In Mumbai, it is difficult for Muslims to buy houses, as Huma has said, or get houses on rent; housing societies too are known to refuse Muslims flats. There are exceptions as has been pointed out earlier. But, what does this mean for a society as a whole? Our inclusive philosophy has been narrowed down to such a level of discrimination and things seem to be getting worse. As other people I met have said, inherently, there was no bias against Muslims. In various places, people protected each other and said their Hindu neighbours had helped them. Many also said that the mobs, which attacked them, consisted of strangers. They also attributed the riots to political motives.
Yet, what has caused it is the chief insecurity they are going through. What if it happens again? Who will help them? What will be their future? People do not buy expensive goods or stock their houses for fear of riots, they cannot expand their shops and businesses, they live in ghettos for safety, they are afraid if a bomb blast happens, they know it is their community which will be targeted. Students experience discrimination in colleges, people who manage to get jobs feel there is a wall around them.
Despite all this, there is a sense of forgiveness that Allah is the final arbiter. This is the truth that people live with. However, unless there is an attempt to forge a larger political framework to understand the forces of communal violence and its impact, this sense of despair will be self defeating.
Mumbai has become a fragile city, very breakable, and yet the fissures are underneath – over it is the gloss of unity and toughness. Mumbai is, in reality, a breakable city. It is another matter that it joins up very fast. When we speak of Mumbai as a safe city it is a very relative perception – it depends on where you live, which community you belong to, your gender, how much money you have, where you are located socially, economically, and even politically. But it is a city that takes everyone into its generous fold – few go hungry here and few will have no shelter.
It is a crazy sprawl of humanity. The city too is a survivor; it has survived so much exploitation, expansion, and reclamation. As a city, it has given its people qualities of that inherent survival. For those affected by the riots, the city has changed forever in some ways. There is a different canvas of memory juggling with the reality of their existence. I think it is that old comforting canvas of hope and enterprise that lets them survive here. The fissures exist, the fear exists, and comfort lies far away like a distant cloak. Once, the possibilities were endless in the city, now, that has shrunk.
Choices and aspirations are all dictated by where one comes from, one’s religion and most importantly, life has come to be defined by parameters outside one’s control. That is what Mumbai has become. Resurgent yet restrictive, unbreakable yet broken. In the grand sweeping cityscape, with all its bright lights, glitz, and glamour, everything has always had a place. Increasingly, that space is being squeezed for the poor and for the poor Muslims and other marginalised groups, more so.
The city is on the threshold of futuristic development – the poor will have very little space in that scheme of things. Builders have taken over the city, edging out communities, as can be seen in Thakurdwar, for instance, and for Muslims, the choices of where to buy houses are very narrow. In some places, what the riots could not do, the builders have achieved. Riot victims too have to contend with changing scenarios – shifts in residence, reduction of aspirations, and a continuing fear of violence.
The canvas then is of various illusions, of broken dreams, of identities conferred on you. There is a band-aid of togetherness, while the real sufferers bleed in silence. Three strong strains run through the stories of riot victims. Stifled aspirations, alienation, and injustice and displacement. There is a shock that the riots took place, that the city became divided and the growing acceptance that things will not get better. Instead of healing wounds, the rift is widening. People were left to recover on their own, scrabble around for their survival, and dumped in a sense that has marginalised them further. There are heartening stories like the Mahila Shakti Mandals, of how people helped each other during the riots, of how some have resisted ghettoisation, and the healing touch if any has come from within. That is where Mumbai’s fragility lies – in the silence of the neighbour, in the closed doors and averted eyes, and in the minds which are made up.
Yet, people will continue to come and live here because of the hope it offers in many ways. Mumbai is a city of contradictions. If there is great despair, there is also great hope. If there is ghettoisation, there is also camaraderie. If there is hunger, there is a way to defeat that hunger. That is where the greatness of the city lies. And those who come to live here understand that.
Excerpted with permission from Riots and After in Mumbai: Revisiting a City in Conflict in 1992-93, Meena Menon, Yoda Press.
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