With a new Party in charge of the State, promising development, is it time to review our ‘demand’ for Capital status for Gurgaon?
For some, the abracadabra for all our ills is supposedly State Capitalhood for Gurgaon. Chandigarh is passe’. For these jingoistic folk, this ‘change’ would mean a once-and-for-all end to all our miseries. It is the last throw of their dice.
So what would happen in this scenario?
- Key decision makers would be based here – and would get to see the local issues personally, every day (though today no other capital city seems to see such folk).
- We would get a High Court.
- We would get more funds (though there is no shortage today, either).
- We would finally cut our umbilical cord with Delhi.
- There would be an additional cavalcade of politicians and ministers, and their entourages (over and above the current Big 4 Administrators); we would be a city with red beacons flaring, and horns blaring, at all hours.
- And NH8 would be choked most of the time – with someone coming or going (with the big Capital near at hand).
Of course Gurgaon could also lose a special status, of being a unique cosmopolitan people mix; it would probably become primarily Haryanvi.
Has a prime State capital, Mumbai, benefitted from being the capital of Maharashtra? Even 67 years after Independence, the stately capital, the commercial numero uno, still suffers deeply from the ravages of the monsoon every year; it also has the maximum slums of any city in India. All this right under the nose of the Mantralaya. Maybe the relevant question should be – what if Mumbai was not the capital? And it is pertinent to question what came earlier - Mumbai the financial and industrial hub, or Mumbai the capital? Just like Gurgaon has got to here without being the Capital;
like IT has succeeded and become world class in services, with no govt. role and without standard industry rules and regulations. In fact, India has done better with less govt. and less control.
And yet all 3 – Mumbai, Gurgaon and IT – today feel justifiably ignored. They are big contributors to the exchequer, and to the economy. But unfortunately, none of them matter politically; they have little ‘voting power’. Their white collars overshadow the blue – and they have no farmers. It is not therefore a matter of being the Capital, or the global showpiece; what matters is how many MLAs and MPs reside in (or rather stand from) your constituency. Further, even if Capital status means something, why do we need to ask for it? Asking is so old-fashioned, so passe’. ’Khudi ko kar buland itna…’ - let us first be so deserving, so worthy of the Title, that others are forced, or feel happy, to give it to us. We need more action…not tokenism. Finally, if we have to be a Capital, we should rather be a Mumbai - than a Delhi. Mumbai (still) offers a cosmopolitanism and a civic sense that Gurgaon must try and emulate.
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