On a Political issue.- please pardon the grammatical errors.

Yesterday I was watching N.D.T.V. 24/7 ( I am sorry I don't have any means to insert the multiplication symbol) . Barkha Dutt was hosting a talk show who's name I deliberately choose to ignore. The hot topic of discussion was whether Mumbai should be called Mumbai or Bombay .......

Yes this show was for real . Being hosted by Barkha Dutt it would originally have been telecast at prime time (although I managed to watch a repeat telecast at 1 in the afternoon).
Now in a city where the mafia is thriving, the local transport system is in tatters, where freak accidents are gaining alarming proportions, the drainage system is pathetic, where Terrorists attacks are an impending danger and have claimed atleast 10,000 lives in the last 20 years ( in the form of attacks and riots) , this issue was the last thing which any conscientious citizen would have expected to see on television.

I sincerely believe that the question discussed in the show is quite important for all the news channels and some political parties . For the news channels it is important because they would have to then change their news reports accordingly , substituting Mumbai for Bombay or vice versa.

As far as the political parties are concerned their obsession with Mumbai shall end with it's importance as the financial capital of the country. I believe the Thackrey clan wouldn't have given a damn for the Mumbai issue had it been just another ordinary Indian town with ordinary citizens and not some rich industrialists or filmstars.

There is one more point I want to make. Maharashtrian identity and culture is not reflected in Mumbai. Mumbai has been , from the time of it's inception a cosmopolitan city...the city's heritage buildings bear testimony to that fact...what from Prince of Wales Museum to The Victoria Terminus.

I have no idea how these petty parties have been able to declare Mumbai as the representative of Maharshtrian identity. There is nothing remotely Maharashtrian about Mumbai. Having stayed for 5 yrs in Pune I can assert this quite confidently. If at all you want to relate any city with Maharashtrian culture I would point to Pune.

How can we call a city intrinsically Maharashtrian when it has never been culturally dominated by the Maharashtrians. The real agenda behind this senseless movement , which tries to cheat us into believing that Maharashtra is Mumbai, is that the power hungry politicians want to control the rich municipality and administrative regime of Mumba,i to fill their own coffers.

I would also like to say something about the Thackrey clan. They to be fair are not a unique family and have no unique agenda. Each state where the local population (historically speaking) is in the danger of being overrun by migrants , has many such self proclaimed protectors. And this has been true from times immemorial. In Maharashtra, this problem has been reduced to Mumbai. The Shiv Sena or the MNS have placed themselves in major urban centres of the state and indulge in hooliganism in the name of what not. Anyone who has heard them speak specially two leaders from these parties , would easily recognize them as petty local goons and lowlives who are thriving because the public in this country is dumber than they are. In fact this holds good for almost the entire breed of politicians.

As far as the congress is concerned I feel it is time that they stopped being hypocrites and came forward with a solid and digestible stand. The NCP is a good for nothing party which ,even for the sake of it ,has no ideology and hence has tacitly admitted that it's only ideology is to promote power grabbing policies.

I am writing this article not as a distant observer governed by bias, but because I have had the privilege of staying in Pune for 5 long years as a student. And hence I had every opportunity to investigate each and every minute feature of this issue.

Apart from the fact that each state and people have their own culture and social temperament (with the exception of the Punjabis who are largehearted and hence accept everyone for what they are) the local residents were as far removed from the MNS or the Shiv Sena as the "Outsiders".
Even if we admit that outstation students were targeted by these goons, it does not mean that the local Puneite was garlanded by them.

What this means is that such parties rake up non existent issues and blow them out of proportions ;to make the matters worse the people in general are waiting to be defrauded by these lowlives.
I would thus appeal to the common man (If there is anyone who can be called so) to be well informed on such issues and take intellectually motivated stands and not follow pricks and thugs under the illusion that they will fight for your rights. No one out there cares for you. To force them to do so, you'll have to thrash them politically as well as physically . Those who claim to be your benefactors are in fact trying to demean your status to further dominate you and control your behaviour. After all, once this ludicrous issue ends, what would inspire you to vote for them?

Please wake up.....this isn't about Maharashtra..it's about Mumbai...! Why not pressurise the state governments to decentralize the economy so that migration is curbed. That ways Mumabi would no longer need MNS and Shiv Sena . Their existence is purely dependent upon Mumbai's unique status of being the financial capital. If this is the attitude then Delhi, the country's political capital should be claimed in equal shares by the Punjabis and The Haryanvis!
Like South Africa we should now have more than one capital . That ways petty provincial politics shall recede to the background and it would also pave way for the eventual overhauling of our useless economic system..by transforming it into a decentralised economy where each region has cities as employment friendly as Mumbai.