The decline of Kolkata tells the same story. Till the mid-60s, the city was the most important cultural, intellectual and commercial centre in India. Its industrial hinterland was the largest in Asia, excluding Japan. The city was a multi-cultural mix of Bengalis, Marwaris, Biharis, Anglo-Indians, Europeans, Jews and Armenians. It even had a vibrant China-town. However, attitudes changed from the 60s — multinationals were squeezed out, new technologies were discouraged and the teaching of English was banned. Even the works of Rabindranath Tagore could only be performed according to strictly-prescribed formulae. The result was not a renaissance of Bengali culture. Instead, Bengal has never again produced individuals of the calibre of Tagore, Satyajit Ray, Vidyasagar, Vivekanand or Subhash Bose.
The lessons of Kolkata are important for Mumbai, especially since its own rise was partly helped by its rival’s decline in the 60s. Many of the companies that drive Mumbai’s current success were originally headquartered in Kolkata, and, in some cases, are still registered there. The self-proclaimed protectors of the Marathi Manoos may want to consider what happened to the Bengali Bhadralok. Today, the Bengali middle class (including me) lives in “exile” in Bangalore, Delhi-Gurgaon, New York, London and even Mumbai. We were not exiled by foreign rule or by the invasion of migrants but by close-mindedness and the lack of imagination.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Sanjeev Sanyal : Marathi Manoos will take Mumbai where Bengali Bhadralok took Kolkata
An insightful comparison between today's Mumbai and yesterday's Kolkata by Sanjeev Sanyal (the author of The Indian Renaissance: India’s Rise after a Thousand Years of Decline ) :
Read the full article in Business Standard here.
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