[Reader-list] Field Notes from Marine Drive

[zainab at xtdnet.nl]

This week has been interesting in terms of field work. I began doing the
rounds of Marine Drive regularly this week. Migrants from Azamgadh, on the
border of MP and UP, form the main hawker community around Marine Drive.
Most of their co-villagers have established businesses here. The younger
people from the village then come and join their relatives in the
business.

Patrolling at Marine Drive has become very strict. Nowadays, the MCGM van
does not come regularly, but a plainclothes cop does the rounds to catch
hold of hawkers doing business on the promenade. There are more private
security guards at Marine Drive than usual. Two guards patrol at equal
intervals on the promenade. The private security guards have acquired the
status and power equivalent to that of a policeman. Earlier, the guards
used to be afraid of the hawkers because hawkers would beat up the guards.
But nowadays, the guards are able to wield more authority and take actions
as if they were law enforcers and policemen themselves.

An interesting thing which occurred on Tuesday was when Manoj Kumar, a
stall owning hawker started saying to me, “I want a job. It is getting
difficult to survive here. Policemen and municipality don’t let us do
business. Things are becoming stringent.” Manoj Kumar’s remark is
pertinent because it describes the character of the contemporary city of
Mumbai. Bombay was once the enterprising city – a city where no one went
hungry because there was business for everyone to do. Gradually, new
government regimes are taking away conditions of freedom. Everyone is
being pushed into jobs. Freedom of enterprise is freedom of the
individual. Gradually, this enterprising city is turning into a service
economy. Freedom is traded for security of jobs – and interestingly, there
is no security in jobs either!!!

Finally, another interesting event took place last evening. I met Santosh
Yadav after a long time. I asked him that he was not to be seen since
quite a few days. He narrated a story to me, “There was a man who had a
licensed food business. He decided to go to his village for a month. So I
asked him to lease his licensed stall to me for a month. I paid him
Rs.20,000 and took over the business. I made a profit for Rs.60,000. The
person came back yesterday. I handed over his business to him and he gave
me my deposit of Rs.20,000 back.” What is interesting here is the
negotiations which take place between people without government
interventions and how these negotiations define the character of the city
in a larger perspective.

I am still thinking whether centralized systems are homogenizing? Is
control about homogenization?



Zainab Bawa
Bombay
www.xanga.com/CityBytes
http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html