Their homes were broken. Their elderly ill-treated and their women misbehaved with. And all this in upscale Bandra. Pritish Nandy reacts with horror.

Tuesday’s brutal attack on the families residing in Pereira Wadi, a 125-year-old gaothan in Pali Naka, is truly shameful and not worthy of any civilised society, irrespective of whether the collector has approved it or the revenue minister has given it his blessings. Not only were these families uprooted from their traditional homes, right in the heart of Bandra, no doubt an obscenely valuable bit of real estate which every avaricious developer was eyeing, but their homes were broken down, their elderly ill treated, their belongings thrown onto the street, their women misbehaved with. I know what the argument will be regarding the women being mistreated. But the fact that women cops, not male cops, yanked them by their hair and pulled them out of their homes before breaking the homes down does not make the attack any less heinous or despicable. We all know that most builders in this city are either criminals or hand in glove with criminal syndicates but when they work with the corrupt and totally compromised political system to brazenly harass and intimidate citizens who do not know how to defend themselves, it’s a mockery of not just justice but also civil rights. What’s shameful is that everyone who could have done something about it, from the chief minister to the police commissioner, chose not to intervene. The Slum Rehabilitation Scheme is possibly one of the most misused instruments of urban development that currently exists in this city and can be easily manipulated to make any minority decision look like a majority 70 per cent point of view. All you need are some forged signatures of dead or ailing people, something very common when it comes to property issues. Or, even simpler, you can send some thugs in the dead of night to scare off the nays and make them sign any piece of paper that is placed before them. Not everyone is capable of looking into the barrel of a country-made gun and say no. Do you really think an old Catholic family living in a small wadi in Pali Hill can resist the might of the ruthless, all-powerful builder lobbies that exist, aided and abetted by powerful politicians who want to grab any bit of property where the owners look feeble and vulnerable to threats?

It’s an easy game. Actually, a very easy game. It’s happening every day in this city. Developers and builders go to a huddle of families living in a building or a cluster of buildings and buy off the greedy ones among them. Then they use the greedy ones to foment trouble in the society, create bad blood among neighbours, and break the spirit of camaraderie that holds the community together. Once that’s done, how difficult is it to get a few signatures and fake the rest to make it look as if 70 per cent of the community are on one side and the rest are blackmailers holding up redevelopment projects in the hope of getting more money? It’s the easiest thing in the world. And if the victims are old and ailing, it’s even easier to threaten them into silence, pay them a pittance and ask them to get out while they are still alive. The few who resist are then regularly harassed and intimidated till they too succumb and, voila, before you know it, the old structures are down—and the 70 per cent view has prevailed, as per law. The remaining 30 per cent obviously don’t count, either as human beings or as members of a civil society. So the cops are then brought in to clear them out.

    The media is on mute. It’s too busy dreaming of a new Mumbai, a clean Mumbai, a futuristic Mumbai where sky trains will dash around everywhere and stunning yachts will be docked at the marina near the Gateway. What do a few lower middleclass families matter in this city’s great march towards progress? After all, haven’t we so successfully hammered the poor off the streets, broken down the slums and built such magnificent malls and multiplexes and Rs 50 crore apartments with plunge pools and gold-plated faucets for the rich and the powerful? Now that the poor are out of the way, why can’t we now clean out the lower middle-classes and break down their stupid old wadis and replace them with even more high-rise buildings, even more spectacular shopping centres, even more fancy apartments for our new wannabe heroes, the cricketers and movie stars? Politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen—everyone’s a beneficiary in the new order. Every change brings in exciting new commercial opportunities whereas the status quo benefits no one but some stupid old people in the twilight of their lives who should, in any case, move on to Murbad or Panvel or into some old people’s home in a remote suburb. They are not capable of coping with the new Mumbai in the making.

Anyone you talk to these days has the same answer. This is the price we must pay for building tomorrow. Mumbai has to change, advance, be ready for its destiny. The whole world is changing. Look at China. Look at Vietnam. Why should we be held back by our old-fashioned values and obsession with the past. Who goes to the Elephanta Caves? Why can’t we get Disney to build an entertainment park out there? Why can’t we get a new airport at Navi Mumbai? Why can’t we make Bandra Fort into a Tourist Centre? Why can’t we make a world class convention centre in Lonavla? Yesterday’s gone. Tomorrow is the new dream. New fortunes must be built. New lifestyles must be acquired. New futures must be written. And so what if a few families in Pereira Wadi or any other wadi pay the price for this change? Someone has to make a few sacrifices? What’s wrong with that?

But the question is: Why must the poor and the old and the weak only have to make these sacrifices? Why must the old families of Pereira Wadi always end up paying the price for change and progress? And must all the profits of bringing in progress always accrue to the politicians and builders of this city, not to the poor and the dispossessed who have lived here for decades with a dream and built this city into what it is?

You decide. Is this the Mumbai you want? Is this the price you want to pay for change?