An Opposition
talks [when it is not dumb]. Government acts [when it is not
indolent]. A Government is measured by what it does. The
Government of Maharashtra says that Mumbai belongs to every
Indian, but decides that its 24,000 taxi licences belong only to
a language-specific group. There is the usual fudge around the
decision, typical of a Government which wants to hunt with the
Shiv Sena and run with the Bihari vote.
One wonders if each licensee will actually be driving the cab
himself. Here is a much more likely scenario: mid-level
businessmen ready to deal with the rough and ready side of
Mumbai, in cahoots with politicians on both sides of the fence,
will pick up the licences and then hire cab drivers at
competitive wages. Since eager Biharis — that term includes
people from Uttar Pradesh, signalling the cultural power of
Bihar — will be ready to work for lower wages than Mumbaikars,
they will be eventually hired. It is a cheaper route to the
status quo for both the politician and the businessmen; the
first gets cheap votes and the second gets cheap labour.
There is something odd about the controversy. Common sense
suggests that it is in any taxi driver’s interest to pick up the
local language: why would he want to lose business by ignorance
of the passenger’s language? A taxi driver does not need to be
literature doctorate; just know enough language to be cordial
and communicative. The whip-up is more about politics than jobs,
which is why it is riddled with inconsistency. Nationalism
always falters against chauvinism, unless nationalism becomes
chauvinist. Thus, the Shiv Sena or its antagonist offshoot
headed by Raj Thackeray, will demand the return of an Akhand
Bharat from the Khyber Pass to the Chittagong Hill Tracts, but
deny an impoverished fellow-Indian marginal space in Mumbai.
The sharpest tweak to the Sena froth came not from its foes but
from its friend, the BJP, which raised an interesting
contradiction. How could the Sena, which opposed Article 370 for
Jammu and Kashmir, demand protective restrictions for Mumbai?
There was no answer, of course, because there isn’t one. My
regret is that the question has not been asked more often. But
it was a relief to witness all national parties taking on the
Senas not only on Mumbai but also on their menacing and communal
threats to Shah Rukh Khan. The BJP’s support to Shah Rukh was
important not only for the actor but also for the party. It was
an opportunity for the BJP to move a step or two away from its
image, and it did so. Is it compulsory to hate Pakistan and
Pakistanis in order to live in Mumbai? Is that the new oath you
have to take before Bal Thackeray? Will the Senas send squads to
drive the Prime Minister out of Delhi because he has agreed to
restart talks with Pakistan?
There was a time when investment in conflict offered regular
returns. The Senas have not understood a basic message from a
series of humiliating electoral defeats: significant sections of
the Indian electorate, and increasing numbers of the urban
young, have decided that this is arid yield from a low-return
idea. They understand something that seems to have escaped
politicians at the apex: economic growth cannot co-exist with a
culture of intimidation and violence. Indians have not fallen in
love with their neighbour. Emotion, in any case, is unnecessary
baggage. But war has never raised the living standards of men,
unless you have notions of becoming an imperial ruling class,
and that doesn’t work anymore, thank heaven.
A taxi driver has an iconic status, a signature presence, in any
great city — and Mumbai is one of the great urban centres of the
modern world. It must sustain both aspects: it must belong to
the world, and remain modern as well. A city either grows or
decays; it cannot stay stagnant. Mumbai cannot grow by becoming
isolationist, nor can Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore or Chennai.
Kolkata gave shelter and nourishment to the Sikh taxi driver
without demanding he learn Bengali; but he did learn Bengali,
and today his children have passed out from schools and got
jobs. That is what a great city does; it welcomes the forlorn
and lifts them. Mumbai’s extraordinary film industry is the most
exciting meeting place of India; its skyscrapers were built with
steel from Jamshedpur; its markets are full of food and goods
from India and the globe. Mumbai does belong to Maharashtra, but
it is also the present and future of India.
Permalink:
Licence to drive,
everywhere
Peace means the summer of
1965
There is a duality
but not a contradiction running through the complexities of the
India-Pakistan relationship. Friday’s newspapers, for instance,
reported a confrontation between Home Minister P. Chidambaram
and Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani: the former is convinced that
Islamabad is protecting the widely-acknowledged principal
architect of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Hafiz Saeed, chief
of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. Gilani thinks India has not supplied
sufficient evidence against Saeed. Chidambaram counters this
with, “What can I do if a Government closes its eyes to the
evidence?”
Permalink:
Peace means the summer of 1965
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