There was a time when those who headed the BMC, had also been Congress presidents. Those were the days when elections were not conducted on party lines. Today, the corporation has been more in the news for party politics than for municipal issues at stake
It is a pity that the recently concluded election to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the municipal corporation of greater Mumbai, was in the news for party politics it entailed, rather than for municipal issues at stake. There was an attempt by a party to turn the civic polls in Maharashtra into a referendum on the Devendra Fadnavis Government in Maharashtra. But, that party had to eat a humble pie, or let it be vada pao, after the results were out.
One might concede that without this media hype, the voting percentage would not have surged to 55 per cent. In the last two decades, voting in municipal elections has seldom crossed 46 per cent. Sadly, people are less inclined to vote in municipal elections on municipal issues. This is despite the fact that municipal corporations provide wide range of services from registration of birth to registration of death — and in the years in between.
The reason for lack of interest is that many people do not know about their ward number; they do not know their councilors; many councilors are actually relatives of State or national-level politicians; councilors are often corrupt; and people have little time to take interest in civic issues.
But, the BMC, earlier called the Bombay Municipal Corporation, is special. It has been not only the torch-bearer of municipal governance in India, but has acted as a nursery of political education in the western part of the country. Men who headed the BMC as chairman/president (as the Mayor was called before 1931) like Pherozeshah M Mehta, Rahimtulla M Sayani and Dinshaw E Wacha had also been Congress presidents.
Another Congress president Badruddin Tyabji, president of the Madras Congress (1887), had been a member of the BMC for 10 years (1873-1883) continuously when elections by rate payers took place every two years. Raosaheb Vishwanath Mandlik and Vithalbhai J Patel, who shone as distinguished members of Central legislative Council (earlier called Imperial legislative Council), headed the BMC in 1877 and 1924 respectively.
But in those days, there was no election on party lines. Therefore, any meritorious person, whether British, Parsi, Gujarati, Marathi or Muslim, could become the chairman/president or Mayor as the post was later named. There was opposition from British members, who predominated in the BMC, when the name of Dossabhoy Framji, a Parsi, was proposed for the chairman’s post in 1875. Though Framji’s name had been proposed by a British viz Col HF Hancock, it was opposed by a Scotsman JM Mclean. Mclean stated that while he did not doubt the capabilities of Framji, but nonetheless, feared that an Indian chairman would act in a partisan manner.
Pherozeshah Mehta, in his brilliant speech (September 4, 1875) dispelled Mclean’s prejudices. Mehta, speaking emphatically as always, stated, “We are bound, as members of this corporation, to see only to merit and qualifications in making our appointments, and when he find them combined in European gentlemen, we are but only too ready and anxious to recognise them, and I doubt not but that when such are found centred in native gentlemen, Englishmen will never fall behind in recognizing them freely, generously and ungrudgingly.”
Dossabhoy became the first Indian chairperson of the BMC. He acted as a bellwether for other Indians. Over the following decade, Rao Saheb Mandlik, Raghunath Narayan Khote and Pherozeshah Mehta came to occupy the august office. Mehta was the first to advocate elective principles in the corporation as early as 1869. In 1873, the ratepayers were given the right to vote for the BMC. But in those days, elections were on individual, not party line.
Today, it is not possible for a non-Marathi to become the Mayor of Mumbai. The great era of Parsi chairmen/presidents/Mayors came to an end with the colonial era. Even 98 per cent of the permanent employees of the BMC are Marathis. But the larger picture is that all municipal corporations/municipalities have become burrows of party politics. It is about institutionalising corruption to fund elections.
A councilor (or corporator) is well aware who is encroaching on roads, who is adding unauthorised storey to a building etc. He can help somebody get a trade license. But he makes money out of his favours. If this happens with active patronage of the party, it is still more deplorable.
A municipal corporation, however, is not in a position to make and mar the ambitions of city dwellers. A city offers number of avenues of livelihood and facilities independent of municipal corporations. But that is not the case in rural areas where Gram Panchayats command far greater influence on the lives of villagers. Panchayats have represented collective wisdom and consensus down the ages.
But the surest way to defeat those noble feelings is to politicise Panchayats on party line. It is capable of destroying the cohesion in the villages. Why, say, West Bengal remains a State most polarised politicallyIJ This is because Panchayats are thoroughly politicised on party lines. And Panchayat elections in the past had witnessed greater violence than general elections.
Arthur Crawford, an Indian Civil Service officer, was appointed the first commissioner of the Bombay Municipal Corporation after the body was founded through Act II of 1865 of Bombay legislative Council. Crawford, an industrious person, carried out a brilliant makeover of Bombay within four years. A young Pherozeshah Mehta, who had been to England to study law, and returned to Bombay after four years, could hardly believe his eyes.
But Crawford’s financial extravagance made with unpopular with a large section of the ratepayers, whether British or Indians. They organised a ‘monster meeting’ on June 30, 1871, at the Town Hall of Bombay.
Wacha, who wrote a tome titled, ‘Rise and Growth of Bombay Municipal Government’ (1913), found the 1871 monster meeting, a high watermark of people’s interest in civic affairs. That interest, Wacha deplores, had passed away during his own lifetime. Once upon a time, a Rao Saheb VN Mandlik — though he became member of Imperial legislative Council — delivered an erudite lecture on ‘The Drainage of Bombay: Its History and Prospects’ (December 23, 1882 and January 6, 1883). Can we expect such eruditeness and such empirical study from any Mayor of Mumbai todayIJ
(The writer is a socio-political commentator)