Where the mind is without fear...
I don’t have to justify or testify my love and respect for this city of Mumbai. However, how you, my readers, would understand what I am saying would depend a lot on your own understanding of love and respect.
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When I expressed my disapproval upon
the curfew imposed due to the death of Mr. Bal Thackeray and the resulting
inconveniences caused, a very dear friend of mine told me, “Stop criticizing on things. Find solution. Respect the
place where you stay… accept their culture. It’s same like people love
Rajnikath in south India. And Amitabhji in Bihar. It’s their love for their
leader.”
I have
always wondered what the “culture” of this city is. Is it bringing an entire
city to halt if a certain group’s beloved leader dies? Or is it forcefully
dumping one’s sorrow on another? Or is it to force the city to shut shop? Can we use examples of
fanatical behavior of another state or city to justify our own?
And before you get judgmental
about me, let me make this clear, I am not against what Mr. Thackeray stands
for. In fact, I haven’t studied his work and life in much detail. I am only
against any kind of fanaticism and blind faith which can pertain to any
religion, caste, gender, sexuality, etc. So here, my views are not about Shiv
Sena really. It’s about this city I am apparently in love with – the only
place, of all that I have traveled so far, which let me be who I am and gives me the courage to let others be who they are.
I read
A. Farooqui’s “Opium City: the making of early Victorian Bombay” a few
days back. He writes, “the diverse composition of the capitalist class in terms
of the communities from which it was drawn – Parsi, Marwari, Konkani Muslim,
Gujrati Bania, Bohra, Armenian, Indo-Portuguese, to name only a few – gave it a
cosmopolitan character, which was reinforced by a relatively high degree of
collaboration with private European leaders. The openness that this implied
rendered Mumbai less of a Maharashtrian and more of an imperial city.”
If I believe Mr. Farooqui, which
I have every reason to given the kind of research he has put into his work, it
appears to me that the most significant characteristic of this city is its
cosmopolitan nature. Hence, I ask whether the events unfolding on that Saturday
and Sunday stand justified?
In my exploration, I was talking
to another friend of mine. She said, “Though ideologically, I condemn what
happened, I think that was the best way it could have been handled. They released
the news in the evening keeping in mind that people would already be going to
their homes after work and least chaos was caused. Knowing Shiv Sainiks, it was
important to give this national and state honour to keep them pacified and not
cause riots, which otherwise would have.”
I think this is important for us
to understand. It definitely appears to be a thought out move; the best that
could have been done ‘knowing the Shiv Sainiks’. However, this hints at a very interesting
question – do we legitimize fear because we expect it - fear of something
concrete and practical – or do we prepare ourselves to deal with it? Likewise
then, should we simply give away Kashmir because there exists a perpetual state
of fear and people do get killed in everyday affairs, isn’t it?
I woke up at around 08:30 pm on
Saturday and went out on a stroll to grab a bite. The only people on the streets
were the police and the Sena youth in their SUVs bearing the Shiv Sena jhanda. And a few random strange people like me. Hadn’t seen
Chembur station like that before; not even at midnight. While treading those
barren streets that evening, it wasn’t fear that ran through me but a mix of
anger and sadness. My understanding of
Mumbai was shaken that day.
Mumbai,
a city, where when hundreds of people die in a train bomb blast or a market
blow up, it only takes sensational breaking news features and a few moments of
mourning to get it moving again. Mumbai,
the same city, comes to a standstill to
mourn the death of one political head. Is that how the balance shifts? A Bal Thackeray’s life is more precious than
all those people, it seems. Not because he was a great leader, but more because
he was a demi-god. I was attending a book launch on Gandhi a few days back
where Justice Dharmadhikari mentioned that we Indians have this tendency to
create gods out of human beings. We revere our leaders with such fanaticism
that we just don’t want to look at the other side. And then we make their
status unattainable and continue to remain who we are, instead of learning from
their lives. We did that with Gandhi so much that he has almost become a joke
in our country. Whereas many other nations and leaders across the world, from
Malcolm X to Nelson Mandela to Martin Luther King, critically analyzed his work
and learnt from him, saw a possibility of doing similar things and actually
went ahead and did something about it. Gandhi sadly for us remains lying shut
in our text books; folded in our pockets and garlanded every 2nd Oct
in every public institution, street and park.
Another
interesting thing about us - we make
death sacred. It’s an auto-correction for all faults one commits in his/her
life. So all of a sudden Mr. Thackeray becomes a national leader – though he
may not have even vaguely effected say a Tamil Nadu or Nagaland. All TV
channels spoke about this “tiger’ and his brave life, he was given a national
honour- his body being draped in the Tiranga
and the police force giving him the official
Salami.
I go back to my original question
– does creating a fearful environment in Mumbai because of a Marathi-Hindu
leader stand justified? And where does it lead us to from here? Does Mumbai now live on the mercy and
‘goodness’ of organizations like Shiv Sena?
A city known for its cosmopolitan
outlook, and probably the only city in India, almost died that evening. It was
drenched in the cruel fear of a dead man and his army of irrational men. It’s
the same fear that I suppose, and what most Shiv Sainiks believe, Mr. Bal
Thackeray fought against, during Mumbai’s underworld days.
Today, they forced us inside our
homes. Tomorrow, they will force us outside it. And we will simply sit and
enjoy a non-working day. I think the Shiv Sena
supporters’ loss is not in the fact that Mr. Bal Thackeray died. Rather while
he was alive, he couldn’t develop and instil the critical, sane and researched
perspective/ understanding of leadership. He may have given a lot to the city
of Mumbai, but he has left it with some highly irrational people as his
followers.
And
for my friend and many others like her, I just hope that someday they start
respecting the cosmopolitan culture that characterized Mumbai, and in my imagination
still does. I hope that someday we all realize that fear can never be equated
to respect and fear can never be won over by another set of fears. I hope that
someday we all realize that a wrong done at one place doesn’t justify the wrongs
done at other places.
I don’t have to justify or testify my love and respect for this city of Mumbai. However, how you, my readers, would understand what I am saying would depend a lot on your own understanding of love and respect.
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To read the previous posts in this series, you may visit following links:
Image courtesy: http://forum.xcitezones.com/threads/24929-Mumbai-Shiv-Sena-patriarch-Bal-Thackeray-passes-away-at-86
