Mumbai has learnt to carry on being a diverse and modern city in spite of some of its citizens trying to impose their bigotry upon it with varying degrees of violence. The latest episode involved two of the city’s most eminent families: the Thackerays and the Bachchans. This might sound like a clash of Titans, but the actual feel of what has been happening over the last few days is pathetically uncivilized. Jaya Bachchan had declared at a public event in Mumbai, with a kind of humour the archness of which was far from gratuitous, that she was going to speak in Hindi at the event since she was from Uttar Pradesh, and Marathi speakers would have to forgive her for that. Raj Thackeray and his men from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena picked this up and decided to unleash their disruptive worst upon anything connected with the Bachchans. Not only would Ms Bachchan have to apologize publicly for her insult to Marathi sentiments, but the MNS cadre also went about town vandalizing cinema halls, tearing down film hoardings and posters, and managed to stall the premiere of an Amitabh Bachchan film. The Maharashtra chief minister made threatening noises at Mr Thackeray and his party, but they remained nonchalant until ‘victory’ came in the form of Mr Bachchan apologizing repeatedly and grandly at several public fora, even offering to go to jail if the Bachchans were found guilty after a proper inquiry into the matter. The actor’s blog is now full of eloquent inventories of what he and his family have, in the forty years that he has lived in Mumbai, done for Maharashtra. Variations on “Can we ever show disrespect to Maharashtra?” come up, like an anguished refrain, at regular intervals in one particular entry in Mr Bachchan’s blog.

Mr Bachchan’s apology on behalf of his wife, now “accepted” by Mr Thackeray, would make all sensible Mumbaikars cringe because it is now being flaunted as a victory for Mr Thackeray’s “Maharashtra for the Maharashtrians” agenda. This was asserted through a series of barbaric attacks on whatever was deemed to be expressions or embodiments of north Indian culture, and through an attempt to cleanse everything Maharashtrian, from films to shop signs, of any ‘non-Marathi’ element. Mr Thackeray’s sense of his uncle’s grand legacy having somewhat bypassed him adds an edge to the intensity of his chauvinism. Mr Bachchan’s apology, by endorsing such a bigoted position, undermines the stature not only of a great icon but also of a modern democracy.