To unify people and country and take them to the road of construction calls on the likes of Leaders or Statesmen such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Patel, Mandela etc. The much easier route is to gather hooligans in the name of 'karyakartas' and vent out their angst on helpless people.
When society is divided into layers and subliminially pitted against each other, when urbanization challenges go out of control and when youngsters having wasted their years in doing anything but preparing themselves for a professional life, democracy throws an opportunity at a person who is hungrily looking for the seat of power no matter how it comes. Such conditionalities give birth to netas such as Raj Thackery.
Emerson stated that Power is as good as the person who wields it. In this case if we use converse reasoning- the use of power can somewhere hint at the character of the person who is actually weilding it today in the designation of Head of MNS.When the divisive tendencies in the country are giving way to violence by another similar brigade (Bajrang Dal) against Christians, by terrorists againts masses, communal riots etc, the need of the hour is to come out with political leaders with the metal and vision to unify the nation. Here we see a neta emerging who wants to create further lines. I really lament at the fact that people who take birth in families from where they command a natural source of power (irrespective of their own credentials) most of the times end up in being very mediocre or opportunist power hungry netas. Rarely have we experienced people from a certain family giving way to bring Statesmen.
The State continues to allow Raj his way as somewhere they understand that if this person is muzzled, it is likely that the ruling party's vote bank would also get a hit. There is a seperate political angle to it which can be best understood from this piece by Kumar Ketkar
If he wants to create a strong cadre of local youths who can really contribute towards a true 'Navnirman', the focus should be in helping them develop skills by which they can compete with any individual on the basis of merit. Only a naive can have an imagination that by making thousands of these people roam on the streets, breaking glasses, assaulting people would make them more employable or useful for the society? If the problem is that locals are not getting opportunities on account of people from outside coming in, then there are better measures to come to a robust solution.
Statues of Ganesha and Shivaji can be erected anywhere (Mayawati who is possessed by self love is her near cousin in this mission) but the real Divine Spirit which exists in all of us and is weakly represented by these external manifestations is getting silenced by these acts of a political group. The more he continues these acts, the more the society would be drawn towards jungle RAJ. All pomp and show of celebration of one's culture sound hollow if the fundamentals of love for the mankind is absent.
Our toothless and highly politicised judiciary will not be able to do much against him till they really introspect where all this can lead to. But I guess the damage has already been done. Not in terms of terrorizing others but removing the feeling of brotherliness from the heart of tens and thousands of people who are on the roads and probably lakhs of people who are silently providing their support. Enforceable laws have their own limitations. They can't change the thought process of lakhs of people. Can unenforceable laws of love be institutionalized in such situations? The worst sin that a man can do is to make a poor and vulnerable person feel that he is actually poor and that he is really vulnerable and helpless. And he has done exactly that.
When I was in my school, I remember witnessing skits with four kids dressed as Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian giving messages of unity of religion. But now, thanks to netas such as these there would be several roles that our children would have to enact in their schools to give out further such messages. It would not involve just 4 but maybe 20-30 or more depending upon say region,caste, creed etc etc.
But will it change anything? Though that appears to be our only hope.............
2 comments:
i support the mns cause against anti-discrimination but i don't support there violent ways. btw, the protesters were not MNS people but common angry marathi speaking people who took the streets today. not raj's gundha's like the TV says. i like to look at the root of the problem and a problem which our north-indian news channels have cunningly ignored to telecast to argue about - unemployment in bihar/UP.
i think a state or any state is only equipped to handle it's own baggage. if there are people coming in then there should be equal people going out. a balance has to be maintained. the administrations of UP and bihar have failed to provide jobs to it's own stock and which is why the stock considers traveling to other states for jobs. the people to blame here is not raj thackray or MNS or north indians... but it's the administration of these two states who are to blame.
but since lallu controls the railway ministry and SP holds the UPA govt. together any actions against them is very unlikely. finally, it also shows the discrimination and vote bank politics played by the UPA govt. the common marathi voice speaks. no it screams.
This comment is for rageaddict-
Would you justify if the same thing was done to Indians living in US, by US citizens? People from Mumbai living in US, is 2nd or 3rd highest after Gujrat and AP. Well state of UP and Bihar is to blamed for under development for sure, and so is India, but what we have to understand is, if that underdevelopment is because of the influx/outflux of people or the lack of vision from the gov. We as individual should not encourage politics of division, as the politicians will come and go but the wounds left by that division will stay forever. It is for individual to decide who they stand for...for the world, or for India or for Marathis, or any sub group in Marathi, and so on.
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