Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Raj Thackeray is always desperate for provocation. So it was entirely to be expected that he would eagerly take offence to a Mumbai police officer8217;s statement that the city is nobody8217;s preserve. Joint Commissioner of Police K.L. Prasad was stating, if colourfully, the only reaction that law enforcement authorities could have to the kind of intimidation and disruption Thackeray8217;s Maharashtra Navanirman Sena has unleashed on Mumbai. No, Thackeray8217;s bully tactics of asking the cop to meet him on the street do not surprise. What surprises is how lonely that official voice of defiance is. Ever since Thackeray hit upon his violent insistence that all of Mumbai swear by Marathi and pledge their devotion to the state, the state government has absented itself in word and action. By this sustained abdication, the government has allowed a single bully to prosper and tarnish the city with xenophobia.
For Thackeray, the targeting of Prasad comes conveniently fast upon his 8220;acceptance8221; of an apology from Amitabh Bachchan for wife Jaya8217;s reference to her Uttar Pradesh connections. Bachchan alone can say what compelled him to articulate his affection for Mumbai in terms that Thackeray would construe as an apology, instead of as a counter-vision of Mumbai8217;s traditional inclusiveness of identities and ideas. This may not be a full explanation for Bachchan8217;s personal choices, but it is true that members of civil society are intimidated against making individual noises of defiance when the state refuses to take cognisance of the outright flouting of laws. Thackeray has menaced not just sundry film actors. He has disrupted small businesses and normal life, each time in a manner that violates the law of the land. And each time, he has done so to be allowed to roam free to voice yet again his contrived politics of identity.
