Whose land is it anyways ?

On 2nd June 2008, there was an incident in Mumbai which will perhaps be a landmark in Mumbai's history in so many ways. since it allows me to show so many facets of Mumbai life to you clearly.  This incident was what is now popularly known as the Perriera Wadi incident. ( http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDA4LzA2LzA1I0FyMDA1MDE=&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom )

 The first view I would like to show you is the bleeding heart journalism which is so commonplace today. --- All I saw for weeks was papers screaming about the builder , politician nexus. All they talked about was how people were dragged out of their traditional homes in the middle of Bandra since the property rates had gone so high. Allegations were bandied and urban legends were born about this politician or that politician standing around with sten guns while the houses were being demolished. It seems like a wonder that no one alleged Sonia Gandhiji or Manmohanji or Vajpayeeji was there.

The second view is that of the average slum dweller -- This is the person who comes to Mumbai with a dream in his eye and an optimistic view of the future. Upon landing , he finds that there is not a square foot available for him to sleep. All he knows is that his brother or cousin or whoever has built a shanty on a dark corner of a BMC garden and there is a place available for him next door. He slaps a few tin sheets together and voila, the local politicians man turns up. A few thousand rupees later he has an electric connection. If he's very lucky , he even gets a water connection from (wait for it) the same BMC whose garden he has encroached.**

Mumbai has a very simple evolutionary cycle. I have defined it in the following drawing for pavement dwellers but it applies to all kinds of slums. ( Please click on picture for a larger image.) As you can see its a never ending cycle, with the slum dwellers who have never been used to paying for taxes, electricity, water and a hundred other things that you and me pay for through our nose.

The third view is of the local youths who jump onto any band wagon without looking too deep at the is sues. These are the people my column every week is actually aimed at. They are the youth of tomorrow who wish to do something but are being misled with improper advice. They are the ones who can perhaps make a better tomorrow if led correctly.

For example the Mount Carmel Youth Movement who has been so voiceferous in this particular case. ( http://mtcarmelyouthmovement.com )

The fourth is the builders lobby, for whom the razing of Perriera wadi was a ray of hope of a possible future course of event. The possibility that one day if a small bunch of residents in a slum ever blackmail them for astronomical sums, the spectre of Perriera Wadi will remain present. The ghost that theres a limit to blackmailing the builders after which they can be thrown on the street from land which never belonged to them in the first place.

The fifth view is the police personnel who are supposed to have been standing around and even participated while the residents were pulled out of the shanties. There's perhaps no proof that this did happen but if it did its one of the blackest marks on the already black face of Mumbai

The sixth is of the actual owner of the land of Periera wadi. For him, it was land occupied which he inherited from his father but which was land he could never use since it was encroached upon by the slum dwellers. He owned half of Bandra ( All Periera wadis were his) but died with hardly a penny to his name cashwise.  In reality a poor little rich man.

The seventh view is of the BMC. The BMC is made up of babus who move from post to post without any accountability for their previous actions. At most there is a slap on the wrist called a "suspension" which is a euphemism for "pull your head down till the s**t stops flying".

6 months later they are back to their old tricks.

The image on the left shows the state of a so called garden opposite Bandra (E) station which the BMC has failed to miserably protect and whats more has provided water to the slum dewellers there so that they can continue to encroach.

The eight view is of the politicians. The image shows the BMC garden as a dream of "Shri Sunil Dutt" which his daughter has relagated to the back burner instead of making it come true just for the sake of the masses of votes in the encroachment. 

The ninth view is of you, me and everyone, Mr. Joe Public. The people who pass by large tracts of slums everyday and don't even wonder who owns the very land which is under it. all we do is pass by and turn the other face since our maids, drivers and sweepers come from them. The picture shows how much of the area around Periera wadi is actually covered with slums and is land not available for Bandra and actual facilities that are desperately needed for Bandraites who have paid something like Rs. 35,000 per sq ft carpet area.

(what drives me up the wall is that these Bandraites are the same people who wrote blogs and blogs asking for support for the very same slum dwellers who are depriving their children of the green space they desperately need).

The whole problem with Periera wadi and the endemic of hundreds of Periera wadis around us lies in our whole attitude towards India and Indians. We have this habit of rewarding crime. Be it amnesty schemes for stamp duty, service tax, income tax or the myriad of other levies we pay to subsidse the other 98% who doesn't pay anything at all.

In the case of housing the situation is similar, what do we do with the honest house buyer. We allow the garden space around his house to be encroached by the "slum dweller" who when he has captured the space for long enough becomes legitimate and is then REWARDED for his crime of land grabbing by being allocated a flat on the same land.

I know that the right the right to housing is now a fundamental right, but at no point does the right mean the right to own , it basically means right to live in a house. 

We as citizens need not feel sorry for the "residents of Periera wadi" but rather we need to realise that "Periera wadis" will not stop till such time as we  stop rewarding crime, till we stop this nonsensical  scheme of giving away free flats. Under no circumstances should the slum dweller be allowed to own the very place he has grabbed illegally.

What gives the government the right to give away flats built with our taxpaying funds on land on which there was a park to be created for the good of our taxpaying public to people who are to all intents and purposes "land grabbers". If this land grabbing ever has to stop, the SRA should rather be converted to a rental rather than an ownership scheme.

Dont reward the law breakers by making them property owners.

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** At one time, I owned a "godown" in Periera Wadi. By the way, a lot of the so called residences demolished were godowns and other similar structures. The methodology of transaction was simple. All that was needed was a power of attorney which was handed down from occupant to occupant.

If I remember correctly I was the 5th or 6th owner.  No one questioned it, no one doubted it.

I paid approx 10 lakhs for it, and sold it for almost the same amount in a few months a few years ago, the current occupant I believe asked for 60 lakhs from the slum redevelopment people since by the time of demolition it was a two level structure occupied by a mother and son, who according to them were entitled to two flats. ( ownership not encroached mind you)

Isn't life fun.

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