Rightists Never Represent Legitmate Grievances

Chetan Bhagat's op-ed, To Maharashtra With Love, reflects the attitude of passive approval without which parties like MNS cannot possibly thrive.

The argument that the MNS has, in a manner, come to represent legitimate grievances of a section of Maharashtrian population doesn't really hold much water. For one, Maharashtra does house a large number of poor but then one should not forget that India as a whole houses a third of the world's poor.


As a state Maharashtra is much better off than most other states of the Indian Union. Orissa,Jharkhand,Chattisgarh and North-Eastern states have a much larger ratio of poor as well as a history of central government's apathy. True,this is the reason why these regions are witnessing armed insurgency,especially the Naxalite movement which has substantial presence in the most backward regions of Maharashtra. The fact that people from North-India are migrating to Maharashtra only confirms that the latter is much better off in terms of economic opportunity and growth. Ironically, Mr. Bhagat cites statistics on poverty and farmer suicides in Maharashtra to explain the support base of the MNS but what he completely forgets is that most (but not all) of the victims hail from backward regions like Vidarbha which the ruling Cong-NCP has swept in the recent assembly polls.
What the MNS represents is what all of us have known all along! Regional chauvinism, parochialism.

May be Raj is a wee bit more aggressive than his uncle but the line of thought is identical. Rightist ideologies by definition are based on primary loyalty to supremacist thought and controversial personalities rather than grievances at the grass-root level. Historically,right wingers have been able to gain popularity by exploiting people's grievances in the form of emotive rhetoric,chauvinistic sloganeering and whipping up passion in general . Electoral success of these groups should not be seen as endorsement of the ideologies by the masses,rather they are response to an artificial environment of fear and victimization created by these groups. Let us not forget that even Adolf Hitler and Mussolini had massive support in the initial phase but within a relatively short periods they not only lost support but were also passed into annals of history as two of the greatest villains in history of humanity.

It is a fate that the Thackerays are bound to meet sooner or later.