Критика «косметического ремонта» Мумбаи: иллюзии благоустройства на фоне кризиса инфраструктуры

Advertisement Mumbai’s make-up job Genesia Alves | Aug 14, 2026, 04:00 IST Mumbai’s make-up job Spectacle is what you reach for when your vision has already failed In December 2022, a beautification drive worth Rs 1,729 crore was announced. At the inauguration, then civic chief IS Chahal announced some of the details of said beautification: Painting murals on walls, lighting beaches and gardens, prettying up forts and traffic islands, building 10,000 toilets in slum areas, and shopping malls in every constituency for women’s self-help groups to showcase their products. (The drive also included a plan to concretise 500 kilometres of roads annually so “for the next 30 years there would be no potholes on them”.) Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, and so “beautification” is open to interpretation in a city like Mumbai. There are, however, idioms that may illustrate the position we’re in: Papering over the cracks, putting rouge on a corpse, rose-tinted glasses to look at Kanjurmarg, alongside a couple of unprintable others. Like any good cosmetologist, before we primp, we must look at the ugly truth. More than 50 per cent of our population lives in slums. More than 50 per cent of commutes are via pedestrian or public transport even as the city’s bus service has declined in fleet size and coverage (new freeways enjoy the bulk of investment). Peak-hour travel times are increasing. Pedestrian fatalities make up to 40 per cent of traffic-related deaths and a very high proportion of these are the elderly. We have lost tens of thousands of trees and we famously have 1.5 square metres of open space per resident as opposed to the WHO’s recommended 9sqm. We also have far too few public toilet seats (1 for every 46 men and 38 women) and a recent project to create ‘aspirational toilets’ (please Google) was stayed last month. They say artists find magic and beauty in decay and it must be true. Before you can say ‘abracadabra Mumbaikars’ you’ll find disappearing pavements, public spaces being turned into cash machines, and trees turning into high-rises. While other cities are ripping up asphalt to plant trees to combat heat, right now, a football ground is in danger of being bippity-boppity-booed into a convention centre. Alakazam! The Mumbai Commission for Arts, Music & Culture (MCAMC) offers guidelines for potential artworks, murals and the “I Love…” signs across the city. Available on the BMC website, the notice states that “the overall idea for establishing MCAMC was not to clutter the city with a very large number of installations. It was to improve the overall aesthetics of the city. Hence such proposals should be brought forth only if they have great merit and embellish the aesthetics of the city”. There’s also a warning about ensuring trees nearby are not constrained and that artworks do not resemble any personality, aka “statues should not be erected under the guise of a sculpture/mural”. Finally, it notes that installations must be evaluated every six months on maintenance, relevance and public feedback. The beautification drive, at least to the common observer, was a series of ironic spectacles – floral murals surrounded by dehydrated vegetation, plastic flowers on dividers, gargantuan Bollywood themed installations on roads with zero trees to run around. Where there were trees, some were festooned with lights and doused in oil paint. The most spectacular of these though were the statues. Wild animals, yogis, children playing, workers, etc – all left stranded and covered in dust around the city, slowly degrading from neglect. A metaphor? We couldn’t be sure. Last week, a statue titled ‘Maa Our Blessing’ on Pali Hill, Bandra, was inaugurated on a ‘garden strip’. It is a copy of sculptor José Luis Fernández’ ‘La Mujer Que Nunca Hizo Nada’ (The Woman/Wife Who Does Nothing) that stands in Zaragoza, Spain. A commentary on how the world perceives childcare and work at home – the statue has been altered slightly – here the burdened woman wears a sari rather than a dress, and one of the three children is a boy. She seems to look at the flowerbed borders opposite, where remnants of the tony area’s hostile architecture are still evident; granite studs embedded in 2018 to deter workers from sitting there. Like with many uber wealthy and uber poor areas in the city, there are no pavements. Like the “I Heart…” signs around the city, and the other frivolous beautifications, so far, very little fosters deeper engagements with or representation of neighbourhoods for both resident and tourist. Most selfie points, surrounded by traffic, with no real public space don’t raise the city’s profile to an international status. In fact they feel like reminders of what we truly lack. Spectacle is all they are. And spectacles are what you need when you have poor vision. Genesia Alves is a journalist and Mumbai is her ancestral village. Advertisement Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, and so “beautification” is open to interpretation in a city like Mumbai. There are, however, idioms that may illustrate the position we’re in: Papering over the cracks, putting rouge on a corpse, rose-tinted glasses to look at Kanjurmarg, alongside a couple of unprintable others. Like any good cosmetologist, before we primp, we must look at the ugly truth. More than 50 per cent of our population lives in slums. More than 50 per cent of commutes are via pedestrian or public transport even as the city’s bus service has declined in fleet size and coverage (new freeways enjoy the bulk of investment). Peak-hour travel times are increasing. Pedestrian fatalities make up to 40 per cent of traffic-related deaths and a very high proportion of these are the elderly. We have lost tens of thousands of trees and we famously have 1.5 square metres of open space per resident as opposed to the WHO’s recommended 9sqm. We also have far too few public toilet seats (1 for every 46 men and 38 women) and a recent project to create ‘aspirational toilets’ (please Google) was stayed last month. They say artists find magic and beauty in decay and it must be true. Before you can say ‘abracadabra Mumbaikars’ you’ll find disappearing pavements, public spaces being turned into cash machines, and trees turning into high-rises. While other cities are ripping up asphalt to plant trees to combat heat, right now, a football ground is in danger of being bippity-boppity-booed into a convention centre. Alakazam! The Mumbai Commission for Arts, Music & Culture (MCAMC) offers guidelines for potential artworks, murals and the “I Love…” signs across the city. Available on the BMC website, the notice states that “the overall idea for establishing MCAMC was not to clutter the city with a very large number of installations. It was to improve the overall aesthetics of the city. Hence such proposals should be brought forth only if they have great merit and embellish the aesthetics of the city”. There’s also a warning about ensuring trees nearby are not constrained and that artworks do not resemble any personality, aka “statues should not be erected under the guise of a sculpture/mural”. Finally, it notes that installations must be evaluated every six months on maintenance, relevance and public feedback. The beautification drive, at least to the common observer, was a series of ironic spectacles – floral murals surrounded by dehydrated vegetation, plastic flowers on dividers, gargantuan Bollywood themed installations on roads with zero trees to run around. Where there were trees, some were festooned with lights and doused in oil paint. The most spectacular of these though were the statues. Wild animals, yogis, children playing, workers, etc – all left stranded and covered in dust around the city, slowly degrading from neglect. A metaphor? We couldn’t be sure. Last week, a statue titled ‘Maa Our Blessing’ on Pali Hill, Bandra, was inaugurated on a ‘garden strip’. It is a copy of sculptor José Luis Fernández’ ‘La Mujer Que Nunca Hizo Nada’ (The Woman/Wife Who Does Nothing) that stands in Zaragoza, Spain. A commentary on how the world perceives childcare and work at home – the statue has been altered slightly – here the burdened woman wears a sari rather than a dress, and one of the three children is a boy. She seems to look at the flowerbed borders opposite, where remnants of the tony area’s hostile architecture are still evident; granite studs embedded in 2018 to deter workers from sitting there. Like with many uber wealthy and uber poor areas in the city, there are no pavements. Like the “I Heart…” signs around the city, and the other frivolous beautifications, so far, very little fosters deeper engagements with or representation of neighbourhoods for both resident and tourist. Most selfie points, surrounded by traffic, with no real public space don’t raise the city’s profile to an international status. In fact they feel like reminders of what we truly lack. Spectacle is all they are. And spectacles are what you need when you have poor vision. Genesia Alves is a journalist and Mumbai is her ancestral village.