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)
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Do Maharashtrians hate Hindi?
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14 comments:
Nice content, but the issue that you raised is much trivial then the real issue itself. Do the Raj Thackrey's have the right to slap and stop someone from speaking Hindi or for that matter any other language anywhere in India including Maharashtra leave aside the Assembly. It would have been better if you have said something on this issue rather then commenting on few people's comment on some forum which is not the real issue at all.
Coming to your blog. Are they the north Indians who first started the politics on Marathi and non-Marathi rather north Indian or were they these Thackrey class of people?
Politicians in India always strive on these practices. It is not the matter whether they are from north or south or east or west. So linking politicians directly with the common man in terms of their acts is wrong, though it is true India is a representative democracy where the leaders representing them in Assemblies and the Parliament are selected by the common folk.
What the heck have Shiv Sena has done for the people in UP or Bihar, but whenever there is some kind of riot or anything, they are the first to come on road along with Bajrangis etc. The list is endless.
I don't see any Mulayam from North making inroad in MH politics. Neither I see any Thackrey active in UP politics.
But if you will give opportunity then they will try to increase their base so that these politicians can earn their bread, butter and pegs.
The issue might seem trivial to you, but it is not. Though here the fight is based on linguistic basis, it is in reality a fight between right and wrong.
Please don't conveniently forget that the two other MLAs took oath in Hindi the same day and nobody objected.
Abu Azmi, who used to play urdu card against hindi, suddenly tried to politicize this issue. He deliberately declared 10 days earlier that he is going to take oath in Hindi. And Hindi is Superior language because it is our National Language. His exact wordings: " मै मराठी का आदर करता हूं..पर बोल नही पाता. अंग्रेजी मुझे आती नही. मै हिंदी में शपथ लुंगा क्युंकी हिंदी राष्ट्रभाषा है..राष्ट्र की भाषा है और इसिलिये सर्वश्रेष्ठ है."
1] Hindi is not our national language. It is a official language of Union along with English.
2] This blabbering suddenly rejuvenated this debate.
3] In Mumbai Muncipal Corporation , there are around 100 wards where North Indian votes can decide the fate of the election. Abu Azmi's stunt was clearly to polarize those votes on the eve of assembly election as nexus between Congress and MNS got known to everyone.
4] Insensitive media took up the Abu Azmi's line and irritated common man.
So the slap episode was well appreciated in Maharashtra. But Slapping Abu Azmi doesn't mean hating Hindi. Please don't fall prey to senseless media.
Coming to your second question. It was congress leaders who started north Indian vote bank politics. The usual way of functioning is to bring poor people from UP/Bihar/Bangladesh. Protect their slums, get a ration card for them and in return they will act as vote-bank.
And when someone oppose them, it turns into linguistic issue. It is not.
This time there was an attempt from Abu Azmi to loot this vote-bank.
One more thing I missed out. I wrote this blog-post just to clear out certain misconceptions which Media has created. Common Maharashtrian could never hate Hindi. People support Thackerays. But this does not mean they hate Hindi.
You are again reiterating the same thing that I wrote. These are the tactics of the politicians to polarize the people of India and set them against each other. I said But if you will give opportunity then they will try to increase their base so that these politicians can earn their bread, butter and pegs. This was meant for all the polticians. Thackrey saw opportunity in aligning with Marathi Manoos ideology and Abu Azmi thought to use this for his advantage. If neither have done so nor the people have accepted these as their leaders would it have been possible.
The issue is not of north Indian or south Indian or east Indian or west Indian. Neither it is of Gujarati, Marathi, Hindi, etc. The issue is of divide and rule politics being played by our leaders.
I don't favour any political leader or political party who plays this kind of dividing politics. Be it Congress, BJP, SP, BSP, etc. The role of election commission is important in this regard. It must not let these parties play the dirt politics and stop them and ban them so that people may not vote for these leaders. It has the right to ban such parties. But the "Will" is where we are lacking.
*Typo:
3] In Mumbai Muncipal Corporation , there are around 100 wards where North Indian votes can decide the fate of the election. Abu Azmi's stunt was clearly to polarize those votes on the eve of assembly election results as nexus between Congress and MNS got known to everyone.
My point is not the same. What I'm trying to say here and my earlier blog-posts also, is that the people support Raj Thakare is a fact. And that support does not mean they hate Hindi. But slapping someone like Abu Azmi is not criticized by People at large here (in MH) is just because everyone knows who he is and why he was slapped.
But the media is projecting this as a conflict between North and West Indians which is not true and even so called learned people fell prey to such propaganda is what that makes me feel anxious.
The divide and rule politics is a conspicuous feature of our politics since pre-independence era.
Some people play it subtly while some are more vociferous.
Rahul Gandhi making a statement in Bihar regarding the ethnicity of the NSG commandos who rescued few people in Taj was an attempt to divide national security forces. And why did he do it? Just because he was going for election in Bihar. And what did media do? It made Rahul a Hero.
A simple illegal migration issue in a city which has limited infrastructure and capacity is stretched to such an extent that it suddenly looked like an attempt to divide India is ridiculous.
Regarding supporting Raj Thakre and allowing his party to grow...
Why would people not support him? Everyone likes to see Slumdog Millionaire on television or big screen. But if the population of illegal slums is growing with a political support, which is causing problem to taxpayers in terms of crowded rails, buses, scarcity of potable water, shortage of electricity, very high realy prices, security (rate of murder Supari is as low as Rs7000) etc and some political leader is raising voice against it who won't support him?
Check out the election results, Raj Thakre's party got support only in those cities (Mumbai, Nasik, Pune) where these issues were present and not anywhere else in Maharashtra. Because in such cities the illegal slums are growing as a policy of certain parties.
So if you want to stop growth of Raj Thakre, you should ask for development, you should ask for zero-corruption, you should ask these questions to Government of India, to the mainstream political parties, to the media.
Asking people to not support Raj Thakre looks very insensitive towards the plight of the people who are suffering since a long time. That's why I quoted Bal Thakre's example.
He started with the similar agitation in 1969 "for jobs to locals". But government took corrective measures and the growth of ShivSena stopped. Shivsena later became dominant party in Maharashtra with Hindutva fever running across India during late eighties.
It is not just our media (which anyways is as corrupt as our politicians), but also our intelligentsia which fails in understanding such matters may be because they lack native intelligence. And then they will highhandedly ask people not to support Raj Thakre which is just ridiculous.
See my post here. I am saying the same thing since long. The issue could have been handled in a more sober way.
You say, but also our intelligentsia which fails in understanding such matters may be because they lack native intelligence. And then they will highhandedly ask people not to support Raj Thakre which is just ridiculous.
That is what I am saying. Intelligentsia knows these things but again supports them in their blogs, newspapers, speeches, discussions.
I am not opposed to Raj Thackrey. I am opposed to his acts and way. As a matter of fact, I hate all the politicians behave. Be it Rahul Gandhi, or Raj Thackrey. They suppress the real issue and bend it to their advantage.
I am neutral when it comes to be critical of anyone.
@Palak
Please don't take this personally. It is about discussion and spreading the message.
Raj Thakre's political agitation is no different than agitation of any other political party. After M.Gandhi, vandalism again popped in our political agitations.
I would like to know a major political party whose signature style is not vandalism. In our political system everyone resort to vandalism for attracting attention of media or to have a national debate over issues which were repeatedly ignored by policy makers.
Eg. Railway Board Exams: ShivSena was protesting against certain rules since 1989, no body paid attention, till it stopped some Students from going to Exam hall.
This is just an example of one incident. There are always rail-roko, highway-bandh andolans taking place all over the India. Why should one single out Shivsena or MNS? just because of the image which is created by media?
Actually portraying someone as hero and someone as villain oversimplifies the complex issues. It could mislead the common people.
Yes, vandalism is an issue. But it is a separate discussion and one should not mingle it in any other discussions.
One may feel that i'm supporting Thakres. But it is not. I'm just trying to say that Thakre (or his kind of politics) is not a main issue (in this context), the main issue is entirely different. And if no one is ready to talk on that then it will definitely going to allow growth of Thakres and in that case media will try to give it separatist colors, will try to project it as a mass linguistic hatred. And such is a power of this propaganda that people outside Maharashtra will tend to believe this non-sense.
I am not taking it personally. You are re-iterating what I am saying. We need someone to prevent these politicians to give political color to each issue rather than addressing the issue itself. We need people in government who listen to us the people and address the issues so that India develops as a whole. There are pockets of development in India and we need policies that enables every region rather every city progressive enough to cater to the needs of its population.
@palak:
This is what you said..
the issue that you raised is much trivial then the real issue itself. Do the Raj Thackrey's have the right to slap and stop someone from speaking Hindi or for that matter any other language anywhere in India including Maharashtra leave aside the Assembly. It would have been better if you have said something on this issue rather then commenting on few people's comment on some forum which is not the real issue at all.
Coming to your blog. Are they the north Indians who first started the politics on Marathi and non-Marathi rather north Indian or were they these Thackrey class of people?
Now tell me...Was I not supposed to answer your questions?
I can very well sense your subtle nehruvian way of writing where u ask 'who started it first? north indians or SS (now u won't put any political parties' name over here but suddenly will talk about north indian people Vs SS)?
What i'm pointing out here is that this is a fight between two parties to acquire two different vote banks and not the fight between people and party.
You are telling me that the issue is trivial and i should talk about vandalism. I wrote about it as well. But when i ask people to comment about Illegal Migration and vote bank politics around it, you don't think it is a big issue? why? Demography of several districts around Bangladesh border has changed due to such attitude. It is not just a problem in Mumbai, it can cause trouble to entire nation.
Coming to Vandalism..as I wrote earlier vandalism as a mean of political agitation is debatable. I would have written about it in details in some other posts as it will digress the focus. The only thing i've mentioned is the alternatives to such protests. Do you have better and effective alternatives in India?
@Shailendra By putting your comment in bold will not hide the fact. You may call me anything, my writing Nehruvian, or whatever you wish to. Let me well tell you that my style of writing is of the nature where I don't want to hurt someones feeling. Also, I try to make a point to write in a neutral way. Whenever I have mentioned any Political party's name, I have used it to counter or support my some other point where I have again used the name of the opposition political party.
I was only talking about this line of your post:-
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.
If I remove the names of political leaders from this sentence, then again the issue comes as anti-North Indian leaders. Do you think it is worth talking about this non-sense issue. It is in the genes of political party to try to make inroads in the untouched territories so that their parties may get higher number of votes -> higher number of seats -> seat to CMship, PMship, etc or any other advantage.
From your posts and replies, it seems more that you are in support of Thackrey's rather than trying to make of the damage done by media in presenting the issue. It seems that you are trying to do damage control for SS and/or MNS.
Actually, I stand as an idiot because I am commenting on your posts. I should stop doing so as my Nehruvian style of writing is disliked by many people. I may have said that I write and talk in Nehruvian style, but it doesn't means that I support Indian National Congress except in Mathura-Vrindavan area. I am fan of his writing skills that doesn't mean I support all his acts or Congress.
I try to be neutral in political issues. If this is hated, then let it be.
@Palak
When you ask a question "Whether North Indian people started politics or Thackeray?"
It is like asking a question "whether your parents know you are drug addict".
The question is shrewdly framed and any answer to it will only prove ur point.
That's what i call Nehruvian style of writing :)
I never said u support congress. Even if you support congress I don't mind.
Yes but i definitely want to know your stand on political support of illegal migration which still remains unanswered.
This is mainly because politics of illegal migration is not seriously talked about and any attempt have national debate on it get suppressed.
That's why i'm trying to get this debate going. Lets discard all the issues in Raj Thakres agitations. Keep Vandalism, linguistic hatred aside and talk on migration point.
I know you wrote a blog on migration. But that was from the people's point of view. From that point of view even Bangladeshi migration can be justified and you know I support people living in subhuman conditions and they have right to life and no one can take that right away from them.
But not everyone will agree with this point of view. Some people will never accept a person not abiding the law, increasing burden on infrastructure, increasing competition in labor market. Lets accept that they have a point too.
So what could be a solution? A solution must be somewhere in between.
PS: The bold type was just to differentiate ur comments from mine. So please don't take anything personally and don't get annoyed.
And I'll like to know how u got an impression that i'm supporting Thakres.
a real logical punch...commendable
common yr it second PUNCH.HATS OFF
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