Marathi Manoos

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Raj Thackeray interviewed by Arnab Goswami last Sunday. Delighted, in fact, for it provided the rare occasion where Arnab was lost for words, and resembled a castrated cat. Part of the problem, I guess, was that Raj chose to respond in Marathi. It's kinda obvious, but I missed the beginning so maybe Raj offered a particular explanation for not answering in English. And it wasn’t clear whether Arnab understood Marathi or if they ended up using an interpreter, which explains his constipated questioning. (I am ruling out the possibility that Raj doesn't know English.)

Raj, though, was perfectly composed and his answers, while uncompromising, were logical and rational. He basically pointed out that all states have a responsibility to their residents, and Maharashtra in general, and Mumbai in particular, shouldn’t have to bear the brunt of poor governance elsewhere. He also begged to differ from the popular opinion that Mumbai is a commercial and financial hub becauseof its migrant population. Rather, he noted, that because Mumbai had all the characteristics to be such a hub, that people flocked in. On the question of preferential treatment for Marathis, he simply pointed to agitations in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, where representation for localites has always been an issue. In Bangalore, for example, I recall a recent push by the local film industry to ban screening of Tamil and Telugu films because Kannada films have no viewers! On Chhat puja, he was enraged that, except in Mumbai, the event is not organized at such a scale anywhere else. I think he gave the example of Maldives that has a significant immigrant population.

His analysis of the situation is spot on. The root cause, of course, is the asynchronous pace of development, which also explains the urban-rural (India-Bharat) divide to an extent. But Raj neither has the ability nor the inclination to attack the root so he is simply going after the symptom. One can only question his approach rhetorically and ask, were the tables reversed, then would he, a migrant, accept being subjected to such discrimination by natives? Same goes for the migrants too – would they, as natives, watch in silence when their cities and towns start filling up with migrants?