Revisiting BMC’s glory days and the draw of Marathi manoos

Matoshree is attempting to revive the spirit of 1985. “Many former corporators, who have seen the Sena’s meteoric rise, have willingly joined the on-going poll campaign to evoke the party’s past glory,” said Shashank Kamat, a senior Sena (UBT) functionary from Goregaon

MUMBAI: While Matoshree is locked in a fierce poll combat with Mahayuti partners – BJP and Shiv Sena -- aiming to stake control on Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), seasoned players and city chroniclers hark back to the civic elections in 1985 which the Shiv Sena (undivided) won handsomely on the Mumbai-for-Marathi plank, hurling a political challenge at Congress.

According to civic observers, the 1985 civic poll was crucial as it marked the complete democratisation of the Mumbai civic body, prompting Sena supremo Bal Thackeray to reach out to the grassroots people, and handpick street-smart, young candidates, most of them from slums that had begun to clutter the city. (HT Archives)

Little did political heavy weights of the time know that there would be a tug-of-war over the Mumbai-for-Marathi call years later.

As a former Sena MLA, who did not wish to be named, observed, “Four decades on, the Congress has been replaced by another pan-India party -- the BJP. Like his father, Uddhav Thackeray has brought together Marathis on the son-of-the-soil issue, giving BJP the jitters. So much so that chief minister Devendra Fadnavis symbolically posed before a Marathi eatery for a photo-op, munching on a vada pav at a well-known stall in south Mumbai.”

BJP MLA Atul Bhatkhalkar however said: “The BJP is close to every community and linguistic group in Mumbai. We don’t believe in polarisation.”

Meanwhile, Matoshree is attempting to revive the spirit of 1985. “Many former corporators, who have seen the Sena’s meteoric rise, have willingly joined the on-going poll campaign to evoke the party’s past glory,” said Shashank Kamat, a senior Sena (UBT) functionary from Goregaon.

According to civic observers, the 1985 civic poll was crucial as it marked the complete democratisation of the Mumbai civic body, prompting Sena supremo Bal Thackeray to reach out to the grassroots people, and handpick street-smart, young candidates, most of them from slums that had begun to clutter the city. Murli Deora, then Mumbai Congress president, followed the same pattern in a bid to shed his party’s pro-business image, recalled a senior Congress functionary.

The ‘shakha’-BMC journey wasn’t easy, though. Many from the Sena’s 1985 batch couldn’t wade through the BMC Act, 1882, couched as it is in legalese. Still others were lost in the labyrinth of bureaucracy. Yet, some, like Chhagan Bhujbal and Narayan Rane, for instance, learned on the job and took tuitions from retired BMC officials on how to make the gargantuan civic body work.

The BMC of 1985 also mirrored the city’s demographic and linguistic diversity, which brought Sena corporators in close contact with non-Marathi speaking politicians. There was camaraderie in the canteen, regardless of acrimony and angry walk-outs in the House.

Doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and trade unionists rubbed shoulders with school teachers, restaurateurs, body builders and social workers (a euphemism at the time for land sharks and slum lords), under BMC’s canopy.

Civic body’s booming guns

The class distinction in the city hall was too glaring to be brushed aside. Farokh Khan, the soft-spoken Malabar Hill corporator, was a Tata Sons executive, while Pushpakant Mhatre, owned a large property in the Juhu gaothan and Sena’s Vitthal Chavan, son of a mill worker, lived in a matchbox-sized kholi in a decrepit Parel chawl. Khadi-wearing R C Ankaleswaria and Rajabhau Chimbulkar belonged to the almost extinct breed of freedom fighters, while B K Boman Behram was the last sentinel of liberalism, who spoke Queen’s English.

R R Singh, Rustom Tirandaz and Ramesh Joshi were the Opposition’s booming guns – the troika was known as the ‘Three Rs’ of the corporation. Jaywant Patil, Prabhakar Vaidya, Mani Shankar Kawthe and Premkumar Sharma, to name a few, spoke on key civic issues.

B K Chowgule, D M Sukthankar, Jamsheed Kanga, S Tinaikar and Sharad Kale — all efficient, firm and cast in the classical civil servant mould -- were top municipal commissioners during the 1980s.

Tinaikar loved a good fight with the Shiv Sena and was often harshly criticised by Bal Thackeray. Sukthankar loved classical music and was often seen at musical soirees on Sunday evenings at the NCPA or the Dadar Matunga Cultural Centre. He had a fondness for paan, and it is believed, he happily regularised his go-to vendor’s unauthorised shop opposite the CSMT station.

Women corporators, eager participants in the general body debates, spoke forcefully on civic issues, especially on water scarcity.

“Regardless of the party tag, they showed more concern for civic issues than male corporators, and spoke with passion,” said former city mayor Shraddha Jadhav, who is contesting for the seventh term as Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate. “Fortunately, women corporators never had their male relatives breathing down their necks.”

Indumati Patel, Alka Desai, Pramila Bachchav, Shalini Kulkarni, Pushpa Wagle, Neela Phalnikar and Chandrakanta Goyal, Union minister Piyush Goyal’s mother, were the star speakers at BMC.

‘Bombayana’, a quarterly brought out by BMC’s public relations department, carried well-researched articles on vintage Mumbai. Dr Aroon Tikekar, eminent journalist and Mumbai historian, was known to go through each article with a fine-tooth comb, for the sheer love of reading.

As the 1980s drew to a close, the Mahanagarpalika underwent a metamorphosis. Debate gave way to demagoguery. Contractors, who frequented the office of the standing committee chairman, earned the sobriquet of ‘Moneybhais’ – FSI soon became the buzzword in BMC. Stories of how builders, civic officials and city daddies meet at a seedy Fort bar-cum-restaurant to strike deals began to do the rounds in civic circles.

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