Who is Indian in India?!

“You do not find Indian in India. You find either Hindus or Muslims.” My weak memory does not help me to recollect from where I read these lines. My initial hunch tells me that it might be from the book “Freedom at Midnight” written by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. But a quick and cursory glance on “Freedom at Midnight” did not help me to locate the quoted sentences though the chapter-“WALK ALONE, WALK ALONE” of the book deals extensively about the Hindu and the Muslim of India and the difference they possess. But one thing is sure that I did read those sentences from a book dealing with Pre-Independence scenario in India.

But the present happenings in India, particularly in the city of Mumbai, bring back the ugly and grotesque reminder of the sentence. “You do not find Indian in India.” Thanks to Nehruvian wisdom of creating Indian states in linguistic basis the second sentence requires little modification. “You find Marathi, Gujurati, Tamlian, Bihari, etc and etc”. We have forgotten the word “our.” It now “my,” “my” and “my.” My state. My city. My language. My water. My river. Everything has become “My’ and “I.” I am Marathi. He is Bihari. I am South Indian. He is North Indian. But where is Indian? Sad but true! This is the state of affair after 60 years of independence. Who is behind the creation of these ugly sentiments?

Or May be, we are inherently like that and we have not forgotten the Pre-British era of being ruled under numerous princely states. Each state covering barely a few square miles and there you find a King or MAHARAJA whose name along with his succeeding and preceding designations assumes a length more than the length between the one extreme corner to the other extreme corner of his kingdom. And the great MAHARAJA shall use his subjects at his whim and fancy. Most of the times you find those Maharajas are in battles with each other. Who becomes victim? Whose blood flows? It is of poor subjects. The common man.

Well, things have not changed much until now, I suppose. You only find a subtle change. The numerous princely states have been replaced by numerous political parties and Maharajas by Political Leaders. And those battles still exist in form of narrow political issues. But unfortunately the victim remains same. The common man. And for the present common man, the political leaders have become more powerful than the erstwhile Maharajas of Pre-British era because of the availability a potent weapon naming Audio-Visual Media. News reporting particularly Audio-Visual media has off late assumed a new dimension. There is a mushrooming of 24*7 News channels. But from where shall you get new News throughout the day? So the old marketing adage has come into the play. If you want to beat the market then you create the market. Hence for Audio-Visual media, it is “create the News” and if required, camouflage it. No harm. Everything is right in love, war and business. Ethics are for fools.

Now let us see how one of the present day’s so called Maharaja and the potent weapon at the hand of Maharajas’, the Audio-Visual media behaved in the recent Mumbai episode.Yes, the Maharaja is Raj Thackeray and the Audio-Visual media are the National News channels. I have no privy to vernacular Marathi media. Hence no comments about that.

The issue raised by Raj Thackeray is about influx of people from other states to the city of Mumbai. He considers these outsiders are burden on Mumbai and they have contributed nothing towards the growth of the city. He feels that North Indian culture is eroding away the Marathi culture. His supporters roared up with the call of the leader. Mumbai witnessed sporadic violence. Couples of North Indian taxi drivers were bitten up and their taxis were damaged. Raj played his political card for his popularity and the media picked up the thread. The sporadic incidents which might have gone unnoticed had it happened few years back became a hot News and video footage of the violence was telecast again and again to flare up the sentiments of people. Do you call it responsible journalism? Not only that you had many discussions on News channels where so called intellectuals vomited their intellectuality.Debated.Redabated.But as usual remained inconclusive in their conclusions. And when Raj was arrested one of the leading English news channel made a live telecast on that with running commentary by its Editor-in-Chief. I wonder whether it was arrest of Raj Thackeray or a Republic day’s parade! See how we made a HERO out of a PUPPET.

Coming back to the issue of influx of people to Mumbai, I do not think only outsiders are benefited in the process. It is mutually complementary. Mumbai is benefited too. It does not require an intellectual brain to understand the common economic equilibrium of “Demand and Supply.” Influx to a city shall take place as long as the city has a demand. If the city does not have a demand the influx shall die down automatically. If it is not true then why industries in Nasik of Mumbai have come to stand still after 10,000 North Indian left the place?

Those who left are “the common man” and those who are going to suffer because of this temporary closure of industries are also “the common man.” Who suffered in the violence of Mumbai? Again “the common man”. Who got benefited? Ah! “The politician.” Who made it possible? “The media.” Be aware Indian! Let us not allow anybody to question again. Who is Indian in India?!