Organizer and Chair: Alice Thorner, Centre d'etudes de l'Inde et de l'Asie du
Sud, Paris
Discussant: Frank Conlon, University of Washington, Seattle
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the city now officially spelled Mumbai, reflecting the way it is pronounced in the Marathi language, has often served as a bellwether for India as a whole. From a colonial seaport and entrepot, Bombay transformed itself into a factory town, producing first cotton cloth and later more sophisticated goods such as pharmaceuticals. India's railroads and air transport system, daily newspapers and Dalit poetry had their beginnings in Bombay. The "Bollywood" Hindi-speaking films built a nation-wide cinema audience.
Lured to Bombay over the decades by prospects of jobs, profits or education, peasants, laborers, artisans, merchants and adventurers arrived from England, from the Ganges valley, from Madras, Mysore and Kerala in the south, from the Rajputana desert. More substantial numbers came from the nearby Konkan coast, inland Maharashtra, Gujarat and Saurashtra. A multitude of communities defined by place of origin, language, religion, caste and economic status appropriated specific locations in the narrow island, and eventually spilled out in similar patterns onto the mainland. The combination of separate spatially-signaled identities with close juxtaposition of individuals on crowded pavements, in places of work, in high-density slums and shanty towns, on suburban trains, in cinema theaters led to the cosmopolitanism widely acknowledged as Bombay's distinctive character.
In the Mumbai of today demise of the textile industry, deepening of the income and lifestyle gap between the elite and the rest, frequent revelations of criminal activities in banking and housing as well as gun-running and the drug trade, and rise to political power of a movement explicitly espousing violence raise the question as to how long the delicate balance between the preservation of traditional ties and the acceptance of differences can be maintained.
Bombay Space/Mumbai Space: Changing Notions of the City Complex
Jim Masselos, University of Sydney
The extent of Bombay's growth since independence has been frequently noted, so much so it has become a platitude of contemporary Indian studies. Both its population and its size have increased as has its central importance in India's overall economy.
This paper sets out to examine some of the consequences of Bombay's growth in terms of the ways its social space has expanded and the ways in which that space is perceived, reflected and represented in the mindsets of the city's population. Underlying this examination is the physical expansion of the city both northwards and to the northwest onto the mainland, incorporating areas that were formerly outlying townships. Counterpointing such growth is an extension in high rise housing, an intensification of shanty settlements and the beginnings of significant changes in accustomed land usage in the older parts of the city.
The paper will assess how mental maps and templates of the city have altered since independence through a consideration of two elements. The first is the development of extensive transport networks which service the expanded city's outlying regions and satellite developments. The question to be addressed is whether the grid of transport networks, road and rail, have altered mental templates of the city and its localities, and of perceived relationships between them as far as the inhabitants are concerned.
Counterpointing this examination will be a survey of the way in which political behavior, street violence and organized group actions reflect altering mental templates of urban space.
Bombay, Cradle of the Ambedkar Movement
Eleanor Zelliot, Carleton College
The name of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and his vision continue to dominate both the Dalit movement and all discussion of equality in India. Although Bombay is no longer the major center of Dalit politics, which has moved to North India, nor the only center of Dalit literature, the city has played a crucial role in producing the Ambedkar movement. Three economic and social factors unique to Bombay enabled Ambedkar to become highly educated, created a vital following for him, and provided a core of secondary leadership for his social and educational ventures.
(1) Mahars, the caste to which Ambedkar belonged, began to come from the countryside to work in the docks and mills of Bombay from the late 19th century, gaining not only their wages but also, in time, lodgings in company or municipal "chawls" which served as a basis for social and political organization. These urban workers formed Ambedkar's early following.
(2) Their children were able to attend primary schools, some of whose teachers were drawn from the Untouchable community. Even higher institutions were open to a gifted Untouchable like Ambedkar. Though he was not allowed to learn Sanskrit at Elphinston College, his Bombay education proved an excellent preparation for his later studies at Columbia and in London.
(3) The third factor was the presence in Bombay of a small, active, highly educated non-Brahman caste, the CKP (Chandrasena Kayastha Prabhu). Many CKP were involved in the Non-Brahman movement, an explicit challenge to Brahmanic ideological dominance; they found in Ambedkar an acceptable ally. Support from CKP constituted an invaluable aid for Ambedkar's 1928 Mahad "satyagraha" for water, his political and educational work in the 1930s and 40s, his newspapers, and his own intellectual development.
Context and Aftermath of the 1992-93 Explosion
Sujata Patel, University of Poona
The period from December 1992 through March 1993 can be considered a watershed in the history of the city. The riots that erupted in Bombay after the December 6th demolition of the Babri Masjid were followed in January by a wave of street fighting, housebreaking and arson. A cloud of insecurity led to the exodus, in some instances permanent, of more than 100,000 men, women and children. Revenge took the form of a nearly simultaneous detonation in March of a dozen high-power bombs in strategic and symbolic locations. The series of shocks set in motion a decline in the influence of the historic Congress party together with a consolidation of the power of the nativist Shiv Sena.
This paper attempts to explain the riots as reflections and articulations of an already-existing urban crisis. I have made extensive use of the evidence presented to the judicial Inquiry Commission appointed by the (Congress) State Government to establish what actually took place and to examine the changing power relations in specific affected localities.
In the second part of the paper I assess the social, cultural and political impact of the new State Government formed by an alliance of the Shiv Sena with the hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which came into power in March, 1995. My aim here is to explore in what ways measures implemented since that date have affected the long-standing multi-regional, multi-linguistic and multi-religious character of the city.
Masculine Hinduism, the Shiv Sena, and Political Mobilization
Sikata Banerjee, University of Lethbridge
The politics of Hindutva formed the context of the 1993 riots in Bombay. Hindutva or Hindu nationalism claims that the only true India is a Hindu India and minorities (read Muslims) can live in India only if they accept Hindu cultural dominance. It is pursued in Bombay by the Shiv Sena, a regional political party which openly declared its involvement in various attacks on Muslim life in the 1993 Bombay violence. Most of the attacks were led by young, male Sena activists. I argue that this violence was facilitated by a sense of compatriotism cultivated in the shakhas or local offices as well as a gendered interpretation of Hinduism.
The Shiv Sena activists (mostly men) constructed mutual loyalties and affective ties as they came to the shakhas to talk, read, or just sit around. Camaraderie created by interaction within the confines of the shakhas formed the basis of a feeling of belonging to a unified Hindu community. Religious celebrations in public spaces further enhanced community ties between young, Hindu, Maharashtrian men. Such close interaction alone would not necessarily facilitate violence. I argue that the ideas underlying this specific interpretation of Hindu identity easily provide an ideological context supportive of violent confrontation. I suggest that notions of "masculinity" and "Hinduism" are closely intertwined in the political identity underlying the Shiv Sena's message. Further, this notion of "masculinity," defined by attributes such as decisiveness, aggression, muscular strength, and a willingness to engage in battle, is opposed to a notion of femininity that is defined by attributes such as weakness, non-violence, compassion, and willingness to compromise. The Indian reading of this cultural opposition-masculine/feminine-was shaped by nineteenth-century British cultural criticism. In the twentieth century, American media culture updated this interpretation. Images deriving from this gendered dichotomy formed a very powerful cultural frame for the Bombay Hindu violence against the Muslim community.