Rahul Gandhi, after coming to Maharashtra, stated that Mumbai belongs to all Indians and not only Maharashtrians, as does any part of India. This led to Bal Thackeray making vengeful comments against Rahul Gandhi.
Even Sachin Tendulkar, who said the very same thing, was attacked by Bal Thackeray. Shah Rukh Khan merely stated that he wished more Pakistani cricketers would join the IPL as he thought they play well. Bal Thackeray responded by talking down to all Pakistanis in general and by saying Pakistani players shouldn’t be taken because Pakistan is responsible for the 26/11attacks.
Why accuse an entire nation when only a few of the people were involved in the Mumbai attacks? In fact, he also seems to be biased against most Muslims. In 2008, he wrote, “Islamic terrorism is growing and Hindu terrorism is the only way to counter it. We need suicide bomber squads to protect India and Hindus.”
This sort of a comment will only provoke more and more people and create conflict. We do NOT want to wage war against Pakistan, but the more the fiery comments, the more the relations between the two countries will be strained.
In India, since there are so many castes, sub-castes, creeds, religions and interdependent communities living together, making inflammatory statements like these are going to disturb the peace and harmony in the nation.
It also seems like Thackeray has a problem with Biharis, even making remarks like ‘Ek Bihari, sau bimari’ (one Bihari, a hundred diseases) and stating that they are an unwanted lot in Maharashtra.
In some sort of way, Bal Thackeray has a problem with India as a whole and wants only pure Maharashtrians to be in Maharashtra. This sort of parochial thinking is extremely harmful for our nation and may lead to civil unrest and riots like it earlier did, leading to the destruction of the Babri Masjid by Shiv Sena and BJP members in 1992.
This one man with regionalist thoughts and agendas is capable of causing severe unrest amongst Indian communities. Therefore, it is necessary that one must think nationally before thinking of one’s state or religion and not be biased about any particular ethnicity. This way, people will not be bothered about whether Punjab has more Punjabis than Hindus, or whether Maharashtra has more Maharashtrians than North Indians, or anything like that.
The more the people are unaware of the dangers of regionalist thinking, the more it will affect the common people of India as a whole.
The author of this article is a 12-year-old schoolboy from Mumbai.
