Political Diary
New Delhi, 7 March
2023
Madrasi-Bihari Phobia
REGIONALISM RAISES UGLY HEAD
By Poonam I Kaushish
There is no smoke without fire, so
goes a lexicon. But what happens if the smoke has been smouldering, in a very
low fire over the past weeks in Tamil Nadu’s hosiery capital Tiruppur spreading
to Coimbatore and Chennai where migrant labour from North India were ‘rumoured’
amidst unsubstantiated claims to being attacked by social media posts in Bihar
and UP. Socking Mera Bharat Ek a
deathly body-blow!
That Stalin’s DMK State Government
was caught napping is putting it mildly, but it adroitly handled the ‘attacks’
on migrant labour from Bihar, UP, West Bengal, Odisha and several north eastern
States by speaking to his counterpart in Bihar Nitish, asserting “Bihar workers
are our workers and we will protect them,” while the State police booked BJP State
Chief Annamalai for inciting violence by linking DMK for spreading
disinformation and promoting enmity between two groups on grounds of religion
and race.
It did not end there. Two senior DMK
leaders were caught on camera making withering comments about migrant workers by
saying they were worthy only of selling 'paani
puri here'. Ex Union minister and MP Dayanidhi Maran went a step further by
comparing “our Southern boys Sundar Pichai (Google) and Satya Nadella
(Microsoft) to Hindi-speaking youth working in construction and as cooks here.”
Alongside some pan-Tamil Parties and
self-styled social organisations and their social media posts targeted ‘honourable
guest workers’ who were taking away jobs of locals by accepting lower wages,
long work-hours and inhospitable living and working conditions.
Specially against the backdrop that
migrants are gainfully employed and backbone of multiple industries as an
irreplaceable workforce. From street-corner tea-stalls, domestic helps,
drivers, to beauty parlours, garment factories etc having learnt the local language.
An example, over 70% of workers in hospitality and construction and 20% in
garment units are migrants.
Predictably, a war of words erupted
with both BJP and non-BJP critics of DMK posting a video clipping of Stalin's
old speech declaring BJP had plans to people the State with Hindi-speaking
people (for political and electoral reasons) providing meat for Stalin and DMK’s traditional detractors of his ‘Dravidian
model’ of Government.
While BJP’s Bihar unit claimed RJD’s
Dy Chief Minister celebrated Stalin’s birthday despite “12 Bihari migrant
workers being killed.” Followed by videos of mistreatment accusing the State
Government of not taking up cudgels with Tamil Nadu. Which of course, were
vehemently denied.
Pro-DMK and ally Congress argued the
rumours were a deliberate attempt by groups that were upset that Stalin's
birthday was a meeting place for disparate Opposition leaders to band together
and take-on the ruling BJP in next year's Lok Sabha elections. Alleging, similar
acts were perpetrated when erstwhile DMK’s Karunanidhi, lead to the formation
of a non-Congress, non-BJP pre-poll alliance that captured power at the Centre
in 1989 and 1996.
Alas, none wanted to address the
most critical questions. Who are the perpetrators behind the ‘fake’ news? What
action is the Government contemplating against the perpetrators?
Complicating matters we have
pre-conceived notions based on place, language, cuisine and customs a person
comes from due to our large regional diversity, wherein we find communities
pitted against each other ideologically or for resources.
So, while Northerners look down on 'Madrasis' and their way of eating rice
with hands, Southerners probably think
that those from North read ‘Biharis and Panjus’ are loud, braggers and only good enough
for Bhangra!
The Bengalis are supposed to be intellectuals, and every half-decent Bihari is
supposed to crack IAS. There are the stingy ‘Gujjus’ from the West and ‘Bhaiyyas' from UP.
All these differences make people
suspicious of those who are not like them. And ‘people like us’ close ranks and
bond. These closed communities are naturally full of prejudices towards the
other, read outsider.
Either way, a sense of insecurity has
seeped in among migrant labour after various netas called for their replacement with locals. Unless controlled and
contained this untested and unchallenged belief that north
Indian, Hindi-belt labour support and follow Hindutva kind of political
ideology. Hence this could lead to ideological clashes with their Dravidian
brethren in especially during election time.
Recall in 2012 knocked out by hate
SMS, “Leave immediately or face unspecified action.” people from North East
fled Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune etc to the safety of their homes and again
in 2008 in Maharashtra Raj Thackeray’s Navnirman Sena went on a rant wanting to
rid Maharashtra of all North-Indians. Both cases of competitive populism at its
crassest best.
Time has come full
circle. Regionalism first raised its ugly head in Tamil Nadu in the early 60s,
where alienation of people from the Centre led to DMK’s birth which later split
into AIADMK.
It then moved to
Maharashtra where cartoonist Bal Thackeray became the self-styled champion of
everything Marathi. He nurtured Shiv Sena on the infamous `Marathi manus' whereby everyone in Mumbai was an ‘outsider’ except
28% Maharashtrians.
Assam burnt over the
foreigners issue in the 70’s, when AASU started a movement to oust all “illegal
migrants from Bangladesh” from the State. In 2003, Assamese stopped 20,000
Biharis from taking a recruitment test in Guwahati. Biharis retaliated by
stopping trains from North East, dragged out people, killed some and beat the
rest. Assamese hit back killing over 52 Biharis.
Undeniably, this sad
state of affairs is because asli Bharat
is in the vicious grip of our polity. Borne out by our netagan’s diabolical machinations of vote-bank politics resulting
in a North-South-secular-communal divide. Migrants have been allowed to don a
communal face to satiate the greedy Indian political animal given 80% workforce, the ‘informal sector’ of
migrant labourers, are at the lowest rung of the employment ladder. In their
perception, who better than their own biradari.
Moreover, this gave a
further fillip to the “sons of soil” issue. The local youth demanded
“reservation” of jobs in their area, especially in regions where new industrial
ventures like public sector plants or other projects coming up. In fact
agitations have taken place for “their” share of jobs.
Where do we go from here? Pander to
rabid rabble rousers? Pander to the politics of vote banks? Both Centre and
States need to plug holes in our social system and put in place strong
deterrence in instances of violence towards a particular community and give
migrants a better new tomorrow. There is no gainsaying that all citizens should
have equal job opportunities across the country.
The tragedy of it all is that our
polity willy-nilly chipped away, with deadly precision, at the reality of a
united and integrated India where regional aspirations play second fiddle to
national unity. Consequently, the need of the hour is to understand the
seriousness, deal assertively with the issues and set up time-bound measures
once and for all.
Why should being a local or an
outsider be made into a big all-encompassing issue? After all, India is a Union
of States. Time to look beyond the Madrasi-Bihari
phobia.. When vote-bank politics dictate our leaders’ political ideology and
their attitude and stance on everything is weighed on the voters’ scale there
is no hope in hell for the aam aadmi.
Will our leaders heed? --- INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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