From The Humane Vision Of Charles Correa To The Vision Of Aditya Thackeray
By Vidyadhar Date
24 July, 2015
Countercurrents.org
Only the rich can afford to live in Mumbai. This is no city for the poor. A documentary film, directed by celebrated architect Charles Correa made this point in 1975. And it is much more true now, 40 years later, of the present times.
The film City on the Water, was screened at a meeting held at Nehru Centre on July 21 to celebrate the life of Charles Correa who was such an integral part of Mumbai for the last several decades and who passed away recently.
The film was produced by Films Division and it is a pity it had attracted little attention earlier. The scenes including those of textile mills emitting smoke made one nostalgic. The whole working class culture is now deliberately erased. It would be a good idea to make another film on Mumbai now, 40 years later in juxtaposition with this film.
Indeed the obscene , multi-fold rise of the rich and further degradation of the poor needs to be recorded. There is so much visual material crying out for attention. Mumbai was then affordable for the middle class. The high rises one sees in the film were confined to Nariman Point and Cuffe Parade. Now, they have scarred the landscape of several other cities as well.
In the film Correa talks about the New Bombay project which he had conceived and which was then just beginning to take shape across the Mumbai harbor. He had felt that since the poor did not have enough land in Mumbai, they could be accommodated well in the new city. Correa was a visionary with an egalitarian outlook for the people, he was not the sort to plan only beautiful and efficient isolated buildings. Understandably, the plan did not work. The inherent contradictions of the capitalist state would simply not allow that.
An imaginative architect could at least could envision an egalitarian project then. Now, the forces of totalitarianism operating under different shades across continents are seeking to dominate the people through an overarching agenda of which the Smart Cities project is a major part.
It is a project of hegemony, to dominate the people. Charles Correa did not like jargon and particularly mentioned the word hegemony, as documentary film maker Sankalp Meshram recalled at the meeting to remember the architect. But in more recent times Correa would have probably agreed that hegemony was indeed a concept that could not be brushed aside.
It is clear that the smart cities is an extremely elitist concept inspired by high technology and an overbearing corporate class which will have no place for the poor. With all that technology they will be placing everyone under surveillance. Every movement of yours will be tracked. Forget about your freedoms, experts have warned. And then the question is what are they doing to improve the humiliating conditions in which the ordinary people are living in the existing cities ? Who will believe in the deceptive talk of smart cities when even the basics are not being delivered to the people ?
The civic administration in Mumbai is not even able to display bus routes and numbers on buses in electronic form or the traditional boards. Often the numbers are written in chalk. Can you believe that ? This is happening in India’s premier, modern city. And yet, the guys have the cheek to talk of digital technology and smart cities and yes seamless travel.
In any case the fraudulent talk of smart cities is brilliantly exposed in the book Against Smart City written by Adam Greenfield published in 2013. No one can fool him because he has worked on the design of networked cities. And a sequel to this book will be hopefully more devastating .
As I pondered over urban issues at the Charles Correa memorial meeting, I did not have to go far in search of the harsh reality that exists all over Mumbai.
After attending the meeting at Nehru Centre this is what I saw. The footpath on the other side has been completely removed for widening of a road that is already quite wide. The whole area is in a mess. And along with the footpath are gone the bus shelters. So bus commuters are forced to stand on the road in hazardous conditions. This is a road which sees some of the fastest and most reckless driving. And commuters are left without any shelter in the rainy season. So what we have here is a predatory state out to deprive people of basic amenities. And the authorities have the gall to talk of smart cities, e governance, corporate governance and seamless travel. They would have looked quite ridiculous and comic had it not been for their extreme inefficiency and utter callousness if not hostility towards giving basic amenities to common people..
Correa was a public-spirited architect with concern for public spaces and commuters. He would have been dismayed. How anti-people, anti-democratic and callous the civic administration can be. And this happens right opposite a memorial to Nehru, the symbol of Indian democracy and socialism. How much worse conditions must be elsewhere.
There were a number of architecture students at the memorial meeting. They could begin their lessons here, learning about this harsh reality of daily life that the administration inflicts upon the people.
Am sure a lot of employees of Nehru Centre and numerous office establishments in the area need to take buses from this point to catch a train at Dadar to go to their far flung homes. Is it not the duty of these establishments also to raise their voice ?
And while the civic administration and ruling p;oliticians are depriving citizens of open spaces, removing footpaths or reducing their width for several years, they are now not sparing even Marine Drive, a landmark not only for the metropolis but the whole country. The blatant initiative of installing gym equipment on Marine Drive has come from none other than Aditya Thackeray, son of Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, whom the media has been shamelessly giving a big boost. He has the most outrageous priorities. His favourite cause is demanding more night life facilities in Mumbai. Don’t these guys feel embarrassed to take up such causes when the city is denied the most basic amenities ? The only feature which distinguishes him from others in the Sena is that he is quite at ease in talking English. The guys are making out as if the gym equipment manufacturer is doing a favour to the city by presenting free equipment. Are people so foolish
as not to understand that he is getting such free publicity which otherwise would cost him crores of rupees.
If Aditya Thackeray just looks around in Dadar, not far from Shiv Sena Bhavan and his great grandfather’s statue, he would understand what physical exercise really means and how it should be practiced. He should also learn from his great grandfather Prabodhankar who was a colourful personality with a fierce drive for public causes.
In this area is a marvelous and much praised indigenous gym or Vyayamshala, Shree Samarth Vyayam Mandir, founded in 1925 by P.L. Kale Guruji, a dedicated gymnast and teacher, not a vulgar profiteer. This indigenous gym has won international recognition for the marvellous feats of gymnastics performed by young men on Malkhamb, a wooden pillar, and ropes. Now so many Europeans come every year to learn the gymnastics here. And yet this young, misguided politician wants to foist on public space the so-called modern gym equipment. Westerners, now increasingly learning from India, must be laughing at the craven imitation of foreign technology by politicians who are servile to Indian and foreign capital.
(Mr Vidyadhar Date is a senior journalist and author of the book Traffic in the era of climate change. Walking, cycling, public transport need priority.)
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