After Sachin Tendulkar, it is Mukesh Ambani who has said the obvious – Mumbai belongs to all Indians. That it takes a sports icon and a business magnate to articulate a virtual axiom points to the deplorable context in which such truisms have to be emphasised. Nothing can be more damaging to Mumbai’s reputation than the need for such assertions because Tendulkar’s and Ambani’s statements point to the presence of elements which are bent on destroying the city’s cosmopolitanism.
Their identity, of course, is no secret. Nor are they a new phenomenon. The rise of such insular forces began in the mid-1960s when the Shiv Sena, known for its Marathi chauvinism, began to make its presence felt, mainly through the vituperative utterances of its leader, Bal Thackeray, against outsiders. Now, a breakaway group, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), led by Bal Thackeray’s nephew, Raj, has made its appearance.
Claiming to stand for the Marathi manoos (men), their politics of sub-nationalism is marked by violence against immigrants and perceived “aliens” – whether south Indians in the 1960s, Muslims in the nineties or north Indians today.
Historically, of course, such fascistic groups are known to have the support of the lumpen proletariat, who use street violence to establish themselves as gang leaders, and the lower middle classes, which fear the loss of employment opportunity by the inflow of people from other states.
But the scene in Mumbai and, indeed, in India is complicated by the decline of national parties with their broad-minded outlook. Since the Congress can be said to be the only national party in India considering that the other party which claims to be one – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – is itself guided by an anti-minority philosophy, it is the Congress’s degeneration which is primarily responsible for the rise of the xenophobic outfits.
This disturbing development is not confined to Mumbai and Maharashtra alone. Regional parties driven solely by caste or community or state-level loyalties have appeared virtually all over the country. They include parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Samajwadi Party championing the cause of the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) in the Hindi heartland, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) favouring the Dalits, the Akali Dal of the Sikhs, the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) claiming to represent the Tamils and the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) standing for the Assamese.
The situation in Mumbai, however, is different for two reasons. One is that the Shiv Sena and the MNS base their politics only on violently attacking the immigrants. This isn’t the case with the others, which may favour one caste or community but do not always target the others.
The second reason is their influence in Mumbai, which is India’s commercial capital and No. 2 metropolis. In the years when New Delhi was no more than a dull town of bureaucrats and politicians, Mumbai, or Bombay as it was known then, was a thriving city known for its night life, the glamorous Hindi film world and an urbane, cultured population comprising people from different backgrounds – Parsis, Christians, “Madrasis”, Hindi-speaking north Indians and, of course, the Marathis.
The “Maximum City”, as a best-seller called it, was, like all major cities, a magnet for people looking for jobs. These were available for all – from the jet-setting corporate executives to aspiring film stars to lowly manual labourers. Not surprisingly, the city also had the largest slum in Asia in Dharavi and a violent underworld with the mafia dons acquiring a nationwide notoriety.
It is the volatile combination of an unending influx of people from other states, especially those like Bihar which suffered from a severe economic downturn, and the violence of the gang leaders, which fuelled the growth of the provincial organisations.
They were also aided by the cynicism of major parties like the Congress, which used the Shiv Sena in the sixties to target the communist trade unions, and has been mollycoddling the MNS in recent years to divide the anti-Congress vote.
Till now, the silence of the responsible citizens over the depredations of the narrow-minded ‘kupmanduks’ (frogs in the well), either out of fear or because of their general political insignificance, encouraged the chauvinists to strut about with impudence.
It is a matter of satisfaction, therefore, that at last eminent personalities like Tendulkar and Ambani have decided to speak out. They probably felt that the crude parochialism of uncle Bal and nephew Raj have reached a stage where Mumbai was earning a bad name.
For Ambani, there was perhaps an economic compulsion as well. If Mumbai comes to be known as a city where outsiders are not safe, both high-flying executives and the humble taxi drivers will tend to avoid it with damaging consequences for the business world.
Hence Ambani’s observation that “we in the corporate sector got out of the licence raj, but the poor taxiwallah is still stuck in the licence raj”. The reference was to the state government’s notification making only those who had lived in Maharashtra for 15 years and could speak Marathi eligible for taxi licences.
The document was later modified following a public outcry to include Gujarati and Hindi among the language which the taxi driver must know. But it was another instance of the Congress-led government playing the parochial card.
Since the national parties are seemingly reluctant to take a bold stand against divisive politics, the regional parties can only be checked if distinguished citizens start speaking out against them.
rounak