Don’t other cities also have spirit?

Do you remember where you were when the first bomb blasts ripped through Mumbai — it was still Bombay then of course — on March 12, 1993? The reason I bring this up is a reaction to watching television coverage of the Bombay high court verdict on Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive on November 26, 2008.

The blithe and casual way in which the “spirit of Mumbai” was referred to and the pat assumptions made about the bomb blasts rankled. To set the record straight, the bomb blasts followed the riots that erupted across India after the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992.  Mumbai, which, until then, was not really seen as either a communal or riot-prone city, saw terrible riots in January as well. The bomb blasts, masterminded by the underworld, followed the riots.

But this so-called spirit, which commentators speak of — most of whom did not live in Mumbai then or have never lived in it — has become a cliché to dog this city. Are we to assume that other places which have also suffered blasts and terrorist attacks do not have a spirit of their own? Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Malegaon, New York — these are just random names. Surely they also reacted to some way to the assault made on them?

There was one more substantial difference between 1993 and 2008 and not just that the name of the city had changed. Yes, Mumbai refused to be cowed down in 1993. But it was because the city had had enough after more than three months of tension. To have your own turn against you in this manner is a wake-up call and the city tried to pay heed — but like the rest of the country, the demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya took its toll on our social fabric.

The attack of 2008 was an assault by an enemy country — and the reaction from Mumbai was of anger. The rage was directed towards the politicians and the officials who were supposed to guard us. Those who were at the Gateway of India the week after the terror attacks would have seen the extent of that anger and the cowardly manner in which our political classes either stayed away or ran away.

In 1993, incidentally, I rushed to the Air India building and then to Dalal Street as soon as the first call about the blasts came in. The day after I went to Churchgate station where impromptu blood donation camps had been set up and commuters were contributing with zest, that famous spirit in full flow.

That spirit was not visible in 2008 — it was just rage. However, it is also possible that the spirit of Mumbai had since been eaten up by our wonderful administrators as they have destroyed the urban landscape and infrastructure to feed their pockets. An adarsh situation, no?