Nation should come first
Conflict between 'natives' and 'outsiders' in Indian cities could get worse as politicians exploit the emotions of common people for electoral gain
Recent attempts by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Raj Thackeray to stir up rabid provincialism in Maharashtra seem like an action replay of what many politicians, including his uncle and Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, have done in the past.
This is a manifestation of a sinister and selfish design on the part of politicians in the country to exploit the emotions of the common people for electoral gain.
Conceptually, the notion of ‘sons of the soil' is a form of regionalism. The principal demand of all ‘sons of the soil' movements is governmental intervention in the form of laws, regulations and administrative orders to provide jobs and admission to educational institutions to the members of local ethnic groups.
The demand of preference for ‘sons of the soil' is made by a majority at the expense of a minority. The primary justification is the group's unequal status in education, employment, and income in relation to other groups within the urban locality or the state as a whole. It is not linked to the question of why the group is economically, educationally or occupationally behind.
Interestingly, the issue of affording preferential treatment, or affirmative action, preoccupied the nationalist leaders of the country even at the time of the drafting of the Constitution.
Post-independence, India has witnessed a number of regional movements enamoured with the idea of ‘sons of the soil'. While the first such may have been the Dravidian movement in South India, the issue attained notoriety and alarming proportions with the rise of the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra during the 1960s.
Incidentally, the Shiv Sena was originally driven by the fear that the States Reorganisation Committee would cede Bombay (now Mumbai), the capital of the then composite Bombay State, to Gujarat. Subsequently, the Shiv Sena was driven by the slogan ‘Maharashtra for the Maharashtrians'.
Linguistic homogeneity
In the decades post independence, such affirmative action movements derived considerable strength from the decision to form states on the basis of linguistic homogeneity.
Once linguistic homogeneity is recognised as the basis for state formation, the speakers of the local language begin to feel that those who speak a different language do not belong, and are therefore inferior, irrespective of what is stated in the Constitution.
But every Indian state, even the most linguistically homogenous, has living within its borders speakers of a variety of languages. But none of this prevents the rise of a ‘sons of the soil' movement, particularly in the larger cities, which are generally multilingual, when ‘outsiders' occupy highly visible positions in government and industry.
They may be attacked and their property may be vandalised on occasion in order to strike fear in the hearts of the ‘outsiders' resident in the state, and also to discourage further migration.
Demands are made that the lion's share of jobs created in any firm or factory be reserved for the natives. ‘Sons of the soil' movements have become highly emotional, and the voice of reason is reduced to a voice in the wilderness.
As the number of cities increase, and the existing big cities get even bigger, the conflict between ‘natives' and ‘outsiders' may worsen.
One way of tackling this problem is to promote agricultural development in rural areas and stem the flow of migrant labour.
It is necessary to recall here that the emergence of nationalism in any country is marked by the heightened awareness of every kind of group identity. This fact has not been fully understood.
However, what is far more common is the denial of the legitimacy of all lower-level loyalties in the mistaken idea that they are anti-national. It is not understood that identities are contextual: In one context one is a member of a region while in another one is a speaker of a language, follower of a faith and a citizen of a nation-state.
But when lower-level loyalties come to be regarded as far more important than loyalty to the nation, there is cause for real worry.
— Opinion Asia, 2010
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Bidyut Chakrabarthy is professor of political science at the University of Delhi, India.
