Opinion Bollywood or Mollywood?

I pick up a slim book from my shelf—Rabindranath Tagore’s Faith of A Poet. The publisher’s name is given as “Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan,Bombay-400 007”. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan,like Bollywood,is one of the many great institutions this city gave birth to when it was ‘Bombay’. (I wonder how many great institutions the proponents of Mumbai have built after changing the city’s name.) Its founder was Dr. K.M. Munshi,an eminent freedom fighter and littérateur in Gujarati who had made Bombay his home. Munshi himself was a devoted follower of another great Gujarati,who lived more years of his action-filled life in Bombay than in any other city in India—Mahatma Gandhi.

I go straight to Tagore’s immortal poem from Gitanjali,‘Where the mind is without fear’,which never ceases to inspire and enlighten me no matter how many times I read it. The Gurudev prayed for a future in which “the world has not been broken up into fragments of narrow domestic walls” and “where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit”. He wanted India to “awake into that heaven of freedom”. But looking at the fate of Wake Up Sid,I ask myself: what is my beloved Mumbai now waking up to? We are all now being slowly pushed into the hell of unfreedom. Narrow domestic walls between Marathi and non-Marathi populations are being created with no fear of being questioned and countered.

Mumbai has always been known by three names —Mumbai,Bombay and Bambayi. For as long as one can think of,almost everyone was comfortable with all the three names,and the city itself was hospitably comfortable with all those diverse communities that called it by these three different names. In 1996,the Union government consented to changing the official name of the city from Bombay to Mumbai. The names of Madras (Chennai),Calcutta (Kolkata) and Bangalore (Bengaluru) were also changed. Nothing wrong with that. There is indeed some justification in changing the names of cities and places that underwent anglicisation during colonial rule. But just because the official name has changed,we cannot chauvinistically,dogmatically and divisively insist that it alone be used.

After all,didn’t the new names that came into being during the British period,and which remained current after they left,also become a part of our own collective local and national ethos? In Mumbai itself,many suburbs have dual names. What are Vandre and Sheev in Marathi are Bandra and Sion to most Mumbaikars,including Marathi-speaking people. Many people in Karnataka still use the name ‘Bangalore’ and not ‘Bengaluru’. Are they hurting the sentiments of Kannadigas by doing so?

Paris is called Paree in French,‘Parigi’ in Italian and Paname,a French slang,by many young people in France itself. Does the French capital feel insulted by this nomenclatural plurality? Take the name of our own country. India is a name given to us by foreigners. But does it negate the fact that it has become a part of our own self-identity?

At a time when many important issues are demanding politicians’ attention in the run-up to the assembly polls in Maharashtra,Raj Thackeray is trying to cook up a baseless and politically motivated controversy. If he wants ‘Bombay’ to be completely banished from its people’s collective consciousness,does he want it to exit Bollywood too,since the ‘B’ in Bollywood obviously has its etymological root in the name that MNS hates so much? Does he want Bollywood to become Mollywood? Should that happen,the day isn’t far when the Hindi film industry,the pride of Mumbai and its sole reason for global fame,decides to exit Mumbai. Many states in north India would be too happy to welcome the cinema town and incentivise its relocation. As it is,the rise of chauvinistic,myopic,corrupt and increasingly confrontationist politics in Mumbai has led to its alarming decline vis-à-vis other cities in the country. Mumbai is rapidly lagging behind in infrastructure,industry,civic amenities,education,cleanliness,city governance and overall quality of life. Mumbai had attained its greatness in the past because of its culture of cosmopolitanism,which was its mystique as well as its soul. This cosmopolitan personality used to attract the most creative and adventurous people from different walks of life and different parts of the country. Now it is doing so less,and worryingly less. Does the MNS chief think he can achieve Maharashtra’s ‘Navanirman’ (renaissance) by accelerating Mumbai’s decline?

I earnestly urge Raj Thackeray: “You are young. You have many admirable qualities. By all means champion the cause of Marathi and Maharashtra,because it is a cause worth championing,provided it is done constructively. But your present narrow-vision politics,and the undemocratic means to promote it,will damage both the cause and its votary.”

sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com

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