I am intentionally writing this post in “English” and i have been posting a lot of content in “Hindi” also. Just to prove that we indeed respect and use many languages. But “Marathi” is our identity and i am proud of it, so i don’t think there is anything wrong in doing that. People coming from other states can come in Maharashtra, stay here, grow here and may also settle here. We will treat them as guests, and as the famous saying goes “Athiti devo bhava“, we truly oblige by that.
A statement that hurts me and is repeatedly made by the self-proclaimed ”intellectual” people i.e, Media, is that “Mumbai is loosing its cosmopolitan culture”. I strongly condemn this statement and just wish to ask a question to all the self-proclaimed ”intellectuals” that, does being “cosmopolitan” mean that you lose your identity?.
As long as Mumbai and Maharashtra was ignoring the unaccounted flow of all sorts of people from all around this country, everything was “cosmopolitan” and the moment the people of Maharashtra raised a voice for their rights, we become hooligans.
I want to state that it was the vision and the ground work done by our leaders, that has made Maharashtra and Mumbai, what they are today. It is because Maharashtra and Mumbai developed and opened itself for everyone willing to work hard and earn a living for himself, that attracted others. It is our social fabric that has bared the burden of a very diversified society. But everything has a limit and now it is high time.
If the people who were born in Maharashtra, who have been living here since generations and are “Marathi”, are not going to get the fruits of the hard work of their ancestors, then who is supposed to get it? What is the use of developing cities like Mumbai,Pune, Nasik and Nagpur, if the youngsters living in the villages of Maharashtra are not going to get there share in the development.
The debate could go on and on. The bottom line is that, the local people of a state should be given a priority in their state. So, Biharis should be given a preference in Bihar (provided that the government and leaders of Bihar do their bit for the Biharis), Tamilians should be given preference in Tamil Nadu and so on. We never demanded that, Maharashtrians should be given reservations all across India or Marathi be made the national language of India.
We are just asking for our rights.
- जय महाराष्ट्र!
Yes dude, you have written a sensible and to – the – point post this time. I have read the transcript of this interview that you have given above. Shobhaa De accepted being a sympathizer of Raj there without any qualms, and if you know Nana Patekar (always acting in nationalist and roles depicting a reform) had also declared his open support for Raj. Oh, why this there are others like Shreyas Talpade, Ashok Saraf, Bharat Jadhav, Atul Parchure, Sandeep Kulkarni, Prashant Damle, Mohan Joshi supporting him. (check this http://ibnlive.in.com/news/nana-patekar-shreyas-protest-against-raj-gag-order/60320-37.html )
Now, should we endorse politicians like Sayyed Shahabuddin , Pappu Yadav , Atiq Ahemad , Raja Bhaiiya , his highness Lalu? I don’t get it, they are all running free in the nation.
And what’s this Maharashtra and Mumbai? I do not find any point writing them different all the time. It was Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar from Mumbai, who wrote the Constitution of India, who was a vehement supporter of a separate Maharashtra in ’50s when MH was not a different state. If Mumbai could have been kept like Kolkata and Chennai, this time wouldn’t ever have come up. Whatever, there is lot of it other than Mumbai in the interiors of Maharashtra that has the potential of creating separate Mumbai if time be. (Take the scorching pace of development of Pune or Nagpur for example)
I agree that Mumbai (Bombay) was always the modern and cosmopolitan face of India. But, how much? Qatar has close to 76% immigrant population, but they have a Visa system in place there, do we? Even raising the issue would make our nationalist intellectuals scorn. But, let me inform you that US has a dual citizenship (one of state and other of country), and China also has a permit system to keep migration to larger cities in check. Have these countries disintegrated?
I will agree on your thought on ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’, but one should welcome outsiders, not bend forward to lick their ass!
And regarding why Maharashtra is developed, it deserves a separate post. It is not just our leaders who visited various countries to attract investment, had it been that easy, no state would have been backward then. It needs infrastructure in place, good water supply, electricity and above all a pool of skilled workers ready, something which MH readily provided even in ’60s. The real architects of modern Maharashtra are Mahatma Phule and ilks, all those involved in the Social Reform Movement of the 19th century. Please check Nitawriter’s post on this, http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/give-some-credit-to-maharashtra/ (and please check out the comments of a guy named Vivek Khadpekar in the 167 comments specifically). Had it not been for the efforts of these leaders, we wouldn’t have seen womenfolk enjoying the status they do today, be it roaming in the nights when they feel safe, or when you find them successful in many fields, and above all, Pune wouldn’t have ever got the status it has for education. Despite the cosmopolitanism, why is it that all major educational institutes in Pune are still owned by Maharashtrians? (Take Symbiosis Group, Indira, Sinhgad or MIT, or even our next door guy Chate!)
It is good to see that the sense of social reforms still flows in the blood of present day Marathi folk, take the actors and directors like Madhur Bhandarkar, N. Chandra, Ashutosh Govarikar, Shreyas Talpade, Nana Patekar, Mahesh Manjrekar, and many others.
And ye, people living here since generations (even if they are from another place), who are naturalized in culture of MH, need not worry as they are one of us. But, to those outsiders, who think there state Govt’s offices are much clean, their cities and ST buses much clean, everything in place, they shouldn’t do a favour on MH by staying here! If Mumbai was developed by outsiders (which is a myth, it was developed by Britishers, still next to Kolkata which was the commercial capital once, and nowhere was it developed by Indians), who called them here? They are free to go back to their native places and build cities of gold with their so called ‘ability of creation’.
All these problems have come up only since the migration from North to non – North has started and the myth that is shamelessly propagated even by our Hindi media that Hindi is ‘the’ national language, which it is not, and will never be. Check Wiki for this stuff. I will agree Hindi is a good connecting language (next to English anytime), but making it as ‘the’ mandatory national language is a big no – no.
Thanks for the good post, reply to the huge comment.
Hey nice post but you have a spelling mistake in your title. It should be a ‘Wake Up Call for Intellectuals’, you forgot the ‘t’ there. Those guys who are unable to understand the content in the post (oh, nationalists), they would mock you for that mistake ONLY!
So, better rectify it.
thanks man
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Very true!!Now what we need is to get together be united and fight this onslaught on our language ,state and culture.Enough is Enough,we were too accepting,accommodating,but what did we get in return brickbats!! why because we spoke up for our language and our state!!