A K Bhattacharya: Is Mumbai going the Kolkata way?

NEW DELHI DIARY

Last week, several bomb blasts rocked the city of Mumbai. The reaction to the blasts and the consequent human tragedy was on expected lines. The political establishment blamed our neighbouring country for having inspired the attack, choosing to ignore other deeper causes that might have been behind it. The opposition parties lost no time in politicising the issue by claiming that the UPA government's soft handling of terrorists led to the blasts.

Little attention was paid to the complete lack of security consciousness among those who run such public utilities and among the people. No closed circuit television cameras, no checking of bags before passengers enter the stations. How could such checks take place? As it turns out, there are only 450 security guards for 28 suburban stations on the Western Railway network in Mumbai. What a shame!

There was yet another reaction that was on expected lines. This was the manner in which the electronic and print media covered the bomb blasts. Quite a few television channels and newspapers exploited the gory pictures of death and destruction to get some more eyeballs. The dead were denied dignity even in death and the injured were robbed of privacy in their moment of grief. There are well-established norms of media coverage of human tragedies, but these were thrown out of the window as done on so many other similar occasions in the past.

Worse, a hyped-up image of the never-say-die spirit of the Mumbaikar was created through clever use of newspaper headlines. Consider some of them: Bombed, not bowed; Fearless Mumbai; Mumbai spirit shines through; Mumbaikar stands tall; Mumbai is back; Mumbai defies terror. And when the Sensex bounced back with a 316-point rise the day after the bomb blasts, the headline was: Terror trashed. Little attention was paid to the fact that the Sensex rose not because it wanted to salute the Mumbaikar's much-misrepresented indefatigable spirit, but to the outstanding first-quarter results announced by Infosys the following day. Such media reaction, too, was not unexpected. The only difference is that this was a reflection of a far more serious problem.

One suspects that this projection of the unflagging Mumbai spirit is an attempt to brush under the carpet the real problems of Mumbai. This is ironic, because the fact is that Mumbai's infrastructure is under stress. Every year during the rains, the city is immobilised for a couple of days. But the city's civic infrastructure is yet to cope with that pressure. Its transport network is choked. If one of the three suburban railway networks is immobilised, the city can come to a halt as the roads are clogged with overflowing traffic. Terrorists can attack the city and bring it to a grinding halt anytime they choose to do so. So, when the city is on the decline and the infrastructure has collapsed, this seems to be a self-righteous attempt to highlight the so-called Mumbai spirit which defies all man-made or natural adversities to keep the city on the move.

There is no anger at the civic administration's failure to widen the road network. There are no protests over the civic authorities' failure to decongest the city or improve the sanitation and sewerage system. Periodic announcements about Mumbai becoming an international financial hub are made. But no concrete steps are in sight. Instead, whenever a crisis engulfs the city, we are witness to the celebration of Mumbai's enterprise and soaring spirit that keeps the city alive. Try to question that approach, you will become an object of hate or ridicule.

One might argue that other metropolitan cities in India are no better. Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore and even Delhi have their own problems. But the point is that this attempt to lionise the Mumbai spirit in the face of such crisis is doing the city no good. A similar approach did no good to Kolkata. In the 1980s, the city of Calcutta was clearly on the decline. But any attempt to point that out would elicit howls of protest. Instead, there would be frequent celebrations of the undying spirit of Calcutta. Around the same time, Rajiv Gandhi stirred up a controversy when he blurted out that Calcutta was a dying city. Every Calcuttan attacked him for insulting the city. But he was not wrong. By 1990, the city's decline was complete.

The danger Mumbai faces today is somewhat similar. If the city continues to only exult in its robust spirit to face any adversity and does not focus on the basic improvements in infrastructure, nobody can save it from an imminent collapse. The Centre, the Maharashtra government and the Mumbai civic administration should draw the right lessons from the current mindset of Mumbaikars. The celebration of the Mumbai spirit should not become an excuse or an opportunity to sidestep the more pressing infrastructure problems choking Mumbai's growth. Kolkata paid the price for doing just that. Let not Mumbai make the same mistake.

akb@business-standard.com