Why Did This Mumbai Woman Defend Maratha Agitation? LT On Ground|

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00:00Over the past few days, if you have scrolled through Twitter, Instagram or the usual TV

00:05prime time noise, you would think Mumbai was under siege.

00:09You would think lakhs of angry protestors had stormed every street corner, hijacked

00:15the city, paralyzed businesses and left millions stranded like helpless hostages.

00:21But here is the inconvenient truth, none of that really happened.

00:25What actually happened was far smaller, far more localized and far more manageable than

00:31the exaggerated picture some journalists, social media influencers and urban elites painted.

00:37And this, this difference between fact and narrative is exactly what we need to talk about

00:43today.

00:44Because the way these stories get told reveals something deeper, not just about protests but

00:49about privilege, class bias and whose voices get to define reality in this city.

00:55The numbers don't lie.

00:57Between 35,000 to 45,000 protestors gathered over 4 days in Mumbai.

01:03Big numbers?

01:04Yes.

01:05Serious?

01:06Yes.

01:07But let's not pretend this was some tsunami of humanity that drowned Mumbai.

01:10They were in lakhs?

01:11No.

01:12Exaggeration.

01:13Plain and simple.

01:14Testors brought around 650 vehicles, mostly tempos and trucks.

01:19Significant?

01:20Sure.

01:21But in a city where over 3 million vehicles hit the road daily, let's not kid ourselves.

01:26That's a drop in the ocean.

01:27The police deployed 1500 plus personnel.

01:30Sounds heavy.

01:31But again, not unusual.

01:33Every Ganesh festival, every cricket match at Vankhede, every big ticket Bollywood event

01:38sees similar deployments.

01:40But geographically, the so-called paralysis was limited to 2-3 square kilometers in South

01:46Mumbai.

01:47Azat Maidan, CSMT, Flora Fountain, Marine Drive and the High Coat Zone.

01:51That's it.

01:52Out of Mumbai's 603 square kilometers, over 95% of the city carried on with its life.

01:59Suburbs did not shut down.

02:01Andheri did not stop.

02:02Nor did Ghatkopar or Dadar or Bandra.

02:05And you wouldn't know this if you only listened to some TV anchors screaming, City Under Siege.

02:11Yes, businesses in South Mumbai took a hit.

02:14Retailers in Crawford Market, Zaveri Bazaar and Nariman Point saw sales drop.

02:19Restaurants at CR2 Mall reported 75% lower footfall.

02:24Traders screamed crippling losses.

02:26But pause.

02:27Two days of disruption does not equal citywide economic collapse.

02:30Dadar Market was open.

02:32Bandra shops were open.

02:33Thane Malls were open.

02:35The stock exchange, despite some noise outside, traded as usual.

02:39Mumbai airport did not stop.

02:40Mumbai port did not stop.

02:42Compare this to monsoons, when a single day of heavy rain shuts down trains, empties offices

02:48and kills business citywide.

02:50Or compare it to Ganesh Chaturthi, where road closures and diversions happen across weeks.

02:55Strangely, those disruptions are celebrated.

02:58This one condemned.

02:59Why?

03:00Because this time the disruption came from rural Maharashtra entering elite South Mumbai's

03:05backyard.

03:06Let's talk trains, buses and roads.

03:08Local trains were delayed, 15 to 20 minutes at worst.

03:13Anyone who commutes in Mumbai knows that's practically routine during rush hour.

03:17Trains ran.

03:18Metro ran.

03:19Intercity services ran.

03:20Buses were diverted.

03:21Some routes cut.

03:22But best kept running.

03:25Traffic slowed in South Mumbai, yes.

03:27But diversions were announced and alternatives existed.

03:31So let's stop calling this Mumbai paralyzed.

03:34That language insults the intelligence of every Mumbaiker who navigates worse every single

03:39monsoon.

03:40Now the Bombay High Court did use strong words.

03:43Mumbai literally paralyzed, city under siege.

03:46And yes, the protestors did step beyond Azad Maidan.

03:49They shouted slogans near the High Court, they cooked on roads, they camped in areas they

03:54weren't supposed to.

03:55But let's be precise, the court did not accuse them of terrorism.

03:59It did not say violence was out of control.

04:01It did not say hospitals were blocked or lives endangered.

04:05It said restrictions were violated and disruptions were serious.

04:09It gave a deadline for voluntary compliance, not a green light for a police crackdown.

04:14The police meanwhile handled 45,000 people with remarkable restraint.

04:19One violence incident in Juhu across four days.

04:22That's it.

04:23Compare that to how political rallies often spiral.

04:26Here the crowd dispersed when the deadline came.

04:29Here is where the rot sets in.

04:31The hostage narrative did not start with facts.

04:34It started with voices amplified beyond proportion.

04:37A trader's federation leader declared Mumbai feels hijacked.

04:40Columnists like Shobha Day cried that women were being terrorized in their cars.

04:45Social media influencers posted shaky videos of traffic jams with captions like, this city

04:50has collapsed.

04:52What they did not post, videos of trains running, markets open in other parts, schools functioning

04:57in other parts, daily life carrying on in 95% of the city.

05:02The TV picked it up.

05:04Words like hijack, siege, hostage, words usually reserved for terrorists were thrown at farmers,

05:10students and villagers demanding quota rights.

05:13That framing wasn't accidental.

05:14It was designed to delegitimize the protest itself.

05:17Here is the thing, Mumbai has always lived with disruptions.

05:21Ganesh Otso shuts roads every year.

05:23We embrace it.

05:25Cricket matches create human tsunamis on marine drive.

05:27We celebrate it.

05:29Monsoon floods paralyze the city every season.

05:32We sigh and blame the BMC.

05:34But when rural Maharashtra brings its anger and desperation to Azad Maidan, suddenly words

05:39like hostage appear.

05:41Suddenly elites cry foul.

05:43Suddenly journalists discover their traffic outrage.

05:46It's not about inconvenience, it's about who is allowed to inconvenience Mumbai.

05:51When it's gods, celebrities or billionaires, it's acceptable.

05:54When it's farmers and rural communities, it's intolerable.

05:57Let's flip the script.

05:59Who really holds Mumbai hostage?

06:01Is it a few thousands of villagers camping in Azad Maidan for 4 days or is it the system

06:06that has kept farmers economically strangled for decades?

06:10Think about it.

06:11Agriculture feeds Mumbai, yet farmers face falling incomes, water and electricity divergence

06:17to urban areas and systematic neglect.

06:20Their kids migrate to Mumbai for low wage jobs because the villages are drying up.

06:25And when they march here, when they sit in the heart of the financial capital, asking for

06:29dignity, the response from the elite is, you are hijacking our city.

06:33That's not just arrogance, that's moral blindness.

06:36The truth is, farmers have been held hostage far longer.

06:39By policies, by politicians, by indifference.

06:42This isn't the first time.

06:44In 2011, Anna Hazari's anti-corruption protest occupied Azad Maidan for weeks.

06:49No one screamed hostage.

06:50TV cameras camped there, cheering it on.

06:53In 2018, tens of thousands of farmers walked into Mumbai.

06:57Same routes, same disruptions.

06:58Media called it historic, inspiring, peaceful democracy in action.

07:03So what changed?

07:04The class lens.

07:05In 2011, it was middle class urban anger.

07:08In 2018, it was sympathetic rural suffering.

07:11In 2025, with elites tired of quota politics and irritated by traffic, the same actions are

07:17suddenly terrorizing the city.

07:20Look closely at who pushed the hostage narrative.

07:22Urban columnists, business leaders, South Mumbai traders, Instagram handles run by professionals

07:27and influencers.

07:29Notice who did not.

07:30The suburban commuters who actually bore the brunt.

07:33The daily wage workers still making it to their sights.

07:36The domestic workers, drivers, vendors.

07:38They know inconvenience.

07:39They know resilience.

07:40They know what being truly hostage to a system feels like.

07:45The language of siege comes from those who have rarely faced siege in their lives.

07:50At the end of the day, here is the balance sheet.

07:53Yes, the protest caused inconvenience.

07:55Yes, businesses in South Mumbai lost sales.

07:58Yes, roads clogged.

08:00But no, Mumbai was not paralyzed.

08:02No, the city was not hijacked.

08:04No, Mumbaikers were not hostages.

08:07The crisis was manufactured in headlines and hashtags.

08:10Not on the ground.

08:11The anger was directed more at who was protesting.

08:14Rural Maharashtra.

08:15And that tells us something ugly about our society.

08:18The divide between those who eat and those who feed.

08:21Between the elite who writes narratives.

08:23And the rural poor who live realities.

08:25So let's call this what it is.

08:27The real hostage situation isn't Mumbai traffic for 4 days.

08:30It's farmers trapped in an economy that doesn't value them.

08:33It's rural Maharashtra chained by debt, drought and neglect.

08:37What happened at Azad Maidan wasn't a siege.

08:40It was a cry for dignity.

08:41And the fact that the first instinct of some elites was to paint it as terrorism

08:46that reveals more about their prejudice than about the protestors.

08:49Mumbai wasn't held hostage.

08:51Mumbai was forced to look in the mirror.

08:53And maybe that's the most uncomfortable disruption of all.

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