Los Angeles
Dec, 2008
With the Election results in 5 states out, Raj Thackeray is my hero of the moment. And not only Raj Thackeray, the whole Maharashtrian politicians are my heroes. What they are saying from last couple of months is different then what we have listened in this country in last 60 years. Maharashtrian lobby and Maharastrian brand of politics is some thing a great lesson for whole of the country. Raj Thackeray has full support from Shiv senas, Maharashtra BJPs, NCPs and Maharashtra Congress. The people who have closely watched the politics in Mumbai know that by core Deshmukh and Thackeray are comrades in arms more then Vajpayee and Advani.
The key issue, which Raj Thackeray bringing in, is migration of North Indian laborers to Mumbai. For that matter, North Indian laborers are moving everywhere not only to Mumbai, you will find them in every big city, nook and corner of the country. And in Mumbai specially, as Sharad Yadv wrote in his one of article, "Labor will follow the capital" So wherever we have more capital investment, laborers will travel. There is nothing wrong in migration, and people must be free from migrating or choosing a place to live in our country. But the key question arises, is it a force migration or by choice?
The kind of influx of people, we have seen in Mumbai and Delhi really gives nightmare to any administrator. For example, Mumbai witnesses more then 300 to 500 migrants families (people who wish to settle in Mumbai) on a daily basis and it is the similar situation in Delhi too. So when last time Sheela Dixit brought this issue, that migrants are creating problems in Delhi. She was forced to take her statement back by central leadership of Congress. The problems of Mumbai are more then problems of entire North India, which still lives in third world. Collapsing infrastructure, increasing slums, reducing forest cover (exceptions few last years), increasing traffic, pollution and reduction in per capita resources are enough to describe the pain of Mumbai. On a recent statistics, 17% of Mumbai live in upscale flats and houses, 28% of Mumbai live in Chawls and low middle class houses and 55% live in Slums. With this statistics, Raj Thackeray has all valid reasons to raise this issue, I may not agree with his actions and the way he is terrorizing whole north Indian community. But this issue needs to be addressed in a different manner.
Yes Mumbai belongs to India not only Maharashtra, but also all Indians cannot live in Mumbai. No administrator can plan the resources and facilities with these many people wish to settle in Mumbai that too with limited resources. Lets accept the fact that, we have our own limitation in planning and executions. Can we plan and execute Mumbai like Shanghai or Singapore; I can say we need to wait for time for that. Mumbai gave almost one third of revenue to the Government of India to its exchequer. And how much we give it back to Mumbai for its planning and development, I guess less than 5%.
This problem is not only with Mumbai and Delhi but almost all cosmopolitan cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and metropolitan cities like Jaipur, Indore, Nagpur and Chandigarh are facing. Manmohan Singh and all the people who are in favor of development must be thankful to Raj Thackeray, because none in this country has created so much uproar in regional development as Raj Thackeray's recent actions/comments. West Bengal’s Jyoti Babu’s government was only government in the country, which has really dealt this effectively by reducing the migration rate with significant percentages in Kolkata, in 90’. However they failed to stop the Bangladeshi infiltrators, which I bring in, in some of my other blogs.
Education, health, roads, power and water in villages are major challenges. Why are we failing in providing the developments and basic infrastructure in villages? Who is responsible for year on year basis, people deserted their own states and moving to big cities. Why we are not holding responsible to North Indian States governments, Central governments and people of these states for not creating enough opportunity, or employment in their own states. Big cities have just become big, because of uncontrolled migrations. Most of the migrants live in pathetic conditions. Mumbai has more then half of its population living slums. And the kind of development we are witnessing at this moment, and the feeling of regionalism or for that matter, feeling of ‘my city only” will continue to grow. The growing aspiration and frustration, region wise is the one and only one reason why regional parties are getting so much support in the Indian Politics.
We have seen governments after government, performing badly in our country. I still remember, when Vajpayee governments score card for ministers published in 2002 by India today, less than 10 ministers were in good performance status. And it is the similar case of Manmohan Singh's government also; you will find hardly few ministers who really understand ministry and its scope of work. Rest all are 'headless chicken" rolling between Ministry to Parliament without much of the purpose. Unfortunately, the most important job, to run the country lies in the hand of unprofessional “Jan sevak” in our country.
Remember, whenever any government loses the election, it is not that chief minister loses the power or party loses the base. Yes those are truths, but more importantly the people of the state cheated for five years, revolted for that particular government. Do we accountability of those lost five years? At the end, it is the people who voted for that government loses the most. But are we rewarding to the governments, which are doing good? Vajpayee (2004), Naidu (2004 AP), Gehlot (2003 Rajasthan) and Jaylalithaa (2005 TN) lost the elections, despite showing positive development cards.
What as “the people”, important for us? Are we really caring about the development of our own. Are Education, road, power, agriculture, infrastructure, water and sewerage management more important then cast, creed, religion or personalities to us. Narendra Modi has showed in 2007 Gujarat election, Sheela Dixit, Shivaraj singh Chauhan and Raman Singh have proved in 2008. There is no other priority at this moment then development. I hope, North Indian states chief ministers listening, the vibes of nation.
“Has Developmental politics arrived to India?”
Epilogue:
If we can’t create a single Shanghai or Singapore in our country, can we create 10 Mumbais in different part of India? After all 55% slum is what, we are habitual of.
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5 comments:
Bhai even though you are not living in India the indept understanding of your politics is amazing.
As usual another blockbuster blog from you keep up the good work
Hi Jitendra,
As usual another fantastic piece of facts you have imparted.
I have a few things to say about the subject and I would rather take them one by one..
Since 1989 all the election results have been falling in one of two categories: a response to communal/religious appeals or to caste based considerations. As you have rightly stated about development as the key issue in recent election results but there is some agreement to the fact that economic development issues don’t guarantee winning elections like what happened to Digvijay Singh in Madhya Pradesh and Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh as you stated.
The issues the media highlighted in these elections were Education in MP and IT sector in Andhra, and these are not the ones that concern the common man, particularly as these are more of urban based issues. In other words, the feel of economic reforms was not visible once one moved beyond the major cities.
The last four elections have one thing in common, all the winning parties have come back with absolute majorities.Something that has not happened since 1998 both at the national and the state level except for two party states like Tamil Nadu.The results bring in a new factor in analysing assembly results, the "Role Of Regionalism". Post 1991, Regional Inequality has tended to increase largely because of different capabilities of each state.
While legislators are elected in the states, most economic reforms have been the work of the Central Government, as a consequence, the party dominant in the Centre keep losing ground in the States.
Major Economic reforms are viewed as the work of the Centre and it is convenient for every State to blame the Centre for all economic ills. The controversy regarding the SEZs in Goa is part of the same problem. In the same way the local resentment against the planned development of the North East as the ‘Power House’ of the country.
As a consequence of this Regionalism voters tend to resent any party or leader foisted on them by the Centre. If the party wants to survive, it will have to develop regional leaders perceived to be close to the grassroots in their respective states. As the case with Congress.
After 1991 to bring economic reforms was on every political agenda. The more economically developed states started to increasingly assert their independence vis-a-vis the Centre, that is what actually is the case with Mumbai in connection with Raj Thakrey and party. They are encashing or we can say are baking their breads on this so called indepedence.
What is even more important, is that in view of such protests and mild response from the Government in rather low tone, there will be growing demands for a more federal structure than at present and the resolution of this dilemma will, determine political survival of national parties.
This is one face of the story.... The other face is "Development in wake of Regionalism Syndrome", which is presented in my comment following...
One of the key alignment to be achieved for developing states, is to enter into agreements with other states at a similar level of development in the same area. The benefits of market access and the diversification of production will add to trade integration. Be it with developed or developing states reducing permanent as well as seasonal migration.
For many states that are at an early stage of industrial development, a programme involving states with similar economic structures and technological capabilities may be considered a more viable option. While accentuating the level of tech capability of these states put together.
In other words, the regional market sets less exclusive benchmarks than national, so that even production at the infant industry stage can be successfully broadened, generating more employment at the home place. Cooperation is advantageous and attract funds.
The increase in trade ties suggests regional cooperation between developing states.It can prove to be an important means to accelerate industrialization and hence downsizing migration at the same time.
Regional cooperation in the monetary and financial area can provide important tools for the stabilization of intraregional ties, and reduce their potential to serve as a source of instability. Similarly, cooperation on major investment projects can reduce common bottlenecks in public infrastructure like energy and water supply evenually raising the country as single unit.
The difference in poverty across the entire nation has exponentially increased over the years and stands huge at 30% on date. This has made people from one region to go to the other for better living and jobs. The problem associated with it, as it looks like, has nothing to do with so called "STEALING of jobs from the local people" as Hooligans of Mumbai claims, but it has to do with the cultural clash. For example, many times how North Indians after coming to cities like Bangalore, Mumbai etc. fail to respect the local culture and language and treat them in a shabby manner. Solution: mingle into local culture wherever migrants go and respect the local culure as much as they do their own while in home states or cities, equally applicable to all those who are treating outsiders as a parasite and bashing them in public to denounce their sacred culture in front of the Nation.
I think this might offer some interesting new perspective in the debate on Regionalism..
I appreciate the topics you are bringing in and supporting them with all the interesting facts. Keep the good work on.. I do have few views to mention on the topic of discussion
We have seen in some recent elections that the trend of developmental politics is starting to take precedence in elections that are mostly driven with caste politics. However it still in very initial stages and have long way to go before it can be the prime driving factor to win elections, in current scenario in most of the cases that it works it was well aligned with traditional caste politics.
However I differ a bit with associating development politics with Raj Thakery , it is very well known that he is taking a leaf out of his uncle’s book and raising the issue of Maharashtrian’s pride to fix his place in Maharashtra political. I am not sure how much of his political agenda is associated with development. In my view the topics he is bringing and the ways he is using to implement the agenda is more detrimental to politics and nation as a whole.
I totally agree with the issues you raised that comes along with people migrating to big cities and steps needs to of taken to control and minimize the people migrating to big towns be at prime cities of state or nation. I believe the solution lies within the agenda of discussion and development is only way to reduce the parity in job opportunities between small and big towns. I hope as the time passes by development in all aspects takes more and more prominence.
Jitendra,
Very valid and valuable points raised.
I differ you associating this issue with Raj Thackrey. What Raj and other politicians like Lalu/Mulayam are doing is creating regional votebanks by playing with sentiments of people. If you see Raj's agenda its only one stance ..its to clear up the mess. This is an example of politicians justifying riots as means to reduce the population.
One important thing to look at is what is our attitude towards fellow citizen. When Mumbai goes under water its headline almost every politician and news channel is concerned. But at the same time when Koshi river kills 100's of people .. how much do we really bother. When Mumbai is under militant attack ..it is non stop coverage .. but when same thing is happening right now in J&K .. we think its routine military operation.
We can not and must not isolate the sufferings of the people in any part of India .. we as people should feel responsible as a nation to every problem it faces.
After 26/11 attack the unity that country had shown should be visible for every problem we face. Then only we can succeed as nation.
We can not identify people in one part of India is good vs another.
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