Bombay Municipal Corporation

The Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC), later renamed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, is the civic body responsible for the governance and administration of Mumbai. In the narrative of the city's underworld, the BMC is not merely a bureaucratic institution but a significant arena where power is contested, legitimacy is sought, and the boundaries between the criminal and the political are blurred. The corporation's standing committee meetings, its municipal elections, and its civic policies become a stage where several of the book's most formidable women—Neeta Naik, Asha Gawli, and Gangubai Kathiawadi—engage with the formal structures of the state, seeking to convert their illicit influence into civic and political standing.

Historical and Geographic Context

The BMC's domain encompasses a city whose geography has been shaped by colonial and post-colonial forces. The name Marine Lines, a British legacy from the mid-nineteenth century when the British linked Mumbai to a network of railheads, reflects this history. The area abutting the Marine Lines station is Bada Qabrastan, a sprawling 7.5-acre cemetery, a hundred-and-fifty-years-old, so close to the station that commuters cut across it to reach the over-bridge. This juxtaposition of the civic and the mortal is a recurring motif in the city's landscape. Similarly, Dongri, a stone's throw from the cloth market in Kalbadevi, was initially part of the original island of Mumbai. In the mid-1700s, the Dongri hills were levelled as part of the plan to merge the different islands, and the low-lying patch of uneven land between Crawford Market in the north and the reclaimed lands of Kamathipura in the south came to be called Dongri. Today, Dongri falls partially below the gigantic JJ Flyover and is primarily dominated by Muslims. The BMC's jurisdiction thus covers a terrain of stark contrasts, from the bustling bazaars of Dongri to the shanties of Sonapur Lane near Reay Road station, a nesting ground for crime and disease, and the Sion-Koliwada slum on Antop Hill, infamous for its illicit hooch distillery in the '80s and later a drug den under Mahalaxmi Papamani.

The BMC as a Political Arena for Underworld Figures

The BMC's standing committee meetings became a platform for Neeta Naik, the wife of absconding gangster Ashwin Naik. With her husband on the run, Neeta began making her presence felt in the Shiv Sena, despite the party not being entirely open to recruiting women. Her convent education proved an advantage in her dealings with people, and she made an impact as a powerful orator in the standing committee meetings of the Bombay Municipal Corporation. This political acumen and connections won Neeta acceptance among the masses and another term in the BMC in 1995. While her sister-in-law Anjali Naik and Asha Gawli also contested the 1995 municipal elections, it was only Neeta who managed to secure a berth in the BMC. With her husband still absconding, Neeta made it clear that the victory was her own and no one else's. This period of self-realisation created another wide crack in the Neeta-Ashwin relationship, as she began to feel very lonely and allegedly found support in private bodyguard Laxmi Zhiman.

Asha Gawli, the wife of Arun Gawli, also used the BMC as a stepping stone for her husband's political ambitions. In 1996, when Arun was locked up in the Kolhapur jail under TADA, he mentioned his aspirations to join politics to save himself from a police encounter. The previous year, Asha had stood for the civic corporation elections, hoping her political standing would help her husband, but she had lost terribly. In 1997, with his wife's encouragement and support, Arun started the Akhil Bharatiya Sena, with Asha heading the women's wing. In 2002, the ABS contested the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections, and in its very first attempt, two corporators were elected—Arun's eldest daughter Geeta Gawli and Sunil Ghate, a one-time contract killer. This success in the BMC paved the way for Arun's election as the MLA from the Byculla constituency in 2004.

Civic Policies and the Underworld

The BMC's policies and the city's civic administration also intersect with the lives of the underworld figures in more direct ways. In the 1950s and '60s, commercial sex workers occupied the western strip of Kamathipura, and St Anthony's Girls' High School, built in the early 1920s, had its entrance from Bellasis Road, with the school building at the rear overlooking Kamathipura 14th Street, then inhabited by over 250 sex workers. In early 1960, school authorities and locals wanted part of the red-light belt evacuated, citing that prostitution could not be carried out within two hundred yards from an educational institution. When the anti-prostitution sentiment swelled, sex workers sought Gangubai's help, and she successfully spearheaded the movement against the evacuation of sex workers from the belt. Her political connections won her an appointment with the then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, making her the only local brothel madam to secure an appointment with the head of the country. Gangubai's advocacy, rooted in the civic space of Kamathipura, thus challenged the BMC's authority and asserted the rights of sex workers against civic regulation.

The BMC's Role in the Broader Narrative of Power

The BMC, in this narrative, is a symbol of formal, legitimate power that the underworld seeks to infiltrate and co-opt. For Neeta Naik, it was a means to establish her own identity and political career, separate from her criminal husband. For Asha Gawli, it was a tool to protect her husband from the law and to build a political dynasty. For Gangubai, it was an authority to be confronted and negotiated with in defense of her community. The corporation's standing committee meetings, its elections, and its policies are thus not just administrative matters but are deeply embedded in the power struggles of the city's underworld. The BMC's history, from its colonial origins to its contemporary role, mirrors the city's own evolution, where the lines between the civic and the criminal, the legitimate and the illicit, are constantly being redrawn. The corporation, in this context, is not just a governing body but a contested space where the city's most marginalized and most powerful figures vie for control and recognition.