National

Ambedkar At Sea

A reclamation project in Mumbai threatens to tailspin into a political and caste maelstrom

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Ambedkar At Sea
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Almost three-quarters of a century after Gandhi’s famous Salt March, fishermen from coastal Maharashtra and Dalits from across the state have decided on what they describe as another historic march in Mumbai. The marchers will make their way from the samadhi (Chaitya Bhoomi) at Dadar of the Father of the Indian constitution, B.R. Ambedkar, to the Mahim causeway which links south and north Bombay. On the way, they plan to pick each rock, stone and pebble from the mudfill for the Bandra-Worli sea-link road project and dump it on the main arterial roads, bringing all traffic to a halt in the city on January 22.

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The road linking the two ends of the bay could perhaps ease congestion in the city. But it is the reclamation work to anchor it that is causing the problem. As the land is reclaimed, the sea is being pushed inland at Dadar, and affecting the beach-fronting Chaitya Bhoomi. In fact, the wall around Dadar beach has been damaged three times already.

Ramdas Athawale, Republican Party of India MP and a former state minister, has warned that if Chaitya Bhoomi is damaged in any manner, "all Dalits will rise in anger and it could create a potential law and order problem in the state". The issue has got another political twist with former prime minister V.P. Singh - at the end of his self-imposed five-year political exile - deciding to take up the cause.

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Responding with alacrity to Singh’s call, the state government was quick to dispatch officials on January 8 to meet him. He was also promised that a fresh plan is being drawn up to ensure that Chaitya Bhoomi isn’t threatened in any way. But visitors to the site since then have seen little evidence of even slacking off of reclamation.

The representatives of the state government have proved mute bystanders. Minister for public works Vikram Singh Patankar visited the site and could do little but shake his head in sorrow. Minister for fisheries Meenakshi Patil stood wringing her hands, as overawed and helpless. Minister for rehabilitation Hussain Dalwai offered to rehabilitate at least the fishermen but was struck dumb when the Kolis shot back, "You might give us new homes but can you give us back the sea?" (Kolis are the original inhabitants of Mumbai and were always dependent on the sea.)

In fact, Dalits and Kolis - who will be armed with knives and meat cleavers on the January 22 march - say they have been driven to the streets to protest after their subsequent appeals to the BJP-Shiv Sena and Congress state governments to save their leader’s samadhi seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.

But in some ways, it might already be too late to save the Chaitya Bhoomi. The third round of reconstruction of the Dadar beach boundary wall is under way, but Dalit leaders and activists believe that in just under a couple of months the complete monument might be under water. "I cannot understand the attitude of those in government. Rajghat and the samadhis of other leaders in New Delhi are protected and preserved. Does Babasaheb’s samadhi deserve no better?" asks Vidya Chavan, social activist who, along with Shyam Gaikwad of the Chaitya Bhoomi Machhimaar Bachao Andolan (CBMBA) committee, is organising the Long March on Mumbai.

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Even as prospects of a violent Dalit upsurge looms large over the city, the inaction on the part of the new political dispensation in Maharashtra arises out of the fact that the project was very cleverly initiated in the period when no government existed (a month lapsed between voting and counting and 20 more days before the new government was in place). This has been one of the "star achievements" of former minister for public works in the BJP-Sena government, Nitin Gadkari, which had been opposed by local environmentalists as well as the Union environment ministry for over 15 years. Doubly defying environmental and anti-quarrying norms, a hill at the scenic Powai in northwest Mumbai was levelled and the earth used to fill in the sea at the Bandra-Mahim reclamation area.

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No one seemed to have bothered about fishermen whose boats were moored at Bandra reclamation which was a safe harbour for them during high tide. And despite a report by a leading oceanologist that the landfill at Bandra could cause the sea to move nearly as close as Shivaji Park on the other side, submerging in the process not just Chaitya Bhoomi but also the Worli and Mahim forts (heritage monuments in their own right) the determination to succeed in this project outweighed all other concerns.

And while no one was watching, contractors and engineers went ahead and reclaimed five times more than the land needed for the project - 22 hectares over and above the 4.3 hectares permitted. The Union ministry for environment and forests, too, has finally woken up to demand an explanation from the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (msrdc), which is executing the project, for violating the Coastal Regulatory Zone norms so flagrantly. The ministry has now called for a review of the project.

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Hemmed in on all sides, the "government" - which seems to have become faceless (nobody knows who is in charge, with even msrdc chairman R.C. Sinha stating that he had not authorised and was not responsible for the excess reclamation!) - is slowly beginning to realise that it might have to give in. It is beginning to occur to all that they might now be sitting on a powder keg and the bureaucracy, which has been the link between the previous government’s designs and the new one’s "execution", might have to answer some crucial queries. Says Chavan, "When I approached him (CM Vilasrao Deshmukh), I was yelled at by a bureaucrat. He told me I could have approached him instead and we might have sorted out our problem without involving politicians. I do not have to say much more to tell you how the government functions."

The Bombay Environmental Action Group (bmag), Central Pollution Control Board and Bombay Natural History Society have now all come together to join forces with the CBMBA committee to save lives and property. Says bmag chief promoter Debi Goenka, "Never mind the money spent on the landfill, this project must be aborted."

If this is not done then there is trouble ahead. Ambedkar is an emotional issue for the Dalits.

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