75,000 people turn out for Bombay gangster's rally!

On one day, 10 people, most of whom were minding their own business, die in police firing.

Another day, less than a week later, the city's police force turns out in strength to stand guard and protector for a demonstration organised by a gangster whose name has been linked with crimes ranging from extortion to murder.

It's all happening in Bombay, folks -- and if it seems to turn logic on its head, then that's how it is. Ours not to reason why, ours merely to report...

Here's what happened...

The Akhil Bharatiya Sena, a party founded by underworld gangster Arun Gawli, on Thursday took out a morcha protesting the death in police firing of 10 people last Friday, following the desecration of a statue of Dr B R Ambedkar.

75,000 people, drawn not merely from Bombay but from other parts of Maharashtra including Kolhapur, Solapur, Satara, Nashik, Akola, Ahmednagar, Latur and Karad, marched under the aegis of the ABS, the procession beginning at Azad Maidan at 1400 hours IST. The contingent includes an estimated 5,000 women.

Intelligence sources say that Gawli's agents has fanned out across the slums of Bombay with fistfuls of cash, in a bid to induce as many people as possible to attend the morcha. The police say they have no knowledge of any such thing.

Whatever the inducement, they came -- in trucks and tempos and lorries, in suburban trains and BEST buses.

A ticket examiner at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, watching bemused as hundreds of potential marchers alighted at the terminus and made their way towards the exit, mused, "All these are followers of a gangster -- and we are officially warned not to ask any of them for tickets, we are told they can all travel free!"

The procession set off from Azad Maidan at 1400 hours IST - and at its head was Asha Gawli, wife of the gangster turned "social worker", and ABS secretary Jitendra Dabholkar.

The main roads in South Bombay were shut to traffic, which was re-routed through side roads. Hundreds of police, both on foot and in vans and jeeps, accompanied the processionists. Beefing the security contingent further are a posse of 60 personnel of the elite Rapid Action Force, armed to the teeth.

Arun Gawli did not attend his own procession. The cited reason: "Security concerns". The reason is put out by no less than Deputy Commissioner of Police (zone 1) Ashok Dhameja.

The processionists, in full view of the police, hold up placards and shout slogans lauding Gawli and condemning the police, and the government.

Even the rains don't damp the ardour of the processionists. The feminine contingent unfurl natty umbrellas in pink, emblazoned with the ABS logo of, appropriately enough, a fierce-looking buffalo head with impressively curved horns.

Asha Gawli, Dabholkar and a host of other speakers sound off to constant applause. The thrust of their speeches are the same: The government is to blame for the recent desecration of the statue of Dr B R Ambedkar and the subsequent deaths of 10 people and injury to over 30 others in police firing; the government has failed to maintain law and order; the government should resign.

If there is any irony in a gangster, via his spokespersons, talking of law and order, it escapes the auditors, who cheer lustily.

The speakers also wax eloquent about the government's failure to control prices, to live up to its election promises.

Subsequently, Asha Gawli and Dabholkar hand over to state Governor P C Alexander, on the ABS's behalf, a memorandum saying pretty much the same things that were touched upon in the various speeches, and demanding that the government be sacked.

The memorandum further alleges that the government has attempted to borrow US $ 9.5 million in a bid to bring the City and Industrial Corporation back into black, and that Chief Minister Manohar Joshi has been making frequent foreign tours in this connection.

The memorandum criticises the government for mismanagement leading to millions of rupees worth of revenue losses -- and refers to such acts as the exemption from entertainment tax of the Michael Jackson show and the Lata Mangeshkar Nite in Bombay over the past few months as part of the "mismanagement". Both programmes, incidentally, were held under the aegis of various arms of the ruling Shiv Sena.

The memorandum talks of the government's anti-poor policy, pointing out that it has been carrying out wholesale destruction of slums during the rainy season, rendering thousands homeless and shelterless. It further alleges that the government initiative to gift free houses for 4 million people is an eyewash, and that the land acquired for this purpose has been given to cash-rich builders.

This government is corrupt and incompetent, this government should go, the memorandum argues.

It was drafted, we are told, by Arun Gawli himself.

After the morcha winds to a close, ABS workers distribute pav-bhaji to the congregation. A bit of push and jostle, as people grab for the free eats, is ignored. Boys, after all, will be boys.

Photographs: Jewella C Miranda