Re: Anti North Indian sentiments growing in India
Nice Editorial
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=Ne160208camel.asp
Camel In The Tent
The Marathis embraced all Indians as their own. Now, they are cramped for space, writes ARUN SADHU
AMID THE DIN of parochial rhetoric between Raj Thackeray and some north Indian leaders, it is necessary to expose historical prejudices that political India nurses against Maharashtra. Historical because these sentiments emanate from the 17th century Delhi Durbar, that seat of intrigues and conspiracies, when the great Maratha leader Shivaji turned his back on the powerful Mughal emperor. The Delhi Durbar syndrome which still dominates Indian politics today failed to understand that among the hundreds of contemporary sardars, rajas and nabobs in the subcontinent, Shivaji was the only one who dared to infuse the spark of political freedom against the world’s greatest power then.
Subsequent forays by the Maratha-Peshwa forces in the Jatland, Bengal and Orissa did not help change this image. The Delhi shenanigans of the modern Marathi political leaders (such as YB Chavan and Sharad Pawar) made matters worse. Maharashtrians — intellectuals (including Marxists), politicians and commoners, not just the Shiv Sena — are proud of Shivaji. They suspect others are sceptical.
An overwhelming majority of Marathi youth endorsed the Shiv Sena’s championship of the Marathi Manoos in 1966. It rejected the Sena politically as the latter utterly failed to live up to its word. Shiv Sena could never become a classical regional political party such as the DMK, Telugu Desam, the CPM in West Bengal or even the Gujarat BJP to capture power in Maharashtra on its own. It was only when it shed its Marathi syndrome that it could have a share in power in coalition with the BJP. Most Maharashtrians groan with pain and frustration when they see regional leaders from north and south India and superficial green-eared mediapersons paint entire Maharashtra with the Shiv Sena’s saffron.
Thus the image of the Maharashtrian caricatured by half-baked historians, the domineering durbari phenomenon of Delhi, the essentially sectarian leaders of regional parties and the media as a whole is like this: a parochial, sectarian, narrow-minded people; always quarrelsome and bereft of any talent or creativity and trying to impose their language and culture on others. To be sociologically objective, the reality is quite opposite.
The first thing that an outsider settling in Maharashtra learns is that the overwhelming mass of Marathis as a people are among the most tolerant and inclusive people in the world. Those who came to the Maratha land centuries ago lived here happily and prospered without being subjected to imposition of the local language as happens in Chennai, Kolkata or Ahmedabad. On the contrary, these migrants, proud of their native language and culture, find it strange that the Marathis often abandon their mother tongue and try to communicate with strangers in the smattering of any cosmopolitan tongue available.
Unlike in other parts of the world, it is not necessary to learn Marathi to live in Maharashtra. Uttar Bharatiyas, Telugus, Gujaratis, Rajasthanis have lived in deep rural areas of Maharashtra for generations without learning Marathi. They have created their empires of trade and enterprise. Local Marathis have cheerfully accepted these groups as their own. If they dominate the economic life of Maharashtra, so be it. The Marathis have long acknowledged their own lack of talent for trade or entrepreneurship. Shivaji or latter day Maratha rulers, whenever they established new towns or kasbahs, had always honourably invited nagarseths from Marwar and Gujarat to do trade and industry. That is one major shortcoming of the Maharashtrian society in the new world of competitive markets. Mumbai is a city built by migrants — Maharashtrians and “outsiders”. But it can no longer take any more migrants, Maharashtrian or not. Raj Thackeray’s outburst is the first symptom of the impending implosion. Other Indian metropolises only await their turn.
The writer is a novelist and journalist
, either the situation is REALLY bad he has become anti-nationalist, what do you think burqaposhx?
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