ON ANY DAY, you see more people than horses at the Mahalaxmi Race Course. Race day, of course, comes with its full gust of thundering hooves and flying dirt, but after the frenzy is over, Mahalaxmi looks like any other public park. Across and around the 2 km circuit, there are joggers being brisk, small picnic groups being convivial, and others trying to find some peaceful corner.
Royal Western India Turf Club
In Mumbai’s urban sprawl, Mahalaxmi is a rarity—225 acres of mostly open space, bang in the middle of the city. In comparison, the city’s other parks, such as Cross Maidan in the south or Shivaji Park slightly further north, are much smaller. The only bit of green that is much larger in size is the Borivali National Park (some 25,000 acres), but that’s a reserve forest, and not centrally located. This exception has made Mahalaxmi an election issue as Maharashtra gears up for polls.
The Shiv Sena, a state-level Hindu right-wing party, is arguing that Mahalaxmi be converted into a public park, and the racecourse, along with assorted paraphernalia such as paddocks and an amateur riders’ club, be relocated to Mumbai’s suburbs. It doesn’t want the state to renew the lease of the land to the Royal Western India Turf Club (RWITC), the body which runs the racecourse. The previous lease expired after 30 years in the summer of 2013.
This is item No. 1 on the Shiv Sena’s manifesto, ahead of other issues such as the creation of a Mumbai Coastal Freeway stretching from Marine Drive to Kandivali, and converting 800 acres of “wasteland” near the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust into a Youth City township in the eastern zone of Mumbai.
The party has already commissioned artists and architects to chalk out a rendition of what it envisions—the “Mumbai Public Garden”— in a glossy brochure. It depicts a large park complete with walking and jogging paths, water bodies, tribute towers, and separate facilities for everything—from tennis and basketball to bike paths and rock climbing.
“We’re fighting for the common man and his right to have such facilities. Delhi has its Lodhi Gardens, so why not the Mumbai Public Garden?” asks Shiv Sena spokesperson Harshal Pradhan. “Mahalaxmi is not being used for the poor now.”
In the Shiv Sena’s book, racing is an elite sport, a rich man’s sport, and, therefore, deserves to be banished from the heart of the city, though not entirely done away with. (Last year, the state excise department earned roughly Rs 45 crore from horse racing in Mahalaxmi.)
The party is clearly pitching this as a class struggle, coming up on the side of middle-class Maharashtrians whose interests it has always claimed to represent. But understand that the many acres of Mahalaxmi are extremely valuable real estate—and any political party that can influence its redevelopment stands to gain.
Though history is a bit fuzzy, Cusrow Wadia, grand uncle of Bombay Dyeing chairman Nusli Wadia, is the man credited with building Mahalaxmi. The earlier racing track was at Byculla, but Wadia thought it needed to be larger and more central. The then British government leased the land in Mahalaxmi to the Royal Western Turf Club in 1883.
Wadia then gave the club an interest-free loan of Rs 60 lakh to build the grandstands (which stand till today). The racecourse itself was built along the lines of the one in Melbourne; architects were sent to Australia to figure out how.
CLEARLY, THE LAND belongs to the state, and falls under the purview of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), otherwise called the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. Administratively, the BMC is headed by a municipal commissioner, who is an Indian Administrative Services officer. Plus there’s the mayor, usually from the party in power, who is the notional figurehead. Then there are the corporators, as many as 100 individuals from multiple parties, who are elected by their constituencies or wards, and vote on standing committees on major decisions.
Though the Congress runs the state and the mayor is its appointee, the Shiv Sena now dominates the BMC. So, when the Mahalaxmi lease came up for renewal, the Congress announced that it planned to use the land to set up a helipad for government officials and others. That got a nod from the Airports Authority of India, but the Shiv Sena opposed this and trotted out its public park agenda. The Congress backed down, making it clear that it didn’t want Mahalaxmi’s status altered. But the Shiv Sena continues to be adamant about the park.
The lease agreement itself is being reviewed now by various departments: the BMC, urban development, the state cabinet, etc. RWITC chairman Vivek Jain says that according to newspaper reports, the state government has sought clarification from the BMC over documentation of its rights and the circumstances under which the BMC acquired it. Two-thirds of the land is owned by the state, and one-third by the BMC. The BMC has not confirmed the query (made by the state), Jain says. “It’s unlikely that much progress will be made till well after the assembly elections.” Despite repeated attempts, neither the BMC nor local Congress party officials were available for comment.
Concerned citizens have also begun weighing in; they feel that Mumbai doesn’t have a great reputation for maintaining its public spaces.
Julio Ribeiro, a celebrated former cop who now spends his time helping the underprivileged, points to Shivaji Park, the city’s largest open park. Once upon a time, it was a playground for children, an open space for families, pretty much like Mahalaxmi is today. Famous cricketers—Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Ajit Wadekar, and Sachin Tendulkar, to name a few—nurtured their game there. Emerging talent, sadly, doesn’t go there. The park has been taken over for political rallies and meetings. The result is a mess, with the once smooth surface now dug up and filled several times over. Ribeiro says there was a petition to the Mumbai High Court to reduce the non-sport usage of the park. It’s pending, according to public reports.
The High Court in 2010 declared Shivaji Park a silence zone. Anyone who plans to hold functions there has to obtain permission from the Court. In November 2013, it disallowed the Congress Party to celebrate its annual event on grounds of noise pollution and damage to the park. It has also curtailed cricket, saying that the park is a facility that ought to be used by the public in general.
Shivaji Park’s fate gives Ribeiro the shivers. “Once it [Mahalaxmi] gets into the hands of a political party, regardless of its hue, you might as well kiss it goodbye.”
WATCHING FROM THE SIDELINES are Mumbai’s developers. Though everything will have to go through a public tender route, there’s still a fortune to be made from developing even a small part of this land. No doubt the state will benefit, but so will the builders. The prevailing rates are between Rs 150 crore and Rs 200 crore an acre. It means Mahalaxmi is worth some Rs 45,200 crore. Given the nexus that exists between builders and politicians, it’s not altogether far-fetched to imagine a few acres being diverted to build something else. Unless, of course, the state’s oversight is draconian.
Jerry Rao, former banker and chairman of housing company VBHC, points out how everybody—the government, politicians, builders, and homeowners alike—covet scarce urban land whose value is kept high by low-floor space index and insufficient connectivity to the peripheries. “Everybody wants to continue to build in the cities,” he says.
However, the Lodha Group, one of the biggest realtors operating in the locality, says it’s not coveting Mahalaxmi. Asked if it will step in if the opportunity arises, its official statement is: “The Mahalaxmi racecourse is one of Mumbai’s great public spaces. We firmly believe the racecourse should continue to be devoted exclusively to public purposes, and not to any form of real estate development.” This is something Sanjay Dutt, chief executive of realty consultants Cushman & Wakefield, also affirms: “It’s got the potential to put Mumbai on the world map for equine-related sports and activities, and shouldn’t be used for anything else.”
This is not the first time that the idea of re-developing Mahalaxmi has surfaced. Khushroo Dhunjiboy, who runs a shipping business and once headed RWITC, had commissioned architects from Singapore to draw up a development plan for Mahalaxmi 10 years ago. Without diminishing the racing facilities, a spa, a swimming pool, a park, and the like were planned, but the plan got nixed by other members of the club. It was also expensive for the time: Some Rs 300 crore was to be invested. Dhunjiboy, however, maintains that had it been executed, it would have made the money back several times over and made Mahalaxmi a tourist destination.
AT THE CORE of the debate is a conflict over Mumbai’s self-image and what it aspires to be: a bustling, financial capital of an emerging economy? Or, a globally recognised financial powerhouse located in one of the world’s largest and most powerful economies?
If Mumbai sees itself merely as the former, then shorn of politics, there is perhaps some justification of what the Shiv Sena is demanding. Sure, racing is a spectator sport, but it’s still not for the masses as cricket or football is.
That explains the lack of public outcry at the plans to do away with the track. If it had been a cricket stadium, things would have gotten extremely loud by now. Add to that the fact that racing is an expensive pastime: A horse with a decent bloodline costs between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 40 lakh, and then there’s the cost of its maintenance. Cyrus Poonawalla, former chairman of the RWITC and among the more prominent owners on the circuit, says, “The maharajas are all gone. Besides a handful of remaining big owners, now it is a bunch of bankers, lawyers, doctors, and other businessmen who own a leg or two in a horse and attend races. [A ‘leg’ in racing parlance means a 25% share in a racehorse.] There is no billionaires’ club running the sport.”
Although Poonawalla has somewhat repositioned the sport, seen through the lens of the Shiv Sena, a party which has always fought on issues that affect middle-class Maharashtrians, racing is a waste. Also, don’t forget that racing carries the taint of gambling, and the Shiv Sena always takes a high moral ground. For instance, party workers routinely disrupt Valentine’s Day celebrations.
(file photo)
But what if Mumbai sees itself as the latter, a global financial powerhouse? Then the idea of Mahalaxmi as a racing destination gets inextricably woven into the city’s geography. Develop parts of it with strict government control to prevent abuse, but don’t banish racing from the centre of the city. All over the developed world (London, Melbourne, Dubai, Hong Kong) racing centres are destinations by themselves, with restaurants, pubs, and even childcare centres, built around the racecourse. Zavaray Poonawalla, who runs Poonawalla Stud Farms, says that maintaining the races in Mahalaxmi helps push Mumbai into that league.
Lynn Deas, editor, Racing World, says the sport will die if moved outside of Mahalaxmi to a far-flung suburb because it requires proximity to the city centre to attract residents. “Move it to Navi Mumbai and you will see a 50% drop in attendance,” she says. “The terrain also has to be right—how the track develops, how it handles floods and so on.”
Cyrus Poonawalla goes on to add that it’s no good to anyone if civic bodies suggest a halfway measure to create an exclusive dedicated park inside the club for the public.
“They can’t make a plan to lease the racecourse to us for horse racing and develop the centre in such a way that it becomes an obstruction or is impractical in terms of visibility.”
From the 1970s, there have been sporadic efforts made to remove the racecourse and develop the land. In 1973, when a prior lease came up for renewal, the BMC (then Bombay Municipal Corporation) was pressured into turning the land over to developers to build low-cost housing. At that point, RWITC members wrote to the BMC, offering to turn a part of the racecourse into a park; they argued that racing or no racing, shutting down the city’s green spaces was a regressive move. They won through then.
Since then, the RWITC has tried to build the sport, focussing on awareness and education. That means inviting government officials so that they can see that the sport is being run without crime. Interestingly, Maharashtra chief secretary Swadheen Kshatriya and additional chief secretary for home Amitabh Rajan are part of the managing committee of the RWITC.
Can the racecourse repeat its history of resilience? Until the elections are over, expect the jockeying to continue.
