Does the progenitor of Super-Maratha Manoos know that about 3.5 crore Marathi-speaking people live outside Maharashtra? Does he know that, till now living amicably with UPians, Biharis, Rajasthanis and Delhiites etc, i.e. Now they have started nourishing apprehensions? Does he also know what opinion they have today about him and his not-so-illustrious uncle, Mr. Balasaheb Thackeray?
Angry reaction against Mr. Raj Thackeray’s muddle-headed foot-soldiers’ mayhem has already taken place in Bihar. Let us all pray others do not lose cool in other States.
Be it Mumbai and its suburbs, or Kandhamal in Orissa or the Saffron-oriented terrorist attacks on the Muslim minority elsewhere, everywhere, it is the criminal failure of the state authorities, which has aggravated the situation. To quote Dr Nitish Sengupta (Asian Age, Oct. 25): “The heart of the matter really is the state’s inability to take decisive action against such culprits at the very beginning. It is very regrettable that certain warrants of arrests, pertaining to Mumbai’s communal riots of 1992-93, were not acted on for more than 10 years, and successive state governments, including the Congress governments, did not take any action on these. It is this sort of inaction which makes people lose respect for the law and emboldens culprits to go on doing the same thing again and again.”
INACTION HISTORY
Maharashtra has a history of inaction against the bellicose Thackerays. The Union Home Minister, Mr Shivraj Patil sent three advisories to the State Chief Minister. But Mr. Sharad Pawar happens to be soft on the belligerent and so is, in fact, the case with the Chief Minister. According to a report from Mumbai: …also being intensely debated is whether the new kid on the block is being built up by the ruling Congress-NCP combine so that he could help them by chewing into Sena’s Marathi constituency. Raj’s arrest failed to quell suspicions of political collusion, with parties – from BJP to Left to JD(U) – alleging that Congress had propped up the MNS boss by design.
As the matters stand, more than 60 cases have been registered against MNS chief under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including assault, giving a provocative speech or interview to mediapersons and issuing threats. But this is a fact that the methods adopted by Mr. Raj are, and have been, extralegal and anti-national. His idiom is divisive and parochial.
What he forgets, is that the prosperity of Mumbai or Maharashtra is basically rooted in the first half of the 20th century when the mill-workers from the various states made it to Bombay. It was their perspiration that initially brought affluence to what is today the commercial and economic hub.
ROCK-BOTTOM REALITY
The rock-bottom reality, being perilously ignored by the Maharashtra Navnirman Samiti
(MNS), and its semi-literate admirers is that it is tolerance, not animosity that runs the societies. It is mutual accommodation that constitutes the sheet-anchor of healthy living. It is mutual respect, mutual cooperation and mutual sacrifices for greater causes that ensure brighter future for humanity. Has Mr. Raj Thackeray any idea of the ancient Indian concept of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”.
If he is ignorant of it, one would like to tell him that even today, Bharat may be culturally heterogeneous but politically it is one unit. To the extent of culture, language and religion, it is plural. But as a whole its denizens are one and only one. That this ground-zero reality is blissfully ignored by the Saffron is another subject, but not altogether different, as the umbilical cord of hate connects both.
The second lesson that one would like to impart to Mr. Thackeray Jr. that, incidentally, all of us have read in our 10th and 12th class is that the Constitution of India has given certain Fundamental Rights to its citizens. At the risk of boring the well-read, we reiterate them :
Article 19 clearly states that all citizens of the India shall have the right to:
* Freedom of speech and expression
* To assemble peacefully without harm
* To form association or unions
* To move freely throughout the territory of India
* To reside and settle in any part of the territory of India and
* To practise any profession or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.
There are other Fundamental Rights, in Chapter 3 of our Statute, which protect the personal liberty of citizens (Article 21), the right to own and acquire movable and immovable property (Article 29), and the right of all minorities, whether based on religion or language, to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice (Article 30).
There are also clear provisions in the Indian Penal Code, making it an offence to spread hatred or incite violence among communities.
RULE OF LAW ENVISAGED
The rights and privileges given in the Constitution envisage the rule of law and ensure integrity of the country. Mr Raj appears to be determined to pooh-pooh the rule of law and sow seeds of disintegration through his aging uncle’s fascist philosophy of the “sons of the soil.” If each and every State and the Union Territory starts violent agitations for the privileged position and primacy, a time would come when on the soil of plural Bharat there would be rivers of human blood.
Today’s average Maharashtrian shuns toil, while the northerners do not. The semi-literate or those who are not techno-savvy are understandably unemployed. By and large they all constitute MNS. Like the Biharis or UPians, they are not willing to work for 16 hours a day in laundries or restaurants. They are averse to run taxis or sell Bhelpuris on the beach. Unlike the Biharis or UPians, they are not prepared to sleep in the cement-pipes or on the railway platforms or footpaths.
MUSLIM VIEW
The point we are trying to drive home is tolerance is necessary, nay a must in a plural society. It is a political, social and economic necessity. It has no alternative.
This basic truth was blissfully ignored by Monje, Savarkar and Golwalkar. That is the fundamental flaw of their vision.
No use treading a beaten track, ending in a dark tunnel. The Saffron, for its own survival, should, nay must have a dispassionate second look at its paranoid philosophy.