For decades, getting a taxi in Bombay simply involved walking to the nearest corner and stepping into one of the black-and-yellows parked there. Or sticking out a hand on a main street and waiting for a cab to swing to a halt, which usually took somewhere between ten seconds and two minutes. Once in the car, passengers felt assured the driver would take the shortest route, more or less, and charge the metered rate. It was one of the things that set Bombay apart from every other city in India.
Now, getting a ride involves standing at the edge of the kerb, or on the road itself, and waving arms frantically, often alongside others doing the same, hoping to catch the attention of a passing cab driver who, if he is feeling generous, might slow down and rotate his neck by about 20 degrees, while suitors shout out where they want to go. More often than not, the driver will step on the accelerator and speed away without so much as a shake of the head, convinced there are better deals to be had round the corner. When taxis park at corners, the drivers leave electronic meters running, so they can claim they have a fare waiting when prospective customers mention uncongenial destinations.
A number of things combined to bring a smoothly working system to its current sorry state but if one were to blame a single individual for the mess, that man would be Raj Thackeray. When Thackeray launched his own political outfit, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, he needed an enemy to attack. His uncle Bal Thackeray had built the Shiv Sena on anti-Gujarati, anti-South Indian, and anti-Muslim sentiment. The nephew chose North Indians as his target. It wasn’t long before cabbies from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar faced harassment by hoodlums allied with the younger Thackeray. The state’s Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government, predictably, caved in to MNS pressure and made domicile certificates mandatory for new drivers. Henceforth, only those who could prove they had lived in the state for 15 years or more would be allowed to drive a black-and-yellow or fleet cab.
Cabs lie idle
As a direct result of the policy change, one in every six taxis and one in every ten fleet cabs in Bombay is lying idle for want of drivers. As cabbies retire, there is nobody to replace them. Demand for taxi rides now far outstrips supply, so much so that the entire system is beginning to break down. Clearly, North Indians were not depriving locals of jobs, as Raj Thackeray claimed. The taxi drivers’ profession simply isn’t attractive enough to tempt Marathis in sufficient numbers.
Unmindful of the negative effects of his campaign against North Indian taxi drivers, Thackeray has continued his diatribe against migrants, as in this speech (watch from 37:00 onwards if you understand Marathi) which earned him a notice from the Election Commission for violating the poll code. Hand me the reins of Maharashtra, he says, and I will insist that any new industry employ only Marathi boys and girls. Luckily, we aren’t about to hand Raj Thackeray the reins of the state, for his jobs recipe will only ensure that industry flees Maharashtra. All states have some provisions favouring sons and daughters of the soil, but beyond a point such preferences act as severe disincentives to investment.
Like most politicians, Thackeray does not practice what he preaches. With money earned from unknown sources he was, for a while, a stakeholder in the most ambitious property development in Dadar West, where he and I both live. Thackeray paid a third of the eye-watering Rs 421 crore bid for the land that once housed Kohinoor Mills No. 3. Four years later, he sold his stake for a profit officially pegged at Rs 62 crores, but estimated by experts to be closer to Rs 300 crores. He never said a word about Marathis being given preference in the development of that plot, nor was any provision made when he sold his stake that the new owners would hire local labour. As the tallest of the towers grew to its 40-storey peak, it was evident to anybody passing by that the usual mix of migrants was building it.
Veering towards parochialism
Such hypocrisy aside, the Thackeray clan has led an unfortunate political shift towards parochialism in Mumbai. While the Shiv Sena and MNS haven’t destroyed the city’s liberal, welcoming culture, they have damaged it severely. The change can be encapsulated symbolically in the insistence that the city once known as Bombay be called Mumbai.
I was in New York last week, and, as usual, a discussion cropped up about why I called my hometown Bombay, though it had been renamed. I explained that the city was never renamed. It had always been Mumbai in Marathi, and I always called it Mumbai when I spoke that language, just as I called it Bambai when I spoke Hindi. Of course, resisting the hegemony of a singular name had a political dimension: my belief that the city was best served, culturally and economically, by being open to all communities.
New York City is open to all Americans, and increasingly welcomes people of diverse nations, as it did in its infancy. The data showing what percentage of New Yorkers have been foreign-born down the decades makes for fascinating reading.
Ebb and fall
In 1900, about 37% of New Yorkers were foreign-born. That percentage dropped steadily through much of the 20th century, reaching a low of around 18% in 1970, after which it picked up, and is now a little higher than it was in 1900. Although correlation is not causation, it’s interesting that the fortunes of New York City have waned and waxed in tandem with the percentage of aliens domiciled there. The city’s lowest ebb in the seventies, when it was synonymous with violent crime, coincided with the low point of immigration rates, and the subsequent pick-up in the metropolis’s fortunes has been accompanied by a rise in migration levels.
As it happens, it is still very easy to get a taxi in New York. You stick a hand out standing at kerbside on a main street, and a yellow cab swings to a halt in about a minute. I took three cab rides during my visit. The first driver was Egyptian, the second Bangladeshi, and the third a massive gentleman from the Dominican Republic who spoke to his wife on a Web-based long-distance video call all the way from Brooklyn to Newark airport.
Native New Yorkers obviously have better things to do than drive taxis. But they don’t stop migrants from offering that essential service.
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Now, getting a ride involves standing at the edge of the kerb, or on the road itself, and waving arms frantically, often alongside others doing the same, hoping to catch the attention of a passing cab driver who, if he is feeling generous, might slow down and rotate his neck by about 20 degrees, while suitors shout out where they want to go. More often than not, the driver will step on the accelerator and speed away without so much as a shake of the head, convinced there are better deals to be had round the corner. When taxis park at corners, the drivers leave electronic meters running, so they can claim they have a fare waiting when prospective customers mention uncongenial destinations.
A number of things combined to bring a smoothly working system to its current sorry state but if one were to blame a single individual for the mess, that man would be Raj Thackeray. When Thackeray launched his own political outfit, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, he needed an enemy to attack. His uncle Bal Thackeray had built the Shiv Sena on anti-Gujarati, anti-South Indian, and anti-Muslim sentiment. The nephew chose North Indians as his target. It wasn’t long before cabbies from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar faced harassment by hoodlums allied with the younger Thackeray. The state’s Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government, predictably, caved in to MNS pressure and made domicile certificates mandatory for new drivers. Henceforth, only those who could prove they had lived in the state for 15 years or more would be allowed to drive a black-and-yellow or fleet cab.
Cabs lie idle
As a direct result of the policy change, one in every six taxis and one in every ten fleet cabs in Bombay is lying idle for want of drivers. As cabbies retire, there is nobody to replace them. Demand for taxi rides now far outstrips supply, so much so that the entire system is beginning to break down. Clearly, North Indians were not depriving locals of jobs, as Raj Thackeray claimed. The taxi drivers’ profession simply isn’t attractive enough to tempt Marathis in sufficient numbers.
Unmindful of the negative effects of his campaign against North Indian taxi drivers, Thackeray has continued his diatribe against migrants, as in this speech (watch from 37:00 onwards if you understand Marathi) which earned him a notice from the Election Commission for violating the poll code. Hand me the reins of Maharashtra, he says, and I will insist that any new industry employ only Marathi boys and girls. Luckily, we aren’t about to hand Raj Thackeray the reins of the state, for his jobs recipe will only ensure that industry flees Maharashtra. All states have some provisions favouring sons and daughters of the soil, but beyond a point such preferences act as severe disincentives to investment.
Like most politicians, Thackeray does not practice what he preaches. With money earned from unknown sources he was, for a while, a stakeholder in the most ambitious property development in Dadar West, where he and I both live. Thackeray paid a third of the eye-watering Rs 421 crore bid for the land that once housed Kohinoor Mills No. 3. Four years later, he sold his stake for a profit officially pegged at Rs 62 crores, but estimated by experts to be closer to Rs 300 crores. He never said a word about Marathis being given preference in the development of that plot, nor was any provision made when he sold his stake that the new owners would hire local labour. As the tallest of the towers grew to its 40-storey peak, it was evident to anybody passing by that the usual mix of migrants was building it.
Veering towards parochialism
Such hypocrisy aside, the Thackeray clan has led an unfortunate political shift towards parochialism in Mumbai. While the Shiv Sena and MNS haven’t destroyed the city’s liberal, welcoming culture, they have damaged it severely. The change can be encapsulated symbolically in the insistence that the city once known as Bombay be called Mumbai.
I was in New York last week, and, as usual, a discussion cropped up about why I called my hometown Bombay, though it had been renamed. I explained that the city was never renamed. It had always been Mumbai in Marathi, and I always called it Mumbai when I spoke that language, just as I called it Bambai when I spoke Hindi. Of course, resisting the hegemony of a singular name had a political dimension: my belief that the city was best served, culturally and economically, by being open to all communities.
New York City is open to all Americans, and increasingly welcomes people of diverse nations, as it did in its infancy. The data showing what percentage of New Yorkers have been foreign-born down the decades makes for fascinating reading.
Ebb and fall
In 1900, about 37% of New Yorkers were foreign-born. That percentage dropped steadily through much of the 20th century, reaching a low of around 18% in 1970, after which it picked up, and is now a little higher than it was in 1900. Although correlation is not causation, it’s interesting that the fortunes of New York City have waned and waxed in tandem with the percentage of aliens domiciled there. The city’s lowest ebb in the seventies, when it was synonymous with violent crime, coincided with the low point of immigration rates, and the subsequent pick-up in the metropolis’s fortunes has been accompanied by a rise in migration levels.
As it happens, it is still very easy to get a taxi in New York. You stick a hand out standing at kerbside on a main street, and a yellow cab swings to a halt in about a minute. I took three cab rides during my visit. The first driver was Egyptian, the second Bangladeshi, and the third a massive gentleman from the Dominican Republic who spoke to his wife on a Web-based long-distance video call all the way from Brooklyn to Newark airport.
Native New Yorkers obviously have better things to do than drive taxis. But they don’t stop migrants from offering that essential service.