Mumbai Dying
Mumbai is one of the richest cities in the world and definitely the richest city in India. But nowhere else in the World you can find the costliest piece of land attached with a slum. That's mumbai, very unique and very disturbing.
The Mumbai Experiment:
Take small stones and pebbles, put them in a jar and shake it vigorously. The mumbai is the jar and the stones and people are mumbaikars, brushing each other, struggling and often hitting each other but no one is standing still because one cannot afford to stand still in Mumbai. He will be hit, thrown and replaced.
The Mumbai's Slums:
If you are pro poor and very romantic & artistic person, you would love to fart about the unity in diversity of Mumbai. But mind you, diversity only looks good when you are observing from a distance and you are definitely not in it. People who are away from it, either disgust it or fantasize human rights and what not?. People who face it are the Middle Class, people who educate themselves, fight hard for jobs, run for home loans for a place which is outside the city just because the land which is available in the city has either been commercialized or slumized. The middle class deserves no free lunch. But these poor people who are land encroachers will get free accomodation under the slum rehabilitation scheme. The fact is very much evident that Indian democrazy never recognizes talent and merit, it only recognizes vote bank.
Post Rehabilitation:
Is rehab a solution? What do these slum dwellers come to Mumbai. Some are genuine and most of are here for wrong reasons; films, crime, prostitution, injustice, etc. Some of their problem can be very much solved at the source of it. But we never try to solve any problems at the source, becuase if the problem is solved at source it is 'eradicated' and prevented to grow. If some problems can be prevented, how politician will fuel their manifestoes and speeches.
After we rehab the slums in concrete strucutures, what are they supposed to do? Do they open a canteen, barber shop, butcher house, shoe polish, laundry, brotherel, garage, pan-bidi shop, etc on the 2nd or 3rd floor of the building provided to them. The slum economy is very hard to understand and very complex, the slum economomy is a road economy, the slums are growing and existing beacause a slum is a market cum resedential complex. If you take the slum out of the market crashes and these slum dwellers will have a more tough life, becase their existance is not based on the survival of the fittest and upon the merit system.
The Solution: Understand & Act:
If you think this is Mumbai's problem, you are wrong and or idiot, stupid or corrupt. This is problem of the nation beacuse every city has a slum.
This problem is linked with education, health-care, infrastructure and employment.
This problem exists because we have not been able to isolate villages and cities, understand their unique requirements and meet the needs for the development.
Development need not be in 'pockets' it must spread everywhere.
The talent and merit system should be applicable everywhere.
The laws is a not a historical text, it is a system, therefore it becomes useless after certain period.
There should be law for marriages & having number of childrens. You must qualify to become a parent. Notice to all NGOs and Human Rights Organization (before they cry & shout). Reproduction cannot be considered as a human right, because here were are not talking about the rights of the parent, we are talking about the rights of the childrens.
Rural India needs focus and development.
Politicians should be accountable on a daily basis in the office and in the house (parliament). There should be a point system to all there activities, the person who gets the set number of points should only be allowed to contest for an election or atleast that should be a crtiteria for evaluating candidates. We must exactly now how many hours a these politcians put in usefull activities.
All the government activities must be transparent. I must know as a citizen what is happening in my state. Not by going to certain government office but through technologies like Internet & networked kiosks.
To sum up the matter, yes, the solution is not simple because the problem is complex. Therefore it does not deserve an instant solution at the destination, it should be treated at the source which is very long and uncomfortable.
OOps! Do you still think it is the problem of Mumbai???
