The St. Gallen Essay

The slumlord simply smiled. His gold canine made the smile look extremely menacing, and an involuntary shudder went through Rukminibai’s frail frame. Her hut, along with hundreds others in the Mumbai slum of Ambujwadi had been demolished by the Bombay Municipal Corporation in a recent demolition drive, until a leading national politician had vetoed the drive. As Rukminibai had reached the site of what had once been her “home”, she had found someone else re-building a hut there, and local strongmen had chased her away. In sheer distress, she’d rushed to Kirti’s – the all-powerful local slumlord’s place, where she was told the land had been sold.

Kirti – or Dada, elder brother, as he was known in the slum – looked at the woman with a mixture of pity and disgust. He’d spent decades dealing with cases like these. Every slum demotion brought dozens, often hundreds of Rukminibais to his door. That was the way the parallel rule in the slum worked. An unholy nexus of slumlord, mafia, politician and builder had been spawned because of the total mismanagement of the most important natural resource in Bombay – land. The Urban Land Rent (Ceiling) Act, an archaic post-World War II law to prevent landlords from fleecing returning war veterans was still in force today – the only major city in the world to have not repealed it. The law created an all-powerful tenants lobby, which paid abysmally low rents for apartments in some of Bombay’s most valuable areas, and were almost impossible for the landlord to evict, generation after generation. This act, coupled with a severely limited Floor Space Index – which prescribed the quantum of living space a builder could construct per area of land – ensured an artificial scarcity of land on the island metropolis. At the same time, acres upon acres of Government land were poorly protected, and easy to encroach on. It was as easy as it could get – goons simply moved in, as Kirti had done in the early 1980s, claimed the land as theirs, paid off the local police for looking the other way, and auctioned plots measuring few square meters to migrants. Demand was tremendous – India’s stagnant village economy forced thousands of young men from around the country to migrate to Bombay in search of a job, and money to remit home. Indeed, in India’s hinterland, legends were built around Bombay, the Mayanagari – the City of Dreams.

Kirti had been quick to spot an opportunity in this deadly ecosystem. He’d been slumlord for close to two decades now, and wielded incredible power. There were others like Kirti all over Bombay, ecological terrorists plundering every spare, precious acre of land. Sustaining this ecosystem were archaic legislation, a conniving, spineless political class, a rapacious clan of builders, and a poorly paid police force, eager to make a buck wherever possible. This nexus was how slum demolitions actually helped the slumlord. He knew that there was no real political will to do away with slums – the slum-dwellers’ votes were simply too important. So a demolition drive would be announced with great fanfare, and sure enough, news-starved television crews would assemble in the blink of an eye to report the Municipal Corporation’s bulldozers raze part of the shanties. For Kirti, the 2004 demolitions (3) had been an opportunity for free publicity. These demolitions had also brought social activists out in droves, all indignant, all of a sudden concerned about the plight of those displaced – “Where will they go” being their perennial refrain. The next act in this oft-played out drama was the same politician who announced the drive retracting it, promising to make arrangements for rehabilitation before resuming the drive. “They will be driven out of this fair city!” the politician had thundered, thus cementing his popularity with the middle and upper class too. After the bulldozers had been removed, television crews driven away, Kirti’s men had gone about their business quietly, efficiently. Auctions had been organized again, this time commanding a higher price than before.

The cold-blooded Kirti smiled, again. “Your land? That’s a joke! Lady, that land doesn’t even belong to me! You aren’t even in the picture! There’s no deed, no title, no ownership. You only live there as long as you can pay what Kirti demands. And someone is willing to pay more for ‘your’ land. They don’t call it life on the Razor’s Edge for nothing!” He paused, turned and gestured “Take her away. Waste of time!”

(3) Ambujwadi, on Bombay’s (Mumbai’s) coast, spans 23 acres of land belonging to the district Collector (a high-ranking bureaucrat). The land lies in the sensitive Coastal Regulatory Zone, which are ecologically vulnerable areas.

“Two trillion dollars!” the President (4) looked up from the sheaf of papers in his hand, across the table at the Oval Office. “That’s the cost of Big Oil, eh?”

The Vice President fidgeted in his chair, aware that the President had become increasingly jittery about the cost of the Iraq war. A December 2006 paper by Joseph Stiglitz had pegged the eventual cost of the war at this astronomical figure. The 2001 Nobel laureate could influence public opinion like few others could – which meant the report could do some serious damage to the Administration’s already shaky reputation, and had wider implications for the campaign leading up to the next Presidential elections. But this was now a personal war for the Vice President. Having egged the President to commit fantastic sums of money and hundreds of thousands of troops to Iraq, this was a war he dearly wanted to win. It would be his legacy. He’d be known as the man whose drive led America to establish its hegemony in West Asia. Far more importantly, it would give America’s oil giants – corporations in which he held significant stakes – direct access to virtually infinite petroleum reserves in the country. It was a compelling, almost intoxicating vision – which meant he simply could not afford to have the President vacillate on this matter. Black gold, the ancients called it – possibly the most valuable natural resource on the planet.

“Mr. President, we’ve been over this before,” he cleared his throat and began, “Iraq, as of 2007, has a hundred and twelve billion barrels of proven oil reserves – and who knows how much more there is lying beneath the desert. The US Department of Energy has estimated that Iraqi reserves could possibly total over 400 billion barrels. Even at conservative estimates of fifty five dollars a barrel, the proven reserves are worth well over six trillion dollars. I’d like to see another investment that’ll produce guaranteed three hundred percent returns!”

“I’m not so sure now about a bunch of other things,” the President replied, “our depleted uranium waste from the war – that’s still lying all over the place. Sure, those cluster bombs helped, but what about this mess?” The man was not done yet. “And what’s this report about Iraqis and our men suffering from what looks suspiciously like the Gulf War Syndrome? Look.” and he passed a sheet to the Vice President.

“…headache and listlessness, cough and asthma, loss of weight due to diarrhea.” the Vice President read. It didn’t make for very good reading, that was true. And he didn’t have much to refute that. He’d have to try a different track.

“Mr. President, we’re paying money today to the Saudis – huge amounts – for oil. And the Lord knows how much is siphoned off to the other side in our War on Terror. Once we’re through with this war, we’ll have cut off that channel completely. Besides,” he let his voice drop, “I’ve… we’ve already made deals with our corporations. The auctions have begun. The campaign money’s already started flowing. There’s no looking back now!”

The President narrowed his eyes. He knew the Vice President was gunning for the war because his investments on “our corporations” were on the line. At the same time, what he’d said was true. Then again, he still wasn’t convinced. “Who’s going to pay for their national healthcare? And what about those marshlands?” The latter were marshlands along the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, home to the Marsh Arabs, which dried up when Saddam Hussein constructed dams to divert water away – ostensibly to punish the locals for attempting rebellion. These marshlands now needed massive funding to be rebuilt and reverse the ecological disaster.

The Vice President tried a final salvo. “Mr. President, oil stocks shot through the roof when we merely announced the invasion four years ago. Profits soared by 50% back then, and they haven’t looked back. Our contracts are going to be worth tens of billions of dollars. We call this off and we’re looking at a crash.” He swallowed, and then continued “A lot of money’s tied up there, Mr. President. You and I aren’t coming back to the White House next time, you know”.

The President sighed. The ecology of a distant country against the economy of his own. Lifting a million unknowns out of poverty against a few raking in billions. Was he the terrorist, or was he fighting them? So many unanswered questions one way, so many arguments the other way. But it would have to be done.

“We’re sending in those additional troops (5), Mr. Vice President. I don’t like it one bit, but it’s got to be done.

(4) The narrative is fictional, although it refers to the US-led invasion and subsequent conflict in Iraq.

(5) On January 11, the US Department of Defense announced which brigades will comprise the 21,500 additional troops that President George W. Bush plans to send to Iraq. The 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, NC, will move into Iraq and assume a security mission there.

References

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