The Tussle between the MNS & "OUTSIDERS"

It was really painful to witness this continuing opposition towards the non Marathi speaking Population of this Beautiful city, Bombay.  The Shiv Sena has always  been an anti  non Marathi kind of a political party. This objective has always been on their forefront but I really don't see much change that they have managed to bring into the lives of the "True residents of Mumbai". They form the BMC and yet the floods have been occurring for the past one and a half decade (Yes you read correctly 15 years. The variation lies in the quantum but yes it always happens in most areas of Bombay).

It is really disheartening to see parties with their main agenda being communal in nature instead of being growth, convenience and prosperity for all. They are the reason why our country fails to prosper at a great rate. This is the reason why the trickle effect never kicks in and the gap between the elite and the normal widens.

Their main agitation lies with the fact that Mumbai belongs to the "locals" and that people from other places should leave. I sight this as a violation of fundamental right. Every and every citizen of India has been given the right to settle in any part of the country and has the right to apply for jobs and earn his livelihood in a peaceful manner. So there is no such thing as a local , an outsider or an immigrant.

I strongly believe that generalisations are the most blatant lies. By the very definition of a generalisation we mean to say that there are exceptions but still we choose to neglect them. By saying that UPites are a menace we are again making the same mistake. The other day Mr. A L Quadros, the head of the Mumbai Taxi union said that most of his men have lived here for more than fifteen years and yet they are questioned.

The main problem here in Bombay is that people love peace and have too many other things to think about. The common man is in reality not bothered by the fact that there are other people who are "eating into his livelihood". Everyone has more or less accepted the fact that today is the time of Globalisation and if anywhere in the world there are people, products or services that are better then they ultimately are the winners. If people from outside are eating into the jobs then basically they are better than those who are rendered jobless in the process. If i own a company, i would recruit the best person available. In any job interview the educational background is asked and not his mother tongue or his "state of origin". Making a comment that the locals are not getting jobs because of outsiders is really an absurd, immature and foolish way to say that we are not well educated and are not adequately prepared to face the world and it'd problems.

Also every Mumbaiite would agree that the Gujarati Business houses are the main reason why Mumbai is today the Financial capital of the country. Not only have they brought in money into the society and given great products and services to the country but also offered jobs and improved infrastructure in the process. Today Bombay would not have been what it is today had it not been for them. Instead of applauding them we are today trying to evict them out of their own houses, country and society.

Every person in a society has a role to play and if that person is missing the society can never be complete and we are talking of uprooting whole communities. The north Indians who work in Mumbai range from executives in private and government firms to top bureaucrats to the people who are in the lower service sector to labourers. Every person is another helping hand which rises towards building a great nation.

The other night while traveling back in a train from the city to my suburban home, i realised that the common man is not bothered about these differences. There were Gujaratis with their typical dark yellow mark on their forehead sitting alongside a car loving Parsi and with them there was a Muslim couple who was offered a biscuit by a south Indian guy who probably didn't want to have it alone. Of the metropolitan cities in India Bombay is truly the only cosmopolitan city. Others can only claim that but the ground reality is far from that. In every sense Bombay is the reflection of what India aspires to be, a place with numerous cultures, beliefs, languages and traditions coexisting with peace and harmony.

I realised that the Shiv Sena and the MNS and other parties and people who think similarly are the ones who are corrupting this great city. We are proud to say that we are united although there is diversity but the fact remains that our culture is very accommodating and yet we are unable to imbibe that into practice.

Every time there is a scuffle between the various party workers, life is disrupted if not halted and the perpetrators are the party leaders who initiate the scuffle and mislead their workers who are basically  unemployed and in most cases uneducated and would follow the commands for their own family. These workers again lead by a few petty leaders leave no stone unturned in disrupting the lives of common people. After the fiasco ends, the leaders claim that their workers are emotional and were instigated by other political parties which led to the damages. A bill must be passed that if any party worker does something unconstitutional or unethical , the responsibility will also have to be shared by the leaders and if they are unable to find the true culprit, they should be punished on behalf of the perpetrators.

I hope that the scuffle ends and both sides realise that they are fighting for a cause that does not exist. If the political parties divert their focus towards the actual needs of the country, we can improve at a blazing speed else we would continue to crib about things and say shit like the slow and steady wins the race with the hope that some sort of miracle would take place.