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Mumbai
is angry. At the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the
state government headed by Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, the
police, the railways department and the regional planning authorities.
And so, after the floods, and the angry protests at Dombivili
and Mumbra stations when some local trains were delayed, and the
chain of SMSes that flew across airwaves shortly after the deluge
exhorting citizens to support public interest litigations (PILs)
against administrative bodies or participate in one protest or
another, the city is getting down to the business of doing something
about it.
Doing something would include two popular
film stars (Preity Zinta and Shah Rukh Khan) and a scion of a
business family (Bombay Dyeing's Ness Wadia) taking to the streets
with brooms. And doing something would include the four-odd PILs
that have actually been filed. For instance, there's one by the
Bhrashtachar Nirmoolan Sanghatna, which is fighting corruption,
one by Jaag India against the state government, and another by
former mp Kirit Somaiya against the state government, the BMC
and the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority. Somaiya
has also filed a criminal complaint against the Chief Minister.
Not to be left out, the city corporation has filed a PIL against
a regional planning authority, accusing it of blocking a few water
outlets. BT also learns that a couple of senior High Court advocates
are also planning a PIL against the state government.
Several of the initial PILs filed, says a
city-based activist, were 'under-prepared': "Most would not
even have been admitted, if not for a bunch of sympathetic judges."
Another activist says that most PILs seem to ask the government
"what it is doing about a certain problem for which the government
has ready answers and a long list of plans". "They should
have asked the government why it has not done something? That
would have put it in a spot," he says.
This is something old timers on the city's
activist scene have realised. Quick on the draw, 20 city-based
NGOs have come together to form The Concerned Citizens Commission
with the charter to conduct an 'Enquiry into the Mumbai Floods
2005'. Spearheaded by leading city based activists like Gerson
DaCunha, Convenor, AGNI (Action For Good Governance and Networking
in India), Cyrus Guzder, Chairman, AFL, Debi Goenka, Executive
Trustee of the Conservation Action Trust, and Teesta Setalvad,
a human rights activist, the commission claims to represent one
million city residents through its various associations.
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Flash protest:
A delay in the local train service prompted the
protest in Mumbai on August 3
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"We have learnt bitter lessons following
the anti-Sikh riots and the Mumbai riots where the enquiry commissions
took years to come up with anything," says Guzder. "We
have decided to follow the Gujarat example where a series of human
rights NGOs had together documented and compiled evidence."
The enquiry commission will start work on September 3 and document
its findings by September 23. The areas of coverage range from
why and how disaster management failed to skewed urban planning
and the quality of governance. "We don't even know exactly
how many people died," adds Guzder.
DaCunha believes that this time around there
is a certain fervour and passion among citizens that hasn't always
been there. He speaks of the response to AGNI's public meetings
and says that many of the people who turned up "are not associated
with any activist group; they are just concerned citizens".
This kind of response isn't new to Mumbai.
Following the blasts of March 1993-when RDX bombs exploded at
13 places in the city, including the Air India building, the Bombay
Stock Exchange and the Shiv Sena headquarters, killing over 250
people-there was a groundswell of activist sentiment. Over the
weeks, days, and months that followed much of the fervour associated
with this died down. Much of the protests, however, came from
the intelligentsia. This time around, it is the common man (and
woman) who is most upset with how Mumbai's administration responded
to the rains. Then, there's the fear that the flooding could be
repeated next year, and the year after. That sentiment alone,
should keep the fires of protest burning.
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Making a splash:
They may be smiling but this wouldn't have happened
back home
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DaCunha also points to the current surge in
English-language newspapers in Mumbai city (DNA, Hindustan Times
and Mumbai Mirror from The Times Of India Group were all launched
over the last couple of months and have discovered that the rains
have provided them with great copy) as one thing that has spurred
the creation of the activist-mindset.
Still, is it too soon to see this as something
that will change the way Mumbai's citizens react to their government?
"At the moment the outrage (among citizens) is carrying us
forward, but it would be a mistake to imagine that it will sustain
itself. What we have to do is capitalise on the fervour and take
it forward," says DaCunha.
Well, the battle is being fought on a multitude
of fronts. Take the ongoing PIL by the Bombay Environmental Action
Group (BEAG) challenging the method of development of 600 acres
of mill land in the heart of the city. When hearings began in
the third week of August, it was clearly pointed out by the lawyer
representing BEAG, Iqbal Chagla, that it was precisely the kind
of absence of planning currently seen in the development of the
mill area that led to the flooding elsewhere in the city. Given
that India's judiciary has always seen things from the perspective
of the common man, Mumbai's flooding could well turn out to be
a waterloo for builders, developers, and mill owners hoping to
make a quick buck from the sale of mill lands.
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