Bombay's first elected woman mayor against male domination

By Madhu Nainan

BOMBAY (AFP): Bombay's first elected woman mayor says she is committed to fighting male domination and sexual harassment of female employees in this financial capital of India.

Nirmala Samant, 38, a second-generation political worker and a lawyer by training, said she also hopes to improve the quality of life for the hundreds of thousands who live in the city's burgeoning slums.

"The working woman here has to put up with patronizing males and sexual harassment at the workplace," she said in an interview at her plush office. "I have never been harassed, but have handled a lot of such lawsuits."

She said women needed to actively participate in all public bodies.

"When policies are framed for women, they are never consulted," moaned Samant, who brings youth and drive to her job. "Men make all the decisions. Is that right?"

Samant, a member of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao's Congress (I) party, was elected the 68th mayor of Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC), the city's civic body, after a keen contest a week ago. Her term lasts one year.

"I certainly cannot perform a miracle in one year. But I have identified major tasks needing immediate attention," she said.

"Nearly 60 percent of Bombay's 12 million people live in slums. The city is becoming ugly day by day. I plan to focus on providing better quality of life to the slumdwellers."

"Bombay's problems, from the global view, are traffic jams, pollution and disposal of sewage," she added.

Samant is the second woman to head the 125-year-old BMC but the first to be elected. The first woman mayor, Sulochana Mody, was nominated to fill in for 38 days in 1955-56 during a political crisis in the BMC.

The BMC is Asia's richest civic body. Its annual income is US$873 million -- more than six of India's 25 states, and it spent $812 million last year providing civic amenities to this bustling commercial and movie hub.

One third of BMC's members are women, elected to seats reserved for them as part of a policy framed by former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi to increase women's representation in local government bodies.

Samant said she would never have been elected to the 228- member BMC in 1991 but for the reservation. "Men just do not allow us to go ahead here. There are so many biases and hurdles... The reservation was the best thing for us."

Bombay, now an oblong megalopolis, passed into British control as part of the dowry of a Portuguese princess who married an English king. The king leased it to the East Indian Company, which set up trading outposts here.

The company's rule ended after the great revolt of 1857-58 in northern India, when it returned the area to the British crown. India won independence from Britain in 1947.

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