In early 1993 when communal violence was spinning out of control in Mumbai, a public meeting was called at Flora Fountain, the centre of the old business district, to which many, including familiar faces from glossy society magazines, came. Within hours, or so it seemed, an effective action plan was put in place. Not for nothing was Mumbai known as one of the world’s most enterprising cities. Socialites used their formidable contacts to lobby politicians for space and vehicles to reach essential supplies to victims. Young professionals pressed fire services and the police to attend to distress calls. And housewives were recruited to make food packets for those flooding railway stations to flee the city.

Pragmatism and empathy were evident in ample measure. Indeed, if one looks at the civilian response to the 1993 violence in Mumbai, particularly at the mohalla committee programme that was later set up to liaise between community leaders and the police to prevent a recurrence of trouble — it seemed clear that Mumbaikars, when required to, could negotiate with hard politics on the ground.

It is this previous experience that makes the outpouring of public sentiment following the 26/11 attack in Mumbai so baffling in its naïveté and in its apparent lack of social responsibility. Rallies, candles, banners, SMS and chain mails about unity can be said to represent a well-intentioned but fairly unproductive show of sentiment. At the other extreme are the calls to stop paying taxes and new formations seeking a more fundamental change in the “system” but with little awareness of their role in creating it; the language used is deeply anti-political and the perceived solutions are self-serving. Commentators have rightly criticised these tendencies so amply demonstrated by Mumbai’s elite, and yet the fact that so much has changed in a short span of 15 years leads one to suggest that there is perhaps more here than meets the eye.

... contd.