Why the hue and cry over religious structures?

Religious matters continue to dominate our social space and sensibilities. Recently, there was a series of protests after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) began demolishing crosses and temples that existed in the middle of roads or footpaths, and which thus blocked the movement of vehicles and people. With religious and political leaders banding together, with sizeable public support, against the demolition drive, the civic authorities were forced to halt their operations.

In its defence, the BMC is saying that it only initiated the action as per the Supreme Court’s order to demolish all illegal and unauthorised religious structures, including those structures that stand in the middle of roads.

There are two issues here. First, why is the BMC in such a hurry to follow this particular SC order? The SC has also ruled against illegal structures, hawkers on streets, slums, etc, but the BMC has done precious little about them. After all, more obstructive than the religious structures is the presence of hawkers and illegal slums on the roads. While the BMC has sought to bring down religious structures, it has done little about the illegal shanties.

It is worth noting that many of the crosses or temples that seemingly appear in the middle of roads were actually put up decades ago. Then, they neither obstructed traffic nor pedestrian flow. As the traffic and pedestrians grew in number and the roads were widened, these crosses and temples structures suddenly became obstructive structures. Thus, the onus is on policy makers to consider the presence of the structures and make them a part of the road widening or development plan. It hardly behoves them to simple descend on the streets with a bulldozer to destroy a cross or temple that has existed for decades and is a source of piety for thousands.

However, having said that, there is another issue. The state government was working on the development plan for over a year, and suggestions from citizens were welcome.

The government had marked out spaces for restaurants, parking, housing, gardens, and so forth. But it did not mark out spaces for religious structures. Worse, no one sought out such specific spaces for religious structures. Surely, those who are crying themselves hoarse now should have taken the initiative to seek out religious spots for citizens. If that had been done, the demolition for road widening would not have been as painful as it turned out to be.

Few will deny that religious structures fulfil a deep human and social need, particular in India. Yet, development, too, has to keep pace with a city that is growing every day. Hence, to avoid future clashes, both sides — the citizens and the civic authorities — need to be considerate and plan ahead.