Here are a few things MNS could do to make Mumbai better

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Teach, build, love

Lindsay Pereira

1. Teach
A cursory look at the history of the MNS shows that this is a party that has always done the wrong thing. It explains why it has failed so spectacularly on all fronts, and also why the only member of the MNS that anyone can name, after all these years, is Raj Thackeray. No one knows who the other members are or, more importantly, whether or not these other members even exist at this point. I believe the MNS should, therefore, hold classes regularly on what not to do if one is to become a successful political party. Finding course material for these classes is easy, because so many of the party's stunts have been documented by the media over the years - the routine threats, occasional roughing up of unarmed vegetable vendors, a few random acts of inane vandalism at toll booths and shop fronts. It all makes a very compelling case for people who want to get into politics and actually do something important for the city. By showing everyone what not to do, the MNS may indirectly end up doing something good for Bombay, making it the first time in the party's history that this will have happened.

2. Build
This is a party that tends to attract the angriest people in Maharashtra for some reason. They have been angry about most things under the sun for a very long time now, including poor North Indian migrant workers, poor taxi and rickshaw drivers, unarmed actors and singers, even the odd stand-up comic. All this pent up anger ought to be put to good use, and what better way than to pick up spades, bricks and mortar and do something constructive like repairing a few things instead of tearing them down.

The interesting thing about most parties that carry the word ‘Sena' is how they do almost no building of any sort, focusing on destroying what others have built instead. This may also explain why that other Sena, the one that has controlled the BMC for decades now, still hasn't figured out how to build a decent road in Bombay despite an annual budget that currently stands at a little over R37,000 crore. Maybe this angry Sena can show that other angry Sena how to build a few things instead of tearing a lot of stuff down, eventually making some things better for everyone in our city in the process.

3. Love
This is a tricky thing for the MNS to do because, going by what it has done in its decade-long existence (yes, it really has been 10 years of just hate speeches and little else), the only person in Mumbai who has ever received love from the party is Raj Thackeray. I think it would be great for Bombay if once, just once, a political party actually sent out love for fellow citizens instead of inundating us all with hate. Bombay is special because it has always embraced anyone and everyone, ignoring religion, food habits, language and caste. The only thing parties like the MNS thrive on are the drawing of lines that divide. In that, ironically, they are more like the British than they would ever care to admit. Maybe they can surprise us all with a little love for once, embracing the city and all its residents as a whole. Lastly, a small suggestion: Maybe the few remaining members of the MNS should stop issuing statements that end with the sentence ‘We will teach them in the MNS style.'

Someone should gently point to them that we are now living in 2016, and hooliganism is not a ‘style.'

Lindsay Pereira is a columnist

Dear MNS, stop with the goondaism!

Hansal Mehta

As an Indian citizen, my view is artistes should not be singled out. The hostility is between two nations and their governments. Every time there is violence at the border, allegedly from Pakistan, extra-constitutional parties make actors and artistes soft targets. They are easy to bend or break.

What happened at Uri is unpardonable and the state must take punitive action by way of sanctions. If they deem right, all exchanges - including entertainment and sports - must be stopped. As a mature democracy, the solution must be all-encompassing.

Action can't be about actors or artistes or sportspersons being taken to task; that is limiting its effect. What MNS is doing is classic goondaism.

Violence is a pattern: today it is Pakistanis, tomorrow it could be any of us. At the heels of the BMC elections, the party wants to use the ban of Pakistani artistes as a plank to garner votes in the garb of their Maharashtrian identity. Shouldn't they rather focus on the dreadful traffic on the roads? The city infrastructure is in a mess. Every evening on my way back home, I get stuck in terrible traffic. A common Mumbaikar thinks a million times before stepping out because of this.

At any given point of time in the 365 days in the year, the city is in a dug up state. That adds to the traffic woes. The infrastructure depends on shoddy contractual work, with almost no one to do quality control. The monsoons paralyse Mumbai, the poor, more so.

There aren't enough attempts to conserve resources. If the energy spared at violence is channelised in the right direction, the city could help create a far more citizen-friendly place to live.

I feel ashamed that a party whose ideology finds basis in illogical thinking can even be allowed to fight polls. A few years ago, (the then CM) Vilasrao Deshmukh had promised that Mumbai is on its way to become Shanghai. We haven't even become a slum of Shanghai.

Of course, a strict stance has to be taken by the government but that cannot be done by hate speeches. If they decide to stop exchange, as Indian citizens we are duty bound to abide by that. But mostly, it is necessary that we derecognise parties like MNS than have citizens succumb to their threats. I remember something similar had happened during My Name Is Khan.

These are attention-seeking tactics of the party and we shouldn't fall for it. The best comeback would be if the citizens don't vote such people to power. Let's marginalise them in the civic elections. In a democracy, there is no scope for gunda raj.

(As told to Mohar Basu)
Hansal Mehta is a filmmaker

Thane is ripe for the plucking, but...

Mahesh Vijapurkar

In 2012, with seven corporators in a 130-member Thane Municipal Corporation, MNS was seen as party that could tilt the scales between the saffron and the non-saffron parties. Close to the next round, it hardly has any numerical presence in the civic body. It is as if the MNS was evaporating. It has not even been a good watchdog.

Thane's population is two million and growing, and is next only to Mumbai in the metro region by that norm, and is of political importance to any political party. MNS campaigned on a promise of changing Thane civic body's DNA but didn't.

Had it only been an astute fault-finder of the way the city was run as against how it ought to be, MNS would have had an opportunity to build on its 2012 gains. But it allowed its corporators to do deeds that are pro-politician and anti-city. MNS did not even whimper at the bad condition of roads in the four years.

Raj Thackeray would have to strive very hard to resurrect his party from the near ashes it is in, but the party could strike out on a new path by promising to get the city back on the rails. It needs to be city and resident-oriented, realising that people's satisfaction can be its greatest strength. It is a city of migrants now and their affiliations are to grow.

Though the vocal and active section of population remains in old Thane, that is to the east of the Eastern Express Highway, unified by a bond via a life of culture and civil society activism, it is the other side that is ripe for plucking, only if MNS knew how. It has to curate a nice new manifesto.

Here are a few pointers:

1. Promise a real and felt development which eases the life of Thanekars by committing itself to efficiently perform all the legacy functions of the civic body as mandated, from water supply to garbage disposal.

2. Break the established political class' stranglehold that is in cahoots with contractors on the city's governance twisted to their benefit.

3. Ensure delivery on promises made and resolutions approved in the past five years by the general body - from toilets to good roads. For instance, a new vegetable market in the western part though built and dedicated to the city has been given away for some office.

4. Cease looking at sanctioning residential towers as ‘development' without providing attendant facilities, including public transport.

5. The municipalised transport, TMT is in a mess. Buses are being added with central aid. They stall in the middle of the road.

There is no comprehensive plan of how to use some 120 new buses when half of its existent fleet is unusable. Instead of improving its functioning, rash illegal buses have been allowed to operate on the revenue-earning routes along Ghodbunder Road, with promises of taking them on lease for TMT in future. In short, promise to, and be, custodians of the city in the interests of its residents.

Senior journalist Mahesh Vijapurkar is a Thane resident