How do you solve a problem like Maria?
In Delhi, when two people get into a fight, to win an edge, one will say: "I’ll take you to the home minister/Amit Shah/the prime minister/the Gandhis" or some such high-powered lal batti-equipped beacon of political power. Two men fighting in Mumbai will always say: "I will take you to the CP (commissioner of police)".
It has been so since colonial times when Charles Forjett was the first CP. The seat of the CP has always been the seat of power in Bombay and Mumbai because the city has run on trade. In Mumbai, it is the office of the commissioner of police to whom restaurant taxes may be paid, who permits or denies liquor and entertainment licences, and who controls the nodal points, the octroi "nakas", the entry points and exits to the city. And he who controls the trade, in this "dhandha" city, is he who rules it.
It is the same paradigm by which power here is felled.
Rakesh Maria, of all our much-loved police commissioners, has been the most loved for his equitable management of the distribution systems. When he was appointed the CP, a veritable cheer went up in the forces. Maria, apart from being our own, “Saheb aaplya manoos aahe (he’s one of us)", one of the constables on guard outside his office on the day of his appointment told me, gesturing to the array of arriving bouquets, was the man who took to the courts to play volleyball with his men, ate with them, and beat the streets with them. Maria’s skill has been that he has moved laterally. In traffic, he had his eye on crime. In crime, he had his eye on terror. In terror, he had his eye on movement in the city.
Intelligent, erudite, approachable – on any given day attending to the grievances of no less than 200 people — and with nothing short of a cult following both within the forces and outside it – everyone from film stars to politicians of the highest order have had the ability to walk up to him and sort their issues or seek advice. Maria is known to be concise, candid and inescapably sharp. It is no surprise then that a Lalit Modi would seek an audience with him. To those who know Maria, it is no surprise he would take the meeting, and it is unlikely that with his upright image, anything beyond Maria telling Modi he should follow the norm, would have transpired, say those close to the CP.
But coming at a time when an estimated 100 people have died from the hooch tragedy in Mumbai, a further 46 critically ill, and a clear onus of responsibility on the police force for allowing it to have happened – insiders say the residing deputy commissioner of police (DCP) had to be told where the officiating police station at Malvani even was – Maria has no leeway to manoeuvre. It adds insult to injury to a regime still recovering from Maria’s enthusiastic approval for a Mumbai night life plan – foisted on him by Aditya Thackeray, who sought his lack of disapproval for permissions – a necessary procedure for any entertainment or liquor procurements in the metropolis that parties the most. That Maria would surely approve is an attitude Mumbai, as a city that adores him, has come to rely upon him for. Maria has always maintained that the Mumbai police will not be a moral police. To a Delhi-centric party unschooled in Bombay’s ways of CP first, this seemed like a slight. And Maria became one to be put under watch. With chief minister Devendra Fadnavis taking charge, reluctantly willing his Nagpur appointee KK Pathak to stand down to let Maria finish his tenure, and subsequently sweating out the inaction on nabbing Govind Pansare’s killers, the rift between the Mumbai police and the establishment grew wider. The last few days, sources say, have been unpleasant between them.
With no RR Patil to place his interaction with Lalit Modi on the streets of London on record, and the release of a photograph placing the interaction very clearly on the table, the BJP establishment is in the frame of mind to believe it has forgiven its "Shishupal" too many lives.
Maria is due to be promoted in September, when Director General of Police (DGP) Sanjeev Dayal and DGP housing Arup Patnaik are also due to retire. The matter under speculation as the chief minister today reads the report Maria has tabled on the "brief interaction" with Lalit Modi is not whether Maria stays, but till when.
Speculation within the Indian Police Service (IPS) circuit is that by evening today, a decision will be taken. There is talk of a secret dossier, held in reserve till such a time as may be used against him, coming to the fore. Friend or foe alike, if Maria is shunted out by end of day today, there will not be one who does not believe the loss will entirely be Mumbai’s.
A safe non-aligned choice and superseding six others to the race to the CP, Maria took the top slot by being neutral. Post the mandate and with the new establishment settling in, the neutrality card no longer works, sources within say. Maria right now is nobody’s man.
Except, he’s been ours; Mumbai’s "aapla manoos". Here’s a city hoping he stays that way.