Asian Window

Sagarika Ghose in the Hindustan Times says regional chauvanism rather than urban infrastructure is the priority of politicians who control cities like Mumbai and Bangalore

Ah, the great Indian city! The lack of urban infrastructure destroying the infrastructure of the human soul. By 2020 Mumbai will have a population of 20 million. Bangalore, already with 6.5 million inhabitants has seen phenomenal growth. Three hundred million Indians live in urban areas; the figure will spurt by 40 per cent in the next 11 years. Whatever the rural romantics may say, India’s future is irreversibly urban. Mumbai and Bangalore are symbols of the urban Indian dream, the first, whose present chief minister claims will be a new Shanghai, the second, which a former CM wanted to make into another Singapore.

But forget Shanghai and Singapore, which instead are the voices that are speaking the loudest for the Indian city? The new voices that are yelling into the urban skyline are anything but urbane or metropolitan. In Mumbai, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray has declared war on north Indians, mimicking what he calls their strange accents, noisy pujas, nasty civic manners and demanding preferential treatment in jobs for local Maharashtrians. Raj Thackeray wants north Indians out of Mumbai. In Bangalore, as the campaign for the forthcoming assembly elections gathers momentum, another ‘son of the soil’ is also demanding reservations for locals. H.D. Deve Gowda’s political manifesto demands 30 per cent reservation of jobs in the infotech and biotech sectors for local Kannadigas.

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