Mumbai Vs India

Mumbai belongs to India” is a controversial phrase today, one that can lead to riots depending on who is saying it. When the god of cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, said it, he got a public scolding from Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray. The rest of India supported Tendulkar. Of course, there were many Maharashtrians who felt that Sachin should not have gone that extra mile to say that Mumbai belonged to India.
What does this phrase mean? Is Mumbai a property that can be bought and sold? To the apolitical it’s simple: Mumbai is in India, it belongs to India. But for latter-day migrants it is loaded. Mumbai is their mai-baap. It provides them food and shelter even if it is a shanty made of bamboo and plastic. It provides them anonymity from their caste-ridden villages in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and others. Some survive, some make it big. There are tea boys who became bank executives and former Union minister George Fernandes, from Karnataka, started his career as a newspaper vendor in Mumbai.
For the politician, migrants are fodder, imported so that s/he, himself an early migrant, can build a votebank in the city. This has led to ghettoisation in Mumbai slums under the protection of ministers and legislators.
They constitute nearly 45 per cent of the population while the local Maharashtrians are reduced to 23 per cent. The last census showed that the number of voters from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and now domiciled in Mumbai has gone up by eight per cent in the last 30 years.
The migrants — hardworking and prepared to work for lower wages — edge out the locals. A social, economic issue, however, has been turned into a political agenda.
The Shiv Sena, which started 50 years ago, was created on an anti-South Indian migrant platform. In the 50s and 60s, South Indians dominated jobs in the city as they were dexterous, educated and provided cheap labour. In fact, with Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), the platform of the senior Thackeray has come full circle, because even after 50 years, the platform is the same: jobs for sons of the soil. Only this time North Indians are under attack. Both, the Shiv Sena and the MNS feel that “Maharashtrians” are being edged out of Mumbai.
Ironically, these parties did nothing when Maharashtrians, who once dominated south Mumbai, were pushed to the suburbs and further as builders took over the city.
There are many Maharashtrians who do not agree with the means adopted by the Thackerays. Kunal Vijaykar, a theatre personality, says, “What has the Sena achieved in 60 years? Are Maharashtrians better off today? Fact is, Maharashtrians have been pushed out of areas the Sena dominated, like Girgaum and Thakurdwar, to far off suburbs. And what have the Thackerays done for the original inhabitants, like the Agris and Kolis”.
Mumbai city is an emotive issue. The senior Thackeray repeats ad nauseum how 105 people gave up their lives for the inclusion of Mumbai in Maharahstra. After the reorganisation of states in 1955, the Marathi-speaking people were not given a state like others, including the Kannadigas. The Maharashtrians and Gujaratis were given the bilingual Bombay state on November 1, 1956 and it was the people of Samyukta Maharashtra Movement that fought and finally got the state of Maharashtra on May 1, 1960. That’s why the Maharashtrians are so possessive about Mumbai.
The state Congress feels the same. In fact, in one election when the Congress was losing, the then chief minister, Vasantdada Patil, made a separate Mumbai an election issue and won.