If we are to believe what we hear and see, the most crucial part of the Mumbai conflict is over. In a tragedy, Shakespearean or whatever, it would be the end of Act III and the beginning of Act IV, Scene 1. But since this is a repetition that keeps repeating itself, we will simply call it a Tamaasha, an Indian farce. A fascist political conglomerate that has built its reputation and political base solely by assaulting disparate groups of people – trade union members, non-Maharashtrians ("south Indians") Muslims, non-Maharashtrians ("Biharis" and "Bhaiyyas") again etc. – is on another campaign, ostensibly on the grounds of protecting Mumbai from Hindi-speaking cabdrivers and other immigrants, from Muslims who are all secret Paki-lovers and terrorists, and last but not the least, the current uncrowned king of Hindi Cinema: Shahrukh Khan. Last week, in spite of the threats and sporadic incidents, Karan Johar’s My Name is Khan, starring Shahrukh, was released and shown in packed theatres. Politicians and the Bollywood glitterati showed up to show support for the film. Suddenly, everyone’s brother is a film-critic, and the net is abuzz with Shahrukh’s nuanced performance and Johar’s brave political epic. MNIK is doing brisk business all over the world, and all is fine. Mumbai won, the Sena lost; the end, Bollywood-style.
The only problem with the above story is that it is not just untrue but never-in-hell-could-this-happen kind of improbable, like the narratives of most Bollywood films. The Sena did not lose, and Mumbai did not win. If anyone actually won, it is the multi-crore rupee industry of film production and distribution, conjoined with the multiplexes. There have been – to be fair – plenty of discussions about the ridiculousness of the Sena’s demand that all cabdrivers speak Marathi, but that was the subplot, comparable to the murder of the blind imam’s son by Gabbar in Sholay, the main trauma being the violence that Thakur and his family suffered. I am sure I am not the only person in the world to notice right now the amazing structural similarity between Bollywood and Indian politics, at least the shared elements of composition: family, friends, cliques, grand advertisements, tantalizing dreams of change, and clever returns to status quo. At the end of every election and the end of every movie: catharsis and no real consequence.
It is therefore time to wake up and realize that the success of MNIK is not representative of a political or even a moral victory over the Sena’s politics of language and culture, a politics that is juvenile at its best and fascist at its worst. The Indian middle-class needs to recognize that there is politics as usual – with its fair share of nepotism, bribes, scandal, rigging elections etc. – and then there is fascism – with carefully orchestrated pogroms, propaganda of uninhibited hatred and violence, etc. The fact that Thackeray and party have managed to embarrass and alienate the BJP should be the loudest wake-up call for all. Let’s face it: it takes a lot for the party of karsevaks and the likes of Modi to be embarrassed. A bigger issue than that of the untenability of the Sena’s demands is that this is not a hastily put together group of crazies; it is a legitimate political party. It has received the mandate to represent the will of the people in more than 40 constituencies. Fascist regimes in history have almost always been initially legitimized by public mandate, and it is almost always too late to take that mandate back when the hour of the wolf arrives at your door. Forget the history books; have we not seen enough films not to know this?
In the last few weeks, we have heard of the enormous heterogeneity of Bombay’s culture and history, of the strength and beauty of all the colours of the rainbow. We cannot erase three and a half centuries of modern history that begun with a political marriage of convenience between an English monarch and a Portuguese princess. The shining port city that the British built from scratch went far beyond its Mughal rival: Surat.