State leaders have always connected more with problems in the rest of Maharashtra but even within Mumbai there are fewer and fewer public personalities that could command the respect and attention of a large populace. Political correctness or other considerations stop its celebrities such as sports stars from taking public stances. And among film actors: Dilip Kumar is ailing; Sunil Dutt is no more; and the current crop of stars are denizens of the world and not just of Mumbai. Even the underworld that held pockets of the city is now scattered across the globe.

Equally significant is the image of Mumbai outside Mumbai. One would be hard put to find experts on areas such as national politics, foreign policy or nuclear policy and partly this reflects a diminishing respect for knowledge in the city: the consensus at a recent talk on the subject for instance was for niche need-based libraries and not vaults of general wisdom.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Raj Thackeray’s agitation may stem both from a thirst for power and a real tension between the regional and the cosmopolitan. But in the absence of varied issues — many of them far more problematic — and in the absence of discursive forums any flamboyant expression of discontent or intolerance is likely to acquire an exaggerated presence. Mumbai needs to reach into its past for a wiser, more accommodative self.

Mumbai-based Shah is the author of ‘Hype, Hypocrisy and Television in Urban India’

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