A riot broke out in Bombay after Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran announced a fatwa against Salman Rushdie. Ayodhya's Babri mosque is destroyed, and Bombay is set on fire. Myanmar's Rohingya population is suppressed, and violence rocks Mumbai's streets. When the terrorists assaulted Nariman House on 26/11, part of the incident was related to the Israel-Palestine Conflict. Like how Gujarat was burned during the communal riots, Bombay was also affected.
In 1534, When Porataguse arrived at seven islands which later came to be known as Mumbai did not have any Idea that this land would play a prominent role in every activity of the Nation in the upcoming 400 years.
My readers interested in crime stories are aware of Crime Tak's most famous YouTube Show hosted by Shams Tahir Khan. He tells stories about the most horrific crimes and encounters in India, some also from foreign. On One Day, he tells his audience about his coworker's latest launched Book, "Bombay After Ayodhya," before starting his story.
After listing that Book's recognition from him, I am sure about something outstanding. I decided to read it and do a review.
Initial Impressions of the Book
You can guess that Book's Subject by Its name & cover page, where an image of a burning city flashes. Shams Sir also describes that the book's subject relates to the Mumbai riots after the Babri Mosque demolition in Ayodhya. But there needs to be a solid overview of this book.
Suppose I had the eligibility to suggest that book's right name to the author. In that case, I will recommend "Bombay After Independence."
Because Riots of December 1992 is a tiny part of that book and is described in 12 pages of Chapter 4. That book covers Bombay's (Later Mumbai) Journey from the 1980s to 2022. It covers a large section about Bombay's Riots, Politics, Underworld, Terrorism, Bollywood, and Incidents of Nature's Catastrophe. Sometimes I felt that Jitendra Dixit poured out the essence of his hard work in Crime journalism in this book.
Why is Jitendra Dixit the most fitting choice for writing that Book?
It took me around three years to complete this book, but it took thirty years to live it.
Dixit, Sir, you don't need to say that. Anyone who reads this book can easily relate to everything and understand that you lived every moment you mention in this book.
In the 1980s, when he was stuck in a riot against Rushdie's controversial book, a Muslim man helped him to escort. He and his family directly suffered from the riots of 1992 & 1993, and they had to vacate their house. Not only that, he is a person who faces the Underworld, and none other was Hemant Karkare, who advises him to move away from Mumbai for some time because the Underworld kept an eye on him.
Who else will be more eligible to write about the National incident he saw and suffered? It is not an exaggeration to say that Jitendra Dixit's life story also parlor moved with Bombay's.
Analysis of Bombay After Ayodhya: A City in Flux
The book starts with the acknowledgment & dear memory of the Author's maternal and paternal grandfathers. It's normal, but in the first chapter, the movement was enough to give goosebumps when the author describes a fight between an ordinary shopkeeper against a local goon Yashwant who frequently extorts money from northern Indians. Despite fearing Yashwant, the shopkeeper dared to fight against him and taught him a suitable lesson. And that shopkeeper is nonother than our author's grandfather.
That was the incident of the early 1970s; then, the story directly jumped to the late 1980s.
When our author was between 12 and 15, Ayatollah Khomeini gave a fatwa against Salman Rashdie's novel: The Satanic Verses. Just like in the 1920s Khilafat, some fanatics again leave no stone unturned to follow the order of their brotherhoods. The result of that movement was horrific and the first incident the author witnessed.
Before describing the Ayodhya incident, the author highlighted seven major Hindu-Muslim riots from 1893 to 1990. But according to him, Before Ayodhya, everything was usual in Bombay; Hindu-Muslim lived together there. The author is also from a school where all the students were Muslim except him and his one friend. But things changed only with Advani's Rath Yatra in 1990.
Sometimes I feel that the author is prejudiced against Hindus because, in most of his incidents, Muslims were a savior, and Hindus (most of them) were provocative. It's not enough; he blamed Shiv Sena's Maha Aaarti campaign for the Hindu-Muslim riots of 1992. But the last thing going to be more surprising is when the author revealed that he also worked in Shiv Sena's Newspaper Saamna in his career's early days.
This Book Contains a total of 20 chapters. Still, the last seven chapters are pretty different from the previous ones, where the initial 13 chapters are about riots, the Underworld, terror, and encounters. Still, later ones about Mumbai's Natural catastrophes, Bollywood's history, festivals, and rituals of Bombay and also describe the sequence of events faced by the Bombay Financial market.
Three Lessons from that Book
Talk about courage while remaining fearful of yourself.
Jis ne anyay ke, Virodh mein bali ko mara, Rawan ko mot ke ghat utara, Punya ko paap se ubhara, Mujhe us ram ki talash hai, magar Lagta hai is yug ke Ram ko aajivan vanvas hai, kya kare Kyoki, sala ek machhar Aadami ko hizda bana deta hai
These lyrics from Nana Patekar's most admired movie, Yashwant, released in 1997, the same year Gulshan Kumar and Mukesh Duggal were shot dead by Underworld, Rajeev Rai lived in fear. Almost every Bollywood person surrendered himself to Underworld.
But Bollywood never stops teaching lessons for justice and fighting against injustice in every condition. But I don't know whether I am happy or sad about this. Laugh or cry on them.
We Indians Did not take any lesson seriously.
India's worst terrorist attack in Mumbai, better known as 26/11, gives a piece of fear for the whole Nation. Attackers arrived from India's coastal border, and after the incident, the Indian government increased the security of the coastal front.
On page 203, Author reveals his meeting where contemporary Police Commissioner D. Shivanandan showcased the measures taken by the police to avert any further attack, 20 selling boats and 20 amphibian vehicles purchased. In 2015 author found most of the ships dusted and became dysfunctional.
That is not enough; an audit report by the comptroller and auditor general revealed that 57 percent of the staff deployed for security needed to learn how to swim.
Love always won over hatred.
That book not only shows the hatred of communal riots but also has some incidents which are enough to give a lesson of communal harmony to the whole world. One of my favorites is about Jamdar Zariwala.
When Bombay was tense because of communal violence that made Ganesh ustav's plan critical, Hindus were worried about passing that rally from the dominant Muslim area. At the time, a Muslim social worker, who the author quoted as Jamdar "Chacha," came forward and supported the festival rally and welcomed Hindus with a sizeable Muslim population.
Jamdar chacha's initiative still has not died, not even after his death. That worked also done by his sons and many Muslim friends.
The audience I would recommend this book to
That Book hardly takes 10 hours to finish, but it can give you every detail about Mumbai's History. The students preparing for the state-level exam of Maharashtra must read that book because that can provide you with everything in 345 pages you did not find anywhere.
Those who love to watch gangster movies and are interested in crime series have to read that book because no film in Bollywood's record can give even a little competition to Bombay after Ayodhya in crime, thriller, and suspense.
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