MUMBAI DIARIES

MUMBAI DIARIES PERSONAL EXPERIENCES This an account of a journey undertaken by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan to Mumbai in August 1986 to participate in Conference on Communal Harmony. It is reproduced here because the lessons and impressions are so relevant and meaningful today. Mumbai was then known as Bombay. Bombay–Venue of Conference on Communal Harmony I arrived in Bombay on August 22 and stayed for two nights at Land’s End Guest House on Malabar Hill. It was appropriate that a Conference on Communal Harmony should be held in Bombay for, besides being the seventh most populous city in the world and the commercial capital of India, Bombay is truly a cosmopolitan city. People belonging to every religion live here. Hindus make up more than half of the population, while Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis and Jews constitute the remainder. Here, every language of India is spoken and even some foreign languages are in evidence. The most commonly spoken language, however is Marathi. The Conference Opens The Conference began on the morning of August 23, at 10 a.m. On reaching the Dr Alma Latifi Hall, I noticed that the place was swarming with men in uniform. Some armed guards were stationed on the roof. I was told that the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr S. B. Chavan, was to open the Conference, and a number of other central and state ministers would be present along with him on the stage. Before 1947, our leaders told us that it was only foreign rulers who required security arrangements. It was said that when India became free and representatives of the people took over the reins of power, there would be no further need for police and paramilitary forces to provide security, and the nation would be spared the undue burden of paying for such precautions. However, it appears that the need for security is greater now than ever before. As one police officer put it, “Nowadays, work in the field of crime detection is negligible. All our efforts are channelled into providing security”.