Comment

Is Mumbai really being sold down the river by crafty politicians to unscrupulous developers (or is it unscrupulous politicians and crafty developers?)? Or is there some method to the government’s development, redevelopment and infrastructure plans?

Consider this: The Crawford Market Redevelopment proposal was passed by the city’s corporators in less than a minute. That is, there was no argument, discussion or debate on a proposal about a property that is worth Rs32,000 crore and covers an area of 17,000 sq m (to say nothing of its historical value).

Instead, some corporators walked out in protest and the others –– including those who claimed that they opposed the project –– sat silently. The mayor apparently changed her mind from one day to the next and hopped overnight from being anti to pro.

Civic officials, who had prepared anti-proposal replies, were left bereft of opportunity rather than speech. The natural assumption is of money raising its cute little head.

Even in a city like Mumbai, one assumes that Rs32,000 crore is not to be sneezed at. But let’s set unwholesome assumptions to one side.

What does the redevelopment of Crawford Market mean? The heritage component is to be left untouched. That is, the Indo-Saracenic-Gothic structure designed by William Emerson and embellished by J Lockwood Kipling’s sculptures and completed in 1869 stays as is. The rest of the area is full of higgledy-piggledy structures which are the ones being targeted –– some 11 of them.

So far, so fine. The problem appears to be that there was no tender process to pick the developer –– the choice was left to some shopkeepers –– and no transparency in the selection process.

That is, someone somewhere abdicated responsibility and then was in a hurry to bulldoze the plan through.

The municipal commissioner, according to reports, wanted the BMC to do the redevelopment, although it originally mooted the idea of a private developer, and use the available space to rehabilitate the many project-affected persons from all the projects across the city. Activists involved say that as a result, the BMC stands to lose about Rs1000 crore in money terms.

Heritage and conservation experts are worried that since the new proposal includes two high-rises, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus –– VT station –– may lose its World Heritage site status. Who wins, then, apart from the private developer who has been picked by some un-transparent procedure?

Here are those who lose: The corporation loses both money and space. The people of Mumbai lose a lot more. They lose the right to be part of their city’s redevelopment.

They lose a sense of history. They lose prestige. They lose a bit of soul. So many of these are intangibles and it is easy to get lost in sentimentality or nostalgia, which is not really the point.

But if Crawford Market, or Jyotiba Phule Market as it is now known, is to become a lost ‘heritage’ entity in a sea of unregulated and unfettered development –– and with a promised floor space index of 4 that’s not hard to imagine –– then Mumbai needs to stand up and be heard. Already, our elected representatives have let us down, even though some of them are now planning protests and morchas –– fine thinking there.

Instead, we could demand spaces with which we can engage, where the citizens can walk easily and enjoy the surroundings and what they have to offer, where people can breathe.

All too often, there is a pretence of answering utilitarian concerns –– a toilet block in some inappropriate area –– but actually what ends up happening is that we are being sold down some river by a bunch of the crafty and the unscrupulous. And the less we talk about it, the more they’ll do it. Our choice, I guess.