It's something every denizen of the Maharashtra state must know and follow in her heart. You cannot voice your opinion about the Shiv Sainiks in public. Be it reporters from esteemable dailies or naive apolitical girls in their early twenties. The papers report facts, not their analysis.I remember once tugging at my dad's sleeve while in a local train, and asking him if the sainiks were gangsters. (That's probably what any kid would assume at seeing the clippings of the rampant violence set off by a couple in love, by...well... holding hands.) It didn't take my mother even a split second to turn to me with eyes made the size of saucers and place a viciously shaking finger over my lips. The co-passengers instinctively looked radially outward from the spot at which we were standing. (Ah! what a perfect helicopter view that must have made!) Welcome to Aamchi Mumbai!
And now, here we have our man spitting venom at an actor, who merely decided to give something back (in his capacity) to the society. What is our man's point? We'll, if its Bombay that has given Mr. Bachchan the fame and money, why are the girls from Lucknow his beneficiaries? I will not discuss here if he does have a point in this or not, conditioned as i am since childhood to stay mum about the brand 'Thackeray', i join the despicable band of the puppet reporters and dailies i just denounced.
But there is something else that is bothering me. We have decided to blindly drop the reigns of our mind and let it run just about anywhere,like a horse without blinkers.I say 'we', because on an average, every Maharashtrian household harbours a sainik.What has led to this situation? The man whose name was hailed till yesterday, whose movies like Deewar and Sholay we watched just last night, whose name we swear by, had his home stoned today,by us. What is it that holds the key to the public mind that is capable of bringing about just a drastic change in the public mood overnight? It was not that we didn't know about the school before. The process of planning and acquisition has been on since months. It's only when our man spelt it out that we decided to express our rage. And who were the perpetrators and the victims? Aamchi maanus of course.(it included a few odd bhel puri waalas who were unfortunate enough to be at the scene, and who of course did not have any political affiliations).All for what? A girls' school.
I refuse to attribute this to one man's charisma.In my opinion, there's a lot more to the story. The unemployment, the frustration or rather sheer boredom. The bored mass needs entertainment, it needs a means to vent out its passion. So it needs an excuse, that our man provides. I wouldn't say it was misplaced faith in his followers, I'm sure our man fully realised the impact of his words.(It comes from years of practice and experience after all)
Yet, the party needs to keep up its followers' spirits. It's like throwing a ball for your pet dog to go and fetch it back, to keep him in good health, you know.We'll now his ball is back, and so is the media. Is this desirable for our man? Mmm, maybe. Was it desirable for the state? I don't think so. So isn't our man talking about the betterment of that very state? Very much so.
What we need is education. Not in the sense of being able to sign our names and do rudimentary calculations.But in the sense of acquiring the capability of reception without reaction. At this point i fantasise, how would things be if we could all really smirk at our man and say "nice try man, better luck next time. Next issue please...".We are living through a crisis. At this moment, we need not look to Western learning to come to our aid, even the Indian school of thought can do the job. So arise and awake O Mighty Saffron men! Use Hindutva as your bastion and Maharashtra's culture as your cushion, but at least try to have good intentions. This is definitely not the culture one wishes to 'protect'.
