Mumbai Vs. Bombay

Mumbai is a city...but Bombay is a feeling. 

Unless you have lived in a cave for the past decade, this meme has shown up in your social sphere at regular intervals.  On the surface it seems like a wish by a diminishing minority desperate to retain that last semblance of their last remaining identity within a city they have called home.

Personally, I have grown up with mixed feelings vis-a-vis this issue.  "What's in a name?" you may argue, but in India a great deal.

The support for the two names stems from two fundamental sources.

Mumbai:  Supported by the native sons typically Maharashtrians and Gujaratis.  Both languages use Mumbai and not Bombay in their lexicon.

Bombay:  All those opposed to Shiv Sena along with communities who consider themselves the 'original' residents of this great city.

Over the years I have personally veered towards 'Mumbai'.  And their's a very important reason for that.

Dig deeper into the antecedents of those passionately devoted to 'Bombay' and 9 times out of 10 you will encounter an individual who secretly wishes India was still under British rule.

The argument often thrown by Bombayites at Mumbaikars runs along these lines:

"We turned this fishing village into the glorious city it is today".

Not surprisingly this is precisely the argument put forth first by Mughal loving Pakistanis and British loving Indians vis-a-vis India as a whole.

It is their firm belief that Indians/Hindus were a barbaric tribe, who were saved by their respective progenitors i.e. Mughals and the British.

A localized version of this argument is peddled with Mumbai. 

Surely, it has taken a collective effort to build Bombay into the city it is today.

But this argument ignores the yeoman's service rendered to Mumbai and Maharashtra by the local population and by Shiv Sena in fighting and destroying leftist unions who were poised to turn Mumbai into a second Kolkotta.

But the Bombay mindset of 'British Indians' fails to acknowledge this socio-political ecosystem which allowed Mumbai to thrive.  Instead it harbors a not so subtle 'Brown Sahib' syndrome.

This syndrome stems from a deep rooted inferiority complex - Indians are inferior to outsiders.  Primarily to the great British who gave us civilization and turned us into a civilized people.

It is for this reason that key princely states such as Goa and Hyderabad refused to join the Indian union.  

It is not coincidence that these communities are greatly under represented in both India's freedom struggle and in the Indian armed forces.

It was the absence of these communities from cities such as Chennai and Bengaluru which allowed the renaming of those great cities to go through without a whimper or a protest.

In the 21st century there should be no room for anti-British sentiments.  'Mumbai' is not about hating the British.  But 'Bombay' is most certainly about self-hate.

The eradication of this self-loathing is key to our rise as a people willing to join the world community as equals.

Bombay represents an inferiority complex, Mumbai serves as an anthem for a resurgent India.