Cry, the Beloved Mumbai

The situation in Mumbai is fast worsening by the hour. Will the arrest of Raj Thackeray and Abu Azmi help solve the problem of the metropolis? Has not the state slept over even more rabid speeches of Bal Thackeray? One derogatory remark about the prophet led to massacre in Bhiwandi and another in January 1993 sparked off another massacre entailing the serial bomb blasts. Do such periodic bouts of violence caused by inflammatory speeches produce any good to the city which is the source of sustenance to uncountable people? Will India grow richer as Mumbai descends into chaos?

Despite the fact that there is globalization in which India is reaping a rich harvest there is an inversion of sorts within the country. As our GNP is recording an enviable figure in the word economy there is dog eat dog competition within the various provinces or states and their people in the country for their stake in the economy.

The people of North India have been working hard like the Maharashtrians in Mumbai and elsewhere in the state for a better life. However, under the garb of globalization and market based economy there is emerging slowly the spectre of regionalism. Who is pocketing most of the windfall profits and where is it going is beginning to seep into the unconscious of the people. Raj Thackeray’s grouse against the north Indians from UP and Bihar is nothing new for the metropolis. Like uncle like nephew. But surreptitiously the nephew is shielding the Gujaratis who he thinks have learnt Marathi while the northerners haven’t. However, the facts on the ground belie this assertion. Maharashtra had had Gujarati traders and shopkeepers since time immemorial. Hence the linguistic concession given to them is immaterial. But this hides the fact that the Ambanis have sunk more wealth in Gujarat than in Maharashtra. Dhirubhai Ambani and sons have lived and prospered in Maharashtra but opened more industrial units in Gujarat. Their obvious choice is not the state of their residence and seat of their business firms. Super star Amitabh Bachchan also did admirably in Mumbai since the days of his skimpy appearance. He chose to open a college in his illustrious daughter in law’s name in UP. This drew the ire of Raj. But he knows ala his uncle which side of the bread is buttered.

On the other hand most of the north Indians of Bihar and UP origins have migrated to Mumbai and have lived there in the most necessitous circumstances and tried to achieve their cherished dream of owning a place under the sun there. They can now hardly wish to go back to their place of origin. To the overwhelming number of such people Mumbai is their last destination. It is their last refuge from penury and misery. They would like to be left to themselves to fend for themselves.

Who has really suffered in the disturbing times of today is of course the Marathi manoos. But he is not the five-star-dining and now five-star-hotel-owning Maharashtrian touting the inauguration of bhakri and jhunka joints at the corners of the metropolis. The onion-splitting and bhakri-breaking ones are satisfied with additional chilli to go down with all. They eat what they earn by the sweat of their brow. The real crux of the matter is that those who surfeit by taxing the affluence of the others are upset because of the declining prospects in the coming election.

The industrialists can and always have bankrolled elections. The overwhelming northerners haven’t the resources of the superstar from their region. They have secured a miniscule space of their own and have achieved success in thousands of enterprises by ingenuity and hard work. Who measures out milk for your early morning tea, but the northerner with his hanky tied around his forehead. Who helps you to choose the best piece for suit and kameez and salwar but the immigrant hawkers who eke out existence on the road? Securing jobs in railways requires the prospects of transfers out of state of your birth, for life, if you cannot manage to get home posting. If that is acceptable then the problem does not arise.

The pioneering Parsis were the godfathers of the metropolis. Now even they look beyond to invest in steel in Europe. The shifting population of workers and entrepreneurs around the world is essential feature of globalization. The fixity of the native to the soil militates against this mobile spirit of the enterprising. As long as he is in the village or town he is “content to breathe his native air in his native town” His “wish and care” a few paternal acres bind. But when he migrates to the city and competes there he is at odds with the others who are differently situated in life and who would do any sort of work to keep afloat and not sink in the bog of the poverty they left behind in the place of their origin. And the city is bedeviled by “Ill fares the land and hastening ills a prey where wealth accumulates and men decay.”
But the city is under the malady of provincialism of all sorts. If Raj Thackeray sneezes in Mumbai people catch cold at the Shalimar chowk of Nasik