Middle-class has nowhere to go

Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s recent rejection of the Mhada proposal to raise housing prices has been touted as a resolute blow to insensitive profiteering, delivered on the behalf of middle- and lower-income groups. The chief minister has to be lauded for his sensible thinking and swift action. But I am afraid his action will be no more consequential than Yuvraj Singh’s bravely smashed six sixes in the penultimate over of a game when 37 runs are required to win.

The pitiless momentum of profit that drives real estate in Mumbai has eroded many vital elements from the city’s quality of life. The erosion is invisible to most Mumbaikars because we live with it every day and, of course, we adjust to hardships with that legendary ‘resilience’. But outsiders notice it and leer at us. The other day, I was taunting a friend from Delhi about his city being India’s crime capital. His reply was crushing: “Yeah, you are right,” he said. “You Mumbaiwallahs return from the streets safely, and then curl up in criminally expensive cubby-holes. We get mugged in Delhi, but recover from the trauma over a drink in our balconies.”

That comment hurt, as does the chief minister’s routine assertion that he wants to turn Mumbai into Shanghai. The Chinese port is a beguiling model of urbanisation; but planners from Maharashtra seem so dazzled by its Plexiglas brilliance that they fail to see Shanghai’s darker corners.

Here is PJ O’Rourke, writing in Eat the Rich, about the city that Mumbai is supposed to emulate: “Retailing in Shanghai is a matter of either megastores or coolie baskets. And industry is either corporations so large that they rate a seat on the UN Security Council, or bike shops with sales-and-service facilities on the sidewalk. There are no middle-sized businesses in Shanghai, no middle-priced goods, and being middle class seems to be actively discouraged.”

Mumbai might be huffing to catch up with Shanghai on several indicators, but it has already trundled past many of the milestones created by its role model. Mumbai’s megastores are debilitating the mum-and-pop shops, the price of a movie experience at a multiplex for a family is higher than the sum spent by an usher for a whole month’s provisions…

I could go on.

But the important point is that after the movie, the family can go back to what the Delhiwallah described as a cubby-hole; what about the usher? Did you know that a Mhada flat in Kherwadi (Rs50 lakh) is as expensive as a two-bedroom apartment in Kandivili.

Preventing further price rises, Mr CM, will not reverse the uncontrollable processes by which Mumbai is being cut between only two classes: the very rich and the non-slum dwellers. But congratulations, we are well on our way to becoming Shanghai.

Email:raghu@dnaindia.net