Click to play videoIndia is debating who is an ‘outsider’ and who an original resident after Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) activists attacked north Indian candidates at a railway recruitment exam in Mumbai on October 19.
Raj Thackeray, the 40-year-old leader of MNS, claims he was forced to use violence because the Railways discriminate against Maharashtrians. He was arrested and charged with spreading hatred among communities, rioting, assault and damage to property. He spent exactly one night in a police lock-up and was released jail the next day on bail.
In protest against the attacks on North Indians, youth groups in Bihar have attacked trains, blocked roads and organised shutdowns.
In three days of violent protests in Bihar, railway stations have been ransacked and at least 200 trains have been either cancelled or rescheduled. Over half a dozen complaints have been filed across Bihar against Raj.
This was the second time in eight months that Raj has been arrested for attacking north Indians, mostly migrant workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, whom he accuses of disrespecting Maharashtrian culture.
Is Raj’s complaint and his demands for Maharashtrians genuine? Should ‘locals’ get preference in jobs? Or such a demand is against the very idea of India?
CNN-IBN’s Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai asked this on the Weekend Edition to advertising professional and theatre personality Bharat Dabholkar and senior Marathi journalist Nikhil Wagle, the Editor of IBN Lokmat.
Also on the show were Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam, Professor Shankar Dutt, who teaches English at the Patna University, and Professor Dipankar Gupta, who teaches sociology at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
Jobs at home
Politics is one part of this agitation demanding jobs for Maharashtrians, said Wagle. “The other part is that there is a feeling of injustice among Marathi people. Local people should get preference for Class III and Class IV jobs, because that is the compulsion of linguistic state,” he said.
Dabholkar agreed and said that locals must get preference for jobs that don’t need “special skills”. Industrial law clearly define unskilled and semi-skilled jobs and whoever is “domiciled” in Maharashtra must get such jobs.
But the question is not about skilled or unskilled jobs—it is about how the MNS has pressed for its demands, said Gupta. “It is completely illegitimate. Why attack poor people who have come for exams?” he said.
Stopping Raj Thackeray
MNS workers get away with their attacks on North Indians because the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra sees its benefit in Raj Thackeray’s rise, say political analysts. The rise of MNS undermines the Shiv Sena, the party led by Raj’s estranged uncle Bal Thackeray.
Nirupam rejected these allegations and claimed the Maharashtra government is taking action against Raj and his supporters. “More than 2,000 people of his party have been arrested. There are 54 cases against him and he will have to spend his days in courts or police stations,” he said.
Raj has been arrested twice this year: Bal Thackeray was arrested just once in his political career. That is what Maharashtra government supporters say in response to allegations that they are soft on MNS workers.
Raj’s arrest was a mockery, said Gupta. “He was released in quick time and given anticipatory bail. You kill a Black Buck and won’t get anticipatory bail, but you get anticipatory bail for creating mayhem in Mumbai. Why didn’t the public prosecutor oppose it?”
The Congress government in the sixties countered the Communists with Bal Thackeray and the same politics is being used for Raj now, said Gupta, who has studied the rise of the Shiv Sena extensively.
“Raj has become a popular leader in Marathi society thanks to the state government and the police. There is a clear nexus between him and the state government. The Congress and the NCP want him to be popular because they think he will cut into Shiv Sena’s votes and they will be benefited. That is the entire politics,” said Wagle.
Has Raj then taken over the Maharashtrian cause? He has in some way, said Dabholkar. “I have seen the reaction of middle class Maharashtrians when issues like these are raised in theatre. These people don’t fight with people on the streets, but if that is the feeling I have seen theatres then Raj must be succeeding at some place,” he said.
Raj’s ‘success’ is possible because some believe that North Indians coming to Maharashtra don’t adapt to Maharashtrian culture, particularly in Mumbai.
The Shiv Sena and MNS believe that Marathi culture is the dominant one in Mumbai and all non-Marathis must adapt to it. Is that legitimate demand?
Professor Dutt rejected the demand. “Why should one always adapt to the dominant culture? Why can’t we be different in our cultural practises? Mumbai has had a cosmopolitan culture, but in the past few decades there has been a serious attempt to Bombay into Mumbai,” he said.
Marathis don’t want people to adapt their culture but just respect it. And that is not happening, said Wagle. “A majority of North Indians refuse to learn Marathi. They live in ghettos and are busy with their own business,” he said.
That is akin to what the RSS keeps saying: if Muslims want to live in India they must “respect” Hindi culture, said Gupta. “You don’t respect a culture by force or diktat but by living in a society and giving and taking from each other.”
Wagle rejected force and wanted outsiders to learn Marathi voluntarily and know about Marathi culture. “In exchange Marathis will learn about others’ culture. This will strengthen Indian-ness.”
Identity politics of the worst kind can be kept out by enforcing the rule of law but that is not happening. “Almost all politicians have been instrumental in violence in their states. We treat people who use violence with kid gloves,” said Gupta.
“We are turning pussycat into a tiger by treating this person (Raj) with kid gloves,” he said.
CNN-IBN’s editorial comment
India is a unique multi-lingual, multi-cultural society. One of the challenges when we got independence in 1947 was to ensure that unity in diversity was more than just an empty slogan.
More than 60 years later that challenge still lies ahead of us. Yes, we need to preserve the cultural identity of all our people, be they Maharashtrians or Biharis. But identity politics cannot be based on a ‘them’ versus ‘us’ battle, and certainly cannot be fought through muscle power.
Let Raj Thackeray engage in a contest of ideas through debate, resorting to street violence defeats the very idea of India.
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