Outsiders

" ... people coming from outside have tarnished its (Mumbai's) image" :Uddhav Thackeray.

I was in Mumbai for about three weeks in June, 2007 and for the first few days (thanks to the irksome humidity) I badly wanted to leave. However, gradually I developed an appreciation for the city and towards the end of my stay I fell in love with Mumbai. For one, people were very approachable and helpful - if this quality could be quantified I would mark Mumbaikars 10/10 anyday. I'm looking forward to staying in Mumbai again- for about 5 weeks from 17th of this month.

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outsider: a person who does not belong to a particular group http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/outsider

The Thackerays have time and again proved themselves to be not amenable to any positive debate. The Sena brigade has paid homage to outsiders yet again (as mentioned in the heading of this post) and I was prompted to write something about this. They have been using the term to refer to non- Marathis living in Mumbai- asserting time and again that Mumbai is for Mumbaikars (Marathi speaking inhabitants of Mumbai). If priority in time of inhabitation were the criteria for deciding who could be branded as an outsider; most of the Marathi folk inhabiting Mumbai today would be outsiders from the perspective of the Kolis who certainly inhabited Mumbai much before the former. Were few descendants of cavemen (whose implements have been discovered on several sites in present day Mumbai) alive today; most of the inhabitants of Mumbai would've qualified as outsiders. Why should a Marathi- speaking Maharashtrian be regarded more of a Mumbaikar than a Gujarati or a Parsi or a Baghdadi Jew or a Brijbasi whose ancestors moved to the city few centuries ago- the state of Maharashtra surely did not exist then. Now that the state of Maharashtra does exist as a part of India; on what basis can Thackerays claim Mumbai to be only for Maratha Manus. Why should a Bihari or a UPite have any less right of moving to Mumbai than a Maharashtrian? Apart from this being a matter of legal right, in my opinion every UPite, Bihari, Gujarati, Parsi, Tamilian (often ridiculed by Bal Thackeray in his cartoons) who has toiled for years in the city commands lot more moral basis for living in Mumbai than the Thackerays. Outsiders haven't tarnished the image of Mumbai- it is people like Thackerays who have. The so called outsiders have built Mumbai from an obscure archipelago to a booming financial centre. Mr. Thackeray; take away the contribution made to this great city by the Parsis, Baghdadi Jews, Gujaratis, Sindhis, Marwaris and not to forget the Britishers who laid down the basic structural foundations of Mumbai and perhaps then you'll realise what outsiders have done for Mumbai and what you (with your deplorable and atrocious politics) will never be able to do. Jai Hind!