There is no greater symbol of the failure of urban governance in India than the way in which our most prosperous cities—the so-called showpieces of modern India—flood and grind to a watery halt every single monsoon: Usually more than once.
We are focused these days on the flooding of Gurugram, which is easily the worst-administered urban conglomeration in India. But the same problem is visible in nearly every major Indian city.
Ask me. I nearly drowned on the flooded streets of Mumbai during a rainstorm in 2005.
And this was in a so-called upmarket area. I left my office when the rains started, but as it kept pouring and the roads flooded, I abandoned my car and started walking. I took the airport highway to my hotel, the Grand Hyatt in Bandra-Kurla. It got to the stage where the water reached my ears, and I was only able to breathe by tilting my head back so that my nostrils would let in some air.
Fortunately, I reached my hotel walking tiptoe just as the water level would have reached my eyes. If I had kept walking for another fifteen minutes, I doubt if I would have been around to write this column today.
Over four hundred people died in the rains that day. Cars were abandoned and floated away. Houses were destroyed. The airport turned into a lake and could not function, and flights took several days to resume fully. I was stuck in my hotel room for two days until the water receded.
I remember that day vividly, not just because I was lucky to escape alive, but because my experience and its aftermath made several things clear to me.
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Reality of climate change
The first is that urban flooding can be the great leveller. Every year, the papers carry news of flooding and landslides during the monsoons. Property is destroyed. People lose their lives. But because this usually happens to poor people and their homes, the middle class tuts in sympathy and then turns the page to see what the other news of the day is.
But that day in Mumbai, the extent of the flooding made it clear that things were changing. It did not matter how rich or poor you were. Such was the ferocity of the rains and the poor quality of our infrastructure that nobody was safe.
The second was that the weather was becoming more and more unforgiving. Twenty years ago, climate change was not the buzzword it is today. But after the Mumbai experience, it was clear that weather patterns were transforming and that governments would have to learn to prepare for deluges.
Of course, nothing happened: no government did anything of consequence to prepare for more rain. Instead, they used the high levels of rainfall as an excuse they could recycle year after year: “What can any government do when it rains so much in just a few hours?”
The third was that the reasons for flooding were usually urban crimes that politicians had committed some months (or years, even) before the rains arrived. In Mumbai, the problem, we discovered, was that around the time the new airport terminal was built, the government changed the course of the Mithi River to facilitate the construction. The mangroves that surrounded the river, a natural barrier to overflows, were uprooted.
The Mithi is not much of a river. Not a lot of water flows through parts of the river for much of the year. But, during the monsoons, it often seems like a full-fledged river. And on that day, when the rain would not stop, it not only overflowed its banks but it sought out its original course.
So it was not just waterlogging that was the problem. It was that a carelessly diverted river had flooded.
The Mithi is one example. But in nearly every city where there is flooding, you will find that part of the problem is that politicians have sanctioned construction in areas that affect the flow of water, have destroyed the tree cover, have let people build over drains and impeded the dispersal of water.
Political greed leads directly to flooding.
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Who is at fault?
The fourth factor was political indifference and administrative apathy. Every city has drains that are supposed to let the water flow out. Each year, politicians tell us before the monsoon that ‘desilting work has begun’. In fact, this work is carried out in a desultory, half-hearted way by municipal officials who really could not care less and know that there is no political will to hold them accountable. When areas that have allegedly been desilted get waterlogged, nobody blames the individuals who were supposed to have desilted it. When was the last time you heard of municipal officials being sacked or held responsible for waterlogging in an area that they had ‘desilted’?
It isn’t just the drains. On nearly every major road in our cities, you will find huge potholes. These fill up with water during the rain and make much of each road unusable. So, cars are restricted to a tiny portion of the road, and the jams build up. It is the job of municipal authorities to fill those potholes even if it’s not raining. But have you ever heard of any official being sanctioned for the poor conditions of roads?
But why blame junior officials alone at a time when new highways crack up, new tunnels get flooded, and fancy new bridges are built so shoddily? It’s obvious that road building in this country is a racket where contractors and politicians join hands to make fortunes at the expense of the people of India.
And finally, there is the most crucial factor of all: Voter apathy and short memory.
We get very angry when rain disrupts our lives and brings our cities to a halt, but by the time the elections come around, we have forgotten how angry we were. Rarely, if ever, do these urban failures or the corruption and political ineptitude that lead to them swing an election. We vote instead for caste, for religion or for some conception of national interest. Governance simply does not matter.
Politicians know this. So even as we rage and vent as we have been doing over the last few weeks, they chuckle to themselves and go back to counting their money.
In the old days, they would at least offer token apologies. Now they don’t even bother to do that. They just announce that schools will close for two days or urge us to work from home.
And we let them get away with it. So let’s not blame politicians alone. Let’s ask ourselves why we don’t demand more accountability from them.
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist, and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)