Divide And Rule!

Genre: Current Affairs

All views expressed herein are entirely mine and it is not necessary that you may agree to the same. Healthy discussion through Comments is welcome, however personal attacks will not be tolerated and such comments shall be summarily deleted. If you are not comfortable with what is written here, please use the Back button on your browser.

This is a three-part inter-related post.

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MAHARASHTRA V/S OUTSIDERS

Some steps that need to be immediately taken to protect Maharashtra from North Indians and other Outsiders-

* Ban all Hindi movies from cinema halls across Maharashtra since most of the actors such as Amitabh Bachchan and actresses like Preity Zinta and Priyanka Chopra working in those films are North Indians.

* Ban the sale of all Maruti cars in Maharashtra since they are manufactured in Gurgaon in North India by Outsiders.

* Cancel all long distance trains from Maharashtra, including Rajdhani Express since it plies to Delhi which is in North India. All trains starting from stations in Maharashtra must necessarily terminate within Maharashtra so that no Outsiders can enter Maharashtra.

* Cancel all flights from airports in Mumbai, Pune and Aurangabad whose destinations do not fall in Maharashtra. All international flights should be cancelled too.

* Let Mumbai reel under eight hours of power cuts daily. Stop Reliance Power to buy electricity from Meghalaya which is in North India.

* Demolish all temples of Lord Krishna in Maharashtra since he was from Vrindavan in North India.

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SOME QUESTIONS FOR MR. RT

If you justify your son studying in Bombay Scottish and choosing French over Marathi saying "it is a matter of his personal choice", why are the shopkeepers across Mumbai forced to write their signboards in Marathi? What about their personal choice?

If you are so much against outsiders, why do you use a foreign made Ford Endaveour? Why can't you use a Made In Maharashtra car?

If you call Rahul Raj who threatened to kill you a "Bihari mafia", what are your own men who go around ransacking shops and beating up students? Are they not "Marathi-mafia"?

If you claim to be a Marathi manoos, why did you make such a big fuss requesting for an English loo while in jail?

If you force everyone to learn Marathi and use Marathi, why do you call your pet dog "Bond"? Didn't you get a Marathi name for him?

Hypocrite!

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SOLD

The recent spate of violence across Maharashtra and the police inaction has raised some serious question marks over the integrity of Mumbai Police.

When MNS goons beat up North Indian students who had come to Mumbai to appear for the Railway Recruitment Board exams, the policemen present there just wielded their lathis in the air and stood by as mute spectators. Okay, one may think this was a one-off incident but what was shocking was Mumbai's Police Commissoner issuing a statement the next day that "there was no violence in the city and the exams went off well". Yeah right!

A few days later, a young Bihari youth named Rahul Raj who entered a BEST bus and threatened to kill Raj Thackerey (who was not even onboard the bus), he was shot dead by the police. Home Minister R R Patil justified this police action stating that it was a "bullet for bullet" approach. If that is the case, why is the same approach not used when dealing with the terrorists who bomb Mumbai at will at regular intervals? If Rahul Raj who only threatened to kill Raj Thackerey and shot one passenger in the thigh is shot dead, why aren't the terrorists who kill dozens of innocent citizens tied together with a bomb and blown up in public? Why no "bomb for bomb" approach there? Just because terrorists kill the Stupid Common Man while Rahul Raj threatened to kill their beloved Raj Thackerey?

As if this was not enough, a couple of days later, a group of dozen MNS men beat up a group of North Indian laboureres in a local train, leaving one of them dead. Next day, statement from Mumbai Police read "This was not a hate crime. They just fought over window seat and one of them was killed." You want us to believe that? Every single day in Mumbai, almost 2300 local trains run with close to 20,000 coaches and 500,000 window seats yet never do we see passengers killing each other over it.

The very next day, a group of MNS men entered the house of a reporter with Navbharat Times in Malad(whom my mom knows personally), flung the girls in the house on the floor and beat up the other family members. Mumbai Police's version next morning- "This was not a hate crime. The reasons for the attack are unknown". Great!

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finally lambasted Maharashtra Chief Minister and Mumbai Police for giving too much free hand to Raj Thackerey, Mumbai Police promptly replied that 63 cases have been registered against him. Well, if that is the case, why is the guy sitting nicely in his Shivaji Park duplex? Shouldn't he be in jail? Not only this, the High Court banned Raj from making public statements for two months but within a week, Mumbai police allowed him to speak to the media stating that it was "undemocratic" to stop someone from expressing his views! How shweet!

I have lived in Mumbai for the past 21 years and have seen Mumbai Police accepting bribes, raping young girls while on duty, faking encounters for personal gains and all the time forgiven them thinking that it must be one-off incidents. But this time around, it has been far too much. My trust in Mumbai Police has been shattered. As one fellow commuter in a local train quipped the other day- "Jab akhkha police force hi bik chuka ho, saala aadmi bharosa kispe karega?"