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No room for unwanted neighbours
By Vaishnavi C Sekhar/TNN
Mumbai: In the cosmopolitan chaos of the modern city, the original tribe still
rules the roost. Last week, the supreme court upheld the right of a housing
cooperative society to restrict membership on the basis of community and
profession. However, the court also clarified that it must operate within the
rules of the state. Since Maharashtra’s cooperative act stipulates open
membership, the apex court judgment is unlikely to have any immediate impact on
Mumbai unless the state government chooses to amend the law.
The judgment has, however, brought to the fore the conflict between the very
human desire to choose one’s neighbours—and especially to live with one’s
own tribe—and the right of an individual to reside anywhere he pleases.
Indeed, reactions from city residents have exposed the paradox of modern
Mumbai—even as economic opportunity and satellite TV homogenises urban
identity, making class markers ostensibly more important than caste, the bonds
of community refuse to die.
Historically, Mumbai was built up through enclaves like Parsi Colony and Hindu
Colony in Dadar, community welfare projects that helped migrants find their
place in the city. In recent years, community feeling is asserting itself in new
and, some say, dangerous ways. Citing the ghettoisation that followed the 1993
riots, many like activist for communal harmony Feroze Mithiborwalla fear that
the judgment will set a “dangerous precedent’’ for legalising social
biases. Muslims already find it exceptionally difficult to get housing finance
and to buy flats in predominantly Hindu localities, while in recent years,
builders in suburbs like Mulund and Ghatkopar have found it lucrative to build
temples along with swimming pools and unofficially market their projects to
vegetarians.
SUNDAY SPECIAL
‘No need to give legal basis to communal bias’
By Vaishnavi C Sekhar/TNN
Mumbai: Thirty-three-yearold Quaid Doongerwala, an architect married to a
Maharashtrian Brahmin, says he is routinely turned down when house-hunting.
“Initially, it isn’t a problem perhaps because I don’t fit in with
people’s idea of a Muslim, but once they hear my name, the deal is over,’’
he says, adding, “Some landlords tell me ashamedly, some matter-of-factly, and
some pityingly.’’
It is in this context of discrimination that many Mumbaikars have expressed
dismay at the recent apex court judgment upholding the right of housing
societies to restrict membership on the basis of community. “Communal bias
might be a social reality but there is no need to give it a legal basis,’’
says peace activist Feroze Mithiborwala. After the 1993 riots, Muslims fled
mixed localities for their own, a phenomenon repeated in the Gujarat riots of
2002.
Others like property expert Vinod Sampat hold that such a restriction would
violate a citizen’s f u n d a m e n t a l right to move freely in India.
“The verdict is an extension of the constitutional freedom to belong to a
particular religious denomination or political ideology. The CPI, for instance,
would perhaps never take Nusli Wadia as its member,’’ says senior lawyer J P
Cama, adding, “If I can exclude others from my own place of worship, why
can’t I do so with my residence?’’ (In contrast, charity institutions like
the Bohra-run Saifi hospital have lost legal battles to restrict services to
their own community.)
For legal minds, the real question is about inter-racial marriages. “What
happens when a Parsi man marries a non-Parsi or vice versa? Would the wife
inherit the house in an all-Parsi housing society? Can the society throw her
out?’’ asks Bombay Bar Association head Rafiq Dada. Former registrar of
cooperatives of Mumbai R Vagh feels that in such cases, the inheritance laws
would likely prevail over the society bye-laws.
A few years ago, the Zoroastrian Radih Society, promoters of the Parsi enclave
of Behrambaug in Jogeshwari, lost a case in the Bombay high court against
resident Pervin Jogina, who inducted her non-Parsi daughter-in-law into her
flat. “It is not about insularity,’’ insists Behrambaug priest Marzban
Hathiram. “When we distribute ourselves thinly in cultureless, concrete
structures, there is no life in that. Intermingling leads to dilution of
cultures.’’
Given the fact that different parts of the city evolved with distinct community
identities—Maharashtrians in Girgaum, Gujaratis in Kalbadevi, South Indians in
Matunga—one might say that Mumbai’s reputation for cosmopolitanism rests on
the presence of multiple ethnic groups rather than their ability to live
amicably next door. But some old-time residents say that there is a
distinction—once, the borders between community spaces were blurred, today
they have hardened.
The old societies were created by communities coming together and acquiring
land, or by a community trust donating money for it. “So, there is some
justification for restrictions, unlike today’s co-operatives where it’s
purely a property transaction,’’ says Mahesh Kalyanpur, resident of Saraswat
colony Talmakiwadi, Tardeo, adding that it was because of such community housing
that IT czar Nandan Nilekani could live in Mumbai as a student.
“It’s natural that people would want to flock together with their own kind.
Even in New York you have localities dominated by different migrant groups. But
when it becomes a norm, it has a different connotation,’’ says pyshcologist
Sandeep Pendse, adding that while “a multicultural society cannot be
legislated into existence, one must oppose rules which create obstacles to its
creation.’’
Sociologists see two contradictory forces operating in the city—first,
increasing social divisions which “are setting back the project of national
integration’’, and second, homogenisation brought about by economic and
social liberalisation.
Which will win? The answer perhaps lies in the story of the Salsette Catholic
Housing Cooperative Society in Bandra. Set up in 1918 to help house the
Christian community, the society stipulated that members could not sell to
non-Catholics. At that time, there were only bungalows but these were eventually
brought down for buildings to house the new generations.
Each building formed its own society, and after some years, flat owners began to
migrate to other countries, selling their flats, sometimes to outsiders. “If
you sell it to a particular community, you might not get the market price since
your choice of buyers is restricted and our community is largely from the
salaried class,’’ explains Ernest Fernandes, a Bandra resident who feels
that such change is not only inevitable but healthy. “A diversity of residents
will help improve understanding among the different communities.’’
(With inputs from Swati Deshpande and Nauzer Bharucha)
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