Independence Day

I must admit it was the oddest thing – while the world celebrated a very significant Indian Independence Day (“Sixty Years of Freedom!”), Mumbai remained, er, silent.
And, what’s more, it seemed that a lot of India did.

In fact, almost all the photos of Independence events that we saw in the newspapers here all seemed to come from other countries. There was the photo of the Nasdaq building in New York, bannered in the colours of the Indian flag - green white and orange. There was the India exhibition in London where NRIs and Indophiles were going mad. And even the French celebrated it through their India themed festival in Lille.
But very little here in India – BBC (India) only found two celebrations of note to report on! (See link at the end of this entry)

Of course, one of them was the Big Event in New Delhi, but in the rest of the country, including here in Mumbai, it seems it was muted. All I saw in my quick runs around the city was a small drill of the local police in cocked headwear, but it wasn’t going anywhere.
The biggest noise came from commercial interests, which saw an angle through which to sell their wares – Airtel commissioned a chauvinist song which accompanied their adverts, Baskin Robbins put together a patriotically coloured ice-cream, and the TV channels ran loads of relevant historical movies all themed around India’s struggle, with swirling flags in their promos to show just how heartfelt their commitment to the nation was. Etc etc.
But – on the street – zilch! (Though I forget – there were the boys at the traffic signals desperately trying to sell their reproduction flags, and obviously trade was not brisk, as I was eventually offered a flag at the rock-bottom price of one rupee).

The point is that, unlike South India (which dislikes the government’s apparent support for Hindi-language domination… because the South doesn’t speak Hindi much) or the northern border areas where there can be various sorts of unhappiness with the rule of New Delhi, Mumbai is quite patriotic. People stand for the national anthem in cinemas here quite enthusiastically. And of course, the Quit India movement started here. And on Republic Day, which was held in January, there was even a military fly-past at the city’s Chowpatty beach.

So what happened?
No one seems to know. The local newspapers were silent on the matter, and the local people I spoke to just shrugged their shoulders.

I can only guess.
Security must have been an issue - being the 60th Anniversary I suppose it was one terrorists must have thought about. In fact, for a week before, I found myself ducking round police barriers every time I went near the World Trade Centre in Colaba.
What’s more, there appears to be an undercurrent of bitterness in the city over how justice is served here. While the trial of the Muslim bombers behind the 1993 blasts here in Mumbai has recently come to an end (with a number of them receiving death sentences), there have been next to no convictions of the Hindu militants responsible for the many deaths of Muslims in what was essentially a pogrom during the ’93 Riots. As a consequence, there has been considerable growling by each side in recent days. So – that uneasiness in the city could have been a reason for a no-show of any official events.

But, apart from one minor piece of enthusiastic shouting at a college festival, which happened to be on the same day as Independence Day, there were no spontaneous shows of celebration on the street either… Very odd.

The rest of the world seemed more gung-ho about India’s Independence than did Mumbai. I’d be interested to know why.

Links: BBC Online report on Independence Day events

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