Times of India had an article running today (Sunday Times,02 November,Delhi Edition) showing how what we earlier thought was limited to political games has actually hit the mindset of the local people too.These aforementioned article bears some startling incidents which would make any Indian bow his/her head in shame and question the country's "biggest democracy" stance which we somehow are very proud of.
Mumbai: ‘‘Loud discussions have given way to whispers... that’s what’s really scary,’’ is how a north Indian techie who has spent the better part of his life in Mumbai described the new mood in the city. The divisiveness, which began as a political tamasha a few weeks ago and spiralled into violence, has begun to slowly but steadily seep into the life of the ordinary Mumbaikar. Suddenly, the man on the street is defining himself as ‘native’ or an ‘outsider’.
Whether in offices, on trains, in market places and school compounds, a sense of anxiety has surfaced. Tension is especially palpable in stressful surroundings such as a jampacked train compartment. Susheel Sukhraj, an entertainment professional, wrote in to TOI to say he had witnessed several instances of young boys being cussed on trains as ‘bhaiyyas’ and cases when rank strangers banded to turn on a fellow traveller with, ‘‘You have dirtied our city.’’
Clarifying that he himself is a ‘‘Marathi from Panchgani’’, Sukhraj says that he is disturbed by the things he sees everyday while travelling from Navi Mumbai to Andheri. ‘‘At Mankhurd station, a north Indian boy standing at the door was deliberately hit on the head by someone in the surging crowd. The man then quickly disappeared inside the compartment but continued to pass snide remarks to provoke a fight,’’ says Sukhraj, recalling an incident that took place on Thursday morning.
Even middle-class north Indians are feeling the chill. Jaiprakash, an engineer with an IT firm in Andheri, says that north Indian employees at his workplace prefer to hang out together after work and ‘‘feel odd’’ about interacting with Marathis, lest something provocative be said.
But the real brunt continues to be borne by poor immigrants — cab drivers, watchmen, daily wage earners and odd-jobs men. ‘‘On Thursday night I found an autorickshaw driver weeping at Gokuldham in Goregaon. I asked him what was wrong and he said that his previous passenger, a Marathi man, had refused to pay and slapped him when he asked for the fare,’’ says a senior media correspondent. ‘‘Then, on Friday afternoon, a cabbie told me that a young man got into his taxi at Churchgate and said, ‘‘Girgaum chal, main batata hoon. When they reached Girgaum, the man simply walked away.’’
The fallout is best summed up by Kishan Rajak who moved to Mumbai a decade ago and started working with a laundry. When he saw pictures of a bus burning in Kalyan after Raj’s arrest, the 24-year-old simply said, ‘‘This place is not safe anymore,’’ and left for UP.
If the people involved in it are reading this then be very ashamed of what you did and if you think its the right thing to do then you're very wrong.
While researching I came across an interesting blog post too which I would like to share as well.
Marathi Manus Jaaga
I hate what the MNS is doing to Mumbai. They are ruining the reputation of it being a safe and cosmopolitan city. I read this article in the paper yesterday and the part where the rick driver was crying 'cause his previous passenger had refused to pay him and slapped him instead really shook me. Ethnocentrism at its worst. What is happening in this country where Christians are being openly and brutally raped and murdered in one part, North Indians are beat up and ridiculed in another. India is a democracy only in theory.
ReplyDeleteI actually have a post lined up on that "democracy as a theoretical term".So expect something more from the political front on this blog :)
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