Target north Indians!

While news keeps on pouring in about migrants from UP and Bihar continue to be targeted in the country's financial capital one more gentleman in the national capital, the Delhi Lieutenant-Governor says North Indians, by their very nature, are lawless. (as if he is a British national, this guy is known for his talent of giving baseless comments like “everyone in Delhi needs an ID card ”)

While in Mumbai, the North Indians are being accused of taking away jobs, making the lives of locals tough and creating a chaos through their lawless behavior. I raise a question that if so called locals is not capable of qualifying for the local jobs, what are they really worth of??

Yesterday there was a discussion going on CNN-IBN's prime-time program “Face the Nation”, the participants included former cricketer-turned-politician Kirti Azad, young Shiv Sena MP Rahul Narvekar, Tripti Shakya, a popular Bhojpuri singer in UP and well-known sociologist Radhika Chopra. The person in center of all this was Raj Thackeray, the chief of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, who has been blamed for the current bout of turmoil in Mumbai. It was Raj Thackeray who had first kicked off the Maharashtiran-vs-outsider debate when he took on Amitabh Bachchan, questioning what the Big B has done for the welfare of Maharashtra.

Though initially the MNS chief had remained silent, but on Friday, he finally spoke out, alleging that he has been targeted by the political parties and the media. In an article with local daily Maharashtra Times, Raj Thackeray has raised a few questions:

1. The Prime Minister asked the French Government to allow Sikh students to wear turbans in schools. Yet why he was not called a communal leader?
2. Most political parties in Tamil Nadu have links with the LTTE which killed Rajiv Gandhi, yet why they are not called parochial?"
3. Targeting Amitabh Bachchan, Raj Thackeray says "Amitabh Bachchan calls himself 'Chhora Ganga kinarewala', yet media does not call him a 'regionalist'.
4. The Communists in Bengal launched an agitation when Sourav Ganguly was dropped from the Indian cricket team, yet they are supposed to be liberal and secular," he pointed out.

"Why am I the only one targeted by the media and political parties when I talk of Maharashtra's interest?" the MSN chief asks.

He forgets that they Amitabh calls himself “'Chhora Ganga kinarewala” but he never says that throw out other migrants from UP. Bengalis agitate for Sourav Ganguly, but they never ask Punjabis to leave West Bengal (because of Yuvraj being selected in Indian team). He will not be targeted if he is talking on Maharshtra’s interest, he is being targeted because he is talking about his interested by trying to take political mileage out of all this good for nothing issue.

Most amazingly, but he only targets the north Indians alone. Why he is not concerned about targeting the Gujrati community who are the major part of Dalal Street, the south Indians holding major administrative posts in government and IT companies or Bengalis who are there in Mumbai for long? The reason behind it is, only norths Indians over there are the people working on the streets, trying hard to survive. They are the people belonging to the lower section of society and he thinks they can be targeted easily.

One thing should be noted that the north Indians are facing such a situation in the country when they are the largest linguistic group, when one in every three Parliamentarians hail from the so-called Hindi heartland (I am unable to understand why they are not reacting to this and allowing all this happen) and when the population of just two states - UP and Bihar - is greater than the combined population of all four south Indian states.

As Azad disagrees with the assumption that there is something wrong with the civil society in the Hindi heartland. "There is nothing wrong with the society. People from eastern UP and Bihar are not only all over India, you will find them across the world. You have Prime Ministers in Mauritius, you will find them in Surinam and various other places. They are very adventurous. They go there to earn their living and they want to have respect," he points out.

Shiv Sena MP Rahul Narvekar says the Sena distinguishes between linguistic discrimination and the fact that a migrant population comes in and puts pressure on the city's infrastructure. But I think he doesn’t tries to visualize that what will be the state of Maharashtra if all of sudden all the migrants leave the state and similarly all Marathi migrants are asked to leave other Indian states. Will they be able to sustain and accommodate all the Marathi people coming back to Maharashtra?

This is absolutely ridiculous. Has there been any instance of a taxi driver or hawker creating a problem? There are so many IAS and IPS officers in Central Government and state governments who hail from UP and Bihar. What about them?"
Tripti Shakya who has had many performances outside UP as well, too disagrees with the suggestion that people from UP or Bihar are discourteous. When she was pointed out that a woman is generally greeted by stares in UP or Bihar when she goes to a place for the first time, Tripti says that has never been the case with her. "I have been very fortunate regarding this thing. And I have always been greeted with love and respect wherever I have gone."

What about the state of women in Mumbai ?(Remember the New Year eve incident)

The point to be noted by all of us should be we are an Indian before anything else and I request all politicians to restrain from spoiling my country just for the sake of few votes. I was born as an Indian and would like to be an Indian for my life time.

Remember these beautiful lines...
मजहब नहीं सिखाता आपस मैं बैर रखना, हिंदी हैं हम वतन है हिंदुस्तान हमारा

* With due acknowledgment to CNN-IBN