By Anjum Altaf
There are incidents in the lives of big cities that call for sorrow, but once the dust clears, no lamentation and no expression of sorrow can really do a city justice. A place that is home to millions deserves better. I aim to explore the meaning of Mumbai and then return to the salience of this latest incidence of violence in the frame of that larger context.
The meaning of a city like Mumbai is mirrored in a million stories. Take one, that of the renowned music director Naushad. Born in Lucknow and obsessed with music, he was given the choice between his home and his passion by his father. Naushad ran away to Bombay; the rest is history.
That, however, is not the point. Even if the rest had not been history, the fact remains that Bombay was a place one could run away to, there to find others like oneself, to meet others even more obsessed than oneself. Bombay was both India and a way out of India. It was a place that promised the realization of one’s dreams and the flowering of one’s potential in ways other places could not.
To realize exactly what that means, think of Pakistan. Today, one cannot run away from Pakistan in Pakistan. Before there was a border, Bombay could embrace a Mohammad Rafi from Lahore and a Yusuf Khan from Peshawar. Where can a young man from Peshawar head today? Karachi? The difference between Karachi and Bombay, ostensibly such similar places, holds the key to the real meaning of a city like Mumbai.
What makes a city different from a village is its diversity: In a city, one can turn a corner and bump into a new idea, drum up an outlandish plan, then seek a partner over a cup of coffee, locate a gambler and find a sponsor. It’s a place where one can escape the conformity and limits of small towns, give reign to one’s imagination, and chance one’s luck. And if one fails, there is always another day, another plan, another chance.
Such opportunities flow out of the complex interplay of diversity and dynamism, the productive energy of a city. Diversity can trigger the innovation that feeds the dynamism; dynamism can germinate yet more diversity by attracting eager talent.
But diversity is a two-edged sword. In a city, differences do not remain locked in hermetically tight compartments the way they do in villages. They break the seals and spill over, exposing rough edges that rub against each other all the time. They can just as easily end in conflict as in synergy. One spiral makes for a Karachi, the other for a Mumbai.
Diversity doesn’t yield its fruits untended. The diversity of British India could not be managed; the failure took a million lives and uprooted ten million more. No expressions of sorrow can make those lives whole again. A fortunate India recognized the value of diversity to start over. A less fortunate Pakistan, never quite realizing what it had gained or lost, continued to whittle it away further only to discover that diversity is not something one can be rid of. The more it is suppressed, the more it reappears in virulent forms. Pakistan is now bereft of big ideas or visions; only unceasing warfare remains.
Mumbai is still a way out of India; Karachi is not a way out of Pakistan. In Mumbai, there is still synergy between diversity and dynamism. But will this synergy sustain itself without care? Can Mumbai avoid the fate of Karachi without attention?
Therein lies the salience of this incidence of violence and of those that have preceded it. Each is a blow to the meaning of Mumbai, a strike against the fabric that knits diversity and dynamism. When diversity turns from an asset to a liability, a city begins the slide from an engine of growth to an explosion waiting to happen.
Mumbai is resilient; it has the legacy of Bombay to sustain it. But it needs attention. Expressions of sorrow won’t do it; beefing up security won’t do it. The focus on dynamism should not strain the diversity that feeds it. Tending the garden so that one Mumbaikar empathizes with another is also a vital need of the city. Only then will Mumbai deny a home to those who wish to strip it of its meaning.
Tags: Bombay, Cities, Diversity, Growth, Karachi, Mumbai, Terrorism, Violence
TheSouthAsianIdea Weblog 
July 17, 2011 at 12:08 am |
@ Anjum Altaf
this is too much of a wide ball–”A fortunate India recognized the value of diversity to start over. A less fortunate Pakistan, never quite realizing what it had gained or lost, continued to whittle it away further only to discover that diversity is not something one can be rid of. The more it is suppressed, the more it reappears in virulent forms. Pakistan is now bereft of big ideas or visions; only unceasing warfare remains.”
There are many similarities between Bombay and Karachi. These similarities still exist but are lost in the polarization of certain ethnic lots in this cosmopolis. The main thing which makes Bombay different than Karachi is former’s position as the helm head of film industry. And this is what the author has mainly emphasized in eulogizing Bombay!!
Like Bombay, Karachi is also a ”ghareeb parwar’ city where one has the opportunity, however small may be, to earn his livelihood and survive at lowest as well highest of any cost! Karachi had all that IS there in Bombay until the same were either anulled or snipped by the Pakistan Constitution and the law of the land. Fortunately this has not happened in Bombay to which city most of the Indian have-nots aspire to find place, especially in the film industry or the show business, largely for economic reasons.
Yes, many years ago I was told my late father about city life in Bombay as he knew it better as a place where he lived and migrated from to Pakistan in 1947. He had many happy memories of that city and used to admit until his death that Bombay was much ‘liberal’ and ‘enchanting’ than Karachi..of his days! Later I came to understand why he sang so sweetly about Bombay for the reason that my father was fond of night life….music and going to dance shows!! He did not drink but used to tell me alcohol was no problem there. Although my father found all these jovial in Karachi but still he considered Bombay was comparatively much advanced in these regimens( and work ofcourse) and he found nothing like it in Karachi. Again, I am forced to think that my father’s views were not altogether correct because he was oblivious of the fact that Bombay had a long and rich history of culture as compared to Karachi which only had a meagre population of a few lacs at the time of partition in 1947!!!
As I grew up in Karachi, I found Karachi getting richer in socio-cultural horizon day by day until 1980’s when population explosion concentrated different ethnic groups in the city and the city began to suffer due to ethnic polarization and a fight for capturing the command of the town. Honestly speaking the Karachi of yore is now nothing like it used to be!! I love Karachi any more than any city of Pakistan for the simple reason that it affords quarter to all low and high, whatever, in matters of earning livelihood and sustenance. At the same time, Karachi metamophosed into a city of violence as well letting people accustomed to live in unending terror due to internal rife within its different communities. Those which were not interested in such rife rushed to quit the city for other cities in Pakistan or went abroad. Unlike Bombay, Karachi’s film industry has vanished and nobody, unlike the have-nots of India, aspires to
become Dalip Kumar or Rafi or Zeenat Aman any more! Everything which Bombay has, Karachi has too…eventhough some ‘conveniences’ may not be legal, but ofcurse night life in Karachi is no more the same or even similar to that in Bombay for obvious reasons stated above.
I do not understand what makes the author of the article sing eulogy for Bombay and what makes him undermine the position of Pakistani cities on the basis of a single unhappy blast in Bombay?? Of course Pakistan is NOT responsible for that nor that incident can be taken to underestimate the potentialities of Pakistani cities. Anjum Sahib missed to look at the size of the two inimical ‘elephants’ and that’s sad!!
July 17, 2011 at 5:07 am |
mazhur: When you boil it all down you are not saying anything different from what I did. Karachi either could not handle its ethnic diversity or exacerbated it and allowed it to polarize the metropolis turning it into a dysfunctional city of violence. Mumbai, despite a few stumbles, has escaped that fate. My word of caution is that not thinking about these things can be very costly as has been the case in Karachi.
July 17, 2011 at 1:31 pm |
Bombay too is polarized in some ways. There are places with Gujarati concentration, Marathi concentration, South Indian concentration and of course most Muslims live in Muslim areas for various reasons including because Hindus won’t rent out apartment to them. Shiv Sena can shut down Bombay at will but not places like Bendi Bazar where they fear to tread. Some pockets even vociferously rejoice at Pakistan’s victory over India in cricket/Hockey matches. But they do not completely represent Bombay. Bombay exists in several layers. There is a truly cosmopolitan layer, there is a truly communal layer and there is an indifferent layer but all these layers are subsidiary to Business layer. Mumbai means business and this decides its character. Film Industry in Bombay itself doesn’t count for much though rest of the country may be in awe.
July 17, 2011 at 5:16 pm |
Anil: I want to extend your comment that “all these layers [in Mumbai] are subsidiary to the business layer” into a general proposition and see if it can hold up to criticism.
It seems to me that one critical difference between Pakistan and India today is the relationship of business to politics. To generalize broadly (and ignoring nuances for the moment), in Pakistan politics controls business while in India business controls politics. My observation is that capitalism in Pakistan is still of the dependent type making its profits by getting favors from politicians or bureaucrats. In a city like Karachi, business pays protection money to politicians. In India, the latest scams seem to suggest, that business pays off politicians to do its bidding. In Mumbai, business interests can ensure that the city keeps functioning at the level necessary for its purposes but have little interest in the overall welfare of the city.
If this generalization holds, it would support the argument that capitalist development in Pakistan is weak and behind the stage it has reached in India. Whether this ties back to the weakness of the mercantile castes would then become an interesting question again.
July 17, 2011 at 1:58 am |
It is indeed true that Mumbai is the ‘city of escape’ for many Indians and its role in this regard has been emphasized well by your comparison with Karachi.
My impression though is that organized violence in Mumbai, though present consistently since the mid 80s, peaked in the 90s during the height of communal tensions and underworld activities. The violence over the last years seems much more external, driven by broader conflicts than internal tensions. Even if the violence was organized in collaboration with local elements, the primary perpetrators seem to be those outside the city.
Having said that, community relations are indeed strained in Mumbai and social and political leaders seem to have little interest in mending them.
July 17, 2011 at 4:52 am |
Vikram: I agree with your response. I have two concerns. (1) The focus on external causes might lead to a neglect of existing internal strains. (2) The external causes might lead to new internal strains. The revival of models that proclaim cities as engines of growth is based on experience from East Asia where social heterogeneity is much less. In the developing country context, the heterogeneity in some Indian cities, especially Mumbai, is of a very high order. Turning Mumbai into Shanghai would involve a sociological dimension that doesn’t seem to be receiving enough attention. Capitalist growth polarizes and the rush to develop polarizes even more. When polarities of income are overlaid with other polarities of language, ethnicity, religion, etc. the mix can become very unpredictable.
July 18, 2011 at 1:15 am |
Yes, both the concerns are very valid and there is little to disagree with what you have said above. The question is how can Mumbai handle this capitalist growth (which makes it what it is) in a manner that does not further perpetuate divides of religion and caste. The record of cities in developing countries in this regard is very poor though, so if it can, Mumbai will have to lead the way.
July 17, 2011 at 2:40 am |
I just wish to reflect on the ‘response’ to the latest terrorist attack in Mumbai.
There is no pronounced shrill communal cacophony; rather, there is a mature – communally neutral – response to terrorist attack, thereby taking away the sting out of terror.
Terrorism in India would lose its raison detre in case it fails to
i) communally charge the Indian society, and
ii) by extension, generate anti-Pakistan feelings.
Hasan Abdullah
July 17, 2011 at 8:08 am |
@ Anjum Altaf
Nobody stops anyone to ‘escape’ to Karachi-it’s only the impedance to this ‘escape’ that has spoiled the ‘shape of things’ in Karachi otherwise there is no other city, at least in Pakistan, which can boast its cultural richness, beauty (and ugliness), speed, offered opportunities and ethnic heterogeneity.
Why only Karachi? it’s whole of Pakistan which is a victim of terrorism…internal politics fanned by external elements including India. What you are imagining is thus not possible in Pakistan unless and until all disputes among neighboring countries are resolved peacefully.
July 17, 2011 at 12:06 pm |
Mazhur: Are you saying that the cause of Karachi’s problem is that people moved to it? But isn’t that how cities have emerged and grown, by people moving to them? Is the solution to Karachi’s problems that people should be barred from moving to it? Is there a precedent for this kind of solution in history?
Even within Pakistan, Karachi’s problems are much worse than of other major cities like Lahore and Faisalabad. All of Pakistan is not similar.
And, if the solution to Pakistan’s problems is the resolution of disputes, why are Pakistani governments and large sections of the population so little interested in pursuing the resolution? Can Pakistanis continue to forever blame external elements for their problems? How much of the responsibility should be borne by the Pakistanis themselves?
July 17, 2011 at 4:46 pm |
@ Anjum Altaf
I did not say what you seem to allude to. I just stated the facts, not the causes in particular.
As to how un-managed uncontrolled migration of people from rural areas and small towns to big cities affects the status of a city is a topic for further deliberation. The problem with migration to big cities is ‘ ethnic polarization’ hence ensuing fight for power ( this may be called the curse of democracy!!), ‘lack of basic amenities’ ‘poor governance” ”corruption’ and ‘lack of rule of law’, etc. Obviously all these have no relation with religion and are simply socio-economic factors.
Who says problems of Karachi are worse than any other city of Pakistan??? False! Take for example the ongoing electricity problem in the country. In this respect Karachi is far better than other cities of Pakistan, including Lahore and Faisalabad, for example. Moreover, cities other than Karachi are also made to suffer from load-shedding natural gas since past ( this situation has only arisen in Karachi for the first time since last week!!) Then ofcourse not to speak of scarcity of clean potable water…which is not sufficiently available in many places.
If you are aware of the situation back in Baluchistan you will realize how the handful of Baluchi’s in the largest area-wise province of Pakistan are trying to get rid of other ethnic groups who want to move there or had moved there long ago. You may simply call it a political issue but in fact it is more than that. Balochs like the Bengali’s or the Kashmiri’s are demanding independence and going as far as frequently challenging the writ of the government.
I think you need to research more to satisfy your curiosity in asking ”’if the solution to Pakistan’s problems is the resolution of disputes, why are Pakistani governments and large sections of the population so little interested in pursuing the resolution?” In short, Pakistan is a war-ridden country bordered by its biggest enemy on the Eastern border and not-to-healthy relationship with others on other sides. Internally, stories of corrupt leadership needs no comments. For more than half its life Pakistan was under military dictatorship and you can well realize what at the most commoners
can do to set things right. An economically weak Pakistan and its citizens have no chance to move ahead like other well-governed countries unless they get competent and honest leaders who are not under ‘foreign influence’, who are not corrupt, have moral values, are upright and have nationalistic feelings about Pakistan..
If this can’t be possible then a time will soon arrive for all to see a bloody revolution in Pakistan to everyone’s awe!
Anjum Sahib, nations are Not built in a couple of decades and neither will Pakistan until there is a cataclysm change!
July 17, 2011 at 7:46 pm |
As I grew up I found many similarities between Karachi and Bombay. This video is really nostalgic!!’
Gateway to India – Bombay 1932
http://ishare.rediff.com/video/entertainment/gateway-to-india-bombay-1932/1254885
July 17, 2011 at 9:00 pm |
Mazhur / Anjum
My take on this is as under:
Mumbai and Karachi have many common features like a number of other typical large metropolises of the world e.g. Delhi and Kolkata nearer home and Shanghai, Beijing, Jakarta, Istanbul, Sao Paulo and Mexico City in other parts of the developing world. They even have similarities with large cities in the developed world like Tokyo, Moscow, New York, and London. All these large cities of the world boast a high degree of creative, liberal, and competitive enabling environment. One common feature among all large cities, in fact their raison d’être, is them becoming a focal point for a massive internal migration. These cities are, or had been in the past, a massive magnet attracting large swathes of all sorts of people – mostly rural poor in a developing world – providing them huge employment and entrepreneurial opportunities. This obviously creates social and political conflicts among diverse stakeholders in the complex city life.
But the other underlying common feature, a kind of pre-requisite for a thriving large city is the indomitable spirit of creativity and entrepreneurship and an enabling competitive environment to let the collective and individual creative energies to reach their fruition. This usually comes together with a strong tradition of liberalism, enlightenment, and laissez-faire, a fair go. This cultural tradition is manifested in the liberal display of creative arts, theatre, film etc. as well as in secular social and cultural behaviours of the city dwellers. For such an environment to take root, it certainly requires a ‘consensus’, a ‘social contract’ for a tolerant power sharing arrangement among key stakeholders of the city life to let the ‘hundred flowers bloom’. Without this tolerant ‘consensus’ the expanding city clearly stands the risk of consuming itself in the smouldering fires of endless strife, ethnic or communal violence, social unrest and galloping street crime. Large cities need to be managed well or else they can quickly degenerate into a volcano of lethal conflicts.
Karachi has a unique distinction of an altogether new city rapidly growing out of almost nothing in 1860’s by flocking of British, Anglo-Indians, Gujrati, Parsee, and Goanese traders and service men, mostly from the then Bombay and Calcutta, to setup new businesses in an otherwise small fishing town, in a matter of few years. (The fact that this was coincidentally triggered by the US Civil War is another discussion). In a virgin ground, this new community brought the tolerant, liberal and essentially a competitive trading culture in whole scale from Bombay and implanted in this clone city. This all embracing entrepreneurial and, as Mazhur has aptly put it, the gharib parwar environment, providing a land of opportunity for all and sundry thrived for about 100 years and its few remnants could well be seen till late 1960’s. Mazhur sahib may perhaps recall those good old days in Karachi when most of the streets of its Saddar area in the evenings used to ring with the sounds of dance and songs played unhindered by Goanese Christian boys and girls on their guitars and organs. In the mornings the door steps of Hindu & Parsee homes were splashed with coloured chalk patterns of rangulis. I recall witnessing these diverse multicultural sights in Karcahi in early 1970’s.
The Tsunami of human migration in the wake of the founding of Pakistan in 1947 bringing in hordes of mostly Urdu & Gujrati speaking population from India set the stage for a sea change to come in Karachi. Yet the cultural life of Karachi that was established for about one hundred years still survived this first onslaught. Then a constant stream of internal migration from Punjab and Pukhtoon lands started that was augmented by those coming from rural Sindh from 1970’s has led the city population to swell to present estimates of a behemoth of about 17 million souls, ranking it as the second largest city in the world, if the estimates are correct. Finally, the already fragile but tolerant ‘social contract’, the ‘’consensus’ among key stakeholders of the city has been completely shattered, giving way to a deepening political and social conflict, giving rise to criminal ‘gang wars’, mayhem, and endless strife. The city is fast consuming itself in this cauldron of conflict.
As I understand, while commenting on the recent events in Mumbai, Anjum is alluding towards the risk of possible demise in Mumbai as well of that liberal, tolerant, creative enabling cultural environment that has been the hallmark of all large successful cities, if it goes unnoticed and unchecked. It is for our friends in India to watch out. The early signs of lethal social, communal and political conflicts brewing in the streets of Mumbai are clearly visible. We have seen it happening in Karachi and its tolerant, creative and liberal secular culture being brutally killed in a city that was once dubbed as the ‘cleanest’ and ‘fairest’ city in Asia.
Kamran
July 18, 2011 at 5:03 am |
Kamran: Thanks for the extended comment. One bottom line is what you have described. Those who did not witness Karachi through the 1950s and 1960s will find it difficult to imagine how much urban culture can change. There is never one critical point at which the transformation takes place. There are deeper trends that move slowly and are often overlooked and ignored or considered reversible. So there is a cautionary tale for other cities.
Rapid population growth and migration are factors but they don’t explain everything. Shenzen in China just celebrated its 30th birthday. In 1979 it was a village when it was chosen as a SEZ. Today, it is the fastest growing city in the country with a population of 14 million which is certainly an undercount because of the way migrants are recorded in population statistics in China. Somehow all the very rapid influx has been channeled into positive energy.
The point I wished to highlight was about the multi-dimensional nature of diversity and the post was too cryptic to explain it sufficiently. The new urban literature portrays a simple picture of diversity as an unalloyed good – diversity leads to new ideas, to innovation, to dynamism and growth. No diversity means no growth. This has been weighing on my mind based on my lived experience and I had written earlier about it in the context of what I saw as the future of the big city in South Asia: https://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/what-is-the-future-of-the-city-in-south-asia/
The concept of diversity needs a little elaboration. The literature really sees it in terms of a diversity of ideas. When there is a tolerance of different ideas and perspectives, diversity has a positive impact. From there the extension is made that people who differ in religion, color, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, etc. would most likely differ in their ideas as well. So, a melting pot is good for growth and development. What is overlooked in this extension is that a melting pot that is tolerant doesn’t get created by itself. It requires a lot of nurturing. Without that care, it can just as easily become a killing field as happened in Lahore before 1947 and has happened in Karachi since the 1980s.
The point about Shenzen and most other cities in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan that are used as illustrations of the new urban wisdom is that they have the diversity of ideas but much less differences of religion, ethnicity, language, caste, etc. Where there are such differences, e.g., Lhasa or Kashgar, the problems begin to resemble South Asian cities. My cautionary note was to highlight the double-edged nature of this dimension of diversity, the differences of identity. These can be exploited by politics, fanned by external provocations, or just deepened by raw capitalist development. To think that one can have sustainable development while simultaneously engaging in polemics about who a city really belongs to is asking for disaster. The city belongs equally to all those who live in it. Ensuring that equality and sense of ownership is the challenge in South Asian cities.
July 18, 2011 at 5:27 am |
Kamran, this is very useful and I agree completely. However, there is just one caveat, Mumbai may not be the city that gets affected the most.
The census data for 2011 indicates a drastic decline in Mumbai’s population growth rate,
1971 5,970,575
1981 8,243,405 38.1%
1991 9,925,891 20.4%
2001 11,914,398 20.0%
2011 12,478,447 4.7%
On the other hand, we know that India is urbanizing rapidly. It is entirely possible that new urban centres growing rapidly around India (places like Bhopal, Jaipur, Nagpur) might not even have the cosmopolitan culture that Mumbai has. Managing multi-ethnic populations there might prove far more difficult.
July 18, 2011 at 5:49 am |
Vikram: I agree that the problems in the rapidly growing mid-sized cities would be more acute because politics there still dominates business interests. The issues in such urban centers are very different and I had tried to highlight them in an earlier post: https://thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/what%E2%80%99s-happening-in-small-towns/
This observation by Sunil Khilnani is relevant in the context:
The BJP’s brand of televisual religion is attuned to the desires of these cities’ inhabitants, and the mobilization of their votes has become an essential element in the party’s strategy. L.K. Advani’s rathyatra of 1990, for example, a chariot procession that covered more than 10,000 kilometers, took in dozens of such cities… sparking off violence and riots wherever it went.
July 25, 2011 at 5:51 am |
It seems to me that anything that mixes with politics in such a way that politics has the upper hand then that phenomenon gets bad. When religion mixes with politics with politics having the upper hand then religion gets bad. When business mixes with politics with politics having the upper hand then business also gets bad in a matter of time. I think there is something about power that tugs at the worst in human beings and more often than not humans succumb to it
July 18, 2011 at 11:13 am |
@ Ahmed Kamran
Pure nostalgia!! Great!!
”Mazhur sahib may perhaps recall those good old days in Karachi when most of the streets of its Saddar area in the evenings used to ring with the sounds of dance and songs played unhindered by Goanese Christian boys and girls on their guitars and organs. In the mornings the door steps of Hindu & Parsee homes were splashed with coloured chalk patterns of rangulis. I recall witnessing these diverse multicultural sights in Karcahi in early 1970’s.”’
I am living in Karachi since birth and very well know how Karachi of yore was! Ah! those good times are no more and never to come back again!
’70’s was a good time in Karachi but ’60’s was even better. Karachi was mildly populated and did not extend to its today’s horrendous limits. You could move around the whole city in just one day!!
There were cinemas all around, trams wriggling about, a few night clubs (for the rich and ugly!), a bustling chakla (red light area), wine shops here and there, Three Castle cigarettes available in tin packs, Pineapple drink stalls at many corners, Malabari restaurants, Muhajir deplorable, dirty make-shift encroachments on almost every footpath, a few police stations, no guns, city taciturnly divided into Para’s (or Pada’s as Indians would pronounce it) headed by their own Dada’s, then the most powerful Dada whom the city people dreaded, public libraries-lots of them, easy access to Embassies, respect for everyone, no policemen to be seen around, Iranian restaurants at each and every corner, no fear no dread of being killed, peace and harmony everywhere!! Karachi of the past was an entirely different city!
Today’s Karachi has none of the above character. Literally it is now a mad mad city- a city encompassing many cities in its fold!! Every locality has its own distinguishable features and psyche. Fashion varies from locality to locality and mentality too!! There is wide gulf between the filthy rich and the poor but amazingly the difference is not as noticeable as in the past. This is perhaps due to rampant overall corruption, dishonesty and ‘consumerism’ by all and sundry!
The Goans are there no more…no more the spirit which the rich Parsi community had for humanity, no more, no more all that joy and fun Karachi had to offer in the past!!
The root cause of all this, as I can figure out, is not religion. Nobody hates any other religious body over here-unfortunately Muslims here are divided into ethnic and sectarian groups and they are fighting each other! This was not so until the so-called ”secularism’ stepped in country’s politics after the fall of Dhaka and interference by ZA Bhutto in matters of religion. This put the Muslims on their toes and every Muslim sect got bent upon organizing itself to counter the so-called ‘secularism’. Secularism is not just freedom of speech or the right to do whatever you want. It is a way of life governed by Laws! People on many forums debate about ‘secularism’ without even realizing that it is unworkable in any place where there is lack of rule of law!!
Where the majority demands something for itself you cannot force something else on them, do you?? If the majority of population in Pakistan WANTS Islam as their state religion there is least chance of bringing in some other ”religion’ upon them, be it in the name of ”secularism’ or ‘ Greek-styled democracy’. Pakistan does need a harsh ” democratic dictator” to curb all illths which are in vogue and are neither warranted by any religion, reason or law!!
August 1, 2011 at 11:06 am |
How Bombay word comes. The meaning of Bom is Good. Its a Portuguese word and the meaning of Bay is Island. Its a English word. The total meaning of Bombay is Good Island. When Portuguese Princess got married with British King and Portuguese gave Mumbai dowry to British Empire. So its a combination of Eng lo- Portuguese word.
September 17, 2016 at 10:34 pm |
A Mumbai constable:
September 18, 2016 at 1:38 am |
Vikram: Are you sure you have linked the right video? I didn’t get the point of this – a child moves to a big city and doesn’t like it but the city grows on him with time. What’s new in that?
September 18, 2016 at 6:31 am |
Sorry SouthAsian, the video is about a constable in Mumbai police.
I checked the embedded video and it does show the right one: ‘Heart of A Lion’.