India - Raj Thackeray;Arrested at last

Raj Thackeray, the estranged nephew of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, clearly revels in challenging the limits of the law. For quite some time, under his leadership, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has adopted a highly provocative and confrontational approach, unleashing a strategy designed to whip up Marathi regional chauvinist sentiment, thereby reviving a discredited political platform. On Sunday, its target was north Indians who had come to Mumbai to take a Railway Recr uitment Board (RRB) test for graduates seeking appointment as assistant station masters, guards, and reservation clerks. The MNS activists insisted that only Marathis be allowed to take the all-India test and shockingly proceeded to beat up north Indian candidates. The MNS needs no real reason to target those they see as “outsiders” in Maharashtra. The RRB candidates were apparently marked for attack because of a growing perception that an increasing number of Biharis were proving to be successful in such all-India tests. But over the last decade or so, candidates have begun to take tests across railway zones. Also forgotten in the skewed political debate is the fact that the interest in jobs across zones is a result of the new avenues for population migration, and the multiplication of job opportunities in the major centres. Yet logic or reason clearly does not count in the cold calculations of the MNS which has seized upon this issue as another example of its argument that Marathis are losing out in the job market in their own home State. The MNS is evidently looking for new fodder to feed the insecurities of sections of the Marathi community whom they hope to recruit to their parochial political vision.

As expected, the arrest of Mr. Thackeray has led to street protests and stone-pelting by the MNS activists in Mumbai. But the State government should not lose its nerve in the important task of insisting that Mr. Thackeray like any other citizen must obey the rule of the law and face the consequences of breaching it. For too long has the State government feared taking action against the MNS leader, anticipating this kind of backlash from the MNS cadres. Mr. Thackeray, who desperately needed to win public attention to further his political career after having quit the Shiv Sena, was thus emboldened to stretch the limits of the law. The State government must make it very plain that it will not tolerate any breach of law. Also, on no account should the opportunistic and parochial politics of the MNS and its leader, Mr. Thackeray be allowed to have any sway in a State where its capital Mumbai is a shining example of the triumph of the cosmopolitan spirit.