Column

Crawford Market, or Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Market to use its proper name, may evoke the romance of a bygone era, but compared to the clean (and clinical) shopping experience of the modern supermarket, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Fruits, vegetables, chicken (packed tightly in cages), rabbits and cheap plastic goods are all available under the same roof as are fine cheeses and cosmetics. The facade, with its friezes designed by Lockwood Kipling, father of the writer Rudyard, borders on Victorian kitsch, but has undeniable charm.

This would have been what Victorian markets in England, when Sherlock Holmes prowled the gaslit streets of London must have looked like. Quaint, but old-fashioned. Should it not be renovated?

Yes, says Mumbai’s municipal commissioner Jairaj Phatak, who wants to demolish the aged structure and build a swanky new mall in its place. No, say “heritage activists” who insist that the building be preserved as it is; any refurbishing must be done while keeping the market’s interior and exterior more or less intact.

The commissioner has aggressively argued for development of this structure, claiming that only the clock tower and the fountain are of any true heritage value; the rest can easily be brought down and a new building built in its place.

Not only that, he has pooh-poohed the very idea of heritage protection: what’s the big deal about saving old buildings, he asks. Barely anyone visits them and in any case the city needs constant redevelopment. The heritagewallahs are suitably shocked by this crassness and worry that “new” could mean a faceless concrete monstrosity.

Mumbai is a city that boasts of many stages of architectural development. It got most of its famous buildings only over the last century and a half.

We are proud of the neo-Gothic and the mongrel Indo-Saracenic styles which loom over parts of south Mumbai and add immense character to the city.

VT station (now called Chattrapati Shivaji terminus), a passable copy of St Pancras station in London is a metaphor for the bustling metropolis. British rulers erected many of these monuments to not only bring a bit of home to foreign shores but also to impress upon the natives the might of the Raj.

These piles (here and elsewhere) have not been without their share of criticism for their ornate fussiness, but over the decades, CST, the municipal corporation building, the university and yes, Crawford market have all become an indispensable part of the landscape.

We also have the Art Deco stretch on Marine Drive, the chawls, the gaothans and small villages which have somehow managed to escape the bulldozers, barely hanging on while the city around them changes rapidly.

These, say the activists must be preserved at all costs because they speak of the city’s multi-layered past.
But as critics such as Phatak ask, should they be saved at all? In a city where land is scarce, and which has to keep moving forward, is there any room for such sentimentality? Can and should we stop development? Left unsaid: saving heritage is an elitist activity which the common man has no time for. Regrettably the common man and woman barely get consulted but who would support destroying a thing of beauty?

When pared down to this simplistic formulation — preserving the past or developing the new — it is not easy to fight on the behalf of heritage. Architectural heritage is part of our patrimony and it would be a sad city without CST et al, but maintaining heritage structures costs money.

Public funds are scarce and redevelopment can bring in money for the municipal corporation. It is also unfair to expect the owner of an old cottage to spend money for the structure while all around him others are making money off the properties their forbears left them. Public-private partnership sounds like a good slogan, but how many corporates are ready to cough up money to save an old building?

Within these limitations the groups have managed to raise public awareness about heritage though not all the projects have been successes. The “beautification” of Marine Drive has been a disaster and the unseemly infighting over the Gateway refurbishment has resulted in a mess which will ultimately produce who knows what. There is a lot of glory, glamour and money also involved in the high-stakes heritage game; the small band of activists by no means always presents a united front, which weakens their case.

As far as the bureaucracy is concerned, it has followed the “Death by Committee” route, alternatively stalling and participating in the process, though there have also been enlightened officials who have done their bit.
There are two other constituents in the equation — politicians and builders. Their collective weight can count for a lot. As seen during the mill lands redevelopment, issues of heritage don’t mean much when big money is involved. The fall in the property market may have helped the cause of heritage, but the last word on Crawford market has not yet been heard.