Ceremonial Power

With the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Ritu Tawde assuming office in an unopposed election, Mumbai has broken a glass ceiling as Maximum City gets its first female mayor. It is a moment freighted with symbolism in a metropolis that prides itself on modernity. But this celebration, such as it is, should not obscure a more awkward question which is what exactly, is Mumbai’s mayor expected to do?

Tawde’s opening pitch was suitably ambitious. She acknowledged that Mumbai is creaking under the strain of poor roads, fragile infrastructure, erratic water supply and inadequate drainage. She has solemnly promised to prioritize these. The question is whether she has the powers required to deliver the goods.

In most global cities, the mayor is far more than a ribbon-cutter with a press microphone. In New York, the mayor runs the city government by controlling policing, public schools, transport, housing and sanitation, backed by a gargantuan municipal budget. When services fail, accountability is direct and brutal as voters know whom to blame.

In London, the mayor, who is directly elected, oversees citywide transport, policing priorities, housing programmes and long-term planning. While borough councils handle local services, strategic direction and public responsibility rests at the top.

Berlin’s governing mayor combines city and state authority, wielding control over policing, education and infrastructure in a metropolis of nearly four million people. Even Jakarta, long plagued by congestion and flooding, empowered its governor to push through mass transit projects and coastal defences.

In each case, mayors propose budgets, appoint senior officials and set policy priorities and the buck stops with them.

Mumbai alone persists with the fiction that ceremonial leadership can substitute for executive authority. This authority rests with the municipal commissioner appointed by the Maharashtra government.

The imbalance would be comic if it were not so consequential. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s budget for 2025–26 stood at Rs. 74,427 crore, making it one of Asia’s wealthiest civic bodies and richer than several Indian states. Yet the mayor has no role in preparing this budget, reallocating funds or enforcing spending priorities. She cannot appoint or discipline officials. She cannot direct engineers to fix roads or planners to rethink drainage.

The result is institutionalised confusion. When roads crumble or water mains burst, responsibility dissolves into a fog of committees, commissioners and state directives. The very idea of democratic accountability where citizens can reward competence and punish failure is quietly suffocated.

This arrangement suits those in power rather well. State governments retain control over Mumbai’s immense resources without bearing full political cost. Likewise, political parties campaign on civic promises knowing that delivery is optional. Voters are offered mayors as mascots rather than managers.

Mumbai does not lack money, talent or ambition. What it lacks is honesty about who actually runs it. And until that question is answered, mayoral promises will continue to remain hollow speeches delivered from a chair with no legs.