Akbaruddin Owaisi mocks Thackerays in bastion, Shiv Sena fumes - ummid.com

http://www.ummid.com/news/2015/April/09.04.2015/akbar-owaisi-bandra-rally.html

Akbaruddin Owaisi mocks Thackerays in bastion, Shiv Sena fumes

Thursday April 9, 2015 11:38 AM, ummid.com & Agencies

Mumbai: Mounting a stringent attack on the Shiv Sena in the run-up to the April 11 by polls in Bandra (East), All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) senior leader Akbaruddin Owaisi mocked Uddhav Thackeray and his party symbol, and also challenged him to visit Hyderabad if he is a real ‘tiger’.

"If you (Uddhav) are the Tiger, then why isn't the tiger stepping out? What type of tiger is this who roams only in his home, Mumbai and Maharashtra," Owaisi said amid the chants of ‘Sher Aaya, sher aaya, Hyderabad se sher aaya’.

"Look at us, we move around all over India. If you have the guts, you should come to Hyderabad," Akbaruddin Owaisi said while addressing an election rally on Monday in Bandra - home to Thackeray family and considered as Shiv Sena stronghold.

“Uddhav Thackeray calls us 'Hyderabad wale'. You are naive. Your entire life has been spent in the shadow of your father," he added.

“We came from Hyderabad to Nanded and then to Aurangabad and Byculla," he said.

On AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi's statement daring him to visit Hyderabad, Uddhav said if the former has courage, he should ensure better livelihood for Muslims. 

"The Owaisi brothers should understand that we treat our parents like God," he said Wednesday in a reference to Akbaruddin's remarks that Uddhav had always been under his father Bal Thackeray's shadow.

Uddhav also alleged, without elaborating, that Congress has offered crores to Owaisi. 

"We showed culture by not fielding candidate against the widow of RR Patil (NCP leader) in Tasgaon seat after the appeal made by Sharad Pawar, but NCP did not reciprocate and backed Congress in Bandra," added Uddhav.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Saut however criticised Akbaruddin Owaisi for his tirade against Thackeray.

"Who are these Owaisis? Is Hyderabad in Pakistan? Owaisis had earlier challenged Modiji. World saw he addressed a successful rally in Hyderabad. We will also go to Hyderabad", he said.

Meanwhile, with only two days left in polling, the election battle in Bandra (East) bypoll has intensified. In the constituency, while Sena is trying hard to retain the seat, Congress candidate Narayan Rane, who had lost the 2014 state election, too is in fray for an entry into the state assembly.

The elecion however has turned into a tri-lateral battle with the entry of the MIM. The MIM candidate, Siraj Rehbar Khan, who had bagged over 23,000 in the last election, is predicted to be front runner in the high profile bypoll.

- See more at: http://www.ummid.com/news/2015/April/09.04.2015/akbar-owaisi-bandra-rally.html#sthash.HFg9txyq.dpuf

Abu Asim Azmi: ‘People have stopped coming to state, they prefer Gujarat, Karnataka now’ - Indian Express interview by Swatee Kher

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/people-have-stopped-coming-to-state-they-prefer-gujarat-karnataka-now/907793/0

Sat, 4 Feb 2012

‘People have stopped coming to state, they prefer Gujarat, Karnataka now’

Swatee Kher : Mumbai, Sat Feb 04 2012, 03:29 hrs

With migrants versus locals issue on back-burner now, SP MLA and its most public face Abu Asim Azmi has major plans for the upcoming elections. SP had seven corporators in the outgoing Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and has now fielded 122 candidates for the polls. This includes a few workers who defected from rival Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). Apart from his focus on elections in Mumbai, Azmi is busy campaigning for assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh:
What is your main campaign agenda for the upcoming elections?

We are looking to field candidates who are not corrupt. We do not want candidates who win elections on the basis of money. We mostly work in slum areas and we need candidates who can go and work in slum areas. Water supply and sanitation is our main focus areas in the campaign.

The government has recently decided on the 1995 deadline for slum regularisation, what is your opinion about it?

The government decision is creating division among slum-dwellers in the city. In some parts they have agreed for the 2000 deadline and in others it is 1995. How can such a division be acceptable? They are going against their promise to regularise all slums till 2000. Moreover, once a promise is made, they should ensure that all slum-dwellers get housing.

What can be done now about it? What is your opinion?

Shiv Sena regularised slums till 1995 and said local officers - police, ward officers will be held responsible if slums grow further. After 20 years, no action has been taken against any officials. They are responsible for the slums to grow. Once people start living in the city, it is the responsibility of the government to give them proper housing, water supply, facilities for education and healthcare.

MNS chief Raj Thackeray has once again blamed UP, Bihar migrants for crime in the city. What is your stand?

Are there no Maharashtrians arrested for any crime? These statements are only for political gains. People have stopped coming to Maharashtra, they prefer to go to Gujarat or Karnataka. If Thackeray says he will find locals to work, let him send them to the textile mills in Bhiwandi.

Is MNS your main opponent in the elections?

MNS and Shiv Sena are both our targets because they are regional parties. They have targeted me and my party. They talk on regional lines and are traitors.

You had seven corporators in the civic body, but complaints of water, roads came from their areas as well.

There is little that a corporator can do. The responsibility of clearing-works remains with the administration, which the government controls. Even if the corporator wants to use funds in his area, he has to get them sanctioned.

You were learning Marathi, how much have you progressed?

I did take a few lessons and have collected some books in my office. I can speak and read a little but not very well. Since I am an MLA, I have to understand Marathi as most of my work is conducted in Marathi. I regret that I haven’t been able to pick the language as well as I wanted.

SP was part of the third front formed two years ago uniting republican and other secular parties. Why did the Republican Left Democratic Front (RLDF) not survive?

It was largely due to the division of seats. Many of our colleagues ended up withdrawing their candidates in favour of the Congress. Even after elections MLAs and workers would not regularly attend meetings, I then walked out of the formation.

Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi have recently asked UP residents as to how long they will go to Maharashtra to beg. What is your comment?

They should feel ashamed because their party has been in governance in most parts of the country for a long time. They have not been able to provide facilities in those states because of which people are migrating. To say that they are begging is an insult.

A Pak view on India:WikiLeaks may put India in big trouble - By Afshain Afzal - THE NEWS.COM - A Jang Group portal

A PAK VIEW ON INDIA:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=28148&Cat=2&dt=1/28/2011

WikiLeaks may put India in big trouble

 

By Afshain Afzal

Friday, January 28, 2011

 

Where Wikileaks served as a blessing in disguise for the western nations as it diverted the world’s attention from their humiliating defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan and other theatres, it also covered their war crimes and human right violations in these countries.

They also proved to be a bombshell for other countries, including India, as it exposed Washington’s view and analysis towards them as well as it compromised desires and ambitions of various leaders on different debatable issues. Interestingly, the so called ‘War on Terror’ has its own rules which have been authenticated by the United Nations Security Council resolutions but can we apply these on revelations through Wikileaks? The issue is to ascertain if these rules are same for all countries, organisations, groups and individuals.

Although WikiLeaks are nothing but a conspiracy of western intelligence agencies against their enemies and adversaries yet for the sake of discussion, let’s put India on the litmus test to check the authentication of the Wikileaks. Last month, the Samajwadi Party legislator Abu Asim Azmi brought into the notice of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly during its session that according to the Wikileaks disclosure, the Hindu militant organization Rashtriya Sevak Sangh (RSS) was a thousand times more dangerous than the Al-Qaeda. In the same regard, Azmi told the Assembly “It has been exposed in the Wikileaks as to how a thousand times more dangerous is the RSS than the Al Qaeda. Therefore, I demand that strong and stern action must be taken against the RSS.” 
Although, the remark and demand by Azmi drew strong protests from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena (SS) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) legislators and others but what he highlighted was a leak from the respectable offices of India’s most trusted friend and long time partner the United States of America (USA). Regardless of the fact that already New Delhi has many times sacrificed its sovereignty to please this beloved friend, the recent leaks have exposed the US diplomats’ long term strategy against the Hindus, which interestingly has appeared in black and white this time. One wonders if still any Indian has doubts in his mind about the US long term strategy in this region and conspiracy behind the US-Indo partnership.

If we recall, on September 24, 2001, President George W. Bush stated, “We will direct every resource at our command to win the war against terrorists, every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence. We will starve the terrorists of funding.” To achieve this objective, US Congress worked closely with the Department of the Treasury, along with the Department of Justice and took solids action against financial intermediaries and facilitators who were suspected to infuse terrorist organisations with money, material and support and they were held accountable along with those who perpetrate terrorist acts. It is pertinent to mention here that the campaign was mainly against the Muslims, especially those doubted to have links with religious outfits including Al Qaida and Taliban.

If we consider the Wikileaks as authentic and Hindu organization Rashtriya Sevak Sangh is a thousand times more dangerous than the Al-Qaeda, now it is time to take action. It would be a test for Washington and New Delhi that whether they would take action against RSS and all those who are directly and indirectly liked with the assistance to this organization. Confirmed intelligence input says that Shiv Sena working President Uddhav Thackeray had been receiving money from two Mumbai-based industrial houses namely Reliance and Tata Group of Companies.

This information is not hearsay as it is based on the intercepted phone recordings between Tata Group spokeswoman Shalani and Public Relations Corporate chief Nira Radia. We have a precedent that US, UK, India and other countries were in the forefront to ban all organizations, groups and individuals suspected to have anytime helped organizations suspected to be involved in terrorism like Al Qaida, Taliban, Lashkar-e-Tayyiaba, Al Khidmat Trust and many other religious, political and charitable organizations as well as freeze their bank accounts and assets. Now let’s see, what will be done about the Indian religious terrorist organisations and their financers including Reliance and Tata Group of companies.

afshainafzal@yahoo.com

The Thackerays' primitive charisma By Aakar Patel - LIVEMINT, Mumbai

AAKAR PATEL, A GUJARATI, HAS COME OUT WITH A VERY INFORMATIVE AND INCISIVE ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICS OF SHIV SENA AND ITS REAL IMPACT ON THE CITY OF MUMBAI AND THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA. IT BRINGS OUT THE ROLE DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES HAVE CHALKED OUT IN THIS MOST COSMOPOLITAN OF ALL INDIAN CITIES. IT FURTHER POINTS TOWARDS THE NEW AREAS OF DEVELOPMENTS THAT HAS BEEN NEGLECTED BY SOME COMMUNITIES AT THEIR OWN LOSSES.

http://www.livemint.com/2010/02/19213129/The-Thackerays8217-primitiv.html

• Posted: Fri, Feb 19 2010. 9:37 PM IST

• Culture

The Thackerays’ primitive charisma

The Senas have nothing constructive to offer Marathis. So what’s their appeal? The Mumbai Marathi, better at renaming things than building something himself, is disinherited from his city, and the Thackerays give him an illusory sense of power

By AAKAR PATEL

Politicians respond to constituencies. Their positions are deliberate.
What is the Thackerays’ constituency? Mumbai’s Marathis, whom the Thackerays speak for.

The cast: (clockwise from top left) Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray (AFP) and his estranged nephew Raj (Rajnish Kakade / Hindustan Times), founder of MNS, together control 42% of Mumbai’s votes (Abhijit Bhatlekar / Mint); and north Indian taxi drivers have had to bear the brunt of their hate campaigns. Hemant Padalkar / Hindustan Times.

Congress does not represent Marathis in Mumbai, and they have surrendered this space politically to the Thackerays. This can be seen in their organizational structure (www.mumbairegionalcongress.org).
Neither the Mumbai regional Congress committee’s president Kripashankar Singh nor its treasurer Amarjit Singh is Marathi.


Of Mumbai Congress’ 18 vice-presidents, 12 are not Marathi. Of its 19 general secretaries, 13 are not Marathi. Of its 13 secretaries, eight are not Marathi. Of its seven executive members, none is Marathi.
Of Congress’s seven members of Parliament from Mumbai, six are not Marathi.


Of its 17 MLAs, 12 are not Marathi. Of its two housing board chairmen, neither is Marathi.
This surrender hasn’t come because Congress does not want Marathi votes, but because it cannot get them. Congress is inclusive by nature and cannot offer Mumbai’s Marathi what the Thackerays can, which is anger and resentment.


When Raj Thackeray left his uncle and launched his party it was inclusive, because he initially read the Mumbai Marathi wrongly. His flag makes space for the green of Muslims and the blue of Dalits. Marathis didn’t find that inclusiveness appealing and his party struggled. But after his calibrated violence against migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, in which people were killed by his boys, Raj demonstrated his nastiness and Marathis gave him their approval and their vote. Between Raj (24%) and Uddhav (18%), the Thackerays control 42% of Mumbai’s vote, which corresponds to the city’s Marathi population. In the last election, not one opposition seat in the island city of South Mumbai went to Shiv Sena. They all went to Raj after his violence, and that is the reason why Uddhav is currently acting the way he is. The more unhinged the message, the more appealing it is to the Marathi.


Elected to power in 1995, Shiv Sena renamed Bombay. This began the series which has gifted us Chennai, Kolkata and Bengaluru. The Indian’s renaming of his cities is thought to be a positive assertion of identity, but it is actually negritude. Shiv Sena’s renaming did not stop there. It renamed Victoria Terminus (Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) and Prince of Wales Museum (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangharalaya). Why is the Marathi angry with the British, who gave him his fine city?
The answer is that he isn’t. Those things were renamed because the British are gone and cannot defend themselves. Their property was available for the Marathi to stamp his ownership upon.

So the question is: Why does Mumbai’s Marathi want to assert himself? The answer is that he is disinherited from his city.


Of the 30 companies in Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex, the number of those owned by Marathis is zero. Of the 50 on the National Stock Exchange’s Nifty, the number owned by Marathis is zero. The Marathi is quite good at renaming things others built, but at building them himself he’s less able.
Three-fourths of India’s capital transactions happen in Mumbai but the participation of Marathis in this activity is irrelevant. There is a reason for this. If we observe Marathi society we notice the total absence of mercantile castes. Into this space the British imported the multi-religious trading community of Surat—Vohra, Khoja, Luhana, Memon, Jain, Parsi and Vaniya. They control the economy of Mumbai and its capital markets, and occupy the city’s best real estate.


Lower down, space opened up for others with enterprise, like the Bhaiyya, Bihari and Sikh taxi drivers of Mumbai. They are actually very good at their trade, hard-working and honest. Against them, the Marathi displays his valour and, like all Indians, he can be quite brave in a mob.

Face value: (clockwise from top left) Members of a fan club gather outside a multiplex screening of My Name is Khan (Shirish Shete / PTI); the film’s lead actor Shah Rukh Khan returns to the city after the world premiere of the movie (Punit Paranjpe / Reuters); Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray at an exhibition of cartoons by his father (Santosh Hirlekar / PTI); and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi rides a suburban train on 5 February. Hemant Padalkar / Hindustan Times.

The second big industry in Mumbai is media, especially Bollywood. Bollywood is dominated on the trade side by Punjabis and Sindhis, on the talent side by Punjabis and Urdu-speakers. The participation of Marathis is not of consequence. In some ways it is negative.


If we think about it, popular entertainment can only be produced on the cusp of immorality. Bollywood liberalizes India through its content which slowly pushes that cusp outward. Bollywood is based in Mumbai because it is India’s most liberal city. But the Marathi peasants who now control the state respond to their constituency in the village, which is illiterate and moral. As home minister, R.R. Patil banned this city’s unique dance bars where young women entertained men. Such acts pull the cusp inward.
The Marathi isn’t bothered about My Name is Khan being released, and by itself the matter is irrelevant, but he’s impressed by Thackeray’s ability to make Shah Rukh Khan grovel and to disrupt Bollywood’s business. It reassures him that Marathis control Mumbai.


Shiv Sena’s issues are always those where they can demonstrate to Marathis their ability to block events—we won’t allow Australian players, we won’t allow Valentine’s Day, we won’t let Pakistanis come in and so on. Shiv Sena has nothing constructive to offer Marathis, nor is it expected: Someone else will do all that.



All these events blocked eventually come to pass anyway, because the control is cosmetic, and it wilts when the state decides to apply rule of law. But that moment of theatre—when the media exhibits anguish—produces the spotlight that nourishes the Thackerays. This is the pattern to Shiv Sena’s actions.


It might appear that these actions are irrational, but the Thackerays’ method is cold and reasoned to squeeze out advantage. Witness the discipline of Raj. He works his strategy with great care. On national television he speaks Marathi no matter what language he is questioned in. The Marathi loves this because it reflects his defiance.


There is a second reason why the Thackerays are compelled to make a nuisance of themselves every so often. Unlike other parties, Shiv Sena has a physical presence in neighbourhoods. These offices, run by local toughs, are self-funded, meaning that they approach businesses and residents for “donations”. This activity can be smooth only so long as Shiv Sena radiates menace. The party is not effective if it isn’t feared, and the grass roots reminds the leadership of this.


The Marathi pattern of resentment we have observed is visible elsewhere in time.


India’s nationalist debate a century ago was dominated by the Marathis: Tilak, Gokhale, Agarkar and Ranade. All four were Chitpavan Brahmins, whose members are fair-skinned and unique for their light eyes (like cricketer Ajit Agarkar and model Aditi Govitrikar).


Going against the current noise about Marathi in schools, Chitpavans actually demanded to be educated in English. By 1911—100 years ago—Chitpavans were 63% literate and 19% literate in English. This gave them the edge over other Indians.
All four were on the most influential body in western India of the time, Poona Sarvajanik Sabha. But English education had not exorcized the native instinct. There they unleashed their pettiness on each other. Agarkar and Tilak fought over leadership. Tilak was forced out in 1890 after quarrels over social status and money. Gokhale took his place but was opposed by Tilak who said the job required 2 hours of work daily and so it couldn’t be done by a college principal. Ranade was attacked in Tilak’s newspapers and Gokhale quit in 1895 because he couldn’t work with Tilak’s friends. A jealous Tilak sabotaged the Congress session held in Pune the same year.


When the Gujaratis—Jinnah and Gandhi—entered Congress, they immediately eclipsed the Marathis, because they had the trader’s instinct towards compromise. The Marathi Brahmin’s energy was then channelled into resentment, this time against Muslims.
RSS, founded in 1925, is actually a deeply Marathi organization. Hindutva author Savarkar, RSS founder Hedgewar, the great Golwalkar, his successor Deoras and current sarsanghachalak Mohan Bhagwat are all Marathi Brahmins.


Marathi resentment cuts down its own heroes. The first was Shivaji. Marathi Brahmins refused to crown him though he controlled dozens of forts in the Konkan. This was because he was a peasant from the cultivator caste and not a Kshatriya. He had to invent an ancestry, perform penance and bring in a Brahmin from Kashi before he could crown himself in 1674, with the title Chhatrapati, meaning leader of Kshatriyas.



The second was Ambedkar. A first-rate mind, he is seen by Marathis for his caste. The term “Ambedkarite” refers purely to the Dalit movement. Educated in America unlike Jinnah and Gandhi, he absorbed the pragmatism of John Dewey at Columbia. Ambedkar was methodical, unemotional and persuasive in all that he wrote. Europeans would classify him as an Aristotelian, against the Platonism of Gandhi. When the merchants of Mumbai voted for the city to join Gujarat during the reorganization of states, Ambedkar wrote a response that skewered their claims with finality. He did this without being parochial. He was above his caste, above his community.


Mumbai’s Marathis should be proud to own Ambedkar’s message of a universal civilization, but they cleave to the primitive charisma of the Thackerays instead.


Aakar Patel’s book on the changing world of Indian servants will be published by Random House India in 2011.


Send your feedback to replytoall@livemint.com

The rot in Maharashtra By Pratap Bhanu Mehta - The Indian Express, Mumbai

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/The-rot-in-Maharashtra/575847

 

 

The rot in Maharashtra

Pratap Bhanu MehtaTags : pratapbhanumehta, column
Posted: Friday , Feb 05, 2010 at 0104 hrs

Although there is growing opposition to the abominable grandstanding of the Shiv Sena on everything from the rights of migrants to Shah Rukh Khan, we are still not grasping the depth of the crisis we face. The crisis has several dimensions. Machiavelli once said, in his own inimitable way, that we should esteem a man who is liberal, not a man who decides to be so. Part of the difficulty is that the odour of opportunism vitiates the credibility of the opposition to Shiv Sena. The BJP has helped nurture the monster it is now trying to free itself from. The Congress has consistently been pusillanimous in confronting, if not complicit in, so much of the Sena’s rhetoric. And the NCP is, at one level, even more insidious than the Sena. Its style of political equivocation blocks

any effective action against the Sena’s agenda.

These trends also represent a profoundly deep crisis in Maharashtra politics. At one level, Maharashtra should have been a beacon of progressivism. It has dynamism, talent, extraordinary economic advantages. But to put it somewhat gracelessly, Maharashtra politics has become an ominous combination of crony capitalism and nativism. The two may be related. We often think of Maharashtra politicians, from Sharad Pawar to Shinde to the Thackerays as, in a sense, organic products of different social constituencies in the state. This may have been true at some point. But at this juncture they are all grasping at political straws. And this is so for a particular reason. Most political parties and their leaderships in Maharashtra now derive their power not from social forces, but from their ability to create a state-business nexus. Their power to mobilise political funds is immense, and most of them are focused largely on occupying that perch. Maharashtra has consistently had mediocre state governments at best, a fact disguised by the immense advantages of the state.

Pawar, once a politician of considerable promise, has proved to be one of the biggest spoilers in modern Indian politics. The Congress’s stewardship of the state wrecked a lot of the capacity in the state. And you have to wonder if it is any accident that the two most moribund ministries at the Centre are agriculture and power. In short, the political game in Maharashtra is leveraging the state for creating immense networks of power, wealth and influence, not imaginative governance.

In such circumstances, politicians are floundering for electoral platforms. The Sena at least had an ideology. The rest are in a precarious position. They do not have the confidence of performance or a social base. So in the face of the Sena upping the ideological ante, they stand paralysed. Their refusal to consistently take on the Sena is a tacit acknowledgement of their own complicity and weakness. Some appeal to nativism to disguise their sheer opportunism. Others are unable to resist it because their own track records don’t give them a leg to stand on. So there is nothing to break the default equilibrium of politics in the state.

The second dimension of this crisis is the blot it represents on our freedoms. We tend to see each episode of Sena mania in isolation: sometimes it is taxi drivers, sometimes Shah Rukh Khan. The Sena may be a weakening electoral force. But the price it extracts on our freedoms is immense. Its power to curtail discourse is extraordinary. What kind of a democracy will we be, if historians cannot freely write books on Shivaji? What does the tearing down of Shah Rukh Khan posters, the attempt to muzzle his voice, the intimidation of movie hall owners, not to mention the beating up of taxi drivers, represent? It is an attempt to subvert democracy in the most insidious way: intimidate public discourse. To be fair, the Sena is not alone in doing this; we have excused in several state governments similar attempts to muzzle public discourse.

The third dimension of the crisis is social. Elites set standards in any society. And the extraordinary social respectability, if not downright obsequiousness, with which the Sena leadership has been treated over the years has sent out the wrong message twice over. It has legitimised the illegitimate, and it has probably led people to overestimate the Sena’s power. Power is always odd, in that you have it if other people think you have it. The minute others stop believing it dissipates. We have let the Sena get away with this illusion by not standing up to it. No single political group or powerful social force in Maharashtra wanted to call the Sena’s bluff. It makes you wonder how many of us are liberals by conviction or how many are deciding to be so.

The final aspect of this crisis is the breakdown of state institutions. Banning books and publications is almost never a good idea, but in the context of Maharashtra one question needs to be asked. This is a state that bans books with dangerous alacrity, even books of genuine scholarship. Why the double standards when it comes to publications promoting enmity? The issue is not bans, the issue is the impartiality of the state. Second, the state cannot be trusted to provide even standard protections that ordinary citizens deserve, like being protected from intimidation. In such circumstances, small groups can have disproportionate effects in creating a climate of fear.

The Sena’s hold on the popular imagination is exaggerated. It is a consequence, not a cause, of our inability to stand up to it. Liberal values are seldom subverted because of the strength of popular opinion against them. They are subverted because well-meaning people in positions of power equivocate. And elements of discourse elsewhere legitimise what the Sena is doing: targeting artists and writers has been staple sport in states ranging from West Bengal to Gujarat. The drive towards creating a nativist identity is a temptation in many states that have nothing else to go on. Expressing local and vernacular identity is one thing. Converting it into small-mindedness quite another. The very innocent move towards renaming cities and states has not been a harbinger of cultural expression; it has rather been a signifier of shrinking horizons.

The good news is that sociological trends suggest that most citizens are rejecting nativism; they want access to a wider world, whether it is through language or mobility. But it has not stopped politicians from playing that card. Maharashtra

is important not because the Thackerays can break India. They cannot. But it is important because its politics can be one possible future for India, an India where liberal values are in jeopardy.

The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi

express@expressindia.com