Though India’s political economy has become more integrated over the past few decades, provincialism remains deeply ingrained across the country from Maharashtra to Tamil Nadu, Telangana to Jharkhand, Bihar to Assam
It’s back to stirring up trouble in the guise of nativist politics by, who else, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray. He instructed his party workers to burn all new autorickshaws driven by non-Maharashtrians. They dutifully complied by torching one of them. Faced with outrage in Mumbai and other places, Raj Thackeray withdrew his instruction. But by then an entirely spurious debate had begun on the parochialism of the MNS.
On its part, the BJP-led Maharashtra Government scoffed at Raj Thackeray, rightly accusing him of trying to seek attention. The Chief Minister dismissed the allegation of rewarding non-Maharashtrians with autorickshaw permits. There were two criteria: Anybody living in Maharashtra for 15 years and with a working knowledge of Marathi could apply for and get an autorickshaw licence.
Not to be outdone by others, the usual suspects of Bihar politics also piped up against the MNS and its chief. Never mind that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who ran a virulent campaign recently, asking voters to choose between a Bihari and a ‘bahari’, is pretty much guilty of invoking deplorable regionalism. He now pours ridicule on MNS and its master.
The Shiv Sena, estranged cousin of MNS, of course, is the original sinner: ‘Maharashtra for Maharashtrians’ is not only a slogan for sainiks, but also the raison d’être of the deeply parochial organisation Balasaheb Thackeray founded in 1966 to combat “Marathi marginalisation”. That was six years after Maharashtra’s formation following an often violent agitation by Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, culminating in the infamous police firing on agitators at Mumbai’s Flora Fountain in which 105 people were killed, forcing a cussed Morarji Desai to climb down from his high horse.
Strangely though, Balasaheb Thackeray did not unleash the city’s lumpen proletariat on Gujarati traders and businessmen, who stayed put after Bombay State was carved into Maharashtra and Gujarat, but immigrant Tamilians and their eateries. later it was the turn of ‘North Indians’.
Much has been said and written to denounce recurrent violence against ‘outsiders’ in Mumbai; the Thackeray cousins deserve much of the castigation that often comes their way. But in our haste to criticise their noxious politics of nativism, let us not forget that parochialism is the other name for regionalism. Nor should we lose sight of the fact that ‘State politics’ across India, as opposed to ‘national politics’, is largely based on pandering to parochial pride and provincial sentiments camouflaged as regional aspirations.
In Tamil Nadu, the idea of a ‘Dravida Desam’ where Brahmins — described as “agents of North India” in DMK pamphlets — shall have no place, continues to titillate popular imagination. In undivided Andhra Pradesh, NT Rama Rao made ‘Telugu Desam’ the platform of his politics; his political heir, Chandrababu Naidu, who now heads the Telugu Desam Party, continues to build on it. Meanwhile in Telangana, the TRS Government makes no effort to hide its dislike of outsiders.
Shibu Soren of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha has repeatedly asserted that Jharkhand is the “sole preserve” of adivasis and moolvasis. Reminding his adivasi audience that Jharkhand was created for the “rights of tribals and not non-tribals”, he tells them “What we wanted was the rapid development of Jharkhand... (for) the actual sons-of-the-soil. We (adivasis) helped create Jharkhand, but we are yet to taste its fruits”. Mr Soren cunningly stops short of declaring that dikus, or ‘outsiders’, are not welcome in Jharkhand, but his message is no less unambiguous than that of the Thackeray cousins.
The lib-left intelligentsia will, of course, disingenuously suggest that there is merit in pursuing a ‘tribals first’ policy in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh; after all, they are the original inhabitants and have been marginalised in their own land. But shorn of shrill and crude rhetoric, this is precisely what is being claimed in Maharashtra — ‘sons-of-the-soil’ have the first right to jobs, housing and amenities.
A similar sentiment is cited to justify violence against non-Assamese in Assam where migrant labourers and traders from Bihar continue to be targeted by ‘sons-of-the-soil’ seeking to assert their rights in their State. Many would still recall the anti-foreigners agitation that was triggered by the discovery of voters in Mongoldoi having multiplied several times over, thanks to illegal immigration from Bangladesh, when a by-election was necessitated following the death of Hiralal Patwa on March 28, 1979.
Till the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985, the All-Assam Students’ Union, which organised the ‘Bangaal kheda’ agitation, held the State, and the country, to ransom. It is another matter that despite being in power twice, the AGP has failed miserably in tracking down and deporting Bangladeshis; the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act 1983 is not alone to blame for this failure.
But few would recall that the seeds of the anti-foreigners agitation were sown during an earlier virulently parochial agitation against ‘outsiders’, disparagingly referred to as “Ali-Kuli-Bangaali”. Very few Bengalis now remain in Assam, most having migrated back to West Bengal, whilekulis — tribals from what was once known as Chhota Nagpur —employed in tea gardens continue to face the wrath of the ‘sons-of-the-soil’.
It would, however, be incorrect to believe that the perceived rights of ‘sons-of-the-soil’ over those of ‘outsiders’ followed the creation of linguistic States. TN Joseph and SN Sangita, in their research paper, Preferential Politics and Sons-of-the-Soil Demands: The Indian Experience, have pointed out how the ‘sons-of-the-soil’ demands were advocated by leaders of the nationalist movement.
“For instance, a report prepared by Rajendra Prasad for the Working Committee of the Indian National Congress presents an extensive survey of the Bihar situation as of 1938. This report, endorsed by the Indian National Congress, uses the term ‘provincials’ to refer to the sons-of-the-soil and declares that their ‘desire to seek employment in their own locality is natural and not reprehensible, and rules providing for such employment to them are not inconsistent with the high ideals of the Congress’.
Rajendra Prasad argued in the report that it is ‘just and proper that the residents of a province should get preference in their own province in the matter of public services and educational facilities... It is neither possible nor wise to ignore these demands, and it must be recognised that in regard to services and like matters the people of a province have a certain claim which cannot be overlooked’.”
Between 1938 and 2008, India has travelled a long distance and the national economy is now vastly different from what it was even a decade ago. But provincialism —or call it what you may — remains as deeply ingrained as ever. ‘Cosmopolitan India’ is a figment of South Delhi’s imagination.
(The writer is a current affairs analyst based in NCR)