The Praful Bidwai Column
Punishing parochial hate-mongering
THE Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) is doing in Mumbai what its parent Shiv Sena (SS) did decades ago; incite ethnic violence. The police arrested its chief Raj Thackeray after much dilly-dallying. But he was quickly released. He admits his supporters indulged in violence against North Indians, but says they "reacted" to "provocations."
He should be thoroughly prosecuted. But the Maharashtra government is unlikely to do so. It acted mainly because Ms. Sonia Gandhi pressed it to.
To appear "even-handed," it also charged Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Abu Azmi. Mr Thackeray incited attacks on Hindi-speaking vegetable-vendors and taxi-drivers for their "disloyalty" to Maharashtra. Mr. Azmi only issued statements against him.
After inciting violence, Mr. Thackeray turned up at the wedding of the daughter of the Mumbai Police Commissioner, who welcomed him -- showing high mutual comfort.
The Maharashtra government has never punished hate speech directed at "outsiders" or religious minorities. It has failed to implement the Srikrishna report, which recommends prosecution of the culprits of Mumbai's 1992-93 post-Babri violence.
It has decided not to reopen the 1,371 cases pertaining to murder and arson instigated by Sena leaders. These include 9 "open-and-shut" cases against Mr. Bal Thackeray for murderously inflammatory writing.
Now, a deplorable contest has erupted between the SS and MNS to claim the chauvinist "sons-of-the-soil" mantle. Sena leaders are blackening English signboards at Mumbai airport, and demanding jobs exclusively for Maharashtrians.
Why did the MNS take to anti-North Indian rabble-rousing at this time? Mr. Raj Thackeray is worried that his sickly outfit won't survive. He's looking to the coming assembly elections. Under fresh delimitation, the number of constituencies in Mumbai's suburbs, where the Northern presence is strong, will rise.
Recently, the Shiv Sena, too, joined the SP and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in wooing this group. This offered an easy target to Mr. Thackeray, who has been looking for an emotive platform.
In adopting this low-level tactic, Mr. Thackeray was only following his uncle, who, in the 1960s, cynically forged Marathi chauvinism, coupled with Hindutva, into an instrument to create a profoundly reactionary force, with terrible consequences for India, Maharashtra and Mumbai.
The Shiv Sena represents a violent attempt to roll back the social gains Maharashtra made through its relatively early embrace of modernity and enlightenment values, including reason, liberty, equality and tolerance.
Some of these came from the social reform movement going back to the 19th century and the legacy of Shahu Maharaj, Phule and Ambedkar, which strongly opposes communalism, parochialism, intimidation and violence.
The Sena concentrates all that's rotten within the dark culture of a narrow-minded, insular, insecure middle class, with a propensity for blaming "outsiders" for its own shortcomings.
The Sena exploited rancour among a section of Maharashtrians at the fact that their struggle for a Samyukta (unified) Maharashtra succeeded politically, but they remained "subalterns" economically; Mumbai, the "jewel in the crown," wasn't "Marathi enough;" its economic levers were controlled by Gujarati and Marwari businessmen.
This resentment exploded into violent attacks on South Indians, although they didn't control the levers. South Indians (especially Malayalis) active in Mumbai's vibrant trade union movement were especially targeted.
Mr. Thackeray exploited discontent among the Marathi working class youth at the multiplying closures of textile mills and growing unemployment.
He gave it a malignantly parochial expression designed to undermine Mumbai's unique cosmopolitan culture, a melange of different influences bound together by an urbane modernism. He tried to reduce Mumbai to a provincial town.
The Sena smashed trade unions and weakened the Left -- at the behest of Mumbai's industrialists. There's hardly a business house that didn't use SS goons as strike-breakers. The Sena set up countless rackets -- collecting "protection" money from "vadapav" stalls all the way to big builders, financing films, and running bogus "ambulance services."
Mr. Thackeray succeeded spectacularly thanks to the indulgence of Congress-led state governments, which were keen to liquidate the Left. He sang the virtues of fascism and built a Hitler-like personality cult around himself.
Mayhem ruled in Mumbai as the Sena thrived, terrorising South Indians and Gujaratis -- whose business leaders quickly bought off its opposition -- and then, the even more vulnerable Muslims. Mumbai became a city of prejudice and hatred, fear and loathing, character assassination, and lynching of innocents.
The Sena forged a macho Hindu-chauvinist identity masquerading as nationalism, of the kind that takes pride in branding all Muslims as "traitors." The Bharatiya Janata Party bestowed respectability on it by becoming the Sena's junior partner in Maharashtra, and drafting it into the National Democratic Alliance as its sole ideological ally.
The Sena is now in steep decline, which will accelerate after Mr. Bal Thackeray's death. The MNS split was a result of this decline.
The Sena-MNS anti-immigrant campaign is unlikely to find much resonance. This is because the proportion of migrants in Mumbai's population sharply declined from 66 percent in 1961 to 43 percent in 2001.
The proportion of migrants from within Maharashtra fell from 27 to 16 percent. Migrants from other states declined from 34 to 26 percent. Particularly sharp was the decline of Southern migrants -- from 10 to 6 percent.
By contrast, the proportion of migrants from UP and Bihar rose one-and-a-half times, but its magnitude is very low -- 12 percent. These are largely rural, unskilled and poor people, who do low-paid jobs like delivering newspapers and milk, vending vegetables, carrying headloads, or doing domestic chores.
Most old settlers, helped by skyrocketing property values, refuse such work. Without Northern migrants, Mumbai would grind to a halt.
That's one reason why attacks on them don't evoke sympathy. Another is that they have assimilated themselves in Mumbai's culture -- although language remains a problem. Perhaps even more important, few people want chaos and violence in Mumbai today. Even Mr Raj Thackeray can't afford it as a builder-property developer.
The government shouldn't drag its feet over prosecuting Mr. Thackeray. Bringing him and his co-practitioners of hate politics to justice in an exemplary manner is a Constitutional, moral and political imperative.
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