Lewis Carroll would have been stumped by what is happening in Mumbai today. Carroll’s Tweedledum and Tweedledee fight, only to embrace and escape together in the face of a thunderstorm.

A casual and apparently spontaneous repartee between Abu Azmi and Raj Thackeray has given the impression that a massive confrontation is brewing. If not for the sensationalising electronic media picking up on stray and provocative remarks, the so-called violent divide between the north Indians and the Marathi community would have withered away in a couple of hours.

The city has witnessed far more violent outbursts from Raj’s uncle, Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray, and the likes of Abu Azmi. Mumbai’s citizens have learnt to take these aggressive debates in their stride. These antics create tension in some small areas for a little while and then quickly die down. In the crowded streets and trains, nobody really knows or cares who is Marathi or who is Bihari.

There are nearly fifty small-time professions that are dominated by the so-called north Indians. These could have been done by the sons of the soil too — like driving taxis or distributing milk, selling bhelpuri or running a laundry, which means ironing clothes for the vast middle class of the city including the white-collar Marathi community. None of these north Indians invades the job or identity of the Marathi Manoos, who would choose unemployment over these ‘lowly’ jobs.

And yet Abu Azmi and Raj were able to spread tension all around. It does not require much political acumen to realise that the actual confrontation is between Raj and Uddhav, the heir apparent of Balasaheb Thackeray, and not necessarily between north Indians and the Marathi community. The first rebellion against Uddhav was by Narayan Rane, in July 2005. He joined the Congress and thundered against Uddhav’s autocratic, if lackluster, style. Rane also managed to win five assembly seats for the Congress in the by-elections caused by his exit.

... contd.