In less than two weeks or so from now, Mumbai will be observing a grisly anniversary, the 20th anniversary of the worst riots to hit the city in living memory. For several weeks Bombay, as it was then known, had burnt as rampaging mobs went on a wild killing spree. Entire neighbourhoods were gutted and whole families were wiped out. Less remembered is the fact that tens of thousands of residents left the city for ever. These included not just the poor, who lost everything, but also professionals who could not come to terms with the mayhem. For them, the riots demolished the city’s ethos and values and turned it into a cauldron of hate and fear.
The cold facts are available in several news stories, most notably in the Shrikrishna report which went into painstaking detail and proved that activists of the Shiv Sena were involved. That report has been quietly consigned to some obscure corner by successive governments, but memories do not die so soon.
Even those who did not lose anyone close to them were permanently singed by the non-stop violence that began the day after the Babri Masjid was brought down and went on, with one short break in January. Spirals of smoke could be seen almost everywhere in the city. This was also the first time that fear was felt in the more upmarket neighbourhoods which hitherto had remained untouched by such incidents. I recall a very senior executive of a multinational telling me how he was quietly advised by his neighbours to move out of the building in one of the most tony parts of Bombay. He recalls being shocked that no one said to him that they would ensure that he and his family would be protected.
The riots were an eye-opener in many ways. The perpetrators were not just lumpen, unemployed boys doing it for fun or for kicks. The poison of communalism had injected even well-educated and employed youths, many of whom came out on the streets and indulged in selective targeting, burning down Muslim-owned shops and buildings. It had all the characteristics of a systematic pogrom, planned and executed with ruthlessness, with the clear intention of “sending a message”.
Most Mumbaiites will tell you that the riots changed the city for ever. Before that, Bombay was an open-hearted and broadminded city where everyone was welcome. It was where the poorest came with the hope and dream of making it big, where, if you had talent and the willingness to work hard, you could rise to the very top. This was the prevailing mythology of Bombay, the Urbs Prima in Indis, which prided itself on being different from Delhi, which was little more than an overgrown village and Calcutta, which was decaying. Bombay on the other hand
was tolerant and cosmopolitan.
This is not entirely true. Even before 1992-93, there were many community ghettoes in Bombay. It had neighbourhoods and housing societies confined to specific religious communities, linguistic groups and castes. Whether in chawls or in skyscrapers, residents ensured that no “outsiders” got to rent or buy. One even heard of companies that rarely, if ever, employed Muslims. No one talked about these matters earlier because they were considered politically incorrect, but those divisions were a fact of life.
The difference is that these faultlines were not as sharp then. The prevailing temper was that of tolerance. The city wore its cosmopolitan attitude on its sleeve, so people kept their prejudices to themselves. It all remained underground, mentioned in whispers and outside earshot.
By the late 1980s, it was no longer unfashionable to hold and air such views. Even in polite drawing rooms it was common to hear perfectly civilised people talk about how the minorities were getting above themselves. The Ram Janmabhoomi campaign had found adherents in the unlikeliest of circles. The most liberal of people suddenly burst out of their closet, showing themselves to be as communal-minded as the best of them. The atmosphere was changing all over India; those in Bombay who had fondly — and naively — thought it could never happen in this most modern of cities were shocked.
A lot of commentary in recent days has focused on how Bal Thackeray repositioned himself as a fighter for Hindutva in the 1980s. He had his finger on the pulse and succeeded beyond his wildest dreams only because the ground was fertile in Bombay, where he found support among not only Marathi speakers but many different communities. He fully understood that beyond that cosmopolitan façade lay a communal mindset that could be exploited to great advantage. The riots were a culmination of that subterranean bigotry and it is hardly surprising that less than three years after those horrible riots, the Shiv Sena won the state
elections.
There is no question that Bombay changed after those riots. Attitudes became more polarised. Voting patterns altered. It even changed the city’s geography. New ghettoes emerged. People became more emboldened in turning down the wrong kind of tenants. Now builders openly tell prospective buyers that they have ensured that no Muslims will move in. Not surprisingly, there are all-Muslim societies too, which Hindus cannot join. It is out in the open and commonplace, tolerated if not accepted as part of what Mumbai is. For those who had always held on to the idea that Bombay was an easy-going society where every kind of diversity was accepted and celebrated, it is a shock to see what it is today.
Over the years, many of the raw wounds of the time have stopped hurting, even if they have not completely healed. Those who lost their loved ones or saw their property destroyed, have rebuilt their lives. The state, as is its wont, has been lax in dispensing justice, leaving people to fend for themselves. One cannot live in the past, so the famed Mumbai spirit has ensured that it has moved on. New generations may not even know what it was like at the time. The Mumbai they have grown up in has nothing to mark that episode. But somewhere in each Mumbai heart there is a small place where the memories of that terrible period are hidden and on the 20th anniversary that pain will surface again.