FOCUS
Idea of India and parochial politics
oget’s Thesaurus describes PAROCHALISM variously as, narrow minded, tunnel visioned, insular, pedantic, unbending, dictatorial, warped, biased, proud, clannish, prejudiced sectarian, chaunistic, xenophobic, unreasonable, discriminatory, intolerant, fanatic, obstinate, blinded, and many more that would largely mean to convey the small heartedness of its practitioner.
India is country of exasperating variation, from Kashmir to Kanya Kumari and from Kutch to Kolkatta. India is kaleidoscopic in depth and variety. It has an incredible diversity, yet is bound in a unity that stretches way back into the un-written history. In the words of late Indira Gandhi, ‘the secret of India’s great uniqueness and resilience is the acceptance of life in all its fullness, the good and the evil, and at the same time trying to rise above it all’. In all the ups and downs of its long and chequered history, Indian customs, mores and traditions have been continuously evolving. It has not hesitated to adopt, adapt and absorb new and fresh ideas and issues. And in spite of various foreign influences of over and thousand years, the roots of Indianness has remained strong and healthy. The Christianity came to India from outside, so was Islam. Parsis driven away from their homeland, found refuge in India. All of them made India their home and flourished. Like Sunil Khilnani puts it in his seminal works "Idea of India" "India celebrates the mongrel character of India’s peoples and their histories: instead of hankering for purity, it sees the moments of mixture as the most creative and imaginative ones. It is a view that insists that what was distinctive about India’s past was its ability to transform invasion into accommodation, rupture into continuity division into diversity."
When in 1947, the country was broken up to create Pakistan, purely based on religion, it was accepted by rest of the world as in conformity with the classical western idea of a nation state. As compared to that India remained diverse, plural and tolerant of internal differences starkly opposed to the idea of a theocratic nation. To the outside world, especially the Christian west, Indian model appeared unusual, looked precarious and unlikely to succeed. No wonder, Winston Churchil observed on the eve of independence "Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, and free booters. Not a bottle of water or a loaf of bread shall escape taxation, only the air will be free. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight among themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles."
And of course, Indian experiment succeeded, it could even be termed paradoxical. Unlike many new states, India remained ‘democratic, tolerant and open minded’, and as Khilnani says "India remains the one great modermist political success of the non-western world"’.
In the thick of the recent controversy regarding Mumbai for Mumbaikars or for Marathi Manoos, a letter appeared in TOI that, "long years ago may be some 50 years, ever since the appointment of R K Laxman, for the position of a cartoonist in the Times of India, Bombay, and rejection or denial of job to Bal Thackray, Mr. Thackray, nursed an animosity against South Indians in general." Such an insignificant event that could catapult into a kind of pan-India problem of resentment could never have been fathomed, half a century ago.
It was generally
believed and fairly documented that Mohd. Ali Jinnah, was never a Muslim bigot. There are enough printed material to claim that he was secular. But how did a secular man become a potent communal separatist?
Fourth estate informs us that during one of the private dinner get-together, Mr. Nehru, who became India’s first Prime Minister, had reportedly remarked to this private gathering, that ‘Mr. Jinnah is finished! At that time, Mr. Jinnah was away in the U.K, wanting to get back to his law practice, having left India after being fed up with the ‘Satyagraha’ movement of Gandhiji and Nehru. This indiscreet remark did not remain within the four walls of the dinner hall. Somebody who attended the party spilled it to Mr. Jinnah. Now looking back over the development that followed which led to the creation of Pakistan and the resultant holocaust, by hindsight, could this imprudent and seemingly inconsequential utterance by Nehru forced Jinnah to return and the rest, as the cliche goes, is history?! According to the sources available with the media, Mr. Jinnah would never have opted for a separate country for India’s Muslims, but this observation by Nehru changed it all. Pakistan became a reality and we have been at ‘daggers drawn’ for all the 62 years that have gone by since our independence from British rule.
Incidents involving Jinnah and Bal Thackray could, by hindsight, can be dismissed as insignificant by any stretch of imagination. But then, it was not to be. We are all privy how our relationship has been with our western neighbour, and how birth and growth of Shiv Sena caused the socio-political churning of Maharashtra in general and Mumbai in particular. Yes, if true they are indeed-mighty trifles.
While we can leave the Jinnah episode to the pages of the history, for the purpose of the present exercise, the issue of Shiv Sena politics will have to be taken further for obvious reasons.
Shiv Sena, as an organisation was born out of a feeling of resentment about the relative marginalisation of the native Marathi speaking people in their own state, Maharashtra, particularly in Mumbai, by non-Marathi speaking people.
The question here is, ‘The perception that there have been injustice to Marathi Manoos, is it right or wrong?’. The answer is both right and wrong. They are right to some extent and wrong to some extent. Of course, the benefit of being more right can be bestowed on Marathi Manoos, and its leaders, who articulated evolution of such thought process. But the way they went about addressing the issue was patently wrong.
In the sixties, when youth of post independent India had entered the employment scene in the growing commercial city of then Bombay, it was very natural to have expectations. It was also true that large scale South Indian migration had taken place since early part of the 20th century. Since under the Madras Presidency and the erstwhile Travancore Princely State, the education was given higher importance, the level of education among general public in these states was of higher order. Besides, Macauley’s policy of creating clerks, through its teaching of English did help in producing white collared pen pushers. And these migratory products of schools and colleges from South India became a ready source of supply of office staff and other skilled hands. No wonder the offices and factories looking for staff and technical hands grabbed these migrants but educated hands mainly from erstwhile Madras and Travancore.
Here what needs to be appreciated and understood is that those business and industrial establishments in Bombay had little choice than to employ those readily available hands, since the Bombay of those days, was not in a position to fully or substantially provide these literate hands needed by these establishments. There was a vacuum and it had to be filled, that was all. However, what made matters little difficult to locals was the dependence of these establishments on the already employed men to provide additional hands, since it was easier to tap the supply source without any management headache. Thus even the newer openings were not easily available to the local hands of those days. Thus the migration from south was increasing and job opportunities were also being, to a great extent, grabbed by those migrants, to the chagrin of local educated youth. Because of the migration even a good portion of the unskilled jobs were being taken up by the migrant population, that is how, many night schools in Bombay came up to educate these unskilled personnel in the early part of 20th century.
Here, another important factor that went in favour of outside labour was the perception that their being outsiders, automatically made them hardworking. Surely every employer always looked for hardworking staff and industrial hands, especially when the psychology of all employers was, that it would be difficult to get the work done from locals. Thus there were many factors that influenced the increasing unemployment among Mumbaikars in particular and Maharashtrian’s in general. There was a pulpable disappointment among a good section of Maharashtrian population during the sixties. The Bombay is growing, but Bombaykars are stagnating, was the rue! There was indeed a need for an articulative leadership within that pensive atmosphere. Cartoonist and writer that Bal Thackray is, with his Marathi tabloid ‘Marmik’, he had already created a niche for himself and 'Marmik'. May be, it had to happen. On June 19, 1966, in the lawns of historic Shivaji Park Bal Thackray launched his broadside against the South Indians to a hugely attended rally of Marathi speaking men and women, and Shiv Sena was born. Suddenly the muted voice of these men and women found violent expression, like bursting of a dam. South Indian establishments came under brutal attack all over Mumbai. The suburb of Dadar witnessed large scale mayhem after the mammoth meet.
Life didn’t remain same for South Indians ever since. Similarly for average Maharashtrians, things dramatically changed for better. How much Bal Thackray, or his Shiv Sena is responsible for this change may be a subject of debate. But all those Mahashtrians, who could have played a role in improving the lot of average Marathi speaking people, suddenly realised their role. Thus, slowly but surely the clock was reversed. Increasingly the locals were being employed in large numbers in all places. Whether government, central, state, local, so also private sector, were appropriately told that they should have the policy of local first. Thus the lot of average local employable population distinctly improved.
Taking advantage of the mood of the people, there was massive membership drive by Shiv Sena. Locals joined the organisation as this was the only organisation, ostensibly, set up to promote their welfare. It soon became an organisation with massive grass root following. Shiv Sena became the voice of average ‘Marathi Manoos’.
In the meanwhile realising the potential of political power, and its already swelled grass root membership, Shiv Sena became a political organisation espousing social cause but aspiring political power.
It contested Assembly seats and for the first time tasted power in 1995 with BJP as its partner. However for variety of reasons it couldn’t maintain its winning spree, and lost all elections that followed. In Mumbai Municipal Corporation, however, it is in power since last three terms. But are threatened of their majority by the break away group called Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) led by Raj Thackray, a nephew of Bal Thackray, as was evident in the last assembly election. MNS walked away with 13 MLAseats, and caused serious setback to Shiv Sena. It will never be the same again for Shiv Sena.
The current rabble raising has to be seen in this context. SS started with Marathi Manoos issue and managed to land in Parliament and even become part of the national government. Raj Thackray was equally instrumental like his uncle, help SS go places. Dynastic politics, the father to son anointing, that brought in Uddhav Thackray, pushed Raj to the precipice.
The enevitable happened. He formed his own MNS. Unlike, Chagan Bhujbal or Narayan Rane, who left the party to promote themselves individually, Raj Thackray wanted to show his organisation skill to challenge the apparent upstart Uddhav Thackray, who walked into the hierarchy without struggling. That he succeeded in causing the heart burn is clearly evident. Bal Thackray is clearly upset with his once very loyal constituency who shifted their loyalty to Raj’s MNS. The ruling combine of Congress and NCP was happy that the SS hold on electorate is finally broken. Thus there is frustration in the SS camp, which led to the unreasonable and unnecessary attack on Sachin Tendulkar, who said ‘I am proud of being a Maharashtrian, but I am an Indian first and Maharashtrian later.' Then they fought with Mukesh Ambani. IPL issue with Shahrukh Khan batting for Pakistani players became ready made fodder for the Thackrays to raise Mumbai decibel level to a feverish pitch. Both father and son especially the later was thoroughly hackled by national T.V. channels, especially their own Marathi Manoos, Rajdeep Sardesai and Nikhil Wagle.
Thus the polarisation is very clear. In the coming days, Shiv Sena can become less and less relevant and MNS may gain temporarily. But nationally, both shall be potrayed negatively in the days to come. Marathi Manoos, shall do well to align themselves with some national parties, which can protect their interest in a more rational and meaningful way, rather than just rabble raising and indulging in violent attacks on North Indians. In the longrun violence shall come home to roost from more ways than one. Yes, your interest and your welfare has to be protected, there is no question about that. But how? Probably you must ask likes of Kumar Ketkars or Nikhil Wagles who are one among you, not Pawars and Chawans. Pawars and Chawans are only protecting themselves, their chairs families and cronies. Their theatrics are only for public consumption.
What Thackrays should know is that Mumbai is not the only mega city in India. There are other big and happening cities in India, where all Indians converge to make a living. They are Indians of all hues. There may be under-currents of regionalism but their life and property is not threatened. Tolerance, as tolerance is understood and appreciated, is prevalent all over. Only Mumbai has become intolerant.
There is more to protect Mumbaikars in Mumbai than any other citizens of different cities in their respective cities. A point Thackrays must realise. Sooner you realise, sooner you send the message across, the better for Mumbai, Mumbaikars and Thackrays politically. Hope that happens.
Coming to the issue of son of soil polemics, it has to be recognised that this issue will never die. It shall always live in a multilingual country like India. The politically correct stand of national political parties that all Indians are free to go anywhere, live and earn a living is all very well. It is pure and simple politics. But the fact remains, that if migration has to be stopped or reduced, the development has to be rural centric as well and has to be pan I
ndian. As long as that does not happen migration to cities shall continue. One more very important issue that needs to be addressed is all unskilled jobs has to be given in preference to local. Even when there are skilled jobs available, provided local talent is good enough to suite the bill, all being equal, preference has to be to locals. If this is made as a national policy there will never be problems like the one’s railways faced in Bangalore and Mumbai.
There was a small civil contract worth around Rs 10,000/- in a public sector enterprise in Mangalore. This contract was awarded to a person who came from over 1000 kms away from a different state. There were directors who didn’t mind it, as long as he was in Indian. There was others, who objected on the ground that since it required no particular specialisation but needed simple skills, it could have been given to some local person. The question was, should he also travel like the other person some 1000kms to get a contract of Rs. 10,000/-? How are you going to encourage, support and empower locals, if the answer is ‘yes’. What is development, if not empowerment? Every public expenditure programme of the state is for the development of the area and its people. This applies to the whole country. The complaints of SS and MNS or the like of them, is genuine, but the way they go about violently is wrong. But every government worth its salt must appreciate this fact. Then you will not have Shiv Sena or Maharashtra Navanirmana Sena. Period.
oget’s Thesaurus describes PAROCHALISM variously as, narrow minded, tunnel visioned, insular, pedantic, unbending, dictatorial, warped, biased, proud, clannish, prejudiced sectarian, chaunistic, xenophobic, unreasonable, discriminatory, intolerant, fanatic, obstinate, blinded, and many more that would largely mean to convey the small heartedness of its practitioner.
India is country of exasperating variation, from Kashmir to Kanya Kumari and from Kutch to Kolkatta. India is kaleidoscopic in depth and variety. It has an incredible diversity, yet is bound in a unity that stretches way back into the un-written history. In the words of late Indira Gandhi, ‘the secret of India’s great uniqueness and resilience is the acceptance of life in all its fullness, the good and the evil, and at the same time trying to rise above it all’. In all the ups and downs of its long and chequered history, Indian customs, mores and traditions have been continuously evolving. It has not hesitated to adopt, adapt and absorb new and fresh ideas and issues. And in spite of various foreign influences of over and thousand years, the roots of Indianness has remained strong and healthy. The Christianity came to India from outside, so was Islam. Parsis driven away from their homeland, found refuge in India. All of them made India their home and flourished. Like Sunil Khilnani puts it in his seminal works "Idea of India" "India celebrates the mongrel character of India’s peoples and their histories: instead of hankering for purity, it sees the moments of mixture as the most creative and imaginative ones. It is a view that insists that what was distinctive about India’s past was its ability to transform invasion into accommodation, rupture into continuity division into diversity."
When in 1947, the country was broken up to create Pakistan, purely based on religion, it was accepted by rest of the world as in conformity with the classical western idea of a nation state. As compared to that India remained diverse, plural and tolerant of internal differences starkly opposed to the idea of a theocratic nation. To the outside world, especially the Christian west, Indian model appeared unusual, looked precarious and unlikely to succeed. No wonder, Winston Churchil observed on the eve of independence "Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, and free booters. Not a bottle of water or a loaf of bread shall escape taxation, only the air will be free. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight among themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles."
And of course, Indian experiment succeeded, it could even be termed paradoxical. Unlike many new states, India remained ‘democratic, tolerant and open minded’, and as Khilnani says "India remains the one great modermist political success of the non-western world"’.
In the thick of the recent controversy regarding Mumbai for Mumbaikars or for Marathi Manoos, a letter appeared in TOI that, "long years ago may be some 50 years, ever since the appointment of R K Laxman, for the position of a cartoonist in the Times of India, Bombay, and rejection or denial of job to Bal Thackray, Mr. Thackray, nursed an animosity against South Indians in general." Such an insignificant event that could catapult into a kind of pan-India problem of resentment could never have been fathomed, half a century ago.
It was generally
believed and fairly documented that Mohd. Ali Jinnah, was never a Muslim bigot. There are enough printed material to claim that he was secular. But how did a secular man become a potent communal separatist?Fourth estate informs us that during one of the private dinner get-together, Mr. Nehru, who became India’s first Prime Minister, had reportedly remarked to this private gathering, that ‘Mr. Jinnah is finished! At that time, Mr. Jinnah was away in the U.K, wanting to get back to his law practice, having left India after being fed up with the ‘Satyagraha’ movement of Gandhiji and Nehru. This indiscreet remark did not remain within the four walls of the dinner hall. Somebody who attended the party spilled it to Mr. Jinnah. Now looking back over the development that followed which led to the creation of Pakistan and the resultant holocaust, by hindsight, could this imprudent and seemingly inconsequential utterance by Nehru forced Jinnah to return and the rest, as the cliche goes, is history?! According to the sources available with the media, Mr. Jinnah would never have opted for a separate country for India’s Muslims, but this observation by Nehru changed it all. Pakistan became a reality and we have been at ‘daggers drawn’ for all the 62 years that have gone by since our independence from British rule.
Incidents involving Jinnah and Bal Thackray could, by hindsight, can be dismissed as insignificant by any stretch of imagination. But then, it was not to be. We are all privy how our relationship has been with our western neighbour, and how birth and growth of Shiv Sena caused the socio-political churning of Maharashtra in general and Mumbai in particular. Yes, if true they are indeed-mighty trifles.
While we can leave the Jinnah episode to the pages of the history, for the purpose of the present exercise, the issue of Shiv Sena politics will have to be taken further for obvious reasons.
Shiv Sena, as an organisation was born out of a feeling of resentment about the relative marginalisation of the native Marathi speaking people in their own state, Maharashtra, particularly in Mumbai, by non-Marathi speaking people.
The question here is, ‘The perception that there have been injustice to Marathi Manoos, is it right or wrong?’. The answer is both right and wrong. They are right to some extent and wrong to some extent. Of course, the benefit of being more right can be bestowed on Marathi Manoos, and its leaders, who articulated evolution of such thought process. But the way they went about addressing the issue was patently wrong.
In the sixties, when youth of post independent India had entered the employment scene in the growing commercial city of then Bombay, it was very natural to have expectations. It was also true that large scale South Indian migration had taken place since early part of the 20th century. Since under the Madras Presidency and the erstwhile Travancore Princely State, the education was given higher importance, the level of education among general public in these states was of higher order. Besides, Macauley’s policy of creating clerks, through its teaching of English did help in producing white collared pen pushers. And these migratory products of schools and colleges from South India became a ready source of supply of office staff and other skilled hands. No wonder the offices and factories looking for staff and technical hands grabbed these migrants but educated hands mainly from erstwhile Madras and Travancore.
Here what needs to be appreciated and understood is that those business and industrial establishments in Bombay had little choice than to employ those readily available hands, since the Bombay of those days, was not in a position to fully or substantially provide these literate hands needed by these establishments. There was a vacuum and it had to be filled, that was all. However, what made matters little difficult to locals was the dependence of these establishments on the already employed men to provide additional hands, since it was easier to tap the supply source without any management headache. Thus even the newer openings were not easily available to the local hands of those days. Thus the migration from south was increasing and job opportunities were also being, to a great extent, grabbed by those migrants, to the chagrin of local educated youth. Because of the migration even a good portion of the unskilled jobs were being taken up by the migrant population, that is how, many night schools in Bombay came up to educate these unskilled personnel in the early part of 20th century.
Here, another important factor that went in favour of outside labour was the perception that their being outsiders, automatically made them hardworking. Surely every employer always looked for hardworking staff and industrial hands, especially when the psychology of all employers was, that it would be difficult to get the work done from locals. Thus there were many factors that influenced the increasing unemployment among Mumbaikars in particular and Maharashtrian’s in general. There was a pulpable disappointment among a good section of Maharashtrian population during the sixties. The Bombay is growing, but Bombaykars are stagnating, was the rue! There was indeed a need for an articulative leadership within that pensive atmosphere. Cartoonist and writer that Bal Thackray is, with his Marathi tabloid ‘Marmik’, he had already created a niche for himself and 'Marmik'. May be, it had to happen. On June 19, 1966, in the lawns of historic Shivaji Park Bal Thackray launched his broadside against the South Indians to a hugely attended rally of Marathi speaking men and women, and Shiv Sena was born. Suddenly the muted voice of these men and women found violent expression, like bursting of a dam. South Indian establishments came under brutal attack all over Mumbai. The suburb of Dadar witnessed large scale mayhem after the mammoth meet.
Life didn’t remain same for South Indians ever since. Similarly for average Maharashtrians, things dramatically changed for better. How much Bal Thackray, or his Shiv Sena is responsible for this change may be a subject of debate. But all those Mahashtrians, who could have played a role in improving the lot of average Marathi speaking people, suddenly realised their role. Thus, slowly but surely the clock was reversed. Increasingly the locals were being employed in large numbers in all places. Whether government, central, state, local, so also private sector, were appropriately told that they should have the policy of local first. Thus the lot of average local employable population distinctly improved.
Taking advantage of the mood of the people, there was massive membership drive by Shiv Sena. Locals joined the organisation as this was the only organisation, ostensibly, set up to promote their welfare. It soon became an organisation with massive grass root following. Shiv Sena became the voice of average ‘Marathi Manoos’.
In the meanwhile realising the potential of political power, and its already swelled grass root membership, Shiv Sena became a political organisation espousing social cause but aspiring political power.
It contested Assembly seats and for the first time tasted power in 1995 with BJP as its partner. However for variety of reasons it couldn’t maintain its winning spree, and lost all elections that followed. In Mumbai Municipal Corporation, however, it is in power since last three terms. But are threatened of their majority by the break away group called Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) led by Raj Thackray, a nephew of Bal Thackray, as was evident in the last assembly election. MNS walked away with 13 MLAseats, and caused serious setback to Shiv Sena. It will never be the same again for Shiv Sena.
The current rabble raising has to be seen in this context. SS started with Marathi Manoos issue and managed to land in Parliament and even become part of the national government. Raj Thackray was equally instrumental like his uncle, help SS go places. Dynastic politics, the father to son anointing, that brought in Uddhav Thackray, pushed Raj to the precipice.
The enevitable happened. He formed his own MNS. Unlike, Chagan Bhujbal or Narayan Rane, who left the party to promote themselves individually, Raj Thackray wanted to show his organisation skill to challenge the apparent upstart Uddhav Thackray, who walked into the hierarchy without struggling. That he succeeded in causing the heart burn is clearly evident. Bal Thackray is clearly upset with his once very loyal constituency who shifted their loyalty to Raj’s MNS. The ruling combine of Congress and NCP was happy that the SS hold on electorate is finally broken. Thus there is frustration in the SS camp, which led to the unreasonable and unnecessary attack on Sachin Tendulkar, who said ‘I am proud of being a Maharashtrian, but I am an Indian first and Maharashtrian later.' Then they fought with Mukesh Ambani. IPL issue with Shahrukh Khan batting for Pakistani players became ready made fodder for the Thackrays to raise Mumbai decibel level to a feverish pitch. Both father and son especially the later was thoroughly hackled by national T.V. channels, especially their own Marathi Manoos, Rajdeep Sardesai and Nikhil Wagle.
Thus the polarisation is very clear. In the coming days, Shiv Sena can become less and less relevant and MNS may gain temporarily. But nationally, both shall be potrayed negatively in the days to come. Marathi Manoos, shall do well to align themselves with some national parties, which can protect their interest in a more rational and meaningful way, rather than just rabble raising and indulging in violent attacks on North Indians. In the longrun violence shall come home to roost from more ways than one. Yes, your interest and your welfare has to be protected, there is no question about that. But how? Probably you must ask likes of Kumar Ketkars or Nikhil Wagles who are one among you, not Pawars and Chawans. Pawars and Chawans are only protecting themselves, their chairs families and cronies. Their theatrics are only for public consumption.
What Thackrays should know is that Mumbai is not the only mega city in India. There are other big and happening cities in India, where all Indians converge to make a living. They are Indians of all hues. There may be under-currents of regionalism but their life and property is not threatened. Tolerance, as tolerance is understood and appreciated, is prevalent all over. Only Mumbai has become intolerant.
There is more to protect Mumbaikars in Mumbai than any other citizens of different cities in their respective cities. A point Thackrays must realise. Sooner you realise, sooner you send the message across, the better for Mumbai, Mumbaikars and Thackrays politically. Hope that happens.
Coming to the issue of son of soil polemics, it has to be recognised that this issue will never die. It shall always live in a multilingual country like India. The politically correct stand of national political parties that all Indians are free to go anywhere, live and earn a living is all very well. It is pure and simple politics. But the fact remains, that if migration has to be stopped or reduced, the development has to be rural centric as well and has to be pan I
ndian. As long as that does not happen migration to cities shall continue. One more very important issue that needs to be addressed is all unskilled jobs has to be given in preference to local. Even when there are skilled jobs available, provided local talent is good enough to suite the bill, all being equal, preference has to be to locals. If this is made as a national policy there will never be problems like the one’s railways faced in Bangalore and Mumbai.There was a small civil contract worth around Rs 10,000/- in a public sector enterprise in Mangalore. This contract was awarded to a person who came from over 1000 kms away from a different state. There were directors who didn’t mind it, as long as he was in Indian. There was others, who objected on the ground that since it required no particular specialisation but needed simple skills, it could have been given to some local person. The question was, should he also travel like the other person some 1000kms to get a contract of Rs. 10,000/-? How are you going to encourage, support and empower locals, if the answer is ‘yes’. What is development, if not empowerment? Every public expenditure programme of the state is for the development of the area and its people. This applies to the whole country. The complaints of SS and MNS or the like of them, is genuine, but the way they go about violently is wrong. But every government worth its salt must appreciate this fact. Then you will not have Shiv Sena or Maharashtra Navanirmana Sena. Period.
I & C feature
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