Why Mumbai's middle class just lost its right to criticise the govt

By and large, Mumbaikars, except those who live in the slums, have lost the right to express displeasure on TV shows, Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else, over issues of governance. Their many candle-light vigils and protest marches can henceforth be conveniently labelled hollow. If at all they have gripes about the government, about civic administration, they are better advised to keep the same to themselves. By staying away from polling booths, they just abdicated their right to criticise any government agency or institution. And the middles class - the ones with the most number of complaints and even more angst - are the ones who refused to walk to the poll booths and exercise their franchise. The poor, on the other hand, are more dutiful as citizens in a democracy notwithstanding the fact that they are the most disenfranchised in the society. Walk through any slum in Mumbai on a voting day you cannot miss the buzz in the area, the vibrancy and the palpable excitement around voting. Mumbai has consistently lagged behind the rest of the country in voting averages. It almost as if, when the polls are on, the city enjoys the roll of a spectator. In 2009, Mumbai saw just 41 percent voter turn-out. This time, till 3pm,Mumbai registered just 35 percent voter turn-out. Take a printout of Mumbai’s map from Google Maps. Compare the city’s six parliamentary seats. There wouldn’t be a single constituency without its share of slum population. Further you go from South Mumbai towards the north, larger the slum segment becomes. [caption id=“attachment_1495765” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. PTI.[/caption] And that is not just a demographic reality. It has its bearings on the political culture of the city. For a slum-dweller, a voting day is not a break from work. When the middle class manages to vote, it does so to make sure that its elected representative makes people friendly policies at the Centre. When a slum-dweller votes, he votes with his livelihood, his home on mind. He votes so that he doesn’t get displaced, a vote is an insurance against a plethora of survival challenges. Perhaps that explains why slum-dwellers are more passionate voters. In a city with a sharp rich-poor divide as Mumbai has, no politician can claim that he has been voted to the Parliament without the backing from these quarters of the city. Naturally, the expansive slums and its residents becomes the politicians’ favourite during the polls. There are reports that cash and alcohol are showered on them, prior to the polls, to buy votes. However, this doesn’t mean that the poor sections of the society vote only on the one-time allure of money and alcohol. They vote strategically to make sure that whichever politician comes to power, he or she doesn’t let them down even on the smallest issue. However, things are a little different for Mumbai’s slum-dwellers this time. And that thanks for the Aam Aadmi Party. So AAP has promised them a ‘slum policy’ by which the ‘cut-off date’ (on the basis of which slums are given government aid and protection) will be done away with. If AAP’s promise materialises, Mumbai slums, no matter when they were built, cannot be demolished by the government. Initially, the Congress-NCP government extended protection to slums built before 1995, which meant slums which mushroomed before that year couldn’t be demolished without redevelopment. However, prior to the polls, the date has been extended to year 2000. That still leaves more than ten decades and an entire future dangling. And in a city with burgeoning population like Mumbai, slums are only bound to grow in number. So AAP’s promise comes as a huge attraction for the slum dwellers, especially as they constitute half and more of the total voting population of Mumbai. To them, housing security is of immense importance. Thought the cut-off was hurriedly extended to January 1, 2000, the Supreme Court hasn’t approved the move yet. However, the bigger worry is that, of the 1,524 projects cleared since 1996 for redevelopment, only 197 have seen the light of the day since. In the past two decades, only about 1.75 lakh slum dwellers out of 60-70 lakh spread across the city, have escaped the dingy slums are have been rehabilitated into better buildings.  However, the AAP policy, would do away with the builder-government issues that are stalling rehabilitation projects. They would have security of residence and can hope for improvement of the conditions and not a complete change of it, which the redevelopment project demands. If the AAP has managed to successfully sell the idea to the slum dwellers, one can expect a change in the line-up of winners in the six Mumbai city seats. In 2009, the city elected only Congress and its ally NCP to the Lok Sabha. The irony, however, is that though the AAP recognised the significance of this crying need to confer housing security, the fight of the middle classes to ensure that the Congress is thrown out and Narendra Modi is elected as the PM may overshadow AAP’s agenda.