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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Hostage City

For a city that prides itself on never stopping, Mumbai has been brought to a grinding halt by the stoppage of one of its most indispensable services. The indefinite strike by employees of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking has effectively paralysed the city’s bus network, leaving millions of commuters stranded and exposing deep fissures in the management of one of India’s largest urban transport systems. BEST ferries around 25 lakh passengers daily through a...

Hostage City

For a city that prides itself on never stopping, Mumbai has been brought to a grinding halt by the stoppage of one of its most indispensable services. The indefinite strike by employees of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking has effectively paralysed the city’s bus network, leaving millions of commuters stranded and exposing deep fissures in the management of one of India’s largest urban transport systems. BEST ferries around 25 lakh passengers daily through a fleet of nearly 2,800 buses. Yet over the past three days, the city has witnessed the near-total collapse of this network. On the first day of the strike, only a few dozen buses operated. By the weekend, not a single BEST-owned or wet-lease bus was on the roads. Local trains, Metro services, taxis and autorickshaws have been forced to absorb the shock and are predictably straining under the burden. The strike may be illegal under the Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act (MESMA), and the industrial court may have ordered employees back to work. Yet laws and court orders cannot substitute for sound governance. When a public utility reaches the point where thousands of workers are willing to risk disciplinary action and legal consequences, it signals a failure that predates the strike itself. The demands raised by the unions are hardly new. Employees have long sought implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations, settlement of retirement dues, an end to contractualisation and the merger of the BEST budget with that of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. Whether one agrees with every demand is beside the point. What is striking is that these issues have been allowed to fester for years without a credible roadmap for resolution. Equally troubling is the government’s reactive approach. Ministers and officials rushed into negotiations only after services collapsed and public inconvenience reached intolerable levels. Such crisis management has become a familiar feature of governance. The unions, too, must recognise the wider consequences of their actions. Public transport is the bloodstream of a city. Every day the strike continues, daily wage earners lose income and ordinary citizens bear higher travel costs. The disruption disproportionately hurts those who can least afford alternatives. Holding Mumbai hostage may attract attention to legitimate grievances, but also risks eroding public sympathy. Mumbai has spent years celebrating new Metro corridors, coastal roads and grand infrastructure projects. Yet the humble bus remains the most affordable and accessible mode of transport for millions. Policymakers often treat BEST as an ageing institution to be managed rather than a vital public service to be strengthened. The increasing reliance on contract workers and wet-lease operations may reduce immediate costs, but also weakens institutional stability and labour relations. A city of Mumbai’s scale cannot afford a public transport system perpetually balanced on the edge of financial distress, labour unrest and administrative uncertainty. Nor can it depend on emergency measures whenever disputes arise.

Lotus at Maghi

A Sikh martyrdom fair in Muktsar has become the unlikely battleground for Punjab’s next political realignment.

Punjab
Punjab

The Maghi Mela at Sri Muktsar Sahib has never been a quiet affair. Every January, tens of thousands of Sikhs gather on the sacred ground where the Forty ‘Muktas,’ or warriors who returned to fight and die for Guru Gobind Singh in 1705, won spiritual liberation through sacrifice. The mela has always been heavily steeped in politics. For decades it has served as Punjab’s most unforgiving Panthak court, a place where governments are judged not just on their balance-sheets but on their fidelity to Sikh sentiment, history and honour. This time, it felt like a rehearsal for the 2027 assembly election.


What made this Maghi different was not merely the noise but the new choreography. For the first time, the Bharatiya Janata Party organised a full-fledged political conference at the mela. The Aam Aadmi Party, which used this very platform in 2016 to announce its arrival as Punjab’s insurgent force, returned after nearly a decade in power. Meanwhile, the Shiromani Akali Dal, the traditional custodian of Panthak politics, struggled to reclaim relevance. The Congress stayed away, citing an Akal Takht directive against political grandstanding on religious occasions – a move that betrayed political exhaustion.


Punjab today is weary of drugs that have hollowed out a generation, of gangsterism that mocks the rule of law, of corruption that has merely changed hands since the 2022 election. The AAP had come to power promising clean governance and dignity for farmers. Four years on, even its own critics no longer need to exaggerate. The Rs. 1,000-a-month stipend for women has vanished into the ether. Farm incomes remain hostage to uncertain procurement and delayed payments. The state’s debt has swollen.


It was this sense of drift that the BJP sought to exploit at Muktsar. Union Minister Ravneet Singh Bittu accused the AAP government of brazenly misusing state machinery while Sunil Jakhar, the BJP’s state president, struck a more strategic note, portraying AAP as a subcontractor of Delhi and the Congress as a house divided by corruption and identity politics. Nayab Singh Saini, Haryana’s BJP Chief Minister, offered a neighbour’s contrast: in BJP-ruled Haryana, he said, farmers receive minimum support prices, compensation for crop losses and timely payments that aren’t happening in Punjab.


There was also an unmistakable attempt to wrap this critique in Sikh history. The Forty Muktas and Mai Bhago were invoked not as museum pieces but as symbols of moral courage. Whether the BJP’s charges against the AAP stick is less important than the terrain they seek to occupy. In a state where political legitimacy is filtered through faith and memory, the AAP’s Delhi-first image leaves it exposed.


The Akali Dal, for its part, tried to remind Punjabis of AAP’s broken promises and alleged extravagance—thousands of crores spent on advertising, chartered planes for leaders, recruits parachuted in from outside the state. Yet its own long years in power, tainted by the same allegations of drugs, sacrilege and cronyism that now dog AAP, have dulled its edge. The Panthak vote is no longer the Akalis’ private estate.


Until recently, the BJP was a marginal force in Punjab, shackled to the Akalis and mistrusted by a Sikh electorate wary of majoritarian politics. But the split with the SAD in 2020 and the central government’s overtures have given it a chance to reintroduce itself. By staking a claim at Maghi, the BJP signalled that it wants to be the pole around which a new coalition might form.


Punjab’s politics is fragmenting as the AAP’s sheen has faded, the Akalis are diminished and the Congress is listless. In such a landscape, a party that can offer administrative competence, financial muscle from the centre and a credible respect for Sikh institutions stands to gain.


The Maghi Mela has always been about redemption after failure. Punjab, too, is searching for a way out of its present malaise. By choosing Muktsar as its stage, the BJP is betting that the road to power in 2027 runs through both Delhi and the Panth.

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