By endorsing a narrow, partisan agenda, the Congress and the NCP are reinforcing intolerance and violence that can only harm the future of Maharashtra.

Saffron flags, crowbar wielding men shouting pro-Shivaji slogans — you would be forgiven if you thought this was a group of Shiv Sainiks. But the group of around 70 men, who converged on the Thane home of Kumar Ketkar, Editor-in-Chief of the Marathi daily Loksatta and one of the most respected journalists in Maharashtra on Thursday morning, was an offshoot of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), part of the ruling coalition in Maharashtra.

With a television crew in tow, members of the Shiv Sangram Sangathana tried to kick open the front door. When that did not work they used crowbars to break the glass of the windows and above the door. All this while the television crew filmed them. They also arranged copies of Loksatta in a pile and set it alight. No one stopped them. After a while, satisfied with their handiwork, they left only after spilling a can of black paint on the wooden front door. Mr. Ketkar and his wife were inside the house when all this happened.

There was no sign of the police. The police intercepted members of the group some distance from the Ketkar residence, after they had already wreaked considerable damage. Their leader, Vinayak Mete, vice-president of the state unit of the NCP and a former MLC, told a television channel that he had only recently stepped down from his position as leader of the group and did not know of their plan to attack Mr. Ketkar’s house. At the same time, he said that in a democracy people had the right to express their anger when they felt that Shivaji had been insulted. That is what members of his group were doing, he claimed. Asked why he and members of his group were so upset, he said they did not like the tone of the editorial written by Mr. Ketkar in Loksatta about the proposed statue of Shivaji that the Maharashtra government out at sea, a la Statue of Liberty. Mr. Ketkar had questioned the expense that would be incurred to build the proposed 309-ft statue in a state facing many other problems. Mr. Mete said that this questioning tone showed disrespect towards Shivaji.

Attack on symbols of democracy

The Thane incident is just one in of several instances over the last years in Maharashtra where small groups like this have seen fit to attack journalists, newspaper offices, cultural centres, libraries and research institutes — in other words symbols of a modern and secular democracy. In 2004, the Sambhaji Brigade, another offshoot of the NCP vandalised the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) in Pune because the Institute had helped James Laine with the research for his controversial book on Shivaji.

What is disturbing about such incidents is that the state appears almost indifferent at best and complicit at worse. Little is done to stop such incidents or to prosecute those involved once they happen. Mr. Ketkar had apprehended the attack and alerted the Thane police. Yet nothing was done.

The incident on Thursday is also illustrative of a deeper insecurity that inflicts the NCP in particular and the ruling coalition in Maharashtra in general. With elections due at the end of next year, the Congress-NCP coalition appears to be flaying about looking for a way to hold on to its support.

The results of the Thane Lok Sabha by-election in May, in particular, must have come as a blow where a political novice like the Shiv Sena’s Anand Pranjape beat the NCP’s Sanjeev Naik, a former Sainik and son of NCP strongman Ganesh Naik by a whopping 90,000 votes. Thane has gained importance in Maharashtra post-delimitation as it will now have four Lok Sabha seats as opposed to the current one and its Assembly seats will almost double going up from 13 to 24. Hence the political message from Thane should give both NCP and Congress sleepless nights.

Instead of assessing what they should do to check the evident erosion in their political base, the NCP in particular seems hell bent on pursuing its old strategy of trying to woo the Marathi-speaking away from the Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. So even as Raj Thackeray continues his attacks on north Indians unhindered, the State government has announced that it will insist on 80 per cent of jobs in new industries to be kept for locals.

Impact of fear

Already the impact of the fear injected in migrant workers from the North has become evident in the declining numbers of construction workers in a city like Pune, which is experiencing a construction boom. Infosys, for instance, has announced a delay of at least six months in the completion schedule for its campus in Hinjewadi. Others are also reporting similar problems in finding enough workers for their projects. None of this helps to project Maharashtra as an industry-friendly state.

The project of building a huge statute of Shivaji out at sea is part of this overall projection of being Shivaji-friendly and therefore Maharashtrian friendly. Earlier, in attempts to out-do the Sena, the Congress government renamed Victoria Terminus train station to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. The domestic and international airports also bear the same name, as does the Prince of Wales Museum.

Unjustified populism

Such populism might be justified if it is accompanied by actions that have more substance. But even as the State government tries to match the pro-Marathi campaigns of its opponents, it is doing precious little to deal with the urgent urban problems of cities like Mumbai and Pune or the rural distress that has resulted in the widely reported farmers’ suicides.

What is worse, by endorsing the narrow, partisan agenda of parties that have shown little commitment to democratic values, the Congress and the NCP are reinforcing intolerance and violence that can only harm the future of Maharashtra. Such a strategy will certainly not guarantee victory for them in future elections. On the contrary, they might well be writing their own script for an electoral defeat.




http://www.thehindu.com/2008/06/06/stories/2008060654570900.htm

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