Calling their bluff

I am working on Arundhati Roy's 13 questions. Meanwhile, I noticed some strange things being reported by socialist bloggers.

Abi triumphantly reports that Pinochet, the ex-dictator of Chile, is dead. Apparently it is proof that capitalism does not work. Or something like it. Well, I suppose collectively Kim Il Jong, Stalin, Pol Pot and Castro do prove that communism works. Also, socialism does work, see, it is working in India.

Perhaps more interesting is this strange post by Dilip D'Souza.

Last month, I sat in a dark Delhi auditorium and listened to Vijaypat Singhania, the industrialist and celebrated hot-air ballooner, raise the stakes. Bombay must cope, he said up there on the stage, with a "net migration" of 8000 -- eight thousand -- people a day. Later in his presentation, he repeated this.

Where did Mr Singhania come up with that number from?

More important, why didn't he do some simple arithmetic? 8000 people a day multiplied by 365 days in a year: that's about 3 million people a year coming into Bombay. Is it even conceivable that a city of something like 15 million is increasing its numbers by 20 per cent a year, and that without accounting for "natural" growth, meaning babies?

Natural growth does mean babies, we get it D'Souza. Unless of course it means the ugly appendages around your sphincter.

Here is what Singhania actually said, according to Tehelka (the favorite stinger magazine of socialists and beneficiary of Rs. 1 Lakh donation from Junior and Senior D'Souza each):

For Raymond chairman emeritus and Mumbai Sheriff Vijaypat Singhania, the answer is clear. "Mumbai cannot become Shanghai in the next 100 years. I was travelling in a train in Shanghai at 441 km per hour. In Mumbai, the average speed would be around 60 km per hour, that too with low grade facilities," he said. "Because of its perception as being a land of prosperity, 8,000 people enter the city everyday. Even slums cannot provide such accommodation. People don't get a decent life and get into anti-social activities. This will not make Mumbai Shanghai."

Well, net migration of 8000 does not equal 8000 people entering the city, not in our book. But then again, socialists usually follow a different Math.

I believe this has something to do with Shiv Sena's Bombay for Mumbaikars campaign. But this could potentially turn out to be a minefield for Congress, much of their strength is derived from dividing the country along communal lines and creating entitlement mentality for "Bhumiputras".

While we do not condone the Shiv Sena principles, the oldest trick to conquer a constituency is subsidizing certain folks to reside in the constituency. You see, Bombay has millions of slum dwellers. If municipal laws are enforced, they would have to leave Bombay. Forget laws, if economic subsidies are taken away, many of these slum dwellers will find their incentives gone. The Bombay slums feeds the underworld, creates law and order problems and in general makes any infrastructure development impossible.

Any citizen of India has a right to live in Bombay. No citizen of India should be forced to subsidize it.