THE shamelessly shabby bamboo scaffoldings to support green-net canopies at different intersections of the city afford very apt symbolism of the shabby urban management culture the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has evolved over years. These scaffoldings with green-net canopies demonstrate that the city’s civic administrators have no sense of aesthetics -- and also a sense of responsibility of giving the Nagpurians a dignified city to live in. Fully aware of the damage this shabby work does to people’s sense of dignity, ‘The Hitavada’ readers responded positively to the news feature a few days ago and insisted some permanent, longer-lasting, stronger scaffoldings to support the green-net canopies. Some persons wrote in ‘Readers’ Response’ column while countless others made telephone calls appreciating what ‘The Hitavada’ has always tried to do -- frank expression of opinion of issues of public interest. Of course, all this has had no positive effect on the city’s civic managers.

 

They did not even budge when such a negative buzz rose from the ground. The common people of Nagpur would crib and cry, but finally keep quiet and let this summer, too, pass without a positive response to ‘The Hitavada’ reporting. This is democracy for us -- in Nagpur, at least ! In this democracy, the people cast their franchise in elections to elect their representatives -- for Parliament, for legislature, for local bodies. But once that duty is done, the common people have no place and space for their opinions and emotions and sense of dignity. So, they endure the great nonsense in the name of civic management. The loosefooter asked one retired civil servant why the situation had declined to such a low consideration of people’s wishes and needs. He gave a wry smile and asked: “So what if the work is shabby ? So what if the paver-blocks by road side and at intersections are coming apart ? So what if the city’s areas find mountains of uncleared garbage ?

 

So what .... ! Mr. Editor, you are a bloody fool to expect a positive change to take place!” Even the loosefooter gets such a feeling quite often. But then he reasons that it is his work as a journalist to raise issues without fear or favour; and that he must not expect miracles to take place particularly in a city like Nagpur where the power pyramid is formed by people who are blind to people’s needs and emotions, where the leadership has consciously closed its mind to what the people think about most issues, where it is fashionable to call alarm-criers ‘agents of the negative’ ! There are several angles to the situation -- in Nagpur. One angle is the legal reality -- of a very superficially drawn up Municipal Corporation Act that does not grant much power to the civic body or its Mayor or its Standing Committee or its General Body. In such a situation, all these people are just decorative dolls with little power or influence to get things done. Talk to these people -- to whichever party they may belong -- and you will realise how helpless they feel when they cannot do the right thing in larger interest of the people or the city.

 

Another angle, of course, is political. Most people in the power pyramid are tied to one another in a complex web of tractions that often work at cross-purposes. So, they have to look the other way if they realise that precious acres of land by a lakeside are being siphoned off to private owners on the sly when no construction activity could be conducted in the catchment area. They also have to look the other way when dauntingly tall bulidings come up on small plots -- under the fully unconstitutional arrangement called the Transferable Developmental Rights (TDRs). There is another reality as well -- that the power pyramid in the State of Maharashtra does not grant much importance to the Municipal bodies. That was the reason why the city of Nagpur did not have an elected municipal body for four years -- of course under different so-called legitimate reasons. This is known to everybody in the employ of the NMC. So, there is nobody to object to shabby bamboo structures to support green-net canopies when summer arrives. There also is nobody to question why these green-net canopies do not come up until deep into the month of May when the summer actually begins in March. And, also for the common people, the dictum is: ‘Ours is not to ask why, but only to do and die’ ! Thank you ! n