The latest to draw the ire and fire of the Marathi manoos, namely the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra
Navnirman Sena (MNS) is a proudly fellow Maharashtrian, Shobhaa De. Having
followed De’s columns fairly regularly, her pride in Maharashtra and in being
Maharastrian is inescapable. She pretty much deifies all Marathi celebrities
and even semi-brities. She is a true blue Marathi manoos pretty much to the core.
So what made her fellow Marathi brethren shower
their wrath on her? In the drama over creating a Telangana state out of Andhra
Pradhesh, De tweeted: “Maharashtra and Mumbai??? Why not? Mumbai has always
fancied itself as an independent entity, anyway. This game has countless
possibilities.”
Bas. This clearly satirical tweet sealed her fate. Demonstrations
outside her house and character assassinations became the order of her day. Nitesh
Rane (31-year old son of politician
Narayan Rane a freshly minted politician himself)responded by tweeting: "Rather
than twitter, Shoba De shud say the same thing on the streets of Mumbai openly
after which she won't be left with any 'shoba' forever." The Shiv Sena alleged
that De was talking as if she was drunk after a Page 3 party. Shiv Sena
spokesman Sanjay Raut said the state government should register an offence
against this bai for her remark. Placards
held by Shiv Sena demonstrators outside her house questioned her vocation.
Was any of this really called for? It became
such a massive issue that some news channels spent an entire evening discussing
this.
It is not even like De has said something new. The
agitation for dividing what was Bombay State at the time of independence into
two linguistically divided states started in the 1940s and gained momentum in
the early 1950s. It was the Samyukta Maharashtra Andolan. At the same time, the
Bombay Citizen’s Committee which comprised the country’s leading businessmen
insisted on Bombay being a separate state. Jawharlal Nehru too was in favour of
a separate Bombay state/union territory. In 1955 the States Reorganisation
Committee submitted its report to the Indian Government recommending a
bilingual state for Maharashtra–Gujarat with Bombay as its capital.
The fight over Bombay never ceased. While a
majority of the population spoke Marathi, it was recognised that Bombay became
the financial centre of India because of the Parsis, Marwaris, Gujaratis and
even Sindhis. (Just an aside, the Sindh province in Pakistan was carved out of
Bombay Presidency which was later renamed as Bombay State).
There have
always been rumours about an underground movement led by the business community
and the intelligentsia of the city constantly lobbying for a statehood of
Bombay. They fear that the cosmopolitan nature of the city which gives Bombay
its colour, character and charisma will be diluted and destroyed if it is not
carefully preserved and protected by making it an independent state. Over the
past 5 decades, they say that their fears are actually coming true. It is a
well-known and documented fact that the highest taxes are paid by Mumbai/Bombay
to the national coffers. The average citizen feels resentful that despite this,
they suffer poor infrastructure. They too believe that if Mumbai became an
independent state, the citizens would receive a better deal.
So De was not really saying anything new or unique.
In the unlikely eventuality of Mumbai actually
becoming a state, it would have more population than Goa, Delhi, Pondicherry
(three of the newly created states in India) and a few others too. It would probably
have a representation of 6 MPs and almost 40 MLAs. That is a fairly respectable
number.
The history and figures seem to suggest there is something
in the thought of Maharashtra and Mumbai. Actually, why not?