When there’s an election round the corner, any random thing can become political dyamite. And when there’s an election round the corner in Maharashtra, there seems to be no end to the absurdity. Where else would a sweet and inoffensive slacker comedy like Wake up, Sid find itself as the flashpoint for fervid identity politics?

Raj Thackeray’s MNS threatened theatres from screening the movie, because it commits the cardinal sin of referring to the city as Bombay a few times (though it says Mumbai just as casually, and the lead characters work at a magazine called Mumbai Beat). Bollywood understands the language of violence, said Thackeray in silky Marathi doubtless — and sure enough, Karan Johar, one of the most powerful names in the industry, promptly proved him right. He went over to Thackeray’s place to apologise, and promised to insert a grovelling disclaimer before the movie. Chief Minister Ashok Chavan expressed his disgust with both the bully and the cowed victim, saying that the state was perfectly capable of providing security to Karan Johar, and that this apology was just a publicity stunt. But more charitably, maybe Johar had no desire to be the brave voice of dissent, and he figured a quick apology was better that inviting Thackeray’s inconvenient enmity. But if Karan Johar couldn’t stand up to a self-styled thug like Thackeray, what can less influential folks do but stay away from anything likely to attract his glowering attentions?

The point is not that Raj Thackeray (and Bal Thackeray before him) have seized upon Marathi manoos disenfranchisement to define a coarse and resentful politics — the point is that they get away with it. The city in Wake up, Sid is definitely not the hick town of Raj Thackeray’s dreams — it is indeed “Bombay”, the fabled gritty city where young people come from Kolkata and Bangalore, seeking their own private grails. Why isn’t our politics aggressively sticking up for that expansive vision? We know the uses of taking an extreme position: you help decide or determine where the centre will fall. By not countering the narratives, we — and indeed, quite glaringly, Chavan’s own administration — are letting goons forever blight the idea of Bombay.