Clash of the worlds

Like many other correct thinking people, the recent incident of gang rape of a young girl in a moving bus in Delhi, has shocked me into numbness. The outrage over the incident just refuses to die (rightly so!)and even as I write this ,the unfortunate girl’s death in Singapore (flown out by a beleaguered government as a last ditch effort) is bound to lead to another round of protests, debates and analysis. The rising incidents of violent crime in our city has set me thinking that one important point seems to be have been overlooked by most of the so-called experts. I call it the clash of the worlds. Let me explain in detail. In the last decade, thanks to a liberalised economy, we have seen an unprecedented growth in the living standards of the middle and the upper middle class leading to a mass urbanisation of our habitat. This success has come at a cost but having paid the cost this stratum of the society wants to enjoy their hard earned money to the maximum extent. With banks ready to offer attractive loans, more and more people are getting sucked into a spiral of a highly consumption oriented society. However, in all the excitement there is another world at our periphery which we have completely ignored. This is the world to which the benefits of an open economy have yet to reach (inspite of whatever our economists might say about the trickle down effect).Due to rapid urbanisation we are slowly devouring their land and since no one paying attention to the rural economy they are left with little option but to head to the urban centres to seek a livelihood. And what do they find when they do end up at our doorsteps? The urban lifestyle which at first appears so  glittering and appealing from far proves to be nothing but a chimera and however hard they try, the entry doors have been firmly shut on them. They are condemned to live in another world from which they can definitely see our world with envy and frustration but can do precious little else. Each and every time they try to be a part of our world they are thrown back with such ferocity that they are scared to make any attempt in future. However, such is the imbalance between the two worlds that sooner or later there is bound to be a clash between the two and when ever that happens we are bound to see some pretty horrific incidents. (A similar theme has been wonderfully covered in Arvind Adiga’s prize winning The White Tiger) Obviously, this is not to justify these horrible acts but only an  attempt to make people realise how important it is to restore the balance between these two worlds, between the haves and the have nots . I know it would be naive to think that if we do manage to somehow address this issue   there will no longer be incidents of violent crime. There are many other reasons as well for such incidents and the perpetrators do deserve the harshest of punishment. However, to make our world a little safer, we need to prevent this clash between the two worlds for greater is the imbalance between the two more will be the probability of the two clashing which will manifest itself in some form of violence or the other.

The man who changed Bombay to Mumbai

Like many others I have also been taken by surprise at some of the tributes being showered on the late Shiv Sena supremo, Bal Thackrey making him out to be some sort of a statesman and his death a great loss to the nation. I also noticed some prominent Industrialists and Bollywood personalities taking part in his funeral. To me, however, he will always be someone who changed the cosmopolitan, outward looking, vibrant and multi-cultural city of Bombay to the bigoted, inward looking and deeply divided city of Mumbai. It has to be said that a series of terrorist acts in Bombay have played a role in this decline of the city but if there was one turning point which shook the foundation of erstwhile Bombay, it has to be riots of 92-93. Shiva Sena was at the forefront of systematic targetting of Muslims and their properties and they were openly exhorted by Bal Thackeray’s inflammatory editorials in the Sena mouthpiece ‘Samna’. The Srikrishna Commission, which enquired into the riots, clearly implicated the Shiv Sena and Bal Thackeray but it was sad to see that very few people seemed to bring this up during discussions up on the various TV channels post his death. Also, Muslims are not the only minority which have been at the receiving end of Shiv Sena since its inception in the sixties. South Indians, trade unionists, Dalits, people from Bihar/UP have all been targeted by the Shiv Sena at one time or the other. All of this in the name of ‘protecting’ the livelihood of the local Maharashtrians. But if one was to scratch a bit deep we will find that these minority groups were only being used to create a bogey to first scare and then seek retaliation from the innocent Maharashtrians, the main motive being to grab political power at whatever cost. Even when they did come to power (along with the BJP) what concrete step did he take to uplift the living standard of the common Maharashtrian? Did they open any special educational institutes for providing quality education to local Maharashtrians so that they can compete with people from other states in open competitive tests? Did they bring in any scheme to encourage entrepreneurship amongst the locals? No. The only solution they could come up was to push for reservations for the locals in competitive exams.

I am not against changing names of cities per se. After all, Madras was changed to Chennai and Calcutta is now Kolkatta. But nowhere has the implementation been done by the use of force and intimidation as was done in the case of Bombay by Shiv Sena. Any signage or usage of Bombay (however unintentional it may be) was (and still is) met with an immediate threat or intimidation by the Shiv Sena. Poor Karan Johar had to apologise to Shiv Sena for using Bombay instead of Mumbai in his movie ‘Wake up Sid’.

So, the question arises, where do we go from here? All is not lost. We still have pockets of Bombay in present day Mumbai and it is now upto the people of Mumbai to reclaim the lost glory of Bombay from these goons.But do the people still have the strength to brush aside the divisive machinations of Udhav and Raj Thackrey ? Only time will tell but I am not too optimistic about it.