In the last week, a simmering problem just boiled over. There has been violence against the “North Indians”. And, I am surprised that people are surprised. I am appalled. I am horrified. But, I am not surprised. Infact I expected it to happen rather earlier.
In the last 13 years that I have been back in Mumbai, the murmurs against ‘north indians’ have been growing slowly but strongly. ‘They take away our jobs’ is the common refrain.’it is becoming unsafe because of them’ is another common refrain. Mumbai has been f***ed up by north Indian drivers,who don’t follow traffic rules is another. They spit on the street is another….
At the core is the fact that there is the ‘outsider’ - who doesn’t mind being the outsider - who is taking away jobs. Yesterday it was the blue collared job as the mill worker, today it is as the driver, as the cabbie, as the rickshawalla, as the vegetable vendor. In Pune, friends have been talking about how you cannot find Maharashtrian rickshawallas, vegetable vendors and milk men, anymore. In Nangargaon - where we have a house - the local rickshawalla keeps complaining about the ‘uttar bharatiya’ who comes in - and six months later his entire village is here - and takes over jobs. In fact, the village next door is mostly full of UPites and Bihari’s. There is one Maharashtrian family left. Go to areas likeVasai, and there are entire villages that have become considerably ‘north indian’
In Mumbai too, the character of a number of localities have changed. Go to Vile Parle, go to Goregaon (East), go to pockets of Andheri (East) - and you will see a sea change in the demographic profile. I grew up in these areas, and where I would hear Marathi on the streets all the time, I hear Hindi…. and it is not Bambiah that i hear…. And, here too the jobs are gone. With the mills closed, the docks needing less people, and manufacturing per se moving out of Mumbai… there is no place left for the ‘local’. So just as almost 40years ago, my mother has vivid memories of that , the Sena went to war with Madrasis - who took away jobs in the docks, in the mills… today the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is going to war with the Uttar Bharatiyas who are taking away the subsistence level jobs.
The Shiv Sena has long ago sold the interests of the Maharasthrians… when it made the deal with mill owners to move the mills out with minimum compensation. Add to this, the fact that every political party from the Congress to the BJP to the Samajwadi Party are tripping over each other to fast track ration cards, domicile certificates, and legalising shanties that sprung up in the recent past … There was a point of time that strong unions would have ensured a certain minimum representation of unions locals…. but, the unions are toothless or party fronts…. So what you have a potential tinderbox… And that tinderbox just caught fire….
This morning I asked our maid Vimal - what she thought about the MNS and the violence. The joyful smile on her face told me what I didn’t want to know. And, Vimal is a kind gentle soul. She is a staunch Ambedkarite. She doesn’t have much truck with the Sena. She didn’t even know who Raj Thackeray was. But, she was happy. Anjana - the Malish walli - had a similar reaction, her sister used to sell vegetables, and was displaced by the bhaiyya who undercut her. She became a maid servant. L at our office, smiled and said that it shouldn’t happen (nahi hona chahiye) and smiled again.
The resentment, as I said earlier, has been building up for quite sometime. And, nobody has paid any heed to the voices on the street. Raj Thackery and MNS may not represent everyone. Or even all Maharastrians. Or even all blue collared Maharashtrians. But, they are voicing an issue that impacts a great many peoople. The issue of jobs. Jobs for the locals. It is a serious issue, and cannot be swept under the carpet under the weight of our outrage at the destruction of the ‘cosmopolitan’ fabric of Mumbai. Unfortunately, their voicing of the issue has been damned by their use of violence.
What Raj Thackeray and his bunch of goons has done is not just criminal but Unconstitutional. It is also highly dangerous - because it is this identity called ‘Indian’ that keeps us together as a nation. Otherwise we have nothing else in common. And, Indians have the right of free movement and the right to go about their everyday lives without being pulled out of trains and buses and beaten up or without having their livelihood burnt down or threatened.
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