When controversy convulses Mumbai and its social tensions are seen to be politically sharpened, it becomes so easy to forget its proven capacity to survive. The city became a commercial centre in the 17th century when Gerald Aungier, the second governor of Mumbai, invited and attracted skilled and trading talent — Gujaratis, Parsis, Bohras, Jews, Banias. On August 8, 1672, while inaugurating the First British Court of Justice he told the court: “The inhabitants of this island consist of several nations and religions, like English, Portuguese and other Christians, Moores and Gentoos, but you, when you sit in this seat of justice and judgment, must look upon them with one single eye as I do, without distinction of nation or religion.”Four centuries later, in his February 28, 2006, Budget speech, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said: “When I look at the map of the world, I am struck by the strategic location of Mumbai. It lies almost midway between London and Tokyo, two nerve centres of world finance.” The high-powered expert committee on Making Mumbai an International Financial Centre (IFC) submitted its report 12 months later, on February 10, 2007.Today, two years after Mumbai-IFC was conceptualised, I fear this dream report will remain just that: a dream. It is not as if its authors were not aware of the politics underlying modern skyscrapers in the city. In fact, the 15-strong committee spent two of its first day-long sessions mulling over what we’re seeing today — an amazing tolerance for lawlessness by those mandated to manage the state and an equally predictable political climate where Indians are randomly dragged out of taxis, shops, homes and beaten up.Almost street theatre, with the world watching on hungry channels how political preservation can gather its own turbulent momentum. The violence may yet abate, but even a lone death takes its toll on a modern city’s image. The committee was prescient and said as much, though in ways that according to a member “would have not resulted in the complete abandonment of the report”. The question before the committee was: should we stop dreaming simply because intolerance is the political writ?Here’s what the report — that has the potential to upgrade the economic, corporate and financial landscape of India and remake the city’s cultural and social profile — noted: “Becoming an IFC also requires strengthening the spirit of tolerance. A healthy and hospitable city environment that can attract expatriates.”A city that, perhaps, apart from making deals, provides a home to a multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-nationality global workforce. In other words, a definitive interdependence and marriage of a cultural centre and a financial centre. Like Ny-lon-kong, a word coined by Time magazine representing the three great financial centres of the world — New York, London, Hong Kong. Can that be extended into Ny-lon-kong-mum? It must. Mumbai’s possibility as an international financial centre teeming with expatriate workers is important not only to swaggering suits driving red Ferraris and building multi-billion dollar deals or even smaller ones. These, like Raj Thackeray’s mobs, are only the visible, glamorous face, a very small tip of an economic iceberg that impacts and binds India together — rich or poor, urban or rural, worker or entrepreneur, consumer or investor. The deals that are made in Mumbai need the city to provide a physical negotiating platform for their fruition.Theoretically, another platform — the telecom network — can work equally well. By this theory, distance is irrelevant, with communications technology making geography inconsequential. But when at stake is, say, the $12 billion buyout of Corus by Tata Steel, and where returns are in hundreds of millions, eye-to-eye negotiation becomes necessary. Even if one set of eyes is blue and the other black. Money doesn’t have any colour and moneymen reflect this material Oneness on the negotiating table.For one black moment let us assume that Mumbai-IFC is and will remain a dream. Even then, we cannot allow petty politics to hijack the economic success of a city that’s vital to us and watch it burn from the metros of Delhi or Bangalore, large cities like Jaipur or Bhubaneswar, small towns of Sikar and Dhar, villages like Hansdehar and Chavakkad. Here’s why.More than one in four of India’s largest companies have their registered offices in Mumbai, almost two out of five have their headquarters there. All told, these companies generate a turnover of almost Rs 11 trillion (45 per cent of the total sample) and command a market capitalisation of Rs 17.5 trillion (33 per cent). These companies manage millions of workers who are scattered across India, and not restricted to Mumbai.And they can’t be — from its Maker Chambers head office, Reliance can’t build a Jamnagar refinery in Mumbai; Tata Steel functioning out of Bombay House can’t run its steel plant in Mumbai; not all of Ballard Estate-based Larsen and Tubro’s projects are in Mumbai; not all State Bank of India’s loans are scattered around Madam Cama Road. RBI, SEBI, NSE, UTI, ICICI — these are not institutions of, for or by Mumbai; they belong to India.The city is a nerve centre of the Indian economy, Indian finance, Indian business, and not exclusively Maharashtrian. The city drives India, Maharashtra included. Every one of us reading this newspaper has a stake in the success of Mumbai. Mumbai impacts our livelihoods, our consumer and investment choices. In order that we continue to ride towards prosperity, Mumbai has to attract the best not only from India but from the world.And for that, the state has to snatch back its fundamental role — law and order — from divisive politics. Liberal thought doesn’t mean the state needs to cower before goons. Indian polity needs to face a new reality, where the role of the state is not in running enterprises but in making law and order its first priority, the rule of law its first domain.gautam.chikermane@expressindia.com
