Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: Tehelka
Date: July 29, 2006
URL: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main18.asp?filename=Ne072906Page_06.asp
Introduction: Mumbai is in fatal denial. That
has made a wimp of a once spirited city
Let me make yet another horrible confession
of political incorrectness. I happen to be among the minuscule die-hards who
are instinctively at ease with Bombay, rather than Mumbai. Perish the thought
that this has anything to do with any aesthetic repugnance for the Shiv Sena-bjp
government that effected the change in the mid-1990s. It is simply a question
of habit and a dogged refusal to change with the times. I can't speak for
Marathi and Hindi speakers but to one of Macaulay's orphans, Bombay sounds
more natural than Mumbai. In secular India, however, it is de rigueur to say
Mumbaikar rather than Bombayite.
I am, of course, neither a Mumbaikar nor a
Bombayite. My closest connection with the fabled "Mumbai spirit"
about which the English TV channels and a particular breed of bleeding hearts
go on and on, is the striking, light-blue bottle of Bombay Sapphire. I have
always been a casual visitor to the city - one who takes taxis rather than
the commuter trains to travel from Colaba to Borivali - and naturally prefer
the verandah of the Bombay Gymkhana to the conviviality of the Ganesh Lunch
Home. My Bombay is hazy and centred on people rather than places.
Yet, even from a distance, the slow transition
from Bombay to Mumbai was more than apparent. In my mind, there were always
two Bombays. The first, gleamed from countless Hindi films of the Sixties,
centred on the juxtaposition of the bright lights of Malabar Hill with the
rain-soaked slums where the other half lived. Bombay, it was apparent, was
a city of extremes - where fat cats and dynamic entrepreneurs prospered and
working people, like Raj Kapoor in Shree 420, struggled. It was also a metropolis
marked by the archaic charm of the Parsis, the dash of the Gujaratis and the
civilised decency of the Marathi middle classes.
Bombay was always an old city. The Indo-Saracenic
architecture of its public buildings and the lovely art-deco style of the
1940s apartment buildings, gave Bombay a style of its own. Of the three cities
created by the Raj, Bombay, in fact, was always the least British. Unlike
Calcutta where Marwaris serviced the dominant Scot-dominated boxwallahs, the
economy of Bombay was always firmly in the hands of the "natives".
The implication of this on the collective
mindset of Bombay was profound. The nationalist movement was very generously
funded by the Bombay elite because they wanted a state that would accord preferential
treatment to Indians. At the same time, the more visceral dimensions of anti-colonialism,
which were so marked among the Bengali babus in Calcutta and the impoverished
Muslim gentry of the United Provinces, was missing from the city. Bombay bowed
to three deities - Ganpati and Goddess Lakshmi, the icons of good living and
wealth, and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the symbol of Hindu assertion.
The importance of Shivaji to Bombay can hardly
be overstated. He was, of course, the audacious folk hero who had made a daring
escape from Agra Fort and clawed one of Aurangzeb's generals to death. At
the same time, he was the founder of the only, self-avowedly Hindu kingdom
in modern times. The Hindus, it is said, were always a nation who lacked the
vision of a State. In Hindu pad-padshahi, Shivaji and his Peshwa successors
conferred on the Hindus a sense of governance.
The British realised the importance of this
phenomenon far more presciently than future Indian historians. A few years
ago, I read the autobiography of Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the man who was assassinated
by Madanlal Dhingra in London - an act of retribution for O'Dwyer's complicity
in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar. A passage from the book, published
in 1925, is worth recounting. The Maratha Brahmins, wrote O'Dwyer, "have
by actual experience learned what it is to rule; the others have, for at least
nine centuries, been under successive conquerors; and with all their forensic
ability show so far no indications of any capacity for organising a government
of their own."
The profound sense of civic pride and local
activism that was the hallmark of Bombay was a legacy of this historical ability
to wield power. Bombay was always a well-governed city because politicians
of all hues - Congressmen, Socialists, Communists and Hindu nationalists -
imbibed the Peshwa tradition of sophisticated statecraft. All the major political
and social movements, from the dalit self-respect movement to the Hindu assertiveness
over Ram Janmabhoomi, found reflection in Bombay.
It was a happy city too. So much so that Mohammed
Ali Jinnah, a stalwart of the Bombay Bar, always dreamt of spending his last
years in the house on Malabar Hill rather than some God-forsaken palace in
Karachi.
The deluge began with a series of parallel
developments - the growth of a lumpen Shiv Sena, the rise of a powerful Muslim
underworld and, finally, the coming of age of a deracinated cosmopolitan elite.
Many of these developments had their origins between the mid-Sixties and early-Eighties
but they flowered and took shape around the time that Bombay was unceremoniously
dumped for Mumbai.
The 1992-93 riots were, in many ways, a turning
point. The more lumpen elements of the Shiv Sena emerged as saviours of the
Hindus and soon turned their skills from protection to extortion. The more
rabid of the Bhendi Bazar lot acquired disproportionate clout within the Muslim
community, overshadowed pragmatic elements like the Bohras, and, after linking
up with the underworld, formed the nucleus of the terrorist cells which organised
the first devastating bombings in March 1993. And finally, the riots and the
subsequent serial blasts became the occasion for a clutch of cosmopolitan
activists - with generous help from the media - to hijack the agenda of activism.
Working in The Times of India during those turbulent days, I recall the editorial
savagery which greeted the suggestion that the isi and Dawood Ibrahim had
anything to do with the blasts. Rajdeep Sardesai even wrote an edit page article
regretting that Dawood's patriotism was being questioned by nasty saffronites.
Given this backdrop, the public life of today's
Mumbai has only a passing resemblance with the vibrant activism of Bombay.
For all its obsession with money, Bombay always nurtured a fierce sense of
right and wrong. Even Bal Thackeray's movement was born of a legitimate sense
of marginalisation felt by Marathi-speaking citizens. And, with leaders like
SA Dange and George Fernandes at the helm, the Communists and Socialists did
address the issue of working class rights quite effectively.
After Mumbai, the priorities have got horribly
skewed. It's the depoliticisation of civic culture that is at the root of
the problem. It is pertinent to ask whether this was a pattern triggered by
the media or an emerging trend that merely found reflection in the growing
importance of mindless supplements and Page Three. Whatever the reason, it
witnessed the emergence of a wave of hedonism and a socially-sanctioned disregard
for larger community interests. There is something profoundly wrong when advertising
agencies start setting the social agenda - and this is precisely what has
been happening in Mumbai for more than a decade.
Mumbai has unleashed the powerful entrepreneurial
instincts of a people and, at the same time, been unable to give them a sense
of belonging. I have little or no doubt that if Mumbai's civic crisis persists,
these very dynamic forces will vote with their feet and relocate nationally
or globally. There is nothing but the fear of more bombings to tie them to
Mumbai.
Seen from a distance, it is Mumbai's disinterest
with itself that was at the heart of the "Mumbai spirit" which was
so lavishly celebrated after the July 11 bombings. A carnage of this magnitude
would, in any healthy democracy, have provoked a bout of both anger and soul-searching.
It did neither.
Mumbaikars, if media reports are any indication,
tut-tutted their way home from the destruction on the tracks, exchanged horror
stories and then decided that it was best to pretend nothing unusual has happened.
This was no stiff upper-lip and forbearance at work; it was a remarkable display
of ostrich-like behaviour - pretending that nothing has happened.
It was this growing disinclination to engage
with the city that gave a licence to the jehadis in the first place. A sense
of commitment to the city would have led to the red alert being sounded at
least three years ago - after the Gateway of India and the Ghatkopar blasts.
Those who observed the Azad Maidan rally of Muslim organisations during the
visit of President Bush earlier this year should have alerted people to a
new radical menace. Instead, everyone chose to look the other way. They salvaged
their conscience by not rioting after 200 people died.
Killing innocent Muslims in an insane act
of retribution was, of course, never the answer. But the least that was expected
of Mumbaikars was a focused show of anger. What we have seen instead - rather,
the TV channels have shown - are gestures of collective wimpishness. Mumbai
needs to show it cares for itself and the country.
The writer is a senior Delhi-based journalist
