A new mesiah for Maratha manoos; Raj Thakeray has been born and the recent spate of violence against fruit-vendors, taxi-drivers etc heralds the onset of what seems to be a new era in the politics of Maharashtra. The other day I read an article by Rajdeep Sardesai ( if I remember correctly) wherein he had argued that what's common between Bal Thakeray and his nephew is that both have concentrated on propagating hatred for certain communities- it was initially Gujratis, peopl e from souther states, Muslims and then North Indians (an incorrect term going by the classification of states according to the zones ; Bihar falls in the East Zone and Uttar Pradesh in the Central Zone- the only basis seems to be terming anyone from a state lying north to Maharashtra as North Indian). I guess this applies to the whole country- in almost every state one can find political groups (claiming to be flag-bearers of some or the other cause) projecting a community as the sole reason for all problems faced by the state (or the city in the case of Mumbai). Whether it be Shivsena, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, BJP, BSP (in its earlier days when Behen Mayawati vehemently urged dalits to assault people from so called higher castes with shoes- the phrase used was tilak, tarazu aur talwar; inko maaro joote chaar translating roughly to- Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas deserve to be beaten with shoes). Before concluding I'd just like to mention the unfortunate incident in which a Maharashtrian rather a Marathi speaking Maharashtrian Haribhau (an employee of HAL) was killed as a result of stone-pelting by MNS activists and all the MNS chief had to say was sorry- I wonder how one can claim to be what Raj Thakeray claims to be with such scant regard for human life. If he was really serious about being the saviour of Marathi Manoos perhaps he would have probably urged his workers to name the accused instead of trying to pass on the blame to someone else.
