Mumbai and money have had a symbiotic relationship for centuries. The rags-to-riches and wealth-magnet stories have not ceased since the estuary of seven islands was transformed into an economically vibrant city during the colonial era. Yet, every piece of news about the billionaires in Mumbai is received with enthusiasm, as an affirmation of the city’s power to attract the big bucks and the ‘boys’ with those big bucks, as the latest Hurun list has been. This year’s list added a gilt edge — Mumbai pipped Beijing to become the Asian city with the most billionaires and now houses 25% of India’s 334 billionaires. This allows Mumbai’s leaders, especially politicians, to claim some of the stardust but in all the rah-rah that goes around, there are aspects that are overlooked.
The first is the power of the city to attract entrepreneurs and wealth creators, despite continuing efforts by the central government in the past decade, to strip it of its economic value and potential. There has been a concerted effort to dilute Mumbai’s economic significance by shifting headquarters to New Delhi or by incentivising specific industries or services such as the diamond bourse and fintech to Gujarat. Maharashtra’s politicians have protested this but those in power have, in fact, enabled the shift and, therefore, the slow bleed of Mumbai. Despite this, the city continues to be a powerhouse for the wealthy and wealth creators in India’s economy.
Related to this is the aspect of what this gilt hides. The billionaires of Mumbai show up its stark and disturbing inequalities. Cities, by nature, tend to be places of inequality and inequity. Even so, Mumbai’s inequalities straddle across wealth, income, opportunities, space, civic services like water supply and sanitation, even recreation spaces. The billionaires and millionaires inhabit a different Mumbai from the one that the majority of its 20-21 million residents do. Such deep, structural and stark inequalities are unsustainable socially and economically. They force leaders, including the billionaires, to face the seemingly difficult question: who is the city for? It has to be planned, built and governed for everyone who lives in it, not merely for the ones with wealth. While this is accepted at the policy and political level, the massive spend on Mumbai’s infrastructure in the past decade has been to make life easier and smoother for people with means — not the masses.
Therefore, a 11-kilometre stretch of the coastal road costs Rs 14,000 crore is prioritised but its local bus system — still the most affordable public transit option for people — is sought to be shelved for want of a fraction of that amount. Nearly 16 are killed because an oversized hoarding collapses in a dust storm and the railway authorities argue that they will not take instructions from the local civic body on hoardings. Or lakhs of commuters face near-stampede situations on railway foot-over bridges every day because they were built to accommodate fewer people. Or people using the community toilets in the poorest parts of Mumbai die because the floors collapse. This is disgusting and sits uneasily with the billionaires list.
The third aspect is perhaps the most controversial: the contribution of the wealthy towards the making of or improving the city. In the colonial Bombay, as history is replete with anecdotes, the wealthiest of residents including such stalwarts as Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy and Nana Jagannath Shankarseth, to name only two, contributed to physical and social infrastructure of the city and lent a hand in creating its vibrant cultural and intellectual life. Why, even the Mahim Causeway connecting the island city with settlements beyond the creek — today’s suburbs such as Bandra, Andheri and Kurla — were financed from the personal funds of Avabai Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, wife of Sir Jamsetjee, in 1841 when the then government pleaded a paucity of funds for the crucial link.
It is worth asking what Mumbai’s billionaires — indeed, India’s billionaires — have given back to the society and the city that they call home and their corporate headquarters. They can point to new institutions of culture in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex but these are hardly public or accessible to all. They can show their Corporate Social Responsibility spends but these are for micro helping-hand projects rather than large works which positively impact the lives of millions in the city. On the contrary, the trend of the past few decades has been for the uber wealthy and even the upper middle class to withdraw into gated communities and create islands of opulence amidst vast areas of paucity and deficiency. And when the city intrudes into their lives, they have the local authorities to keep out the masses as happened with shutting down traffic in BKC during the grandiose wedding celebrations.
A city makes people and then people make the city what it is. If Mumbai, despite its drawbacks, allowed a few to flourish, they must start thinking of substantive and lasting ways to pay back.
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