SOROOR AHMED argues that the parochial trends in Maharashtra would not only harm Maharashtra but wipe out the nation itself.
Maharashtra literally means larger or greater nation – the word Maha stands for great and rashtra for nation. Apparently the name of the western Indian State sounds too provocative to be accepted. How can a patch of land within the country be called greater than the nation itself? But if taken in Shakespearean spirit, not much should be read in the name as the concept of the nation-state is a comparatively recent phenomenon. In the pre-British age the expression rashtra was not what is understood today.
The fact of the matter is that Maharashtra is a State within the Indian Territory and should be treated so. It is another thing that some of its politicians have become too big for their boots and are suffering from acute xenophobia. Maharashtra has a mental asylum too – in Thane – and these people can be dumped there for treatment. Jail is certainly not the best place for them as there too they would start a war between the outsiders and insiders.
Now suppose if everyone – like the Maha-rashtrawadis – starts playing the ‘expulsion game’ in all the States of the country, or if possible throughout the globe, what will be the result? Outside India too there are outfits like the British National Party, the National Front and others always keen to play this game.
The expulsion game will trigger a mad rush of the natives to their ancestral places. The tragedy will be that an overwhelming number of these returnees will have no idea about their roots as they have been lost during the last so many centuries.
But what will happen if the idea really succeeds. There will be wholesale transfer of populations. In that case the population of Mumbai will come down from 1.9 crore to 50 lakhs as there are only 28 per cent Maharashtrians living in that metropolis. The rest will be back to their respective towns and cities.
Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, etc. may face partial extinction while many smaller cities or towns may completely be wiped out from the map as they are totally based on the migrant population. In contrast, cities, small towns and villages of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, etc. will start over-flowing with the population of these returnees.
Now imagine an India where not a single person from one State goes out to other State. Why a State, why not this formula be applied to towns or villages as Bal and Raj Thackerays of the respective towns and villages, may in future, protest the arrival of population from neighbouring areas.
Just live wherever you are born; spend the whole life there; earn whatever you can within the four walls of that place and die in the place of your birth. Even do not marry off your daughters in the neighbouring villages or towns. Just wait for the result. We will be automatically thrown back to the pre-historic age. Since in that situation we do not need to travel and seek job, education, etc. elsewhere. The car, train, airline and shipping industries will gradually collapse and become a part of history.
We just do not need any great effort to go several thousands years back. Follow the diktats of Uncles like Bal or nephews like Raj and the result will soon be before us.
But in this backward march to the Stone Age, one thing will automatically get extinct, that is, the very concept of a rashtra (nation) – not to speak of Maha-rashtra. Once in the hole there is absolutely no need for a nation or even the larger (maha) concept.
But a problem has cropped up even before the expulsion game starts: what should be the cut off year.
If the Red Indians start expelling the Europeans, and the aboriginal populations of South America, Africa and Australia start doing the same with the White population, then the entire United States, Australia and other North American countries may simply vanish.
If the same formula is applied in India, in particular Maharashtra, the Thackerays may face expulsion on part of the aboriginal population who claim that they are the real people of the country. Maharashtra would virtually become a de-populated zone.
The problem with this mindset is that they do not see beyond their nose. How can they boast of being Rashtrawadi or Maha-rashtrawadi when they talk about the very extinction of the concept of rashtra (nation)?