Mumbai is a city of opportunity, no matter what stratum of society you come from. Yet, it is this very opportunity that causes Mumbaikars the most grief.
People from all over rural (and by rural I don’t mean idyllic) India come to this metropolis to realise their dreams: a few do, for the rest it gradually transmogrifies into a free house and a chance to badger tax-paying citizens.
Almost every traffic signal in the city now comes replete with its own coven of beggars, vagrants and cripples. They buzz around cars and taxicabs hoping to dupe the conscience of some vapid commuter into giving them some money. But what do they do with the money? Mumbai is full of, if nothing else, theories: ‘They spend it on drugs and alcohol’, ‘they actually make as much as Rs2,000 a day, hence prefer begging to manual labour’, ‘they actually use it to buy the necessities to survive in such a harsh environment’.
Mumbai’s upper class very rarely comes into contact with this segment of urban life. Their air-conditioned cars and tinted windows, shield them from such human realities, and hence they can be excused for not giving a damn. It is the middle-class that should be the most harangued by this imposition; they, however, seem to be anything but.
Apart from the beggars and lepers (I’m not even going to mention the eunuchs, a segment of society so pointless, they could disappear and nobody would know the difference), illegal hawkers have take over pavements and walkways, forcing pedestrians into the streets.
The police, allegedly, is hand-in-glove with the hawkers and the alms-requesters, and will do nothing apart from occasionally wield a limp baton in the direction of a stall that has failed to pay up its monthly protection money. Yet the middle-class strolls on, inspired in its indolence.
Change must come from within, and it is time Mumbai reclaimed its streets. I don’t suggest we do so in the blatantly racist and corrupt manner in which Rudy Guilliani reclaimed New York for white New Yorkers. But do something, we must.
The financial middle class — and the rich — must be taxed for every beggar and illegal hawker on Mumbai’s streets. They must pay for their apathy to what is a rapidly deteriorating situation. Hitting Mumbai where it hurts, in their wallets is the best way to get them to begin taking some pride in their city and spur them into action against the mass of illegal activity that dogs our daily life.
Mumbaikars love talking the big talk, it’s high time they started walking the walk too.
No comments:
Post a Comment