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The Wire
9 hours ago
- Politics
- The Wire
Remembering Jim Masselos, a Historian With a Unique Sensibility
History An urban sociologist reminisces on her 40-year friendship with the Australian who contributed to understanding the urban cultures that organised early and mid-20th century Bombay/Mumbai. Jim Masselos (1940-2025) passed away in a Sydney hospital on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. I knew that the end was near; I had talked to him twice in April and realised that his energy was fading and he was taking longer to converse and yet it is difficult to believe that he is no more. In April, we talked about the terror attack in Pahalgam, the changing geopolitics in the world and US president Donald Trump's attack on academia. He was also sad about what was happening to South Asian scholarship in Australia and yet hopeful that the tide would soon turn as young people realise how important it is to do academic work and research on South Asia. I first met Jim in the early 1980s but knew of him before through a childhood friend Navaz Patuck : the Patuck family home in Pali Hill being an open house to so many passing foreigners who came to Bombay. I distinctly remember our first encounter at Samovar, the iconic restaurant at Jehangir Art Gallery. I was doing a doctorate on Ahmedabad's early history and its textile industry and wanted to discuss the parallel trends between the two cities of Bombay and Ahmedabad, both being framed by this industry. Our conversations soon drifted elsewhere because M.F. Hussain was sitting somewhere nearby (for long Samovar was Hussain's haunt). It allowed Jim to start talking about Bombay's culture and the contribution of the progressive movement in art to its history. Did this happen in Ahmedabad and if not, why not, he asked? Since then, we met almost every time he came to India and our paths criss-crossed either in Mumbai or Delhi and sometimes in Kolkata and Hyderabad. Our meetings increased because by then we had a mutual friend in Alice Thorner, another constant visitor and a lover of the city of Mumbai. Our conversations (sometimes with Alice) always drifted towards comprehending the history of the city, Bombay's cultural scene, its immersion in its version of modernity and its cosmopolitan ambience, together with vigilante politics and unplanned urban growth. What did these trends have to do with post-colonial nationalism, we wondered. High tide at Girgaon Chowpatty in Mumbai, Friday, June 27, 2025. Photo: PTI. Jim arrived in India as part of the Colombo Plan which gave scholarships to those who wanted to study in the newly independent countries of Asia – he was one of the first Australians who took this opportunity, travelled to Bombay and completed a doctorate at Bombay University on nationalist ideas in Bombay. He stayed at the Bombay University's hostel at B. Road, Churchgate and met up with many who were studying at that time in Bombay university. Most of these students became his friends and he kept in touch with them over the next four decades as they traversed their own careers as Bombay's and India's politicians, lawyers and intellectuals – part of the newly mobile group educating themselves under the Nehruvian project of the making of modern India. Over time, I met some of them because Jim had a great gift for keeping relationships and learning the current history of India through their eyes. During his early years in Bombay, Jim would walk around the city and discover its nooks and corners and the various neighbourhood settlements of distinct communities living in the city. As we know, this cultivated gaze impacted his historical work (which he later analysed as the intersections between space, identity and community) and allowed him to give us, the readers an insight into urban neighbourhood cultures. Also read: Remembering Jim Masselos, the Australian Scholar of Bombay's Social History In a recent assessment, Prashant Kidambi (2019) has suggested that Jim's distinctive contribution to Bombay's historiography can be understood at four levels. Not only did he document ways in which urban communities were historically reconstituted in the modern city but emphasised how they used their own tools of modernity to do so. Second, Jim highlighted significance of urban space in understanding the city and third, focused on how diverse forms of power have structured social relations in the city. And finally, he has also been concerned with how one form of power – nationalism – sought to acquire and exercise hegemony in the city, sometimes to its detriment. But Jim, through these travels across the city, also became a collector of old books and that of old and new art as it was being in fashioned in Bombay. He learnt not only to become an archivist but also an art historian and a curator of art exhibitions. In the course of his walks across south Mumbai, he started collecting old books sold on the pavements of Flora Fountain and over time accumulated publications not only of late 19th and early 20th century British and Indian authors but also official government reports on the history of the city and on India. When I visited him in Sydney for the first time in the mid-90s, I realised that he had collected colonial documents which included almost all the Royal Commission Reports published by the British. His home had become a make-shift archive and in case anyone wanted to navigate around the rooms in his house, one had to skip and jump over these piles of books lying on the floor and find a comfortable sofa/chair that was empty of such publications. That being difficult, we would end up sitting in his kitchen or conversing at a southeast Asian restaurant at the corner of the street. (Jim was trying to donate this collection of books to a library in Sydney. However, this seemed to be the wrong time – not only was South Asian history/studies not popular in Australia but with a lack of physical space and ongoing digitalisation, no library-administrator was interested in accepting these late 19th century and early 20th century primary sources on India). But most significantly, what was important was the art he collected as he visited the galleries sponsoring the progressive painters in the city and which he collated as he travelled around the country. He had Catholic tastes and his collection included Kutchi embroidery, pichwai, miniature paintings, a dancing Nataraj and the artwork of the Bombay progressive artist Tyeb Mehta, for example. This artwork was depicted prominently across all the available wall space in his home. Thus, in addition to being an archive, his home had become an art gallery! (Later he also collected some Australian Indigenous paintings and hung them up with the Indian paintings). 'Dancing to the Flute - Music and Dance in Indian Art'. Jim had an exhibition of the art in his collection at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in the mid-90s. The catalogue was called Dancing to the Flute: Music and Dance in the Art of India. (In the last decade, he has donated some of these paintings to the NSW gallery, but these lie in the basement!) During this exhibition, he also organised a seminar on four decades of social science scholarship on India, giving us a lens on how he combined art and social sciences in one persona. It is then that I came to realise that Jim was also an enthusiastic art curator and his understanding of Indian art led him to collaborate with the journal Marg and the noted art historian B. N. Goswamy. In the late 2000s he brought groups of Australians to introduce them to India's art heritage and his understanding of it. For the conference in the mid-1990s, he pushed me to write an essay on M.N. Srinivas's contribution to Indian sociology. This was what started me on my project to study the disciplinary history of sociology in India, which still continues. During this Sydney visit, I also discovered that Jim was a brilliant photographer. I had noticed him taking photographs earlier, but when I saw the photographs on his computer, I realised that he had brought his unique historical sensibility to his photographs. Since then, Jim has brought out two volumes on photographs combining company photographs with his own current ones in a then and now text: Bombay Then and Now and Beato's Delhi (text written with Delhi historian Narayani Gupta). In the early 1990s, Alice brought to me a project to put together a conference on Bombay. The idea, she said, came from Jim who during a breakfast conversation at Delhi's India International Centre, asked how an urban historian should write about contemporary Bombay. This led to the organisation of a conference on Bombay in December 1992 and the publication of two volumes – Bombay: Mosaic of Modern Culture and Bombay: Metaphor of Modern India. Jim wrote a paper for the second volume. But even as we were preparing the two books for publication, we (Alice, Jim and I) knew that Bombay had changed fundamentally after the 1992-93 riots and that we needed to capture the recent changes. With Alice passing away, Jim and I put together a third volume titled Bombay and Mumbai: The City in Transition. Recently, when the published fourth volume reached him, Jim stated that he had not realised that his innocent question of what it means to write on contemporary Bombay as an urban historian would lead to four volumes on the city. Jim's contribution to scholarship was quiet but significant. Never to brag about himself, he was a soft and gentle scholar/person full of generosity for others. After Rachel Dwyer, Prashant Kidambi and Manjiri Kamat put together a Festschrift, a volume on his honour ('Bombay before Mumbai' in 2019) and Robert Aldrich organised a conference around his scholarship in Sydney in February 2020, I saw a satisfied expression on his face and in his body language, a sense of pride and fulfilment that his colleagues had honoured him and acknowledged his contributions. Characteristically, he gave a sheepish smile and silently accepted the accolades that they bestowed upon him. That was Jim. Urban sociologist Sujata Patel retired as Professor of Sociology from the University of Hyderabad in 2018. Patel and Masselos collaborated to edit a volume on Bombay, one of four volumes that Patel has co-edited on the city. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
Hindustan Times
20-05-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Asst engineer suspended for parking contract violations
MUMBAI: An assistant engineer from A Ward in South Mumbai has been suspended following serious allegations of misconduct and irregularities in managing municipal pay-and-park contracts. The order, issued by additional municipal commissioner (city) Dr Ashwini Joshi, has suspended Pawan Kawre, pending a preliminary inquiry into multiple irregularities in handling contracts for parking lots at prominent city locations. The irregularities surfaced after a sting operation at Kala Ghoda recently, where senior officials with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), who went incognito, attempted to park their cars at the pay-and-park facility outside the Jehangir Art Gallery. The suspension order was issued on April 17, even before a First Information Report (FIR) was registered against the contractor in Kala Ghoda and other locations, for overcharging motorists at pay-and-park lots, which was reported on May 15. Kawre is accused of serious lapses during his tenure as assistant engineer, particularly in overseeing paid parking projects at the following sites: Trident Hotel, Marine Drive, where the contract for managing the parking lot was awarded to Lakshmi Mahila Sahitya Group. Although the contract expired on August 31, 2024, the contractor continued to operate it until February 28, 2025, without any official extension or approval. Additionally, Kawre allegedly misled the administration by misidentifying the road as 'Sir Dorabji Tata Road' and failed to report double parking violations from NCPA to the Air India building. The contract, managed by Pallavi Berozgar Samiti, too expired on November 13, 2024. However, they continued operations till February 24, 2025, without any extension. The subsequent contract was awarded to an agency under an e-tender, dated October 3, 2023, without verifying mandatory conditions such as registration with the Charity Commissioner and inclusion in the employment exchange. 'Despite double parking being observed, no action was taken by Kawre. A women's self-help group was granted a contract extension only until January 4, 2024, but continued operations until May 1, 2024, without formal approval. A proposal was later submitted in favour of Shraddha Mahila Safai Group with misleading information about the contract duration, indicating manipulated documentation,'the suspension order stated. Kawre is accused of violating Rule 3(1) clauses (1) and (2), and Rule 3(2) of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Service (Conduct) Rules, 1999. The charges include dereliction of duty, misleading senior officers and the administration, acting in a manner unbecoming of a municipal employee, gross misconduct and negligence. He refused to comment on his suspension. Makarand Narwekar, former BJP corporator from Colaba, said the civic body should cancel illegal pay-and-park contracts and make the facilities free for Mumbaikars till tenders are awarded. 'Despite the suspension, pay-and-park operations in the area continue without interruption. This raises a fundamental question, if the extensions were wrong and officials were suspended for the same, then why have the parking operations not been halted? Who is accountable for allowing these operations to continue under illegal extensions?' asked Narwekar. 'The continuation of these parking services, despite the BMC's own position that the extensions were wrong and invalid, strongly suggests a nexus between certain BMC officials and contractors,' he alleged. Activist Santosh Daundkar, the whistleblower in this case, said, 'The current BMC's estate plot parking policy is commendable for its inclusivity, especially for women, and should be implemented more effectively rather than discontinued. However, misuse by mafias—allegedly protected by local authorities, undermines the system, even as the BMC earns revenue. A road engineer should manage parking, but the assigned official is handling unrelated tasks. 'Parking facilities are insufficient, notably in A Ward and near Mahatma Jyotiba Phule market, except for G South ward. To improve the system, the following steps are recommended: enforce in-time/out-time-based parking charges; install clear parking signboards; conduct surprise police inspections. This will enhance transparency, ensure fair use, and improve public satisfaction,' he said.
Time of India
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
5 must-visit art galleries in India for culture seekers
India's cultural environment is as dynamic and varied as its artistic legacy. For anyone eager to discover the creative spirit of the nation, the art galleries are a veritable gold mine of ancient customs and modern manifestations. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now These five galleries provide an insight into India's changing art landscape and ageless aesthetic traditions, regardless of your level of experience with art or your level of curiosity as a tourist. Kiran Nadar museum of art , New Delhi and Noida credits: Instagram/knmaindia Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, India's first public charitable museum for modern and contemporary art, is a private initiative with a public purpose. It boasts a staggering collection with art by Anish Kapoor, S.H. Raza, and M.F. Husain. The museum regularly features fresh exhibitions and foreign collaborations, a dynamic environment that challenges conventional concepts of art display. Indian Museum, Kolkata The Kolkata Indian Museum has a great art gallery of Mughal paintings, Bengal School paintings, and colonial relics, but it is more famous as the nation's oldest and largest museum. Anyone interested in the interplays among art, history, anthropology, and archaeology should stop by. The museum is a must-see on any cultural tour because of its splendour and historic significance. Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh This museum, with the renowned architect Le Corbusier's master plan, houses a rare group of contemporary, Pahari and Rajasthani miniatures, and Gandhara sculpture. This is a treasure of culture in terms of its combination of mid-century contemporary building and ancient tradition. The gallery of Chandigarh has fewer visitors compared to the others in the city, providing a serene and enjoyable experience for those who love art. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Jehangir Art Gallery , Mumbai One of the most well-known locations where Indian artists can work is the Jehangir Art Gallery, founded in 1952 in Kala Ghoda, the art district of Mumbai. It is a venue for both older and emerging artists in Indian art, with several exhibition spaces and a constantly changing array of artwork. The gallery is also conveniently located near other cultural landmarks like Mumbai's street art culture and the Prince of Wales Museum. It's perfect for those who wish to have an entirely immersive cultural experience. National gallery of modern art (NGMA), New Delhi The National Gallery of Modern Art, a haven for modern and contemporary Indian art, is situated in the heart of the capital. With a collection of more than 17,000 works, from masterpieces by Raja Ravi Varma, Amrita Shergil, Rabindranath Tagore, the NGMA takes up residence in a colonial bungalow close to India Gate. The gallery conducts regular educational workshops, touring exhibitions, and retrospectives. For all those interested in tracking India's journey in the visual arts from the 18th century to the present day, it's an ideal beginning.
Hindustan Times
16-05-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Unmasked: Mumbai's parking mafia controls 60% of parking contracts
MUMBAI: A recent sting operation, which exposed corrupt practices at the pay-and-park facility at Kala Ghoda in South Mumbai, has uncovered a parking mafia that extends across a number of civic wards in the city. According to the whistleblower, whose information prompted the undercover operation, an astonishing 60-70% of parking contracts under the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) are controlled by a single individual. The operation that uncovered these alarming details was carried out at the parking facility outside the Jehangir Art Gallery. The attendant here attempted to overcharge senior civic officials who turned up incognito, and attempted to park their vehicles at the facility. The BMC, which recently lodged a First Information Report (FIR) against the pay-and-park contractor, discovered rampant overcharging and illegal parking in designated no-parking zones after activist Santosh Daundkar first raised the alarm on April 25. From 'A' ward to 'T' ward, Daundkar has detailed how these contractors, some with alleged criminal records, operate as a coordinated mafia, systematically exploiting the city's parking system with impunity. Daundkar, in his complaint letter dated April 25, 2025, to the BMC, stated, 'This dominance isn't the result of fair competition or efficiency. Rather, it's a product of systemic corruption, supported by middlemen, complicit civic officials, and elected representatives, all working together in a deeply entrenched racket that has plagued the city for years.' The letter adds, 'Key sites like Kala Ghoda, Jehangir Art Gallery and Gateway of India are governed by dubious contracts categorized under 'A' and 'B'. At these locations, parking attendants, often with criminal backgrounds, collect fees using handheld machines. However, the receipts they issue mention only the time of entry or exit, not the duration parked, making it easier to overcharge unsuspecting motorists. 'Moreover, these contractors deliberately avoid displaying BMC-mandated parking rate boards. They permit double-parking and exceed vehicle limits, leading to daily traffic jams and chaos in congested areas like Kala Ghoda. In several instances, car owners are even forced to surrender their keys, an outright violation of BMC norms. Yet, civic officials and police rarely intervene.' Daundkar said that individuals who dare question the overcharging or the absence of receipts are subjected to verbal abuse and threats. 'Organised commotion is often created to silence dissent. This creates not only a law-and-order concern but also subjects citizens to psychological harassment.' A striking example took place on April 19, near Rhythm House at Kala Ghoda. Despite a clear 'No Parking' sign, the contractor stationed vehicles and collected parking fees openly—indicative of the police's passive role in enabling these violations. Explaining the parking mafia's modus operandi, the whistleblower said the contractor consistently bids the highest amount during online tenders. 'Once contracts are awarded, they often file for arbitration to halt operations, citing lower ward-level rates. They then collude with ward officials to extend contracts, altogether skirting the tendering process. Even when parking contracts held by women's self-help groups expire, the mafia exploits proximity clauses to usurp adjacent spaces. These applications are swiftly approved by ward engineers. Shockingly, even if these illegal tenders are cancelled, the contractors receive their earnest money deposits (EMD) back, ensuring zero financial risk for them,' Daundkar told HT. A civic official from 'A' ward, who led the sting operation at Kala Ghoda, revealed that 45 contractors were operating in this ward. 'We registered FIRs at Jehangir Art Gallery and PB Gandhi Marg, where the agency operating was Yuva Berozgar Sahakari Sanstha Ltd. We've begun action against the others for violations such as not wearing uniforms and not displaying rate cards. A common complaint from citizens was overcharging—contractors were collecting ₹150 instead of the official ₹70,' the official said. As part of the operation, three private cars were used, and women junior engineers from the ward went undercover, wearing scarves and backpacks to avoid being recognised by the attendants, who were familiar with civic officials. Deputy municipal commissioner, Zone 1, Sangita Hasnale, also took part. She parked her car near the Bombay High Court and went incognito to observe the situation, first-hand. 'They were mostly parking vehicles in non-designated areas, where no official parking boards were displayed. In fact, in three lanes, 'No Parking' signs were deliberately covered. The attendants weren't part of our approved list. We've penalised several for these violations but have registered an FIR under Section 420 of the IPC at the MRA Marg police station, against one contractor so far,' Hasnale said.
India Today
14-05-2025
- Business
- India Today
Parking agency overcharging people caught red-handed in Mumbai civic body sting op
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has launched a sting operation to expose cases of overcharging at a pay-and-park facility in Mumbai's Kala Ghoda on the complaints, officials from BMC's A Ward posed as regular customers and caught the parking contractor red-handed, charging Rs 150 per hour for four-wheelers - more than double the approved rate of Rs 70 per hour. Two-wheeler parking was also found to be overpriced, with the contractor ignoring the official rate of Rs 20 per pay-and-park facility, located near Jehangir Art Gallery and V B Gandhi Marg, is managed by private agency Yuva Berojgar Seva Sahakari Sanstha under a BMC contract. The parking lot accommodates 100 four-wheelers and 45 two-wheelers. During the operation, BMC staff observed multiple violations wherein the contractor had covered 'No Parking' signs and operated without uniforms or the sting, the BMC imposed a Rs 15,000 fine, filed a police complaint, and initiated the process to blacklist the civic body has urged people to report any instances of overcharging at municipal pay-and-park facilities to their respective ward Watch IN THIS STORY#Mumbai
