Column

The chauffeured pearl-set of Mumbai is awfully bitter these days. It was initially excited by the prospect of people from its class sweeping magisterially into the parliament and fixing the great metro’s problems. It wanted the city to gratefully recognise the sacrifice of the independent candidates from its soignéecircle who are stepping into the grimy world of electioneering.

It must be a strain to be forced to mingle with janta which cannot even pronounce entrée. But, sadly, it is becoming clear that the well-meant abnegations of the pearl-set’s favourites will come to naught, and all the hardships endured will be in vain.

And mind you, the regret expressed above is genuine. People like Meera Sanyal, an independent candidate from the Mumbai South constituency, not only deserve our thanks but also our respect. Their goal was to purge politics of dirty money and cynical intentions. That goal has always been the subject of middle-class Mumbai’s passionate dreams and impotent rants.

Anyway, even though South Mumbai is lit up by the odd flash of pearls, — Queen’s necklace — it is a constituency crammed with areas where thousands of voters live hardscrabble lives. And they should not be pilloried for allowing themselves to be swayed by short-acting sops. Only those with education, stable jobs, and sturdy insurance nets can afford to choose development that builds from a trickle and becomes a watershed moment of prosperity in the distant future.

These voters have been stripped of hope by politicians who pay some hundred rupee notes just days before the polling. Such politicians are like torturers who offer a glass of water after brutalising the helpless; can you blame the battered and humiliated victims for accepting some relief?

Here is the score so far: people like Sanyal, despite their qualifications and the will to reform a complex immorality called Indian politics, cannot do much. They will not win the majority of votes. The votes will eventually be scavenged by politicians who offer poll-eve liquor and the promise that the voters can always stay in the squalor of the slums that, say, enclose the airport.

The next five years, therefore, will be stiflingly similar to the previous five. Sanyal will go back to her accomplished life, sharing with the middle-class Mumbai the experience of interminably hovering above the airport.Remember, because of the politicians, the slums will remain, the airport will not expand, the air traffic will grow, but landing space will seem even more constricted.

Yet nobody will protest when slum-dwellers are assured of permanence in poverty; the air-passenger associations are obsessed only with fares. There will be no rally to shame politicians who bribe voters; Mumbaikars will sip wine and whine about the toothless election commission. There will be no attempt to reach out to the slums to educate people about the cynicism of politicians; we will criticise folks like Danny Boyle for adding inauthentic gloss to the hellholes. Where are the anger and activism that surfaced in the aftermath of 26/11 attacks? Perhaps impoverished voters are not the icons of anything worth coming out into the streets for.