Death of a City

My association with Mumbai has been only for 2 years. Yet, during those 2 years, I felt more at home away from home, than any other place in India. A few years back, I was in New York for just 2 days and surprisingly, I had the same feeling there of being at home. I was completely at ease, on its roads, in Central Park and on the subway.
Now, Mumbai is definitely not New York in so many respects, yet till very recently, its character had more in Common with New York than with New Delhi. Mumbai & New York, both are cities which speak the language of money. This, above all, has resulted in making them the financial nerve centres of their respective countries, despite being given a step-brotherly treatments with respect to their peers like New Delhi & Washington DC, both of which speak the language of politics. It is this preference of money over politics that has attracted so many migrants into these two cities, to earn a livelihood with respect, and in turn, add to the economy of these two cities. Unfortunately, it seems the dream city in India has started having nightmares now.

The whole controversy of migrants in Mumbai can be summed up as follows - A parochial politician, disowned by the parent party, raises regional issues to endear himself to a section of society, directly competing for the vote base of its parent party Shiv Sena. His goons go on threatening, maiming and killing migrants (and a local) in Mumbai, Thane & Nashik. Thousands of workers from these cities have no option but to forfeit their rights of livelihood and and are forced to return home. And nothing happen to the all mighty Raj Thakrey, despite there being a possibility of slapping several criminal cases against him for national disintegration. Not to forget, people like him are routinely termed as nationalists. What a shame!

The state government, run by a so-called national party, plays spectator, interested in seeing how the game plays out. Our learned PM considers it below his dignity to come to these hapless workers. The all-motherly, pro-poor Sonia Gandhi doesnt consider the issue important enough to show solidarity to the poor workers. No speeches, no tough actions, nothing. It seems that the gag order was not passed against Raj Thakrey but against Dr. Manmohan Singh and Mrs. Sonia Gandhi.

Our main opposition party and its national leaders are too busy endearing themselves to the Indian middle class and their shining India. That the shining India is made possible by these voiceless workers is fact, they seem comfortably oblivious to. Mr Advani does issue a statement condemning these attacks, but afterwards there is absolutely no activity from BJP to instill confidence among the workers. In fact, their poll partner Shiv Sena feels so threatened by the hijacking of their agenda by MNS that they start taking the chauvinism to another level by targeting Mumbai airport (and blackening the "Mumbai airport welcomes you" sign!).

The truth is in a democracy like India, there is absolutely no voice for the workers engaged in the unorganized sector. And in case you didnt know, such workers form more than 90% of the total working labour class. Less than 10% come under the organized sector and thus protected by the several unions. This might explain why the messiah of the poor like Sitaram Yechury, Somnath Chatterjee, Gurudas Dasgupta etc had absolutely nothing to say on the lot of migrant workers. Hats off to our pro-worker communist parties.

A small lunatic, but vicious fringe terrorises lives of people in the most accomodating city of India but nothing happens except a gag order. Thats real justice! And our President & Chief Justice argue over the cause of increasing public restlessness and public tendency to take the law into their own hands. I thought only justice was supposed to be blind. It seems our judges and Presidents blind too.

Tasleema Nasreen wrote articles expressing her misery & helplessness in getting an Indian visa. A lot of public intellectuals supported her. I have all the respect for her and am happy that she was granted the necessary visa. But she should know that in India, even Indians dont have right to live in their own country at their place of choice any longer. What to talk of a foreigner! India unfortunately does not seem like a country which was once a haven for the persecuted like the Jews and the Parsis.

In the end, my question to all those who support MNS & Shiv Sena is, where does it all stop? First, you classify us as Hindus & Muslims, them Maharashtrians and others. Pretty soon, you will have to go to the Panchayat level within Maharashtra and then at family level. And then, there will be nothing left to divide. This is the nemesis of the kind of hate politics the nationalist parties like BJP, Shiv Sena, MNS tend to follow. I am always surprised at the fact why even the educated people among us fail to see this simple truth. The fact that these parties follow such principles is sad enough, the fact that parties like Congress do not do any thing about the impending death of a city like Mumbai, and thus leave the parties like SP & RJD to further their regional agenda, is even sadder. Does Congress even remember that its greatest leader, the Mahatma, put up a fight in South Africa, against a similar experience of discrimination & injustice, to which the migrant labourers are subjected to today?