On December 29, 2017 flames engulfed “1 Above,” an upscale bistro in the Kamala Mills Complex in Mumbai, killing 14 patrons. Located in the deindustrialized Lower Parel district, Kamala Mills is one of dozens of defunct textile factories which have been redeveloped over the last 25 years. The “mill lands” as they are called in Mumbai now boast the largest number of residential and commercial skyscrapers in the city, including a Trump Tower, as well as malls, cineplexes, nightclubs, and restaurants catering to upwardly mobile professional classes. Investigations into the fire were aided by records accessed through activists’ Right to Information Act (RTI) petitions which revealed that Above 1 and adjacent establishments had flouted fire and other safety regulations. Investigations also exposed nefarious collaborations between business owners, builders, and local officials who were accused of accepting bribes to turn a blind eye to the deadly infractions. While fires are common in slums and other poorer areas, this particular disaster occupied local English language media for weeks perhaps due to the fact that the unlikely victims were upper middle class youth in an up-scale establishment.

RTI petitions are one of the most common legal mechanisms for exposing and confronting corruption in redevelopment conflicts or disasters such as Kamala Mills. The RTI is a landmark piece of legislation enacted in 2005 to enable any citizen to access government accounts and documents as a means of preventing corruption. Originally aimed to check and ensure that development funds reach the rural poor beneficiaries for which they were intended, the RTI has since been increasingly taken up by citizens and activists from a range of social locations and in urban areas as well. This transparency-based modality of anti-corruption has come to shape middle class public identity and claims to space and resources in the Indian city.