Mumbai in question

If not anything else, the anger-spurts of the Marathis against North Indians in Mumbai this week would have had Abraham Lincoln sit up in his grave with a twinkle in his eyes and utter his famous words once again:

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

There was a time when all non-Hindi speakers were fooled. Even to this date, many of them remain fooled. But we now have proof that you can't fool all the non-Hindi speakers all the time: they hit back.

No doubt the recent events are unlawful and not worth writing home about. It's also being argued that the need for Raj Thackeray to survive in the world of politics is behind them. However, is that all there is to all this? Is this just about a set of barbarians attacking innocent hawkers on the street driven by the political ambitions of Raj Thackeray? Nobody seems to go beyond this. Nobody seems to even bring to memory the slow but certain wiping off of the Marathis and their language from Mumbai. The pain of the Marathi people is no longer questioned today; indeed, that pain has become an unwritten law.

The sad state of Marathis in Mumbai

While the Constitution of India accords the status of "official language of the union" to Hindi, its uncontrolled and unwarranted imposition on innocent speakers of the language of the land outside the walls of central government offices is perhaps on an all-India high in Mumbai. Over time, the Marathis have been made to give up their own identity as speakers of a separate tongue called Marathi which is the lawful heir to the throne at Mumbai. Instead, Hindi has usurped that throne.

Bollywood itself - the Hollywood of erstwhile Bombay - has no traces of the Marathi language left in it. The word Bollywood which should ideally denote the Marathi film industry is famous world over as the Hindi film industry. Hindi imposition seems to have worked such magic on the Marathi people that they seem to have given up hope of elevating their mother tongue to be the entertainment language of choice.

Due to all this, the Marathis see that their language has been thrown into the dustbin. They see that their own people are not getting jobs in Mumbai. They see that the interests of their own people are neglected. While Mumbai is no doubt providing employment to millions of people, they are forced to ask -- "what's in it for us, the hosts?". The answer manifests itself as an undisclosed pain in the hearts of millions of Marathis.

Obviously, this can't go on for ever. No people desirous of furthering their tribe can afford to yield to the rhetoric that they, and they alone need to be altruistic in an environment of reckless predators, however much the rhetoric be sugarcoated and temporarily fooling.

Flawed rhetoric

There is no dearth of flawed rhetoric about all these events being "against the spirit of India", "parochial" and "politically motivated".

These events are admittedly unlawful and leave a bad taste in the mouth. However, to call these as "against the spirit of India" is going overboard. In truth, these events are against the spirit of only that India into whose definition one permits an undemocratically higher status to one language and its speakers from North India called Hindi, an India which is stuck up with the task of synthesizing unity by way of Hindification, an India struggling to iron out diversity as opposed to celebrating it. It is Hindification which is against the spirit of India. These events are merely unlawful and uncivil.

The correct India is that in which unity is practiced by way of upholding diversity as opposed to destroying it. The correct India is that in which subscribers to the Federation of States are looked at as equals as opposed to unequals . The correct India is that in which the subscribing linguistic states have a fair representation in Delhi as opposed to unfair. The correct India is that in which the subscribing linguistic states have the right and duty to protect and develop their own languages, cultures and peoples. The correct India cannot impose Hindi all over India. The correct India cannot look at the people of any language, their culture and their rights with abandon.

Those who think all this is "parochial" must first understand that the scope of events pertaining to the sustenance of any linguistic populace is far from being narrow. This particular time, it is about a People called the Marathis -- close to 65 million people! That's not a few people, mind you, and the protection of the rights of millions of people of one tongue is not parochialism. If this were parochialism, our cries as a united India in the community of nations in the world is parochialism too. Why shouldn't one call as parochialism India's need to protect its borders from Pakistan? Isn't the protection of India from Pakistan too "narrow in scope"?

Now, all those who are sticking to the single-point rhetoric that the recent events are "politically motivated" have also the obligation to ask themselves as to what it was which has motivated the imposition of Hindi on Marathis, what it was which has motivated the uncontrolled migration of Hindiwallas to Mumbai to the total detriment of the Marathis, what it was which has motivated the feeling that Marathi is the language of a lesser God inside Maharashtra itself! Wasn't that motivation also "political"? It is utter foolishness, nay hypocrisy, to expect a spiritual response complete with fasts-unto-death from people at the receiving end of decades of neglect.

Tailpiece

Thus, while the sad events in Mumbai this week appear on the surface to be "parochialism" or simply "politics", one just needs to scratch the surface to understand that they are the bitter fruit of decades after decades of disrespect towards the Marathis, their language and their land. We need to understand the reasons for such outbursts without sacrificing reason to hackneyed rhetoric, set right historical wrongs and march forward. That is the right path for the progress of every Indian state, and thereby of India.