I had a sort of a disturbing conversation with a fellow Maharashtrian just two days ago . he is an upper middle-class kind of a guy, stays at malabar hill ( where I was born and brought up) and he voiced his fears that now gujratis are taking over mumbai and soon maharashtrians will have no place to go to. And I was quite aghast . in the 60s, the late balasaheb thakre had started the crusade against mainly south Indians, who were occupying prime senior positions in most companies operating in Mumbai. the slogan get rid of upryaas ( as in outsiders) touched a chord with maharashtrians who were feeling left out of plumb jobs in spite of being extremely well-educated and immensly suitable . Then later on we maharashtrians complained that udipis were coming into mumbai and taking over the entire restaurant chains, and driving out maharashtrians out of that business. later on raj thakre , demanded that biharees and bhayyas from u.p. should not be allowed to takeaway professions and jobs that are rightfully reserved for the sons of the soil . and today we are afraid of gujaratis . I wonder, if we maharashtrians are always going to live under the fear of some of other community coming into Mumbai and dominating us, so that we remain perennial underdogs. and I think, its not right. if we are capable , and we definitely are, of holding our own in every aspect of society, then why are we always afraid of other communities. when mahesh manjrekar made the film mee shivajiraje bhosle boltoy ( in which i played afjal khan ) he touched brilliantly on this subject. of shivaji raje asking a middle-class Maharashtrian to stop complaining about others and start doing positive things himself. I think in a highly competitive and fast developing world we need to stand tall, show the world how good we are and take our rightful place in our own city and state. nobody can take anything away from you, if you dont let them. and you dont not let them by asking for protection or driving them away as outsiders. you do it by doing everything better than them. ( this does not take away my agreement with the late balasaheb or even raj , that we should have some restrictions on the hordes of people coming into Mumbai on a daily basis. its not a political or a parochial or unconstitutional ( i am a lawyer , and i understand a bit of law myself) stand ., its only because its a Civic disaster. i am not talking about people coming from bihar or u.p . , but even about people from other parts of Maharashtra who come into mumbai without the prospect of a job or a house. we do not have the infrastructure of housing, roads, sanitation, water, security and a lot of other infrastructure related issues to accommodate thousands of people entering our city every day. This leads to crime, lawlessness, sanitation problems and hoards of other ills that go with unplanned migration.)
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 05:22:50 +0000
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