Mumbai and Maharashtra have come to represent all that is ugly in Indian politics. The latest is a cabinet order mandating that all taxi drivers in Mumbai must know Marathi and, further, be domiciled in the city for at least 15 years. The news report says that the prime mover of this order is transport minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, and I wonder whether this dude has lived in Mumbai continuously for the last 15 years. I am willing to bet my bottom dollar that his principal secretary of transport, C S Sangitrao, IAS, who is to implement this stupid order, has not been posted in Mumbai for the last 15 years. Indeed, civil servants throughout India barely serve 3 years at any location. But taxi drivers must possess a 15-year domicile! Just shows how little “application of mind” goes into government decision-making. Duds!
When I grew up in Calcutta in the 60s, almost every taxi driver there was a Sardarji – and none complained. In Delhi, there is nothing called a “Dilliwallah” taxi driver – all are migrants. A Bengali taxi driver took me to the airport the other day. I recall having a Pakistani taxi driver in London (a real gentleman), an Afghani taxi driver in Geneva, and a Greek taxi driver in Frankfurt. There are many Sikh and Pakistani taxi drivers in New York, New York.
Mumbai, of course, must be different. Then, why stop at taxis? Why not mandate that all restaurant waiters should be Marathi-speaking? Or, in a reductio ad absurdum, mandate that all Indians must live and work in their place of birth?
This business about speaking the Marathi language is also quite absurd. As ET has commented, in Shanghai they are teaching all taxi drivers to speak English. Mumbai’s politicians often dream of making their city the Shanghai of modern India. Yet, their stupid ideas and policies are totally regressive. And tyrannical, to boot. Mumbai has no chances of equaling Shanghai with such a narrow parochialism. Rather, Mumbai is fast becoming a model of the kind of city none will emulate, anywhere in the civilized world.
Of course, the ugly politics of Maharashtra is to blame. Perhaps Sharad Pawar the “sugar baron” supremo of the NCP, now food & agriculture minister in New Delhi, widely seen as a crook profiting from market manipulations at the expense of the ordinary, poor Indian (read my earlier post on him here) is trying to play the famous “Marathi card.” Ordinary Marathi people in Mumbai should see through his gimmick – especially if they do not seek careers as taxi drivers. Their future lies in a vibrant city. Such a city must be a “catallaxy” – open to friendly strangers – and not a closed tribe. For such a catallactic order, India must practice free immigration with herself.
Today, in Maharashtra, the NCP rules in alliance with the CONgress. This episode also shows the intellectual vacuity of India’s Grand Old Party. It also shows Chacha Manmohan S Gandhi to be a totally ineffectual leader. With such politicians, I am reminded of a GK Chesterton quote recently contributed by Lew Rockwell on his blog: “It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.”
These politicians are playing havoc with the lives of poor people who have come to Mumbai to work hard and scrape a living. They do not deserve any votes. Rather, they deserve the noose.
That Bombay was a truly inclusive and cosmopolitan city proved to be a myth some years ago. A friend of mine, who was flying abroad, had to travel in a taxi between the domestic and international terminals of the Bombay airport. He was waylaid and robbed of his money and laptop by the taxi driver he had hired. My Tamilian friend, pushed down from the taxi, tried to note down the registration number of the taxi. Lo and behold! The license plate was written in Marathi, both the numbers and alphabets!!
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