To be a truly modern globalised society we have to shed these medieval tendencies of exclusion and encourage pluralistic living. Only then can we lay claim to being an international city along the lines of New York, Paris or even Shanghai.
 —Teesta Setalvad. Civil rights activist

If we don’t act now, the entire city will be divided
Ihave personally been through the trauma of being rejected by building societies on the basis of religion. In fact I know many other people who have been through the same experience. I belong to the film industry so I could look for alternatives but think of the common man who has to stay homeless because builders and societies are divided on communal lines. We are living in a megapolis, and this is the 21st century. At this rate, two decades down the line we will be seeing ghettos all across this city. If we want to prevent Mumbai from being divided then we must stop builders from selling/refusing flats to a particular community. Let us have a law to this effect. Only 1% of Mumbaikars want such divisions in the society. Should the others toe a minority line?  
 —Aamir Ali. Actor

Builders are just pawns in the larger political conspiracy
I am dead-set against the practise of leasing out or selling/buying apartments on the basis of community or creed. Please stop from dividing the country on trivial issues like religion and caste.

We should take steps to encourage people of various religions to live together rather than affect the opposite by indulging in such intolerance. Our politicians are to blame for dividing the country among communities for their own vested interests.

Builders are just pawns in this entire conspiracy to encourage communalism. These people are only interested in making money at any cost. I mean, it is just repulsive to even think that somebody could be denied an apartment because they come from xyz community.       
 —Nana Chudasama. Former mayor, sheriff of Mumbai