Feb 13, 2008 07:34 PM
4628 Views
Raj Thackeray is an unfortunate misfit in today's world. These are the times when we speak of planetary integration. The resources present in any one part of the world should be available for access to everyone in the world. That is the foundation on which policymakers want to shape the world. It is the first condition of globalization. You have this on one hand and on the other you have a band of fanatics who want to cordon resources of a nation from groups belonging to the same nation. The violence, the aggressive rhetoric and the general drama is nothing but an expression of the slowly growing realization that they don't really have a valid position in the scheme of things; that their opinions are too medieval for the medieval ages; that the world has progressed, grown and transformed into something that they cannot survive in.
And that is true. This is supposedly the "new India", a nation that is supposed to have become a powerful global economy, a very highly influential global culture with its presence being felt the world over through the many corporate take overs and the unprecedented rate at which our cultural traditions have begun to influence lifestyles all across the globe. Even if none of that were true, we certainly have made our actual, physical presence felt the world over, at times much to the disgruntlement of our host countries. We protested Omanization; we detest Americans for their secondary treatment to our relatives living in their land; but at home, the directions marked on a compass prove suffecient to cleave our society, to spark violence and inspire mob fury and arson.
What global presence can we talk of, if Indians suddenly get divided into castes of every kind? Were the cleavages in our society on the basis of the persistent Varna system not enough that all of a sudden the federation of states has become a wrestling rink of bickering siblings? And what right do we really have to ask the world to respect us, to hold us in high esteem, to look upon us as the next superpower if in the financial capital of the country, which is one of the biggest gateways through which the world invests in our development, people from one part of the same country are made unwelcome?
I see no word better to describe Thackarey(whether Raj or his moustachioed cousin Uddhav) than "separatist". They have no right any longer to call themselves protectors of this country's great cultural heritage, because the the culture we derive our heritage from has perhaps gotten lost under the heaps of broken glass that stone-pelting mobs left behind or has gone up in smoke with effigies or rubber tires as they burnt. These separatists have no right any longer to speak of this country's history, because that part of history when thousands braved firing and grenades from a foreign army to forge a single country, which we call India, wasn't too long ago.
If this is what we Indians have come to- fighting on North and South, East and West- then it is time to forget unity in diversity. Why riot and vandalize, burn and kill and lie at the same time? Let them have Kashmir, let us give away Punjab and let Bihar and Gujarat and West Bengal have a national anthem of their own. If Raj Thackeray really wishes to have it his way, let this subcontinent be divided into tiny dominions on the basis of language or caste or perhaps even dressing sense. Then let us have the Republic of Colaba and let the people from the United Wards of New Mumbai go through customs verification every morning as their trains bring them to work across four nations to the Sultanate of Haji Ali. Why say we are one country? Why call it a federation of states? For if the separatists continue to parade in public, if their voices continue to leave the compound walls of their homes, this is no longer a country and definitely not a federation.
I wanted to write on a different line a few days ago. I wanted to say that the solution to our problems lies in developing those places that people are forced to leave in search of futures. But it sounds ridiculous now, because that is taking a very balanced perspective, something which we as Indians have rendered ourselves incapable of taking! Often foreigners marvel at our country, at its mindnumbing diversity and find it impossible to believe that we function as a single country. Well, there is nothing marvelous about it because we function as a single country only from the strictly administrative point of view. As a people, as a society, we are deeply divided.
Why does this happen? Certainly none of us needs telling that our true concerns are unemployment and poverty, because the outward signs of it are plenty. It is not that we do not know what the true problem is because no extraordinary diagnosis is needed. What we need is someone willing to do something about it and everybody else willing to let him do it without planting a worm or two in his work and blowing it up into a political issue. Sensationalizing and vandalizing are two versions of the same thing- creating a subterfuge of something that can arrest a lot of attention and divert it away from things that really matter. We need political will.
This is where I've got to bite my own tongue. Is it that people who know exactly what kind of political will this country needs are in short supply? Certainly not- they are all here, driving taxis or giving people hair cuts or writing these diary entries. We have, if anything, an overwhelming over supply of people who know what this country needs. But then that is the thing, right? We need someone willing to do. Saying is the first step, yes, but saying so all the time is just an excuse. We need someone to get doing it. And we also need everyone else to let them do it.
What does this essay bring us to? I never really said I'm going to tax your brains with riddles. This article brings us to the place where most of our political reforms, fiery speeches and elections bring us to. Status quo.
Have a nice day!
