A Mumbai cut off from its roots

Perhaps the only surprising aspect of the furore caused by Shobhaa  De’s tweet regarding Mumbai as a separate entity from Maharashtra is that she has refused — so far, at least — to back down. That is as rare as it is commendable. The idea of a stray thought bounded by 140 characters inflicting a collective aneurysm on a city’s political class should seem tragicomic.

But in a Mumbai where the Shiv Sena has spearheaded the conversion of popular politics into a particularly xenophobic strain of populist politics over the course of five decades, it’s par for the course. Consequently, copping to sins real and imagined is de rigueur when the Sena cadre turns up at someone’s door as it has in De’s case. 

The fear compelling such a reaction stems from very real reasons. For all that the Shiv Sena, and now, Raj Thackeray-led rebel faction, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), function within the framework of electoral politics, their instincts and core ideology lead them to see extra-democratic means as valid political tools. Thus, when Shiv Sena spokesman Sanjay Raut says in this instance that the party will teach people speaking of a separate Vidarbha or a separate Mumbai to respect Maharashtra, he is not merely employing the rhetoric of political intimidation. He is making a concrete threat backed by a long history of Shiv Sena violence.

That history stretches back to its founding in 1966. Like many nativist movements, the Shiv Sena was built on the foundations of the Marathi-speaking population’s legitimate fears when Maharashtra’s formation led to political empowerment without corresponding economic empowerment. And like many nativist movements, it followed — and to a great extent, led — those fears of economic exclusion and loss of socio-cultural influence into unreasonable territory.

From violently turning on unions and left-wing organisations — ironically enough, given that the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, responsible for Maharashtra’s creation, included a substantial number of leftist politicians and parties — and targeting south Indians as ‘outsiders’ stealing Marathi jobs to co-opting Hindutva and targeting Muslims in riots in 1970, 1984 and 1992-’93, the Shiv Sena has explored multiple facets of a violent politics of exclusion.
These days, of course, it has grown even more catholic in its tastes when it comes to selecting an opponent du jour. A celebrity author will do as well as north Indian migrants in a pinch.

The pity is that the other players in Maharashtra’s political landscape have allowed the Shiv Sena to dictate terms. At best, they have failed to speak up against its brand of politics; at worst, they have tried to follow suit or actively colluded. The BJP makes a natural partner, but the Congress is no less guilty; as far back as the 1970s, it was believed to have used the Shiv Sena to break the unions’ power.

Now, of course, there is qualitatively little difference between their respective brands of politics. If Raut displays a scant understanding of fundamental rights and demands that the state government register an offence against De, BJP’s Mumbai unit chief does likewise. Meanwhile, Raj Thackeray’s ad hominem attack on her is supported by NCP’s Nawab Malik claiming that De has no right to make the kind of statement she did.

By buying into the Shiv Sena’s mythmaking, Maharashtra politicians have created a Mumbai divorced from a historical reality where newcomers are not ‘others’ but an intrinsic part of its founding and rise — dating back to the first great wave of migrants, both Hindu and Muslim, in the 17th century, well before the Hornby Vellard project turned Mumbai from a cluster of seven islands into a city. And they have created a city that, cut off from its roots, will find it that much more difficult to evolve.

The author is senior editor, dna