Do Maharashtrians hate Hindi?

The recent 'slap' episode in Maharashtra assembly, made Raj Thakre's MNS overnight hit in Maharashtrians. Abu Azmi, an elected MLA of Samajwadi Party insisted on taking oath in Hindi and MNS MLA manhandled him in the assembly. It started different debates in media..right from whether Hindi is a national language to whether it was a petty attempt to grab media attention.

But in various internet forums, when common people from Hindi belt reacted...they claimed that Maharashtrians hate Hindi and it is an attempt to dishonor Hindi.

Do maharashtrians really hate Hindi?

In ancient India, there were three dialects of Prakrit
1] shaurseni
2] magadhi
3] maharashtri

Maharashtri was prevalent in today's MP and Maharashtra.
Maharattha is a 'Apabhransh' of Maharashtri. 'Apabhransh' was a form
of language spoken by common people.
Marathi language evolved mainly from Maharashtri.

The people speaking this language were referred as Maharrthis or Marathis.

Marathis always were a marshal race mainly due to the tough terrain.
They have to fight hard to earn their livelihood.

Shivaji carved a nation out of these people. But his vision was never
narrow. Shivaji always talked about expelling foreigners from entire
India and talked about 'Hindavi Swaraj'. The Swaraj of Hindavi'
(locals of Hindustan) people. Therefore it spread all across the India
in future, but the then Marathi rulers could not spread nationhood
everywhere and Maratha State became a confederacy of some feuds.

Though this history gave Marathis a national vision. The Marathi
leaders in 19-20th century were never confined to Maharashtra.
Gokhale, Tilak, Hedgewar, Savarkar, Dange were pioneers of different
political streams in India.

Even when Indian cinema started, Hindi was adopted as its language.

So if someone thinks that Marathis hate Hindi because they are narrow
minded or paranoid, he needs 'Atma-shuddhi'.

Marathis do not hate Hindi. They watch Hindi news channel, hindi
movies. They speak in Hindi with non-marathis.

When Marathis support Raj Thakre, it is not because of the paranoia,
it is mainly because they hate the political culture which comes along
with North Indian vote bank. Marathis do not oppose 'chhat puja', but
can not see Lalu's, Mulayams making inroads in the Mumbai politics.
Therefore the support to Thakres is because they at least take up
their issues fearlessly.

Go back and check the history..Bal thakre took up the issue of jobs
for Marathis in 1969.. When it got solved, it took him 20 years to
rise in politics (that to with Hindutva)

Indian Political League

Though IPL is shifted outside India, still there won't be any dearth of entertainment this summer, another IPL (Indian Political League) is going to take place. It is going to be a huge show with official governmental spending of 15000 crore rupees (three time the amount spent in US elections). Who will be the winner in this reality show?

The tournament will take place in two rounds. In the first round, people of India will vote and elect their representatives. In the next round these representatives among themselves will decide about the winner of the competition.

It seems as if people of India are divided on who should lead them. Some people will vote based on caste, some will vote based on region and there will be very few who will vote for the betterment of the nation. The result of the first round is therefore a foregone conclusion. hung assembly with no coalition getting clear majority.

This therefore makes second round more interesting and offers minnows a chance to get top chair. So who are the main contenders?

1] Mayawati
2] Mulayam singh
3] Lalu prasad
4] Sharad Pawar

Mayawati is an official third front candidate backed by the Left, TDP, Jayalalita etc. There are good chances that Third front will get around 120+ seats with Mayawati winning 30 odd seats nationwide. But will either congress or bjp support mayawati? Looks difficult as she is politically very ambitious and will trouble congress and bjp both in Uttar pradesh.

Mulayam Singh will get support from Left and congress will also support him to thwart Mayawati. But considering the Mayawati wave it seems difficult for him to repeat the success of 2004 elections when he won 35 seats. So for him to become PM he just needs to win more seats than other smaller parties which still looks difficult.

Same is the case with Lalu Prasad. Nitish Kumar is doing too good in Bihar to allow Lalu to get 20 odd seats in Bihar. But he manages to do that he will be the first choice for congress and Left is not going to oppose him on ideological grounds.

Sharad Pawar also has good friends across the parties. SP has already declared support for his candidature. Last year Left parties have already made clear that in UPA he is the only consensus candidate.
His main problem will be support from congress.
Will congress support him over Mayawati is a main question. Some people in congress do not consider him a long term threat like Mayawati. That could go in his favor.

Whoever wins it is really going to be a terrific competition this summer. The reason I did not even discussed the candidature of Adavani and Manmohan (or for that matter Rahul) is simply because both BJP and Congress can not win 120 odd seats this times which will make the combine number of other smaller parties bigger. After all it is a number game.