Seize the DP, Don’t Scrap It

Published in Mumbai Mirror as “Don’t Scrap the DP, Seize It” on 22 April 2015.

The first draft of the 2014-2034 Development Rules and Plan for Greater Mumbai were published online and in print by the BMC three months ago. Since then, an apparent profusion of errors has proved its undoing – many of which were themselves mis-reported. At first the media exposed some genuine but minor bloopers, which the BMC quickly corrected. But soon news came daily, and in the rush to outdo each other, editors failed to verify the alleged mis-marking of roads proposed through building societies, vanished heritage buildings, and commercial and residential zoning. Reporters did not seem to know that the BMC has limited planning authority in areas under the Collector, MMRDA or MbPT. Headlines were based on misunderstandings of terms like “permissible use”, “public purpose”, and the difference between “R-C” and “C-R”.

While technocratic lingo is not easily decoded, the BMC should have intervened more in the media, especially after journalists abandoned their responsibility to check the DP before reporting “errors”. They could have pointed out that many of these roads were already proposed in DP 1991 but never built, that Banganga and GPO were never shown as hospitals, and that Azad Maidan Police Station is indeed inside the Esplanade Court. Instead they issued a gag order to their planners. In the meantime, some Corporators proudly claimed that they opposed the draft DP from the moment it was published by their own agency, the BMC. Our elected representatives should have instead taken part in its preparation from the time they were elected in 2012, when land-use mapping for DP 2034 began.

The media and political uproar was welcome in some ways. Until recently, hardly anyone who was not an architect or engineer knew what the DP was. Most citizens will still have not seen their local sheet of DP 1991, by which we may remain governed for years to come. What is sad is that while the urban planning process has now been irreversibly democratised, nobody now wants to own the next DP. NGOs who had organised public consultations with the BMC in 2013-4 to demystify the planning process and input on the draft have since opposed it. When last week the BMC claimed that the few thousand complaints received until then were not enough to justify “dumping” the DP, a few shifted to attack mode, engulfing the BMC with objections to force the CM’s hand.

The DP’s “scrapping” is being hailed across the ideological spectrum from political parties to heritage activists, builders to environmentalists. Their political victory is an economic disaster for the city. Until a new DP is drafted, accepted and framed, Greater Mumbai remains governed by DP 1991, a tattered patchwork of rules and policies first conceived more than thirty years ago. It is this policy framework that sustains the city’s famous builder-politician nexus. With no new DP, housing redevelopment across Mumbai – in the lurch for years – will remain stalled, while projects such as the coastal road, Metro 2 and 3 (including the symbolic car shed at Aarey) and opening up NDZs will now be implemented without reference to any wider design and planning considerations. This is a policy vacuum which even the most ardent free-marketeer would abhor, and is no reason to celebrate.

Netaji’s Bombay Veterans

Published as “Not Just Bose, Bombay Too” in Mumbai Mirror, Cover Story, Sunday 19 April 2015.

Nehru and Patel’s Government not only authorised snooping on the extended family of Subhash Chandra Bose well after Independence, but also many other ex-Indian National Army (INA) veterans, including prominent Mumbaikars who served as Union and State ministers.

Jawaharlal Nehru and Gen Jagannath Rao Bhosale, (Bombay Chronicle, May 1946)
Jawaharlal Nehru and Gen Jagannath Rao Bhosale, ex-Chief of Staff of Bose’s Indian National Army and later Union Minister for Rehabilitation (Bombay Chronicle, May 1946)

Jagannath Rao K. Bhosale and S.A. Ayer together led the Bombay branch of the Indian National Army (INA) Relief & Enquiry (R&E) Committee established in 1946 at Congress House with Sardar Vallabhai Patel as its chair and patron. Remembered for his work with displaced Partition refugees and returning WWII veterans – and the road named for him in the sixties at Mantralaya – Bhosale was Netaji’s Chief of Staff in the INA, and served as Deputy Union Minister for Rehabilitation in Nehru’s cabinet from 1952.

Ayer was the Director of Information of the Government of Bombay from September 1946 until 1951, when he joined the Censor Board. A Bombay journalist since 1918, and the first Indian to head Reuters and Associated Press India, Ayer was a correspondent in Bangkok at the outbreak of WWII. He soon became a close associate of Bose and in October 1943 was appointed as both Propaganda Minister and member of the War Council of Netaji’s Azad Hind Sarkar.

S.A. Ayer, Propaganda Minister of Bose's Provisional Govt of Free India, and later Publicity Minister of the Govt of Bombay
S.A. Ayer, Propaganda Minister of Bose’s Provisional Govt of Free India, and later Publicity Minister of the Govt of Bombay

After the fall of British Singapore in 1942, almost 50,000 Indians became prisoners of war (POW), and of these around 25,000 had joined the INA – soldiers who served the Azad Hind Fauj or civilians in Azad Hind Sarkar based in the Andamans. By the end of WWII in August 1945, the drop of atomic bombs, Japan’s immediate surrender, and the mysterious death of Subhash Chandra Bose a few days later, his myth had reached its peak just as the Allies (and ex-colonisers) deployed the tired and near-mutinous Indian Army to re-occupy the arc of territory under Mountbatten’s South East Asia Command (SEAC), derisively known as “Save England’s Asian Colonies”.

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सुभाषबाबूंसोबतचे मुंबईकर साथी

Marathi translation of Not Just Bose, But Bombay Too by Avadhoot. Originally published as the cover story in  Mumbai Mirror, Sunday 19 April 2015.

नेहरू आणि पटेल यांच्या सरकारने स्वातंत्र्यानंतरही सुभाषचंद्र बोस यांच्या एकत्रित कुटुंबावरती पाळत ठेवायच्याच सूचना केल्या होत्या असे नव्हे, तर आझाद हिंद सेनेमध्ये (इंडियन नॅशनल आर्मीआयएनए) सामील झालेल्यांपैकी अनेक माजी सैन्याधिकारी व नेत्यांवर पाळत ठेवण्याचे आदेश देण्यात आले होते. केंद्रीय व राज्य पातळीवर मंत्री म्हणून काम केलेल्या काही मान्यवर मुंबईकर व्यक्तिमत्त्वांचाही यात समावेश होता.

Jawaharlal Nehru and Gen Jagannath Rao Bhosale, (Bombay Chronicle, May 1946)
Jawaharlal Nehru and Gen Jagannath Rao Bhosale, ex-Chief of Staff of Bose’s Indian National Army and later Union Minister for Rehabilitation (Bombay Chronicle, May 1946)जवाहरलाल नेहरू व बोस यांच्या आझाद हिंद सेनेचे ‘चीफ ऑफ स्टाफ’ आणि नंतर केंद्रीय पुनर्वसन मंत्री झालेले जनरल जगन्नाथराव भोसले. (बॉम्बे क्रॉनिकल, मे १९४६)

काँग्रेस भवनामध्ये १९४६ साली स्थापन झालेल्या आझाद हिंद सेना दिलासा व चौकशी समितीच्या (रिलीफ अँड इन्क्वायरी कमिटी) मुंबई शाखेचे नेतृत्त्व जगन्नाथराव के. भोसले आणि एस. . अय्यर यांनी केले. सरदार वल्लभभाई पटेल हे या समितीचे अध्यक्ष आणि पुरस्कर्ते होते. फाळणी काळातील निर्वासित आणि दुसऱ्या महायुद्धातून परतलेले सैनिक यांच्यासंबंधी केलेल्या कामासाठी भोसले ओळखले जातात आणि त्यांच्या स्मृती जागवण्यासाठी मंत्रालयाजवळच्या एका रस्त्यालाही त्यांचे नाव देण्यात आले. आझाद हिंद सेनेमध्ये भोसले हे नेताजींचे ‘चीफ ऑफ स्टाफ’ होते आणि १९५२ पासून त्यांनी नेहरूंच्या मंत्रिमंडळात पुनर्वसनाचे केंद्रीय उपमंत्री म्हणून काम पाहिले.

अय्यर हे सप्टेंबर १९४६पासून १९५१पर्यंत मुंबई सरकारचे माहिती संचालक होते. त्यानंतर ते सेन्सॉर मंडळाचे सदस्यही झाले. मुंबईत १९१८सालापासून पत्रकारितेत कार्यरत असलेले आणि ‘रॉयटर्स’ व ‘असोसिएट प्रेस इंडिया’ या वृत्तसंस्थांचे पहिले भारतीय अध्यक्ष राहिलेल्या अय्यर यांनी दुसऱ्या महायुद्धाच्या काळात बँकॉकहून युद्धाचे वार्तांकन केले होते. त्याच काळात ते बोस यांचे जवळचे सहकारी बनले आणि ऑक्टोबर १९४३मध्ये नेताजींच्या ‘आझाद हिंद सरकार’चे प्रचार मंत्री व युद्ध मंडळाचे सदस्य म्हणून त्यांची नेमणूक झाली.

S.A. Ayer, Propaganda Minister of Bose's Provisional Govt of Free India, and later Publicity Minister of the Govt of Bombay
S.A. Ayer, Propaganda Minister of Bose’s Provisional Govt of Free India, and later Publicity Minister of the Govt of Bombayएस. ए. अय्यर. बोस यांच्या हंगामी आझाद हिंद सरकारमधील प्रचार मंत्री व नंतर मुंबई सरकारमध्ये प्रसिद्धी मंत्री म्हणून काम.

ब्रिटिशांच्या सत्तेखालील सिंगापूरचा १९४२मध्ये पाडाव झाल्यानंतर सुमारे ५० हजार भारतीय युद्धकैदी बनले आणि त्यापैकी सुमारे २५ हजार सैनिक आझाद हिंद सेनेमध्ये दाखल झाले होते. त्यातील काहींना आझाद हिंद सेनेत सैनिक म्हणून काम केले तर काहींनी अंदमानस्थित आझाद हिंद सरकारमध्ये नागरी सेवेत योगदान दिले. ऑगस्ट १९४५मध्ये दुसरे महायुद्ध संपत आले असताना अणुबॉम्बच्या हल्ल्यामुळे जपानने तत्काळ शरणागती पत्करली आणि त्यानंतर काही दिवसांनी सुभाषचंद्र बोस यांचा गूढ मृत्यू झाला. त्या दरम्यान थकलेल्या व बंडखोरीच्या उंबरठ्यावर असलेल्या भारतीय सैन्याला मित्र राष्ट्रांनी (व तत्कालीन वसाहतवाद्यांनी) माउंटबॅटनच्या अखत्यारितील आग्नेय आशियाई प्रदेशावर पुन्हा ताबा मिळवण्यासाठी धाडले; या मोहिमेला ‘इंग्लंडच्या आशियाई वसाहती बचाव’ असे अपमानास्पद नाव देण्यात आले.

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Why You Should Download the Mumbai Development Plan Today

Mumbai's New Development Plan? Cartoon by Raj Thackeray, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), February-March 2015
Mumbai’s New Development Plan? Cartoon by Raj Thackeray, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), February-March 2015

The publication of the proposed Greater Mumbai Development Plan for 2034 over the past month has seen a rare coalition emerge to condemn it, from NGOs and political parties, to celebrities and artistes, and in the past week even the BMC’s own Heritage Conservation Committee. Aggrieved residents and alert activists are seeing dark conspiraces in the details of road alignments, land use reservations, and hikes in FSI (Floor Space Index) across the city. While high FSI has become central to the debate on DP 2034, what matters most for Mumbaikars is how policies like FSI, TDR (Transferable Development Rights) and other Development Control Rules (DCR) can be harnessed to create greater public goods and a better urban environment in the next twenty years.

Portrayed from Left to Right as a sell-out to the construction industry, DP 2034 is in fact a paper template, referred to when permissions are sought for development or redevelopment. Together with the DCR, they define the guidelines and recipe book of policies by which land use, building, zoning, amenities and infrastructure are regulated. DP 2034 will only be the third for Greater Mumbai. The first DP was proposed in 1964 and sanctioned in 1967 for a decade until 1977. It was a broad land use plan, a response by engineers and planners who were horrified by the Island City’s runaway population growth and industrial concentration, even after the annexation of the suburbs to Greater Bombay in the fifties, and the statehood of Maharashtra in the sixties.

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