Strange days

A joke is doing the rounds:

Do you know why the Cyclone Phyan did not come to Mumbai after all?

Because the MNS did not let it into Mumbai - it does not have a Marathi name!

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The background to the joke is not so funny. First of all we almost had a major cyclone hit the city. Something unheard of - we associated cyclones with the East coast of India and the Bay of Bengal - not with the Arabian Sea. Phyan phynally phynished with a thankfully damp squib - but not before all schools were shut across Mumbai and Thane on Wednesday (joy among the younger Eichers).

More troubling was the horrible scenes in the Maharashtra legislative assembly. It was the first day of the new session and the elected members were taking their oaths of office. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (the 'MNS' in the joke above) had called on all legislators to their oath in Marathi. A few did not. Some took it in Sanskrit, others in English and some in Hindi. When a certain Abu Azmi took his oath in Hindi, 4 of the newly elected MNS legislators rushed to the dias and beat him up in front of the whole house. That the children of these 'defenders of Marathi' chose to send their kids to English medium schools is a different matter.

It is a sad day when on the first day of taking office our lawmakers turn lawbreakers. The hatred towards the 'outsider' continues to be raked up periodically across our land. Today it is the Marathi 'sons of the soil' staking their claim that Mumbai is being overrun by 'North Indians' - yesterday it was the Shiv Sena's rise to power by demonising the 'South Indians'. What next? After years of anti-Muslim stances when most of the current MNS were part of the Shiv Sena - we heard 2 weeks ago that the MNS is demanding that there be more Marathi people - going to Mecca on the Hajj pilgrimage! I thought it was an delayed April fools joke - but they actually had a demonstration demanding reservations for Marathi Muslims!

To be heard - these days - it seems you need to have fists to smash and tear and destroy. It is telling that Gandhiji's house in Mumbai - Mani Bhavan - remains a quaint little museum - frequented mainly by foreign tourists. Ashis and I stopped in there earlier this week (it was just around the corner from a meeting we attended) - and noted that there were no young people - and no other Indians other than the slightly bored-looking staff.

So what does it mean to be an Indian? To be beaten up for using Hindi in your own country?

Strange days.