The February 2002 civic elections in Mumbai teach many lessons. First and probably foremost is the need for citizens to feel the vital importance of their municipality in the daily-ness of their lives.
A voter turnout of around 40% makes one fear, without much exaggeration, for the future of the city. And that figure comes at the end of a greater awareness and stir about them than ever before. Why did awareness not become more votes?
"Missing" names
First, the lesser reasons. Countless voters turned up at polling booths only to be told that their names did not appear on the electoral rolls. Thousands of forms had been filled out by new voters. Door-to-door enumeration had taken place, all apparently to no avail. Or otherwise, a few "missing" names were found, except that poorly trained staff could not deal with 15 supplementary lists in every case. It remains a mystery why the 1998 rolls, which imposed this ordeal, were used instead of the rolls updated to September 2001, which would have involved only one or two supplementaries.
Did the need for IDs discourage bogus voting, usually a great inflator of polling figures? Was the reservation policy a dampener? It did set up some incongruities. Electoral ward No.1 is an instance. Four OBC ladies, all neo-literates, were offered tickets to contest civic elections in an area that included Cuffe Parade, with its 10,000 voters residing in upscale high-rises. Do neo-literates make bad corporators? By no means, but their run-in period, the dangers of manipulation by others in the background and, above all, the difficulties of communication were all considerations that may have kept many away.
Don't care, or don't know?
But the major reason for the poor turnout is something that could be of interest to organizations like Bombay First.
The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai is responsible for virtually everything in a householder's life, apart from civil security, where the police come in, and suburban railway travel. Do citizens really not care about what happens to their water supply and sanitation, roads and pavements, parks and gardens, schools, health centers and hospitals, bus transport, building and repair permissions, encroachment on public land, straying animals, licensing of hotels and restaurants, supervision of markets and removal of garbage... do they not care, or do they simply not know? This is where a body like Bombay First becomes relevant.
Two major concepts underlying Bombay First's current vision are a better quality of life in the city and more jobs. Both demand immensely improved civic services. Their link to a more "beautiful" city is obvious. Better job opportunities require new and greater investment in the city, instead of the shrinkage, flight and relocation that we are witnessing. People who could invest anywhere, and are being enticed there, are not drawn to a dirty, crowded, polluted, criminalised city.
A role for Bombay First
Bombay First, must therefore, consider how citizens could be educated and moved to a greater sense of responsibility for their city. This would certainly suggest a well-planned and systematic program of its own communications, which in turn means linking up with the media, among other things.
But Mumbai's plight and the realities reflected in February's elections point to a more basic requirement: the need for a productive, continuing dialogue and partnership between citizens and their elected representatives. This must be facilitated, and Bombay First might consider doing it. This means supporting organizations already in the field of urban renewal and joint action with city authorities, groups involved in everything from promoting segregation of household waste to protecting public space and creating voter awareness.
The on-going programs of such bodies could be supported in a variety of ways like sponsoring events, funding newsletters, opening up company publications to their news and appeals, donations to corpus and underwriting projects.
Crime does not pay?
In the February elections, the political parties were unable to field a better quality of candidates than the last time round. Some 270 of the 2,000 odd candidates had police records. About 50 of those were nominees of major parties. More than half the elected ones are first-time Corporators, many are poorly prepared by education and experience to cope with the complexities of city governance.
What could make good Corporators of a mediocre Corporation? At least two things could make starting points: democratic citizen pressure on City Fathers to back good policies, and a watchdog role on their deliberations. In those tasks, an alliance of citizens and the corporate sector with the Corporation itself could make a huge difference to civic functioning.