A city stitched of clan tags

Tahe question of identity has become paramount in the minds of people today. Not the “Who am I” kind of existential question, but tribal affiliations. It is widely assumed that this dilemma assails minorities everywhere, because they feel abandoned and marooned in the sea of majoritarianism but even majorities often are at a loss.

In India, we have always been complacent about the notion that despite our vast and chaotic diversity, our multitude of languages, religions, castes, etc, we are comfortable in our wider Indian identity. The Indian lives largely in harmony with himself and his environment wearing several identities — religious, caste, linguistic — comfortably, all of which are subsumed under the Indian rubric.

Mumbai is a microcosm of India. Every group and sub-group lives here. No other Indian city compares to Mumbai in diversity. This is a city of migrants who are drawn here by the promise of great opportunity. Its glittering lights have beckoned Indians from far and wide who come to make their fortunes but end up making the city their home. Every ‘community’ has a place here and many often wear their tribal identities on their sleeve, but the tag Mumbaikar applies to each of us who lives here. “Mumbai belongs to India” is a simple statement by Sachin Tendulkar that should once and for all settle the debate.

But, of course, it never is that simple. Community affiliations have always been important in the city. Linguistic or religious ghettos are as old as the city itself. If Mohammed Ali Road is a Muslim stronghold, Bandra is the home of the city’s Catholics. Within these neighbourhoods, there are smaller, atomised groups — Shias, Sunnis, Bohris, Memons, Goans and East Indians. The same applies to Matunga, Dadar, Girgaum, Jogeshwari, Koliwada, Santacruz and Kalbadevi.

At the local, neighbourhood level, such groups are largely benign, though there are always periodic demonstrations of power: getting a restaurant closed down, barring a non-community member from buying a flat in a community building, turning down an applicant to an exclusive community-oriented club, etc. But for the most part people go about their business normally without worrying about who is standing next to them in a train or sitting in the cinema.
But occasionally assertions of identity become violent and other specific groups are marked as targets.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena going after ‘North Indians’ is ostensibly about Marathi identity though what is truly behind it is cynical politics. What it is doing may be news but is not very new. Bal Thackeray began the Shiv Sena four decades ago by going against another set of ‘outsiders’, South Indians, by which he mainly meant Udipi restaurant owners. The anti-South Indian platform  morphed into an anti-Muslim one when Hindutva helped the BJP become a nationwide force. In Mumbai the apogee of the Sena’s aggressive stance against Muslims was the riots of late 1992-93. Mumbai’s much vaunted cosmopolitanism, once held up as an example of what a modern Indian city should be, was shown to be a sham.

Since then, Mumbai has been through some of the most dramatic physical changes in its history. Whole neighbourhoods have been transformed, thanks to rebuilding and reconstruction. Old, traditional communities have been physically displaced. Fresh migrants of all classes keep coming in and established groups feel threatened by the influx. The demolition of mills and the migration of old, settled communities, which have now dispersed over the northern suburbs, has brought about a sense of displacement among the lower middle and middle classes. Parents — and not only Marathi-speaking ones — worry about their children’s inability to speak the mother tongue. The hapless North Indian migrant is a defenceless creature and becomes the target of political violence. Political parties are happy to take advantage of this.

So does this threaten the very character of Mumbai and with it the very idea of Mumbai as a melting pot of cultures where merit and talent count for more than caste, religious or linguistic affiliations? This is after all the home of the film industry, where Muslims have done better than in many other professions. Will we see a day when we will be nothing more than a cluster of ghettos, talking and mixing only when we need to but otherwise going back to our tribes? Is Mumbai as we know and love it, dying?

Some analysts have said that the whole idea of the tribe is changing. Now language, religion or caste matter less than common interests, professions, activities and even neighbourhoods. Some are more amorphous than others — the online community, for example, includes everyone who uses the Internet, while the Versova or the Cuffe Parade community is a bit more focused. Lovers of Harley Davidson motorcycles form one group with its own habits and rituals. Gays may be part of another. A person could belong to many such tribes and even have loyalties that go beyond mere religious or caste affiliations. That is possible, but older communities bond at a more visceral level. They generate a sense of belonging which is far deeper than say a group of online gamers.

As long as one can hold on to one’s identity — whatever it may mean to him or her — without threatening the other or feeling threatened, despite all the periodic demonstrations of violence, the core idea of Mumbai will not change. It will still be a welcoming city, where anyone with something to share and to offer can come in and set up home. But that can and should never be taken for granted; we have seen the fragility of our certitudes. The idea of Mumbai is but the idea of India on a smaller scale. Diversity gives India its character, tolerance its strength. Different communities living together add to the overall flavour of the nation; if they pull apart, it can only end up in disaster.