The Centre of Fusion of Cultures
This perspective of life has undoubtedly been associated with a psychology which has emerged from a fusion of diffrerent cultures. It unfolds the past and guides the future. Bombay, it is said, does not reflect any one particular character just as Calcutta, Madras or Delhi does. It is a nursery in which the finest instincts are moulded, differences are tolerated, and traditions of understanding and goodwill developed. People from all walks of life, not only from India but the world over, have shed their distinctive backgrounds to mingle into one nameless, classless mass of people.
It is just out of this intermingling of peoples that Bombay has acquired its one peculiar characteristic cosmopolitanism. No signs of parochialism and provincialism exist. Tolerance, the essence of democracy, has taken root. There is none of the dogmatic fanaticism which still prevails among, certain sections in the country. The Urbs Prima, as it is called, has also strangely enough—considering that it is a fusion of all cultures—become the nerve centre of the country's cultural, social, political and economic movements. In all these activities it has set the pace for the rest of the country.
Maharashtra is thus entrusted with the care of the fountainhead of democracy and the mainspring of tolerance. With its intellectual background it has had to reconcile itself to the political and commercial life of the city. This it has, of course, done as is so creditably reflected in the policies which the Chavan Government has accepted. The fact that the portfolio of Industry demands the special attention of the Chief Minister is demonstrative of the mood which cosmopolitan Bombay breeds. The blending of the intellectuality of Maharashtra with the cosmopolitan character of Bombay will give a healthy content to the industrial and commercial status of the city.
Chavan is intensely human, and displays a sober understanding of human feelings He is willing to listen, and accept the other man’s point of view, simply because he realises that not to do so would represent the highest form of bigotry. This rational outlook makes him the composite cosmopolitan.