Opportunistic Politics In Mumbai - Take #2

After decades of bitterly divisive communal politics, the RSS, the BJP and even the Chacha State’s police minister, an eminent socialist lawyer, have issued a call that “Mumbai belongs to all Indians.” This is their response to the huge public outrage on the Maharashtra cabinet decision, made by a CONgress-NCP administration, to reserve taxi permits for local Marathi-speaking boys. I had commented on this tyranny against poor migrants in an earlier post.

Note that politicians of the RSS-BJP have never included Muslims and Christians among “all Indians.” That is the trademark of their communal politics.

HL Mencken defined the demagogue as “one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."

So let us first examine the errors in their doctrines.

The word “belongs” indicates Property. Thus, the statement that “Mumbai belongs to all Indians” is as nonsensical as saying that Air India or SAIL or the Rashtrapati Bhavan belong to all Indians. Theirs is thus the doctrine of collectivism, of collective property, a fiction, a deliberate untruth. On the other side, the Shiv Sena and the MNS have always insisted, and continue to claim, that “Mumbai belongs to all Marathis.” They too are appealing to a collective identity, although a narrower one. Yet, both doctrines are the same – they endorse the idea of Mumbai as collective property.

In reality, Property presents the picture of a “patchwork quilt.” We all own bits of Property, most of it outside Mumbai. Further, many bonafide foreigners own Property in India – and their rights too must be protected. This is especially true of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital; that too, in a globalizing world. These demagogues are still stuck in the world of socialism, collective property, collective identity and the Volkswirtschaft (national economy). They cannot comprehend the real world of individuals, individual property, individual identity, and the Weltwirtschaft (world economy).

To classical liberals, the only true purpose of “civil government” – the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion – was the protection of life, liberty and property. That is, the lives of all individuals, the liberties of all individuals, and the properties of all individuals – including foreigners. Modern capitalism would never have erupted in Britain had the laws not protected the loans of foreign bankers. Today, foreigners face huge hassles buying property in India, including in Goa.

Thus, all this talk is but demagoguery and pure rhetoric. There is nothing of any substance in this chatter. These politicians are just “playing politics.” This is socialist democracy at its opportunistic worst.

Frankly, I don't know what the big fuss over Mumbai is about. Bombay might have been a fine city, but Mumbai is certainly not. There are many Maharashtrians in south Goa, and one I just spoke to this morning, an artist, told me how much he hated the city, and preferred to live in our little village here. He spoke of the dreary Mumbai city-scape, all grey apartment blocks. I told him that I would never ever live in Mumbai either, having experienced its local trains on my last visit there (reminiscences of which can be found under the label "Mumbai Musings" by scrolling down on the right hand bar). As with Calcutta, as with New Delhi, as with Madras, Bangalore, Poona, Simla, Darjeeling... all of urban India is a hell-hole. We need to build new cities and towns, as ET has commented in an editorial today. I would add that we need to rebuild all the old cities and towns too. There is nothing about them to be "proud" of.

The devastated condition of all of urban India, including especially Mumbai, gives further evidence to the fact that our socialist democracy is producing politicians of an extremely low class. They are nothing but cheap demagogues who think, as Mencken said, that we are all idiots. We must be - for they are in charge of our "education." Catch - 22, indeed.