(The Times of India - 15 March, 2007)
EDITORIAL: Urban Ideas
Mumbai's Biharis are central to Raj Thackeray's political imagination. They offer him an excuse to espouse an agenda of political chauvinism.
Raj's recent outburst that Biharis living in Mumbai should learn to respect Marathis or get ready to be slapped is a ploy to shore up the declining political fortunes of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, a political offshoot of the Shiv Sena that he founded.
It was left to Shatrughan Sinha, BJP leader and fellow saffronite, to state the obvious: that every Indian is free to live in any part of the country.
The Bihar assembly also adopted a resolution censuring Raj Thackeray's statements. Raj seems to think that the only way to make himself politically relevant is to move further right of the Sena.
Indeed, there is always a small constituency willing to support chauvinist agendas. Unfortunately, even mainstream political outfits are not immune to its attraction.
And, Mumbai is not the only city where such politics thrives. Linguistic and ethnic chauvinisms pose a threat to the cosmopolitan core of cities like Bangalore and Chennai.
The Cauvery River, for example, can be a cause for breakdown of civic life in Bangalore.
UPA allies slugging it out in Parliament over essentially regional interests — which state gets to have a maritime university — is another case in point.
The situation is worse in states like Assam, Manipur and Nagaland where ethnicity and language are matters of life and death.
|
