THE U.P. BIHAR IMBROGLIO

STATUTORY WARNING:

I INTEND MAKING POLITICALLY INCORRRECT STATEMENTS. THIS MAY NOT BE TOLERABLE TO SOME BUT IT IS MY INTENTION TO LET READERS SEE THE MANY DIMENSIONS TO THIS ISSUE.

The following headline might have disturbed many people:
MNS to SBI: Give Marathis priority when hiring

Readers may be aware of the fracas in the Maharashtra Assembly where MNS legislators assaulted an NCP MLA who took his oath in Hindi which infuriated the MNS goons.
I place before you some thoughts that might interest you since these are connected to the issue that is arousing raw emotions.

[1] In the 1980’s I worked in an organization in Orissa in the coal belt. I visited a senior colliery official of Bihar origin for dinner and noticed that the man’s ten year old son behaved violently and talked in foul language. Noticing my shocked face my friend clarified ‘Raviji after all I plan to return to Bihar. My son cannot survive there if he is not violent and foul’

[2] About 6 years ago I was invited to address students of an engineering college in Navi Mumbai. Class over I was requested to have tea at the Principal’s office. I asked the principal if the college had hostel facilities considering many students who attended my class were from other states.
She said something startling.
‘Since we are recipients of funds from Government we are required to admit a certain percentage of students from other states. So we had to arrange for a hostel. One day a delegation of citizens from this locality met me and said that either I had to close the hostel or had to close the college. Their grievance was that students from UP and Bihar were indulging in harassing girls, teasing women, beating up tea shop boys, throwing plates at hotel waiters and generally making it unsafe for ordinary people to go about their lives. Mr. Ravi I had no option but to shut down the hostel’

[3] My Tamilian Mumbai born friends who hate Chennai had occasion to visit that city after a lapse of 25 years during which time their prejudices had grown even though they had no first hand knowledge of that city. In particular they were irked at the inability of Chennai-ites to speak Hindi. But I noticed a dramatic change in their attitude to Chennai on their return. One statement they made is an eye opener. ‘Ravi, I think Chennai–ites MUST NOT speak Hindi. Once you people do that people from UP and Bihar who are now put off by the language barrier, will migrate in large numbers and the tranquility of the city will deteriorate to the level to which Mumbai has sunk’

[4] In recent years one has seen large numbers of Hindi speaking laborers from UP and Bihar in Chennai. A year ago a top Police official in Chennai publicly said that there has been a spurt in crimes including murders that have been traced to these migrant laborers.

Now I acknowledge that these instances may not justify any conclusions but they do go towards explaining part of the ire that the ordinary Marathi seeking people of Maharashtra show towards laborers from UP and Bihar. These ordinary people do not agree with the violent ways of the MNS but are beginning to see that some action needs to be taken to curb a rising problem.

The openly stated reason of the MNS is that these laborers take away jobs from locals –this is the kind of ‘protectionist’ sentiment that is evident even in the US these days. Also the MNS says that Mumbai as a city is reaching breaking point and migrants are a major reason for that.

Such statements are really half truths because about half of the immigrants to the city are from rural Maharashtra. As for locals taking away jobs it is my contention that migrants rarely get office jobs –the kind that Maharashtrians and people elsewhere too covet. Migrants end up as street vendors, domestic helps, taxi drivers etc which are open to any one prepared to struggle in life.

The news headline about MNS demanding that the State Bank of India appoint only Maharashtrains to clerical jobs gives the MNS game away—they want cosy office jobs for their followers,

The MNS netas are fond of telling Bihar and UP leaders to so develop their states that their people will not find it necessary to migrate to Mumbai. This sounds a logical argument till you realize that had Maharashtra leaders developed the rural areas in their state there would be a 50% drop in inward migration to the state capital. And may be Vidharba region may not have acquired the tragic ‘reputation’ of the farmers’ suicide capital of India.

A recent report in a New Delhi based English language Weekly says that China has sent 25000 unskilled laborers to India under a ‘BUSINESS‘ visa. The writer says that China has done this to manage its unemployment problem.

All over the world China has developed a reputation for being a manufacturing hub where several millions of unskilled people are employed. India has precious few job opportunities of that kind even as we have a humungous population of illiterate people.

The MNS and other such forces are simply an outward manifestation of the gut wrenching poverty and lack of jobs that is our lot. To dismiss such forces as ‘just politics’ is to oversimplify the crisis. The same is the case with our response to Maoist violence. To see these rebel leaders as simply a power hungry violent mob is to make a tragic error.

At stake is this question—what has our much touted ‘success’ story meant to the zillions of people who have received nothing at all since Independence? Have me even understood the meaning of development for these zillions? This is in fact an existential question.

To explain away such things as the disgruntlement of the unwashed people is to overlook one important recent development. The largest number of illegal immigrants to the USA is from INDIA. Surely the bulk of these immigrants are hardly illiterate manual labourers. These are people who entered the US legally—some with visitors visa– but stayed on after the visas had expired.
It says something about our development path and priorities.
K.R.RAVI