City without a state

Historically, the formation of the ‘Marathi’ society began in the 8th century. By the beginning of the 13th century, the identity had been consolidated. This was the time when Jnanadeva composed his commentary on the Gita. In political terms, for the first nine centuries of their history, the Marathi people related themselves more easily to the south. The polar star of the Marathi cultural unconscious, the ‘Vithoba’ of Pandharpur, was a culmination of several folk-traditions originating in the south.

It was during the 17th century that the Marathi people started looking north. Chatrapati Shivaji, whose appeal to the Marathi unconscious has never diminished over the last three centuries, mobilised the peasants and feudal lords to strike against the Mughals. Shivaji himself was an exceptionally gifted strategist. But the strings of rulers following him, excepting a few rare moments of brilliant strategy, could not fulfill the desire to cross the Narmada and establish Maratha rule in central and north India.

Shivaji continues to be the idol for the Marathi mind. In Maharashtra, his work and life cannot be subject to any critical scrutiny. A few years ago, the Bhandarkar Institute was attacked because of its association with a publication that had tried to place Shivaji in a critical perspective.

In sociological terms, the sect(s) organised around Vithoba, and the classes lionised by Shivaji, included the agrarian and working classes. Therefore, during the colonial times, the progressive thought of Jyotibha Phule and B.R. Ambedkar was not seen in Maharashtra as disjointed from the people’s historical imagination.

Founded by the colonial rulers, Mumbai has been an anomaly to the cultural history of Maharashtra. It remained a colonial city, dominated by the Parsis to the end of the 19th century; and throughout the 20th century, it kept developing as a centre of commerce. During the 1950s, Maharashtra did fight for its claim over Mumbai; but in cultural terms, Mumbai has remained strikingly distinct from the rest of Maharashtra. In many ways Delhi strikes one as more like Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Much less is Mumbai like the rest of Maharashtra. At best, it is both a utopia and a dystopia for the rest of the state.

Apart from the production of cinema and commerce, Mumbai continues to produce a huge lumpen class. If the great trade union movement of the 1960s was an expression of the mill workers of Mumbai, the rise of the Shiv Sena during the last three decades has been the articulation of the aspirations of Mumbai’s lumpen classes. The novelist Bhau Padhye has brilliantly captured the sociology of Mumbai’s ‘corner-gangs’ in many of his fictional works.

But the rise of Mumbai has not been a one-track story. It is entangled with the histories of migrations induced by the post-independence India’s development. It is also a part of the global story of clash between tradition and modernity. Besides, numerous sub-plots of idealism, enterprise and innovation are woven into the composite fabric that Mumbai has been.

Apart from being anything else, it is certainly the most resilient among the Indian cities. Mumbai knows well how to get back to its normal speed and rhythm within hours of a natural or man-made calamity. An attempt, at this stage of its being, to force Mumbai to internalise the historic fantasy of demonising the north or capturing it, is not likely to find any long-term support. However, if the powers that be do not attend to the ‘inner city’ degradation of Mumbai and the subhuman conditions of existence of the majority of Mumbai’s inhabitants, they may as well be ruled by the uncontained cultural intolerance.

Devy is a writer based in Baroda