Lessons from the Obama victory

November 6, 2008 at 3:33 am (Bihar, Maharashtra)
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By now, people from across this planet have heard about Barack Obama’s historic victory in becoming the first African-American President of the greatest democracy on earth, the United States of America. The last time a colored man captured the news headlines, media attention and brought the racial divide in the US out in the open was during the trials of O.J.Simpson (a one time popular American Football player) for the murder of his white ex-wife Nicole and her boyfriend. The results of that trial, while also being hailed by the African-American community, left the psyche of this country deeply divided along racial lines. How is it then that in a matter of a dozen odd years, a majority of white americans can bridge that divide and trust their futures in the hands of a black man, who was born in the segregation era?

If you bother to cut out all the commentary, it boils down to one and only one reason … the tremendous faith of the american people in their government to protect their rights.

So … I don’t have to tell you about the disconnect of an un-adulterated trust between the people of India and its governments. Indeed, the very fact that we have linguistic states in India is a testament to the fact that we do not expect fair treatment from the hands of a nepotistic polity. No wonder then that the States Re-organization Committee in the post-independence India acceded to the demands of the people who felt that their interests would be better served by politicians who shared their mother-tongues.

The acts of central cabinet ministers who shamelessly capture jobs for people from their home states are simply put daggers in the heart of the sacred trust that should exist between a people and its government. Why are we then so surprised if India produces Laloo’s, Mayawati’s, Mulayam’s and Thackeray’s while America produces Obama’s?

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From ‘Hindi mein Bolo’ to ‘Hindi mein Ro Lo’

November 4, 2008 at 4:47 am (Bihar, MNS, Maharashtra)
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I came across this very eloquent blog from a fellow Maharashtrian that gives vent to the travails of Maharashtrians in Mumbai. When I read these instances of Maharashtrians being put down with ethnic slurs, to being treated like a cheap criminal in your home state and city for speaking in your mother tongue, I wonder if the backlash against these wolves in sheep’s clothing for signage and communication in Marathi was not to be expected.

What started in suburban Mumbai as the roadside vegetable vendor from north India saying ‘Hamaari Bitiya Indira Gandhi’, eventually morphed in to a self-righteous demand of ‘Hindi mein bolo’. Funny how, what we believed was our national language just turned out to be ‘an official language of the central government‘ just like English. (Interestingly our textbooks in Maharashtra never bothered to clarify that, nor did they ever mention the Samyukta Maharashtra movement.) Equally interesting was the violent campaign against English medium schools in UP/Bihar during the 80’s and 90’s — apparently linguistic ‘Asmita’ is not a Maharashtrian monopoly.

But, our attempts at a more inclusive campaign of ‘Mee Mumbaikar’ only fetched us an in our face ‘Jiska number Mumbai ka, woh Mumbai ka’. So, if Raj Thackeray and his men are paying back ‘Hindi mein Bolo’ with ‘Hindi mein Ro Lo’, who is to be blamed?

The sad part is that the price of spurning the hand of friendship is being paid by soft targets and not the senile bourgeois like Bachi Karkaria, who extol the virtues of multi-generational serfs from Bihar, and who probably never travel in the BEST buses but find angels among gun-toting machos shooting at innocent passengers.

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How to have your cake and eat it too …

November 1, 2008 at 6:33 am (Bihar, Maharashtra)
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The unfortunate death of DharamDev Rai has grabbed the national headlines as well as eyeballs and clicks on the electronic and digital media. Nothing can justify the death of an innocent individual, no matter how accidental it is. I’m sure many people are aggrieved, as they rightly should be. But, if and when we are past this grief, can some one please pay some attention to the other side of this story from the Mumbai Mirror?

It has been very well publicized that DharamDev and his friends were workers at Khopoli, but what has not yet received the same attention is the fact some of the men (and a minor boy) who were involved in the assault were also from Khopoli. In fact these Maharashtrian villagers had given up/sold their lands to the steel plant back in 2003/04 in hopes of securing jobs for their families. Instead once the steel plant was built, a majority of the jobs were given to workers from out of the state, many of them north Indians. This was followed by an agitation by the villagers which involved morchas, hunger strikes and eventually fisticups with north Indian workers. The north Indian workers also organized their morchas which resulted in some of the villagers being arrested and externed.

So, now I’m left wondering who is smarter, UP/Bihar or Maharashtra? The way I see it … the farmers of UP/Bihar are keeping their farmlands and sending their excess labor to states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Andhra. Meanwhile, these other states are asking their farmers to give up their fertile lands to develop SEZs in hopes of attracting jobs. There are 131 SEZs in Maharashtra which are slated to attract an investment of Rs. 1.35 lakh crores and generate 60 lakh jobs. For Whom?

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Of symptoms and root cause …

November 1, 2008 at 3:24 am (Bihar, Maharashtra)
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This is in response to this blog post.

First, let me make it very clear that I do not condone or support in any manner the violent tactics of MNS. The deaths of north-Indians in Mumbai are tragic and regrettable. Any self-respecting Maharashtrian would find these events shameful. But, I’m equally in anguish at the fact that the failure of governments of UP/Bihar to create opportunities for their own people, to provide a secure environment for their people and industries is playing out in my home state. Equally disappointing is the fact that people from UP/Bihar only want to look at the symptoms and not the root cause.

Take for example, your reference to Shiv Sena’s role in the riots of 92/93. Did these riots occur spontaneously in a vacuum? Or should we forget the role of the Rath Yatra and the demolition of some god forsaken Babri Masjid in the Hindi heartland?

There is no doubt that Maharashtra is also inflicted by communalist forces. But, in its almost 50 years of existence, how many years do you think the BJP/SS combine was able to govern over Maharashtra? Barely 5 years.

Besides, if Bal Thackeray is so reviled for his communalist writings, how come the same people, who are now at the receiving end of the MNS campaign, won’t pip a squeak when the minority community is at the receiving end?

I’m not going to defend corrupt politicians, but let us not forget that Abdul Karim Telgi was a migrant from Karnataka. Let us also not forget that the top cop who helped him and is now cooling his heels in jail, was none other than Mumbai Police Commissioner, R. S. Sharma. Besides, inspite of these corrupt politicians has there been a loss of jobs or industries in Maharashtra?

Regarding Raj Thackeray’s statement, don’t you distinguish between statements made for political consumption and those made for galvanizing people? Which state did we see the fires in? Did Raj Thackeray ask the people of Bihar to burn trains or was it Laloo to put more pressure on Nitish Kumar?

I think the Khairlanji murders is probably one of the best examples of how things are handled differently in Maharashtra as compared to UP/Bihar. There can be no doubt that caste discrimination is rampant in many parts of India, including UP, Bihar and Maharashtra. When these brutal murders came to light, there was so much uproar in the Maharashtrian society the state government was forced to take stern action against the perpetrators. In about two years time, 6 of the accused have been sentenced to death, in spite of their political connections. Contrast this with Bihar, where people are scared to even use their last names for fear of identifying their caste.

Perhaps you might want to explain what you mean by your Bollywood jobs for Maharashtrians comment, because I’vent read anything quite as irrational lately. Is Bollywood the only movie industry in India? Who is to decide they won’t get the jobs in Marathi film industry and why? Actually, I’m quite perplexed by the fascination of people towards Bollywood. How many jobs do you think Bollywood creates and how much do you think those jobs are worth? For the kind of attitude that Bollywood biggies flaunt, Mumbai would be far better off without it than with it.

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Cosmopolitanism my ass

October 23, 2008 at 2:33 am (Bihar, Maharashtra)
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IF there is any news organisation to be given any credit for the kind of spin it can put on an issue, then it has to be CNN-IBN. When Raj Thackray and MNS are agitating for jobs for Maharashtrians, only CNN-IBN can put the garb of cosmopolitanism on it.

Maybe CNN-IBN anchors have the wisdom to explain to the people of Maharashtra why cosmopolitanism should be thrust down their throats in their own home state. Whatever happenned to ‘when in Rome, behave as Romans do’? Why not add a Maharashtrian flavor to their identity? If you can call yourself Mumbaikars, why not accept Marathi language and sign boards? If the whole idea behind cosmopolitanism is to force your languages, values and culture on the residents of Maharashtra, then why the hell did we drive the Brits out? We would have been truly cosmopolitan if we had let the Brits stick around.

The fact of the matter is that to many Maharashtrians (and to me personally) cosmopolitanism is not a big issue. The real issue that vibrates with many mainstream Maharashtrians are the dwindling opportunities for the people of Maharashtra.

In the above referenced program, Siddhartha Bhatia asked if Maharashtrian’s working in Silicon Valley should return to make jobs available to Americans. Well Mr. Bhatia, for your information the typical Indians who work in the US on H1-B visa or green card, can only do so if they obtain labor certification issued by the US Department of Labor indicating that there are no qualified American candidates available to fill that position. Your DNA newspaper probably missed out on the stories of Indians forced to return back to India after the dot com bust. You probably are also unaware of the safety nets in the american society of social security and medicare, which helps americans to bridge over the times of economic hardship. In India, it is every man for himself. Case in point… the suicides of Maharashtrian farmers in Vidarbha.

But wait, there is more to this. The present United States of America was founded by immigrants. Everybody in this young nation of over 200 years is a descendant of immigrants. Ok maybe not everyone … definitely not the native americans (red indians to the un-initiated). But do you know what is their condition today? The natives of this landmass are confined to areas known as reservations and you know what is their chief economic driver? It is casino’s and gambling. Yes, america is the most developed and cosmopolitan country on this planet. But how much have native americans benefitted from this? Surely, this is not the future that we envision for the people of Maharashtra.

Besides, it is not like americans accept immigrants with open arms. Illegal immigration by Mexicans into the US is a hot issue here as well that can charge up even the bluest of blue liberal democrats. In fact, the socio-economic aspects of illegal immigration from Mexico to the US are an exact replica of migration from the Bimaru states of UP, Bihar and West Bengal to the more progressive parts of India. Like these Bimaru states, the Mexican government has done absolutely nothing for the development of its people and it unabashedly encourages their migration to the US. In this case, at least the americans have legal recourse to the fact that the US and Mexico are two different countries. There is no legal reourse to people of Maharashtra. Is it any wonder then that the unemployed youth of Maharashtra fall into the arms of Raj Thackray and MNS and vent their anger on the migrants?

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Beginning of the end, or end of the beginning …

October 21, 2008 at 3:44 am (Bihar, MNS, Maharashtra)
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That Raj Thackeray would be arrested eventually was inevitable. The question we should be asking now is if this is the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. But, before we go that far, let us look at what has brought us to this predicament.

The immediate cause is apparently the rioting and violence against out-station examinees at the Railway Reservation Board exams being conducted in Mumbai for lack of adequate representation of Maharashtrians. So, what exactly is Raj Thackeray and MNS referring to? He is referring to the fact that when these RRB exams were announced they were only published in news papers in north India and none was published in Marathi news papers, in spite of the exams being held in Mumbai. So, how has the government explained or intends to explain this clear and present discrimination against the people of Maharshtra?

Now, one would understand the government’s position if this was the first such incident. But, how are we to ignore the fact that this exact same situation occurred back in 2003, when north Indian examinees for the RRB exams were beaten up by Shiv Sena in the suburb of Kalyan? Surely, in the present anti-migrant atmosphere, one would have expected a far more responsible action from the Railway Ministry, particularly when the Railway Minister happens to be from Bihar.

One can’t help but question the motives of the government. But, at the same time is the Indian democracy so toothless that the only response to mischief by the government is public violence? Can’t some one file a lawsuit and put a stay on the RRB exam? Can’t some one file a RTI petition and find the truth behind state wise recruitment in the Railways over the last 5 years?

Maybe the answer to that question lies in the recent layoffs and the reversal thereof at Jet Airways, when the laid off Jet cabin crew found a savior in Raj Thackeray and not the mainstream politicians. As much as the elite and intelligentsia would like us to believe, one can’t help but question if the Indian democracy is hollow at best.

That the people of India can have a great future, is beyond doubt. But, can anyone cherish that future if people are deliberately or otherwise left out feeling that they have no stake in it?

Which brings us to the original question of whether this the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. And to that question, I ask …. of what? If it refers to Raj Thackeray and MNS, one would have to be delusional to believe this is the beginning of the end.

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Frog in the river, I suppose

September 24, 2008 at 4:42 pm (Bihar, Maharashtra)

While the tempers flare in Mumbai, CEO’s are lynched in UP and Bihari’s drown in the Kosi, here’s another Maharashtrian frog in the rivers of Bihar.

Dr. Chandrakant Patil didn’t go to Bihar because it was his RIGHT as an Indian to move to any part of India; he went there because it was his DUTY.

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