Mail Today, 12 November 2009
Intolerant politics a threat to urban living
by Amritha Ibrahim
The mobile urban ‘stranger’ is attached to acity through special links which are not based on kinship, locality or caste
THE ATTACK on Abu Azmi by MLAs of the Maharashtra Navinirman Sena (MNS) in the State Assembly on Monday has been described as extremely shocking, as a day of shame. However, this is not the first time we have seen violent outbursts by members of an elected house — not just at the state level, but also at the Centre. True, physical violence against a member is perhaps unprecedented, but disturbing the peace is gradually becoming an unfortunate ritual in India’s democratic institutions.
The apple does not fall far from the tree, the saying goes; Raj Thackeray might have pulled away from the Shiv Sena and his uncle’s towering shadow, but pays homage to his uncle’s legacy in his own politics. Where the senior Thackeray incited the Marathi pure-blood to muster forces against the ‘Madrasi’, the new Thackeray avatar stands against the North Indian. Whether it is beating up the Bihari migrant or the Hindispeaking UP-walla, the MNS has gathered representative strength through narrow, divisive politics that make regional and linguistic issues a core electoral matter.
The actions of its elected representatives in the state assembly were the logical extension of these very activities.
Indeed, their recent electoral gains in Maharashtra can be read as a frightening vindication of their tactics. Raj Thackeray himself said in an interview after the results were out that the party’s aggression would not change, but only become stronger. If their form of political campaigning among the people is to showcase their political agenda by beating up a few migrants every once in a while, why should we expect them to conduct themselves any differently once elected to the state legislature?
Migrants
Violence against migrants from UP and Bihar is not limited to Maharashtra; in recent years Assam, Meghalaya, Punjab, and Karnataka have also been home to vicious attacks on those who are seen as ‘ outsiders’. Many leave their homes in UP and Bihar, devastated by flood and suffering from lack of food or jobs and take up work providing essential services in major cities like Bombay and Delhi.
Over the years, the Uttar Bharatiya has become an economic and political force to be reckoned with in Bombay, something that political parties there have had to take account of, most notably the Shiv Sena which saw the value of the Purvanchali votebank.
Major urban cities have an uneasy relationship with these migrants — disdainful of the ‘bihari’ ( which has become both a regional slur as well as a derogatory term for anyone who looks poor), but at the same time dependent on much of their labour for daily functioning.
Groups like the MNS rely on a strategy of persistent negative portrayals of the migrant to sustain their political agenda. One of the standard fears is that migrant numbers are increasing to levels that threaten the balance of the majority Marathi- speaking population. In a recent interview Raj Thackeray claimed that almost half the city of Mumbai was North Indian, taking away jobs and scarce resources such as water from the Marathi speaking population. While the percentage of Northern migrants is high, a recent UNDP survey found that the greater percentage of migrants to Bombay come from within Maharashtra alone. Migrants from UP are second, followed by those from Gujarat.
But facts and figures rarely make for a political agenda, whereas emotional appeals based on fear and suspicion of the stranger are far more successful.
This ends up being even more productive in times of economic strain, when jobs are hard to come by and inflation makes everyone’s pockets a little tighter.
Making the migrant the scapegoat is an easy way to gain political mileage, rather than provide concrete measures to bring economic and social opportunities that would benefit the region as a whole.
The MNS lays claims to a glorious Maratha past in its rallying cry of Marathi Manoos — breaking with the Shiv Sena in 2006 because Raj Thackeray thought his uncle Bal Thackeray and cousin Uddhav were straying away from the central goals of Maharashtra for Marathi- speakers. There is a peculiar irony in Bombay being home to violent parochial politics based on closing the door to the outsider — particularly since the growth of Bombay can be attributed to migrants that came to the Western shores over a period of many centuries. Greeks, Christians, Jews, Parsis, Siddis and other Muslims, the Marathas, Gujaratis, the Portuguese, and the British — the list is endless — have been some of the many influences that came to the seven islands that eventually made up the city of Bombay. Many came as traders, some as conquerors, and almost all ended up staying and enriching the region’s composite culture.
Since the MNS thrives on the creation of types to articulate its narrowminded political agenda, it is fitting to use another kind of ‘type’ to describe the importance of the stranger as a sociological category.
Sociology
Georg Simmel was a German sociologist writing at the turn of the 20th century.
At this time, when sociology was an emerging discipline, many theorists were interested in writing about the changing urban environments that they were inhabitants of. Simmel’s short essay written in 1908, ‘ The Stranger’ describes the figure of the outsider as an integral part of urban sociality at a time of changing political boundaries and large-scale ruralurban migration in Europe.
The stranger is one who is far from us; he is unknown to us, but close to us at the same time, for he is someone that we can come to know if we interact with him. When he comes to us, the settlers, he is recognisable because he does not belong to the group, but this lack of belonging is an asset — for he brings us something that our group does not possess. He brings us an element of newness, a regenerative capacity, without which any social group would stagnate.
Outsider
For Simmel, the quintessential stranger was the trader — the European Jew was his example. When a society is self- sufficient, when the sphere of exchange is narrow, there is no need for a middle- man.
However, the moment that there is a need for things that can only come from outside the group — whether material goods, intellectual exchange, or cultural novelty — the need for an outsider becomes evident.
Every society needs the stranger, for without him, everyone is known to everyone else, and there can be little possibility of a fresh perspective or creativity.
The stranger is always mobile — attached to the people he meets through a peculiarly urban form of interaction, which is not based on traditional ties of kinship, locality, or occupation.
It is this uprootedness that parochial politics tries to exploit to create a feeling of anxiety among those that are local residents and thought to be rooted in contrast to the migrant.
As the histories of cities like Bombay or Delhi show, change, diversity, and the roots of a composite culture are embedded in the movements of migration and resettlement. Outsiders are not the problem; narrow- minded petty politics are the real threat to modern urban living.
The writer is a PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University, currently in Delhi for doctoral fieldwork
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