Defusing Mumbai

The reality of Mumbai is finally beginning to surface. Union minister PrafulPatel is the latest leader to come out of the closet and endorse the sentimentsof Raj Thackeray. He joins Sharad Pawar, Narain Rane, Chhagan Bhujbal and therest. Mumbai is the richest city in India. By keeping Mumbai in Maharashtra thepurse strings and financial leverage remain with the politicians of the state.Nothing wrong with that if the politicians had the sense and decency to retainthe cosmopolitan character of India’s financial capital and one of Asia’sleading global cities. It is clear by now that bedazzled by electoral politicsthese leaders are incapable of doing that. In the pursuit of vote bank politicsthey are endangering the unity of the nation. What is the practical remedy?

As this scribe pointed out through these columns as early as February12 this year, Mumbai should never have been a part of Maharashtra. In 1956it was incorporated in the state by the weak-kneed policy of the Congressgovernment under Pandit Nehru. The origins and growth of Bombay were traced toshow that its development and culture from inception had been cosmopolitan. TheBritish, the Parsis, Gujaratis, Jews, Marwaris and others had contributed morethan the Maharashtrians themselves in developing the wealth and character of thecity. The States Reorganization Commission had retained Bombay as the capital ofthe undivided Maharashtra and Gujarat state. In present day Mumbai, theMaharashtrian population is around 35 per cent.

There is therefore only one solution to defuse the Mumbai crisis. Mumbai shouldbe made into a city state as had been demanded by rational voices afterMaharashtra was separated from Gujarat. Mumbai will always be dominated byMaharshtrian culture. But it should not be choked by vote bank politics.

At this stage there is only one effective way of achieving that. The majority ofvoters in Mumbai who are non-Maharashtrian should make an electoral front anddeny all existing parties success in the city in the next polls. All the leadersof all the parties in the rest of India who criticize Raj Thackeray mustpartially sink their differences to unite at least to support the formation ofsuch a front to contest polls in Mumbai. Many Marathi speaking voters might alsosupport this front. That is the only democratic and fitting response to theMumbai chauvinists. Will the leaders genuinely opposed to Raj Thackeray’spolitics do that? If they cannot, they may as well shut up.