Mumbaikars’ Spirit: Apathy?
From a New Yorker blog post by Naresh Fernandes:
It suddenly became clear this morning that the sentiment many had identified as the Mumbai spirit was probably epic apathy all along. And, really, who could blame the residents of this city of just over twelve million for being too exhausted to think about anything other than their gruelling daily routines? Behind the sparkling Bollywood façade it projects to the world, Mumbai is a city riven with gargantuan problems. It’s more slum dog than millionaire. More than sixty per cent of the residents of India’s financial capital live in shanties, with twenty thousand people packed into each square kilometre. The pollution is often throat-searing; the water supply and road systems are overstretched. The trains, which carry about 6.9 million commuters every work day, are designed to transport seventeen hundred passengers each, but in peak hour bone-crunchingly pack in forty-five hundred travellers. Life in Mumbai is a daily battle that leaves little energy for luxuries, such as joining campaigns to pressure the administration to provide the basic amenities that residents of most cities take for granted.
Frightening to think of the implications of this dynamic for a city like Mumbai and other mega cities across India and really the entire developing world. So many people, so few engaged, and yet for very good reasons, it seems, not least poverty and inequality. But let’s be clear: the apathy among elected officials is by far the biggest worry of all.
