T N Ninan: Rape of a city

WEEKEND RUMINATIONS

Visitors to New Delhi talk admiringly of its broad, leafy avenues and the sense of order that contrasts with the undisguised chaos of most other cities in India. What they may not realise is that, beyond the beguiling vistas of Lutyens' Delhi, the sprawling metropolis all around the green centre is a lawless mess""much more so than most other cities. Whether it is illegal buildings (the majority) and violation of land use laws, the extent of electricity theft (40 per cent of total consumption) or the amount of water wasted through open community taps (another 40 per cent, says one estimate), the picture is a shameful combination of mismanagement and criminality. In some respects, the police are seen as merely the most organised of the criminals, while the officials overseeing this mess are almost uniformly corrupt. You don't get large-scale building violations going on for decades without those in office having been bribed to turn a Nelson's eye, nor do you get 40 per cent power theft without official connivance.

The majority seem to want it this way. The Hindustan Times organised a poll this week which discovered that 60 per cent of the city's residents want the sealing of illegal shops, ordered by the Supreme Court, to stop. The broad base of support for patently illegal activity has surfaced in other ways too. When the private companies that took over the city's electricity distribution system four years ago began to go after those stealing power, their officials were faced with physical attacks and mini-riots. The drive to reduce power theft could resume only when the administration belatedly gave police support. The general sense which prevails is that it is ok to do something that the law frowns upon because everyone is doing it, and there is strength in numbers; in any case, no one will try to change what are "facts on the ground". That explains why respected firms with reputations to protect, a campaign-hungry newspaper and even a statutory body like the telecom regulator, have all been caught out in the drive to seal offices that fall foul of local laws, and are now scrambling to go legit.

Into this lawless environment the court has injected the notion, apparently novel to many, that laws do exist and they must be both respected and acted upon. But when the general body of city opinion is in favour of the law-breakers, the politicians step in on their side because that is where the votes are""and civic elections are not far away. This is not the first time. When it came to cleaning up the city's air (again, under court orders), and moving polluting industrial units out of residential areas, there was similar mayhem and protest and once again the politicians were on the side of the law-breakers. The last few weeks have seen the extraordinary sight of the state and central governments trying every trick in the book to get the court to ignore what the law says, or to by-pass it altogether. It is safe to say that if the governments had succeeded or if the court had caved in, Delhi would have had a bleak future. You cannot build great cities without respect for the law and for proper civic conduct.

But it takes more than penalising acts of wrongdoing to build a great city; you also have to focus on the acts of omission. And the startling fact is that there is a shortage of legitimate commercial space in the capital because the Delhi Development Authority has developed less than 5 per cent of the commercial space that it was supposed to under the city's Master Plan. Has anyone in the DDA paid the price for this record? Of course not, that is unthinkable. What about going after the officials who winked all these years at the steady rape of the city? Not a chance, other than token action against some small fry until the hubbub dies down. The bald conclusion is that the residents of a city get the kind of city they deserve.