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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Seventy-six mayors ruled BMC since 1931

After four years, Mumbai to salute its first citizen Kishori Pednekar Vishwanath Mahadeshwar Snehal Ambekar Sunil Prabhu Mumbai: As the date for appointing Mumbai’s First Citizen looms closer, various political parties have adopted tough posturing to foist their own person for the coveted post of Mayor – the ‘face’ of the country’s commercial capital. Ruling Mahayuti allies Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena have vowed that the city...

Seventy-six mayors ruled BMC since 1931

After four years, Mumbai to salute its first citizen Kishori Pednekar Vishwanath Mahadeshwar Snehal Ambekar Sunil Prabhu Mumbai: As the date for appointing Mumbai’s First Citizen looms closer, various political parties have adopted tough posturing to foist their own person for the coveted post of Mayor – the ‘face’ of the country’s commercial capital. Ruling Mahayuti allies Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena have vowed that the city will get a ‘Hindu Marathi’ person to head India’s richest civic body, while the Opposition Shiv Sena (UBT)-Maharashtra Navnirman Sena also harbour fond hopes of a miracle that could ensure their own person for the post. The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) optimism stems from expectations of possible political permutations-combinations that could develop with a realignment of forces as the Supreme Court is hearing the cases involving the Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party this week. Catapulted as the largest single party, the BJP hopes to install a first ever party-man as Mayor, but that may not create history. Way back in 1982-1983, a BJP leader Dr. Prabhakar Pai had served in the top post in Mumbai (then Bombay). Incidentally, Dr. Pai hailed from Udupi district of Karnataka, and his appointment came barely a couple of years after the BJP was formed (1980), capping a distinguished career as a city father, said experts. Originally a Congressman, Dr. Pai later shifted to the Bharatiya Janata Party, then back to Congress briefly, founded the Janata Seva Sangh before immersing himself in social activities. Second Administrator The 2026 Mayoral elections have evoked huge interest not only among Mumbaikars but across the country as it comes after nearly four years since the BMC was governed by an Administrator. This was only the second time in the BMC history that an Administrator was named after April 1984-May 1985. On both occasions, there were election-related issues, the first time the elections got delayed for certain reasons and the second time the polling was put off owing to Ward delimitations and OBC quotas as the matter was pending in the courts. From 1931 till 2022, Mumbai has been lorded over by 76 Mayors, men and women, hailing from various regions, backgrounds, castes and communities. They included Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsis, Sikhs, even a Jew, etc., truly reflecting the cosmopolitan personality of the coastal city and India’s financial powerhouse. In 1931-1932, the Mayor was a Parsi, J. B. Boman Behram, and others from his community followed like Khurshed Framji Nariman (after whom Nariman Point is named), E. A. Bandukwala, Minoo Masani, B. N. Karanjia and other bigwigs. There were Muslims like Hoosenally Rahimtoola, Sultan M. Chinoy, the legendary Yusuf Meherally, Dr. A. U. Memon and others. The Christian community got a fair share of Mayors with Joseph A. D’Souza – who was Member of Constituent Assembly representing Bombay Province for writing-approving the Constitution of India, M. U. Mascarenhas, P. A. Dias, Simon C. Fernandes, J. Leon D’Souza, et al. A Jew Elijah Moses (1937-1938) and a Sikh M. H. Bedi (1983-1984), served as Mayors, but post-1985, for the past 40 years, nobody from any minority community occupied the august post. During the silver jubilee year of the post, Sulochana M. Modi became the first woman Mayor of Mumbai (1956), and later with tweaks in the rules, many women ruled in this post – Nirmala Samant-Prabhavalkar (1994-1995), Vishakha Raut (997-1998), Dr. Shubha Raul (March 2007-Nov. 2009), Shraddha Jadhav (Dec. 2009-March 2012), Snehal Ambedkar (Sep. 2014-March 2017). The last incumbent (before the Administrator) was a government nurse, Kishori Pednekar (Nov. 2019-March 2022) - who earned the sobriquet of ‘Florence Nightingale’ of Mumbai - as she flitted around in her full white uniform at the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic, earning the admiration of the citizens. Mumbai Mayor – high-profile post The Mumbai Mayor’s post is considered a crucial step in the political ladder and many went on to become MLAs, MPs, state-central ministers, a Lok Sabha Speaker, Chief Ministers and union ministers. The formidable S. K. Patil was Mayor (1949-1952) and later served in the union cabinets of PMs Jawaharlal Nehru, Lah Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi; Dahyabhai V. Patel (1954-1955) was the son of India’s first Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel; Manohar Joshi (1976-1977) became the CM of Maharashtra, later union minister and Speaker of Lok Sabha; Chhagan Bhujbal (1985-1986 – 1990-1991) became a Deputy CM.

Russo-Ukraine: Endless War and Identity Struggles

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Russo-Ukraine: Endless War and Identity Struggles

Vladimir Putin “special military operation” in Ukraine which began February 2022 - the largest invasion since the end of the Second Word War in 1945 – has now taken on the nature of the fictional endless war described in George Orwell’s 1984.

The Russo-Ukrainian conflict has destroyed the European security structure built since the Helsinki Accords of 1975. While the Ukrainian resistance and the advance into Russian territory has surprised the West, fundamental questions persist: What made this war of aggression possible and what made the Ukrainians resist as they did and are continuing to do? What differentiates Ukrainians from Russians?

To grasp the origins of the conflict, one should begin with historian Serhii Plokhy’s The Gates of Europe and The Russo-Ukrainian War — both exemplars of clarity and conciseness.

Plokhy presents the longue durée history of Ukraine from Herodotus to the fall of the USSR and the current conflict. Located at the western edge of the Eurasian steppe, Ukraine has been a gateway to Europe for many centuries, being a meeting place and a battleground of empires - Roman, Habsburg, Ottoman.

He emphasizes Ukraine’s pivotal role in global history: The disintegration of the Soviet Unionin December 1991 was precipitated by the Ukrainian referendum on independence.

The ongoing conflict is not just a contemporary geopolitical struggle but one deeply rooted in history, particularly the contentious legacy of ‘Kyivan Rus’, a medieval polity founded by the Grand Prince Volodymyr (958-1015), a Scandinavian Viking.

As Plokhy observes, most Russians believe that their nation originated in Kyiv, the centre of the medieval Kyivan Rus’ polity, that encompassed most of today’s

Ukraine, Belarus, and European Russia. Kyivan Rus’ existed between the 10th and mid-13th centuries before disintegrating under the Mongol storm.

Volodymyr’s Christianization of Kyivan Rus’ (cited by Putin as the Russian world’s founding moment) culturally connected the region to Byzantium and Eastern Christianity, underpinning Russian claims to Ukrainian land for centuries.

In a 2021 essay, Putin fixated on foreign interference in Russian history, yet ironically, Volodymyr himself was a Scandinavian Viking who imposed Christianity on the Slavs.

The Kyivan Rus’ myth originated in the mid-15th century, with Ivan III of Moscow asserting his dynasty’s Kyivan roots to legitimize his conquest of Novgorod. Ivan’s victory marked the rise of an independent, authoritarian Russian state inherited by his grandson, Ivan IV (‘The Terrible’) who was defeated in the Livonian War (1558-83) by a coalition including Poland,Lithuania, Sweden, and Denmark. Moscow was captured by the Poles and their allies, the Ukrainian Cossacks.

During this time, Muscovy separated itself from Kyiv and the Ukrainian lands both politically and in religious terms with Muscovites no longer regarding Kyivans as fellow Orthodox believers, claiming that they had been ‘corrupted’ by the rule of Catholic kings and becoming open to the West.

In 1648, Ukrainians, led by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, sought Russian Tsar’s aid against the Poles, reviving the myth of the Kyivan heritage to protect Orthodox Cossacks from Polish Catholics. But the incorporation of the Ukrainian Cossack state into Moscow again sparked Cossack resistance in 1708, when Hetman Ivan Mazepa allied with Sweden’s Charles XII against

Tsar Peter ‘The Great’ only to be defeated at Poltava in 1709. At the time of the 1991 referendum, neither Gorbachev nor Yeltsin had imagined the Soviet Union without Ukraine, its second-largest republic and a key element of Russian history and mythology.

Plokhy masterfully illustrates how Ukraine’s past has been manipulated by Russian leaders to justify territorial claims, making the conflict a continuation of centuries-old tensions rather than a modern anomaly.

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