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  7.3. The Twin City transportation network plan.

  CIDCO began the project in earnest in 1973. In the project’s favor was the bridge across the Thane Creek, connecting it to the Island City, and the plan for developing an advanced port at Nhava Sheva on the mainland side of the bay. Blessed with these advantages, D’Souza set about realizing the planners’ dream of developing New Bombay on nearly 135 square miles of land across the water from Bombay as a countermagnet. He shared with the planners the objective of diverting the growing population away from the Island City to the new city. New Bombay, they estimated, would reach a population of two million by 2000. “A large part of that population would have otherwise come to Bombay—or so we naively believed,” D’Souza writes. “And so we tried to convince everyone interested in urban management.”50 They planned to accelerate the development of Nhava Sheva and attract commercial houses, and they even thought of persuading the state government to relocate its offices. CIDCO would restrict industrial development and encourage the service sector as the growth engine of New Bombay. Lands acquired at the market rate for agricultural fields, then developed and sold at commercial rates, would finance the whole development project, including the cost of building roads and railway lines.

  The plan was not without its critics. No sooner was CIDCO founded than K. A. Abbas charged that New Bombay would be built on lands seized from poor peasants to provide “a metropolis for the industrialists, the capitalists, the traders, the hoteliers, the building contractors, the architects, the interior decorators, and other species of the profit making professions.”51 A year later, Blitz accused CIDCO of ignoring the problem of congestion and slums in Bombay and denounced it for building a “neo-Manhattan” as a playground for monopolists and speculators.52 There were also less colorful criticisms.53 It was pointed out that the plan would fail to create a countermagnet to relieve congestion in Bombay; instead, the new city would merely extend the jurisdiction of the metropolitan region to include the territory across the harbor as yet another suburb. Critics also argued that the new city would do nothing to relieve Bombay’s chronic problem of congestion and excess population.

  Undeterred, the project moved ahead. The dream was too seductive. New Bombay would reorient the Island City to the water. The harbor would hum with the sound of boats ferrying people and goods between the twin cities. Oil tankers and ships would line up on the sea-lane to Nhava Sheva. Built from scratch and protected from industrial pollution, New Bombay would be a clean, planned city providing affordable accommodations to its residents. Efficient and sensible planning, narrowing the distance between work and home, would reduce commuting time, and the separation of vehicular roads from pedestrian paths would provide mobility without traffic snarls. Everything would be clean and orderly—a utopia realized.

  THE DREAM SOURS

  It was not to be. New Bombay never became a countermagnet. The population growth and congestion in Bombay continued unabated. What is more, the Backbay reclamation raised its ugly head again, now crowned by soaring towers.

  CIDCO’s singular success was that it realized its goal of achieving financial self-sufficiency by selling plots it had acquired at low agricultural land rates, which provoked protests and conflicts. On other counts, the results have been, at best, mixed. A new city was built, with settlements organized around planned nodes, supporting a population of 785,000 by 2001. Nearly two-thirds of the city’s residents are employed in offices. The housing stock has provided decent and affordable living space for its inhabitants, the majority of whom are migrants from the Island City. But with regard to acting as a countermagnet, it has come up severely short.54 The new city has turned into a dormitory to absorb distress migrants and has fueled the speculative real estate market.55 This was not what the planners had in mind in their projection of the ideal city of New Bombay as modern society.

  Sensing that things were going wrong, Patel resigned as chief planner as early as 1975. He felt that the project lacked full government support. This was evident in its refusal to move the state offices and the legislature complex to the new city, something on which the planners had hung their hopes—too highly, they acknowledge in retrospect.56 Looking back now, Patel thinks that an undoubted factor in the government’s refusal to move its offices to the mainland must have been the fear that if Bombay ceased to be the seat of state power, the Island City could become a Union Territory.57 Against the background of the violence-ridden struggle for Maharashtra and for the Maharashtrian claim over Bombay—just over a decade old at the time—this would have been a likely apprehension. Back then, however, he believed that their ideas would prevail through the “sheer force of logic.”58

  The most distressing sign of the failure of the “sheer force of logic” was the decision to revive the Backbay reclamation, which had stalled in the late 1920s amid cost overruns, mismanagement, and accusations of high-handedness and graft. Only blocks 1 and 2 (at the Chowpatty end of Marine Drive) and block 8 (occupied by the defense services) were successfully reclaimed; blocks 3 to 7, amounting to 550 acres, were left unreclaimed (see fig. 7.4). But as Marine Drive, flanked by Art Deco buildings, arose in the 1930s and the 1940s and became a prestigious and picturesque address, the abandoned blocks looked increasingly like a gold mine. This included the unreclaimed area immediately south of Marine Drive, which the postcolonial government had named Nariman Point to honor the nationalist whose muckraking had turned the 1920s reclamation into a scandal. But the lofty spirit of nationalism was no match for the powerful scent of money. Land sharks circled Nariman Point, ready to close their jaws on any speck of land that emerged from the sea.

  7.4. Unreclaimed Backbay blocks. Source: Bombay Development Plan (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1964).

  Reclamation was back on the agenda, though it made no sense from the point of view of urban planning.59 Additional office space on the reclaimed lands would only accentuate the city’s north-south axis. More office workers traveling to the southern extremity of the Island City would add stress to the already overburdened suburban rail system, to say nothing of the increased demand for water and power. The Barve Committee in 1959 had recommended reclamation, but only for open spaces and for housing slum dwellers, both of which the city desperately needed. Just as the colonial state had used the fig leaf of a housing shortage to embark on the 1920s Backbay reclamation, the postcolonial government of Maharashtra in the early 1960s did exactly the same. The government began reclaiming lands, which were then auctioned. The scheme called for the sale of only half of the 550 reclaimed acres; the rest were allotted for open spaces, roads, and other infrastructure. Of the disposable plots, 60 percent were for residences, and the rest for commercial buildings. The Floor Space Index (FSI) was set at 3.5 and 4.5 respectively, later revised to 3.5 for both, allowing a carpet area of 35,000 square meters per 1,000 square meters of land. This figure allowed for buildings that would be much taller than anywhere else in the city.

  However, by 1968 only 64 acres had been reclaimed. Corporations rushed in on this small parcel of land to buy plots at auctions and began to raise tall office towers. One by one, Air India, Express Towers, the State Bank, the Shipping Corporation of India, Mafatlal, Somanis, and Oberoi Sheraton raced to build a dense jungle of concrete skyscrapers. Cocking a snook at history, Air India hung a hoarding on its twenty-four-story building that read: “Nariman had a point and we are on it.”60 The irony was cruel.

  Criticisms poured in from urban planners, architects, and government-appointed committees. In a four-volume confidential report assessing the development plan, which it submitted to the Maharashtra government, the World Bank expressed its disapproval.61 But the government was undeterred. It flaunted the state coffers, which were overflowing with auction money. While some politicians looked at the waves washing over the remaining planned reclamation area and saw the potential for a rich harvest of bribes, the well-connected land sharks and builders saw the potential for vast profits. The situation was ripe for
crony capitalism to work its black magic.

  On January 29, 1972, the Bombay weekly Current ran an explosive story asking “Why No Tenders, Mr. Naik, for Backbay Plots?”62 Quoting an “anonymous informant,” it reported that in a sudden departure from past practice, the government was allotting commercial plots on the Backbay without a public tender. It named the builders who were the beneficiaries of the government’s sudden change of heart: the Mittal Group, Maker and Jolly Builders, Gupta and Company, and Somani. Without claiming that it had any proof, Current invited the government to respond to the charge of a dark builder-politician conspiracy suggested by its informant’s allegation.

  The response was immediate. The director of publicity of the Maharashtra government issued a statement acknowledging the allotment of unreclaimed lands without public auction but denied that there was any ground for suspicion. The clarification, published in its entirety in Current, justified the allotments as a way to encourage reclamation, which was necessary to increase the supply of land in the space-starved city.63 The rationale was uncannily similar to the one the British had advanced in the 1920s. But whereas the colonial government had undertaken the reclamation work itself so the profit would also accrue to the state, Maharashtra had decided to entrust that job to “reputed” private builders. This was because the government had found very little demand for the lands it had reclaimed. In fact, it had to induce corporations such as Air India to lease the reclaimed plot. Therefore, it abandoned reclamation, deeming it too expensive. But since public interest demanded the augmentation of the city’s land supply, it decided to sell unreclaimed plots to builders with the financial and executive wherewithal. Private parties, unencumbered by the time-consuming procedures that the government had to follow, could move faster and more efficiently. Finally, the government spokesman claimed, the rates at which allotments had been made were “very attractive.” There was no reason to suspect any foul play; it was all done in the public interest by an enlightened government.

  The government’s explanation did not satisfy Current. It rejected the claim that the private sales had been made at “attractive rates.” The tabloid noted that a public tender forced by its exposé had attracted twenty-six offers. It also fetched more than three times the price earned by private sale—Rs 12,829 versus Rs 4,000 per square meter. Granted that the unreclaimed plot sold by public tender included approval for a cinema theater, the price offered, according to Current, exposed the hollowness of the government’s claims. The writer of the story ended by smugly noting that the tabloid’s exposure of private sales had led to the resumption of public tenders and had resulted in a substantial gain to the state treasury.

  The satisfaction was short-lived. A year later, Current’s front page screamed: “V. P. Naik to Sell More Backbay Plots—without Public Tenders Again!”64 Quoting “reliable construction sources,” the editor D. F. Karaka reported that the chief minister was back to his old habits, preparing to allot fifteen to seventeen plots without a public tender to so-called reputed builders. These builders were actually “fly-by-nights who have arisen out of the rubble into which Naik and his ruling party threw ingots of gold so that men like these can become rich.” The whole Backbay affair stank, demanding Naik’s ouster from power. Current’s editor, an inveterate anti-Communist, stated that he was aware that there was a “Commie conspiracy” to capture the government. Nonetheless, so foul was the stench of the scandal that Chief Minister Naik had to go.

  While Karaka merely insinuated backroom deals, J. B. D’Souza was a witness to the goings-on. Along with his responsibilities as the managing director of CIDCO, the upright officer was also the secretary of the Department of Urban Development. In his memoir, D’Souza writes that one day he found himself rushed into approving leases for fifteen plots of land that were still under the sea.65 Unbeknownst to him, the government had abandoned the system of public auctions and had decided to conclude deals with builders without a competitive process. Aghast at this development, he still managed to raise the price by 20 percent—from approximately Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,400 per square meter. Showing a fine sense for bureaucratic wile, he got the new rate approved by the finance secretary. Immediately, he was summoned by the revenue minister, H. G. Vartak, huddled with the builders chosen for leases. The minister upbraided him for “spoiling” the deal that had already been settled with the chief minister, Naik. After the builders trooped out, the revenue minister reiterated that the rate had been set and approved by the chief minister. When D’Souza argued that the builders should be squeezed for more, since the land was in an expensive neighborhood, the minister blurted out: “We have already squeezed them!”

  D’Souza also felt the pressure applied by Rafiq Zakaria, the suave and reputed Bombay politician and the Urban Development minister. Zakaria summoned D’Souza and the finance secretary to his office. He was subtler than the revenue minister. Addressing his ministerial colleague, who hovered in the room, Zakaria noted that their decision ran the risk of going against the opinion of two senior government officers, unless, of course—he cannily added—the officers chose to reconsider. “At this stage,” D’Souza writes, “we both got absorbed in the fascinating view outside the Minister’s room.”

  The plucky civil servant had won a small victory. The government was forced to conclude the deal with the builders at an enhanced rate. But D’Souza was not done yet. He encouraged a lawsuit against the government. Piloo Mody, a member of the Parliament, joined by two others, filed a case in June 1974.66 It named the State Government, the Union Government, the Municipal Corporation, the chief minister, the ministers for Revenue and Urban Development, and the builders who had been allotted the lots as respondents. The petitioners charged that the allotment was in violation of the government’s constitutional and statutory obligations and mala fide. The private lease of lands, without a public tender, amounted to a collusion between the government and builders, which had produced an insufficient price charged for the land. As citizens of India and as the city’s taxpayers, the petitioners claimed, the government’s decision had harmed them. Therefore they requested the court’s intervention.

  THE STATE ON TRIAL AND THE CITY OF CONSPIRACY

  Justice J. M. Gandhi of the Bombay High Court heard the case from April to September 1975. He took one month to deliver the judgment, which ran to 953 double-spaced typed pages.67 It is a remarkable document, not just for its length but also for its content. On the face of it, the issue before the court was relatively straightforward—whether or not the government had a right to allot Backbay lands privately. But the consideration of this matter placed on trial the very nature of the state, the extent of the executive’s powers, the jurisdiction of the judiciary, and the rights of citizens. The court witnessed an extremely learned legal contest. Opposing counsels cited precedents from different courts and authorities extending from India to Britain to the United States. Justice Gandhi was equal to the task. Presenting the opposing arguments meticulously and comprehensively, his judgment carefully and systematically analyzed legal issues that go to the heart of the definition of state power. The judgment stands as a record of what transpired in the court—the trial and defense of the modern liberal-democratic state against its agents. But it also documents the failure of the effort to make the state live up to its ideal as an instrument of general good, above powerful, private interests. This failure produced the idea of the city as a conspiratorial space. Backroom deals, not transparent transactions, constituted Bombay’s reality.

  The judgment begins on a low key. It offers a brief summary of the opposing arguments, a history of Backbay reclamations, and a factual account of allotments made by the government. But the stakes rise the moment the court considers the petitioners’ contention that the government was lawfully bound to allot lands through public auction. The advocate general of Maharashtra asserted that the allotment was a contract between the state and private parties. This contract, according to him, was an executive act and outside the court�
�s purview. The state could dispose of its property as if it were an individual, without any limitation and not subject to judicial review. To buttress this argument, the counsel cited case precedents in the United States that upheld the power of the Congress over public lands without the court’s review of the manner of its administration.68 He acknowledged constitutional limitations but went on to assert that there were no restrictions on the state’s disposal of property and its contractual agreements. It could dispose of property for any purpose, even other than public purpose, without the interference of the court.

  Opposing the state’s extravagant claim, the petitioner’s counsel, Askok Desai, argued that the state owns property on behalf of the people. He cited an American case judgment that held that the United States does not and cannot hold property like a monarch for private and personal purposes. This principle must also apply to the state of Maharashtra, he argued.69 The Indian Supreme Court had affirmed that the state must be guided by the principle of public interest. The constitution gives wide powers and discretion to the officers and agents of the state, but it enjoins them to act for the public good. In the Backbay case, this principle demanded a public auction, not the disposal of plots through private sale as if the state were an individual or a monarch. Underlying the question of a public auction, then, was the larger issue of the very nature of the state. According to Desai, the state must stand above private interests to advance the general good. This is what distinguished a liberal-democratic state from a monarchy and autocracy. The Indian constitution enjoined even the executive to act for the state’s purpose, which could be no other than the public purpose. The property held by the state must be regarded as that of the community, the people, or the public. Therefore, all state transactions must be for the people’s benefit.