Mumbai - Inclusive Or Exclusive?

I do agree with your underlying point but I think Mumbai is a terrible city to live in. It is filthy, overcrowded and expensive.

We have finally got our politicians to talk about taking development to Aam Adami who have been forced to flock to where ever development is taking place.

The logical next step is to take development and opportunities where ever there is Aam Adami. But that is a big paradigm shift for India. It requires taking development and its opportunities to every nook and crany of India, removing disparities in development among regions, evenly spreading development and opportunity across geography of India. Making sure no region, no town, no village is left behind. That is real inclusive development of India.

Our politicians talk about inclusive development but are bent on delivering divisive development - they are content with divisive politics that divide India into castes, genders, minorities. For them, inclusive development means taking development and opportunities to divisive levels and than ration it to their pet groups to make vote bank out of them. Inclusive development does not mean anything more than removing tribals and OBCs from their local habitat and their way of life, removing men and women from their relationships, families and communities and forcing all of them to migrate far away to some melting pot in search of development. That is not inclusive development, that is social engineering.

The main bottleneck for achieving inclusive development is those economically under-developed states themselves - they are in the grip of leftist Mullahs who do not want people of their states to development for fear of Mullahs losing their control over their flocks. So people are forced to venture out for greener pastures and states are happy with whatever remittances the migrants send back. Kerala is perfect example. It wants to practice wealth-negating communism at home and depend on development from wealth generated and remitted by its migrants. These leftists have laid siege over development in many states and they are hoping their dishonest rhetorics of inclusive development will throw wool over enough people and keep dividing enough people to keep them getting re-elected. Sadly, it takes somebody like Thakarey to get their attention.

nice pics rajen

Rajen - the most important thing about Mumbai is that until 1960, it did not even belong in Maharashtra. So all this sons of the soil business is utter rot.

- Deepa

Deepa..

Until 1947, not even India existed, It was all princedoms and provinces ruled by British. Bombay Presidency comprised the present-day state of Gujarat, the western two-thirds of Maharashtra state, including the regions of Konkan, Desh, and Kandesh, and northwestern Karnataka state of India; It also included Pakistan's Sind province and the British territory of Aden in Yemen. It consisted partly of districts, which were directly under British rule, and partly of native or princely states, which were ruled by local rulers under the administration of a governor. The Gaikwad, a Maratha kingdom, ruled all the way up to central Gujarat.

When India became independent, the states were organized on cultural fault lines. Mumbai remained a hotly contested prize between Gujarat and Maharstara. Maharastra finally got Mumbai because majority of population in Mumbai was Marathi while Gujaratis mainly dominated business and commerce of Mumbai. No state got all the territories they wanted but they compromised in the end because they got the main prize - recongition and acceptance of their distinct linguistic heritage and culture.

Deepa -This emotive issue of the migrants eating in to local jobs would not have been highjacked in to a political battle if only the Maharashtra Govt had the foresight of reserving 10 percent of unskilled jobs for the locals, whether it is pratical or not is secondary. After all we are the country of reservation.

Rajen - I've said this before but it bears repeating: the whole anti-immigrant thing is basically about poverty. Whatever Raj Thackeray might have said about AB, nobody is going to rough him up the way they've treated those taxi drivers and bhel puri vendors. And the day some politician lands AB in the hospital is the day that politician can bid his career goodbye because at the end of the day he's Amitabh Bachchan no matter where he lives or what he does. The guy on the street however has no such protective barrier.

When they talk about "filthy" northies, they're not talking about SRK who lives in a mansion. They're talking about the guy who lives in the basti or on the pavement. If you're a North Indian and want a white collar job in Mumbai, it's extremely unlikely they'll kick you out. But a bhel puri wallah will always get his ass kicked.

We're gradually becoming a country that's not just inured to poverty but actively against it. Anywhere you go, when people talk about "outsiders", they're not talking about the Ambanis.

Amrita -During the seventies the South Indians who worked mostly in white collored jobs had to face the brunt of violence unleashed by political goons. Later in the ninetees after the Babri masjid fall the Muslims were targeted which resulted in outbreak of Mumbai riots. Surprisingly the perpetrators of crimes were awarded by coming to power on Hindutava issues. The leader donned the mantle of being protector of Hindus to expand the vote banks. There upon the locals felt neglected and this under current feelings among the locals of getting sidelined is exploited by the breakaway party. The so called champions of the Hindus got caught in a wrong foot and is back to playing the Marathi manoos card. I think after the previuos government introduced free housing under slum rehabilitation this gave impetus to influx of migrants from the north, who brought in their family here and began dreaming of free housing.

Rajen

The political angle behind recent development is as under:

Having lost much of Hindi belt and western India, it is critical for congress to win Maharastra. Typically, the farmer belt and cooperatives have kept congress aloat in Maharatsra - both congress and NCP have been vying for same vote base. In the mean time, Sena has been consolidating beyond son-of-the-soil base by taking up Hindutva card. Winning is about who gets to divide whose poltical base while consolidating one's own base. The sorry plight of farmers and competition with NCP has put congress in a dire predicament. The 60,000crore farm loan waiver is framed primarily with farmers of Maharastra in mind. But NCP has been taking out rallies to take all the credit for loan waivers. They desperately need to break Sena to survive in next election. That is when MNS comes into picture. MNS has to break away Sena's base in order to be a serious player in Maharastra politics and that suits congress perfectly well. Besides dividing Sena's base, it allows congress to consolidate its base in North India by playing pro north Indian card. Knowing what congress and MNS are up to, Sena too has to jump into the fray to not lose its base to MNS. So what we have here is divisive political oneupmanship in Maharastra, for the sake of winning the upcoming elections. They are all out to exploit the fears and insecurities of farmers, Maharastrians, north Indians in Maharastra. Who will win? Some party will, but people of Maharastra will not.

Kerty

You have hit bull's eye.

All this fine...but who will clean filthy Mumbai?

So the commonsense question naturally arises: since none of us appears to be a professional politicians, why do we take positions that amplify the fear and insecurity generated by the professional politicians in search of vote-banks? Why do we become willing or unwilling accomplices in the demonization of one group or the other, depending on the political landscape? What are the stakes for us ordinary citizens? (re: Laxman's common person?)

CS

"What are the stakes for us ordinary citizens?"

Because what happens in Mumbai has very deep stakes for those who live in Mumbai and people all over India. So they want to be heard, express their concerns, not be left out of political process that is going to effect them.

Like political parties, people too can have diametrically different concerns and aspirations - so they both get drawn to each to other. So political parties stake positions to draw maximum number of people towards them and stop people being drawn towards their opponents. For political parties, everything they stand for and represent boil down to numbers game and how to divide support base of opponents. And once a set of people identify with certain ideas and issues represented and championed by a party, they adopt the party's struggle as their own. That is how each party acquires an army of supporters and activists. They overlook their own flaws and concentrate on flaws of their political opponents. And it gets reflected in discussion of issues and positions. That is how not only political parties, but media and people at large too get politicized precluding any meaningful a-partisan discussion of any hot issue.

the solution cs is a referendum for a "special status" for mumbai

only those born, living and working in mumbai allowed to participate

will make everyone sit up and notice

hopefully then the turf warfare between the thackerays would be checked ... and checkmated

Temporal- Talk of referendum for special status while you are in Mumbai, the political goons wouldnt spare you to open your mouth again on this issues. We pride ourselves as world's largest democarcy but in Mumbai how many of the ordinary citizens can really speak critically of Politcians and get away. Terror is one of the tool employed by them and common men are victims of it. Lately Mumbai is seeing spate of mob violence belonging to political goons where instant justice is meted out by thrashing innocent people be they college principals or teachers. Sort of a Taliban culture?

Hi Rajen, this was a great post to read, especially for a thoroughbred Mumbaiker. A little more detail about the Dhobi Ghat would have been nice.

Temporal and Rajen,

Yes, "referendum" a good idea but not workable, given the reality of mob-rule. These are competing thekedaars unfortunately. Such a mess they make periodically.

To the writers here: how on earth did the poet/writer Pritish Nandy become a Shiv Sainik Rajya Sabha member? Was he coerced? I have no followed the details, but was shocked, even though he is not as good a poet as he fancies himself. His brother Ashis Nandy can be counted on to be resolutely against all such chauvinist, thekedaari parties...

Ideasmith- Please visit my site www.rajennair.com there is an article on Dhobi Ghat.

Commonsense- It was distressing to find Pritish Nandy becoming RS MB with support from Shiv Sena and I am equally appalled to know that now even Vijay Mallaya is seeking support of the same party for nomination to RS.

Rajan

Why are you appalled by Pritish or Vijay being supported by Sena? Because it does not fit your own stereotypes and demonizations? Sena supported Pratibha, Kalam too. Was that appalling? It is such demonizations that translate into popularity of such parties. Because such demonizations translate into demonization of issues many people deeply care about, it translates into demonization of Marathi people, which draw them even closer to such parties. Good example is Modi - more he got demonized outside Gujarat, more gujaratis ended up supporting him and his party.

Supporting Pratibha was a political complusion as she was a Maharastran. Political decision are often based on not what is right or wrong but on political mileage the party derives. So assuming if few decision appears right that does not absolve politicians for thier political crime committed on innocent people during the Mumbai and Godra riots and Pritish Nandy's article is full of moral posturing and when it comes to personal gain he had no hesitiation in taking support of a facist party to become RS member.

Rajen..

Don't we have to prove that they committed crimes, or mere accusations are enough to indict politicians? Show me which political party is lilly white on that count?

You pointed out political complusions for supporting Pratibha. At least Sena is consistent in supporting a fellow Maharastrian. Since you recognize political compulsions, you should also recognize that people can also have other compulsions to support certain parties. Why should Pritish be singled out? Because he took support from a party you do not like?

Your comment also raises another troubling point - Should there be guilt by association? If Pritish is tarnished by his association with Sena, than what about people who vote for Sena? Don't they also bear the guilt by association with a party?

You seem familiar with dangers of fascism, I hope you are also familiar with dangers when people are assumed guilty until proven innocent and people being ascribed guilt by association.

And lastly, you have Sena to be Fascist. I have asked posters on DC who use this label to demonize certain parties to define what is fascism, how to recognize fascism, what is its manifesto, what are its objectives, and what is its modus operandi, but so far nobody has come forth. If you can, please do so and perhaps also explain how Sena would fit into that label.

Kerty-

Your have made your point and every one is entitled for his or her opinion. Thanks for making this discussion interesting and lively.