Marathi Manoos vs. the LDR and the Train connection

Seeing itself is an act of violence. For example, if you listen to the words of a homeless person
with your eyes closed, they may have different meanings. When you see people you unconsciously judge them, and discriminate against them.

- dialog from the movie Tokyo Marigold.

Shobhaa De has penned several articles on her regular TOI column excoriating Raj Thackeray's regionalism. So, her astounding volte face on her Devil's Advocate interview came as a huge shock.

Not only does she lend full moral support to Raj Thackeray's ideals (sans the violence, of course), she seems to be irked by the influx of outsiders:

Karan Thapar: You’re saying two very interesting things – it’s been hijacked in their minds and that today Mumbai is every one else’s first and Maharashtrians’ last. Are Maharashtrians being discriminated against?

Shobhaa De: I would, to some extent, agree that they are being discriminated against in terms of job applications like the Railways – we saw last week what happened there – because Maharashtrian himself/herself has not perhaps fought for their rightful position within the state or the city. I say that with a great amount of compassion, not just for Maharashtrians but a system that seems to not recognise the dreams and ideals of the locals.

Karan Thapar: Before I come to why they haven’t fought for their rights, you are really seriously saying that today in Mumbai – the capital of Maharashtra – Maharashtrains are getting a raw deal?

Shobhaa De: I am definitely saying Maharashtrians get a raw deal which does not mean that I, in any way, support violence or endorse what Raj Thackeray stands for. What I am saying is that the raw deal has a lot to do with the Maharashtrian way of asserting or not asserting themselves.

As we have argued several times on this blog, this vividly illustrates that we set out to play a game without agreeing upon the rules. Now we have fouls all around and we can't decide on a neutral referee. Shobhaa De certainly does not speak for all Maharashtrians and neither does Raj. However, it is amply evident that there is an undercurrent of strong discontent. Political parties are only too willing to exploit the situation. According to De, even the intellectuals are bound by a "conspiracy of silence".

It is an easy ruse for the garden variety secular-socialists to pin the entire blame on Shiv Sena or MNS. Meanwhile Congress and NCP has been playing soft Marathitva to MNS' hard Marathi regionalism. They commissioned the giant Shivaji statue. When a newspaper criticized the expensive move, their offices were vandalized by Cong/NCP hoodlums. Even the official order for mandatory Marathi signboard came out of the Maharashtra legislature. Of course, Raj did more than his part to enforce it. It has been alleged that Congress reacted too late before arresting Raj, thus extracting political mileage out of the situation.

Elsewhere in the interview, Karan Thapar points out that statistics does not bear out the claim of the regionalists - that Maharashtrians are well represented in jobs. Shobhaa De doesn't seem to agree - she claims to see only outsiders at construction sites.

The whole situation is one of massive denial by all parties concerned. Are Marathis really agitating for construction jobs? Having been screwed over by a system that allowed certain communities to corner the wealth, they have only one option left. Or at least the option that should be obvious to anyone with a short-term perspective. Raj Thackeray can not be singled out for blame for indulging in identity based politics when virtually every intellectual in India does the same thing. At the time of writing, the lead story on Times of India, the largest circulation paper in India laments the few percentage points Minorities are lagging behind in jobs. Recently India's best known intellectual Arundhati Roy supported freedom for Kashmiris. In the end it turned out Kashmiris didn't want freedom.

Aside from the wealth accumulation issue (that can not be helped without overhauling the entire system and not anytime soon), much of the perception of job stealing by outsiders is mixing up cause and effect. The reason there are jobs in Maharashtra is why people go there in the first place. Certainly Marathis wouldn't want to swap for Orissa where no one goes (except missionaries)?

In India we want to eat the cake and have it too. When it comes to our own state, we want domicile quotas every which way we can. As soon as the matter relates to another state, suddenly we are gloriously Indians, cheerleaders for the LDR and great fans of cosmopolitan cities. Same thing when it comes to politics. When Congress applies Sachar, it is for social justice. But Raj Thackeray is not allowed to bat for poor Marathis.

The Train Connection

In the latest incident of anti-Hindustani violence by MNS, candidates from Bihar who were about to take the Maharashtra Railway Board entrance exam were severely beaten up. Reportedly one man was killed which triggered widespread violence in Bihar - public property was vandalized and one Maharashtrian was beaten up.

Well, it turns out that the man supposed to have been killed by MNS party workers had actually died in a train accident and they have CCTV footage to prove it. Now they tell us!

The incident happened at 7:30 AM. The man was brought to a hospital by railway staff. Which part of train accident was in doubt? Surely a man looks slightly different when run over by train as opposed to being beaten up by a mob? Yet somehow the rumor that an MNS mob had killed the boy reached Bihar and triggered violence.

From Babri Masjid (Advani was arrested by Laloo and confined in Bihar when the mosque was destroyed) to Godhra to this latest incident - every murky, sordid and controversial issue has Laloo's paw prints all over it. The man camps out in Gujarat, in Maharashtra. He is certainly entitled to as Railway minister. He also can't keep his hands out of the cookie jar of public money. Even the exam in question was for the railway services - who know if rules were being violated?

Shobhaa De mentions slogans written all over the walls in Mumbai saying, 'UP hamari hai, ab Maharashtra ki baari hai' (UP is ours, now for Maharahtra). Think poor migrant laborers thought it up by themselves? Special trains bringing in thousands for political rallies have added to the claustrophobia. Sometimes the trains bring in elements that would be undesirable anywhere, not just in Maharashtra. Why would Marathis put up with it?

Yet our intellectuals find Laloo's tomfoolery charming. They can't get enough of his rustic jokes.

Laloo is a living indictment to the dishonesty of the intellectuals in our country. We are letting men like him destroy the LDR bit by bit. Raj Thackeray and his company can not hold a candle to Laloo's disruptive presence in Indian politics and our intellectuals pretend not to see any of it.