Propagation of hatred by
The only Manoos on the planet worthy
of living in Mumbai!!
Dr.
Ramvriksh Singh
(Proud to be a UP-born Pan-Indian, devoid of
narrow mindedness)
God made each of
us different from each other, in many respects. In that respect we are all
unique units as a human being. We, were however, born helpless and needed
post-natal care. Then came the process of socialization, education etc. And we
had to fall back on others’ help. Also we had basic physiological needs which
were met earlier by living in groups, then evolved the institution of marriage
and family. The concepts of caste, the gotras, the linguistic groups, the state
affinities and the sense of nationalism were to follow later on.
Quite a good
number of us have, however, stuck up on the lwer ladders itself and haven’t evolved
to reach the apex of the pyramid. Thus, we find a huge number of people
thinking only about their own self and of none other. You can get to see many
people, who are so selfish that they are not only indifferent about others, but
jealous too and to our utter dismay they are jealous of their own brothers,
sisters, parents and offsprings. Goswami Tulsi Das went on the say Nari na
mohe nari ke roopa (a woman is never enchanted with the beauty of another
woman). My female readers would excuse me for observing this, for I have found
even the mothers feeling jealous of their own daughters, while they might be
too affectionate to their sons. The saint-poet (Tulsidasji) wrote this while
describing the enmity between maya and bhakti, which means that bhakti (a
feminine gender) doesn’t come to those who are given to maya (another feminine).
Jealousy and self-centric attitude are basic attributes to the mankind. As we
go up the strata in the society, we are expected to rid ourselves of these vices.
However, on a
perusal of the deeds of our so-called great leaders, we seldom get to see such
attributes in them. The latest one being exhibited in Mumbai na manoos shriman thakre
sahib, who is probably the greatest professor of hatred. We the Indians born in
UP, Bihar and parts of India other than Maharashtra should ask the only
legitimate Indian on this holy soil, if we were not the worthy citizens of this
great nation? The constitution grants us the right to take up any legal profession
and settle down anywhere in this country. Even when there was no constitution,
people migrated from one place to other, from one kingdom to the other and
settled down at the choicest of their places. This is how the Indian diaspora
came into being. That is why Kaveendra Raveendranath Thakur went on to say-
Hethay aarya,
Hethaay anaarya, Hethaay Draavid cheen
Shak-Hoon
Dul, Paathan Mugal, Ek Dehe Holo Leen.
(Here came the
aryans, the non-aryans, the dravidians and the chineses, the shakas and the hoons,
and the pathans and the mughals- and they all culminated into one- i.e. the
Indian)
That’s why
Gurudev called the Indian society the Mahamanaver Samudra. India has
been a melting pot, where people from all ethnic groups throughout the globe
have come and settled.
Why therefore,
is the need to dig the history, one fails to understand. Who made Mumbai? Who
made Delhi and for that matter who made Kolkata and numerous other cities of
this country? All cities in the country used to be conglomeration of villages/
small towns, inhabited by fishermen, small farmers, peasants, workers, artisans
etc. People from the hinterland would come for trade, petty jobs and carrying
out other economic activities. With the passage of time there also came people
from distant places. Finding a congenial atmosphere and suitable circumstances
to settle down, they decided to spend rest of their lives there, in those
cities. The old-day rulers would invite such people and offer them suitable
dwelling units, plots, farmlands etc. in their kingdoms, as the incumbents were
considered to be financially viable and welcome immigrants.
In due course of
time, these places developed into the seats of business, political power,
education and they housed a number of essential amenities required for a
comfortable living. More and more people came and settled there. This is how
most of the cities have evolved in all parts of the world. It will be childish
on part of any intelligent human being to shun any of the settlers of such
cities, by calling them unwanted, as long as they are involved in lawful
activities, whether financial, cultural, administrative or of any other kind,
what so ever.
Mr.Thakre wants the
Biharis to be thrown out of Mumbai (or
Maharashtra, or the world itself- which I suppose, he will fancy doing most).
He should, however, also think of the repercussions and the consequences of his
long cherished desire. For thousands of years people from different states and
linguistic heterogeneity have lived together in peace and harmony. Take for
example Kashi, believed to be the oldest city on the earth, is a home to a large
number of Marathis. So is the case with almost all cities in the north, as also
with Bangalore, Hyderabad and Vizag in the south. What will happen if the
(so-called) aborigins of these cities behave the same way? The problem with our
leaders is that they don’t learn from the history. Ethnocentrism can be granted
only to a limited extent. But when it comes to analysis, we have to have a
realistic approach. An analytical study shall give us a true picture of the
contribution the so-called outsiders have made to the riches and prosperity of
the big cities, the world over. Take for instance the case of Kolkata. Who has
brought the riches to Kolkata? Certainly, the non-bangalis, to a great extent,
if not fully. Kolkata owes most of its riches to the marwaris, and the Biharis
(which comprises UPites as well). Kolkatans take pride in being highly educated
and English speaking society. The first newspapers to be printed there,
however, were by Hikky and Pt. Jugal Kishor, a European and a Kanpur Brahmin,
respectively. The bangalis would come in great numbers to the west not only for
pilgrimage but also to settle down here. That’s how thousands of them settled
down in Patna, Varanasi and Allahabad. I am not talking of post Independence
era, when they thronged into Delhi in great numbers.
So is the case
with the youth from the north east, who come to the western Indian cities for
pursuing higher studies, as well as in pursuit of jobs. Just recently there was
a frantic rush to the north-east, by its aborigins, from other parts of
the country, for they feared a massacre in the cities of their work.
North-east, though bestowed with abundance of natural beauty, prospective of
tremendous tourism activity, lags behind economically owing to several reasons
beyond the purview of this article. Its educated youth have scattred all across
the country and are thereby contributing to the GDP of this nation. On the other
hand, lakhs of Biharis, Bangalis and marwaris have settled in the north-east to
carry out farming, govt. jobs and trading. I fail to understand, where is the
need to spur a spell of hatred amongst these ethnic/ linguistic groups, when
they have been living together peacefully for past many decades?
Day in and day
out, we are made to remind ourselves of our caste, creed and linguistic
differences. While in Delhi, as a youngster, I never had to bother myself as to
which of these groups I belonged to. Having grown up in a cosmopolitan
environment, I feel embarrassed when somebody asks me- aap kya hain? Is
it not enough that I am an educated human being with clean habits? People are
interested in knowing your caste, your religious affinities, your economic affluence,
your native state, etc. etc., as if they are going to marry off their daughter to
you. And its not that after knowing all my personal details the fellow is going
to love me. In all probability he/she is going to develop a bias and hate me.
UP and Bihar, by
virtue of their geographical and climatic conditions, have offered very
congenial conditions for the growth and evolution of human civilization. This is,
precisely the reason why these states are so over-populated. This is also the
reason why almost all Indian Gods and Goddesses came into being in the soil of
these states, Except for lord Shiva, who is considered to be a Dravid diety.
The great Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata were written in these lands
only. As the states were over populated, the supply of resources ran short of
demand and people had to migrate to other parts of the country, in search of
livelihood. Some of them migrated to the far off countries as well. This is how
they reached as far as Fiji, Surinam, Trinidad and Mauritius. As a child, I
remember, how the Delhites (comprising chiefly the punjabis, the hariyanis and
a handful of delhi-villages’ dwellers) would curse the Easter- UP wallas and
the Biharis for living in big numbers in small rooms. These bhojpuri, awadhi
speaking people from the east were called as bhaiyans or bhaiyaas. They would
work as factory labourers, construction workers, jhalli wallas, and rikshaw
pullers. Then came the students from eastern UP and Bihar, who thronged into
the DU and JNU hostels, and captured most of the top ranks in the university
exams, year after year. Also a good number of IAS, IPS officers started to come
up from these states. Gradually the scenarios changed and the over-crowded
rooms came to be occupied not only by the bhaiyans but also by the Keralites,
the tamils, the orriass and people from other parts of the country. Keralites,
I am given to understand, were the first ones to start live-in trend in
Delhi. As the supply of dwelling units
ran short of the demand, there came into being a good number of slums and
unauthorized colonies, in all cities. Dharavi, the biggest slum in Asia is one
such cluster of shanties, small factories etc., which is inhabited
predominantly by the bhaiyas and the tamils.
In the post-liberalization
era and with the boom of technical and computer education, there came a time,
when huge numbers of young men and women started to live in rented premises in
distantly located urban places. Though, in the past also, there had been a
tendency of people settling down at the places of their work, with this fresh
boom of people getting jobs at far off places, the numbers have increased
manifold.
Mumbai, Delhi,
Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad and many second and third rung
cities are experiencing this trend. Young men and women are inter-marrying and
settling down, away from their places of birth. The history is repeating
itself. A new India is being born. This is what Pt. J.L. Nehru has dreamt of,
when he went for industrialization in the independent India and termed the
industries and the dams of the country as the shrines of the modern India.
The
short-sighted leaders of today’s India, however, feel otherwise. They have
become perennial sources and reservoirs of hatred. And unfortunately, we the so
far peace-loving people of this country, are easily swayed away by their
rubbish ideologies. Down south, there are leaders who keep reminding their
followers/admirers of the separate Dravidian culture. There is an upsurge of
Dravidian names. Anything Sanskrit is a strict no-no for them. The growing intolerance
for Hindi is an outcome of this hatred only. Mumbaikar Thakre Sahib’s case is
no different. Hatred is a contagious disease. And I am afraid, as love begets
love, hatred will certainly beget hatred. Are we ready for this? We must ask
our leaders.
There are,
however, states with a high level of tolerance and acceptance for outsiders.
Gujarat is at their fore front. And the results are quite obvious. Gujarat has
welcomed people (as also plants like Nano) from all parts of the country.
Though the tariffs in Gujarat cities are high and consequently the cost of
living there is among the highest in the Indian cities, the
entrepreneur/immigrant-friendly environment makes good the loss, if any.
Friends, let us
stop making each other a hate figure and start to love each other, instead. We
grew up hearing of unity in diversity prevailing in our great country and now,
when we have lived almost two third of our lives in peace and harmony, somebody
sitting over there comes and tries to poison our minds. Is this fair? Let us
denounce this senseless emanation and spread of hatred from extra clever
politicians. Let the law of this country, which guarantees freedom of
occupation and settlement, take its own course and let the judiciary take a
suo-motto cognizance of these unscrupulous elements and book them for spreading
hatred amongst the peace-loving masses of this beautiful country. We, the
countrymen of Lord Buddha and Bhagwan Mahavir, the worshipers of Lord Rama and
Krishna, the believers in Shakti, Durga, Lakshmi, Kali and Saraswati, shall
never allow senseless and selfish politicians to create disturbance in the
tranquility of our motherland. Those of us following the righteous paths shown
by the Prophet himself and by the Lord Christ shall continue to spread the
message of love and peace, all along, throughout our life. We shall love not
only our neighbor, but all our compatriots and the entire humanity.
By the time I
host it on my blog, Mumbai and entire Maharashtra, would have started rocking
and chanting at full pitch- Ganapathy Bappa Moriya. Where does Ganapathy belong
to? His mother, the shailputri, Parvati hailed from the north. By that logic Lord Ganesha,
happens to be a bhaiyaa by birth. And going by this Aamchi Mumbai ane Mumbai na
manoos- must do away with Ganesha. What say, Mr. Manoos!! The only manoos on
the planet!!
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