An Excuse For Marathi Bashing

 

An Excuse For Marathi Bashing

Shrikant G. Talageri 

 

What I am writing in this article will lead to plenty of criticism from cliché-ridden and hypocritical people. I may be accused of chauvinism, insensitivity, and many other things. But I have never allowed the fear of what people will say to gag me and prevent me from speaking the truth if I feel any matter warrants my comments.

The incident is the following:

https://x.com/ndtv/status/1991550392472334636 

The video is self-explanatory: a Marathi boy, in a local crowded train in Mumbai, asked someone to move forward. He asked this in Hindi and not in Marathi. Upon this, four or five (Marathi speaking) others in the train (apparently the actual person asked to move forward seemed to be a Hindi speaking person, and was not further involved in the incident) slapped him and asked him to speak in Marathi, and even tauntingly asked him (when he protested that he himself was Marathi) whether he was ashamed to speak in Marathi. The boy (it is not explained to exactly what extent he was abused or physically manhandled or beaten up) was so traumatized that he got down at the next station, Thane (when he should have actually moved on and got down at the next station, Mulund), and, after he went home, he remained in a state of shock and depression. He narrated the incident to his father. Later, apparently, he committed suicide by hanging.

A horrible incident indeed! It is a fact that violent fights take place in crowded local trains in the peak hours on the most petty of pretexts. Those who have to travel long distance to and from work during peak hours constantly face such situations where individuals or groups of people (even seemingly respectable middle class ones) resort to bullying, abusing and even sometimes physically manhandling or attacking other passengers, and indulge in totally inexcusable “rail rage”. This is a very big matter for those who travel by local trains in Mumbai, and results in unimaginable psychological tensions, mental traumas, health problems, and, in rarer cases, aches and pains or physical injuries.

 

But in this particular story, apparently the people who attacked this boy were Marathi speaking people (but so was he) and they slapped him because he merely told some other person (apparently not even part of their group) in Hindi to move forward. It must be remembered that seven to eight million people travel by Mumbai local trains every day, and large numbers of them, I would say even the overwhelming majority of them (given the demography of Mumbai today) are non-Marathi speakers (Gujaratis, UP-Biharis, South Indians and speakers of every other Indian language there is). And countless incidents of quarrels and fights are constantly taking place every day in every train. How many of them until now have been because someone spoke in Hindi and not in Marathi? I at least have never heard of a single one. And yet, the whole incident is being discussed from the point of view, not of rising “rail rage”, violence or crime in local trains, or of the urgent need to take strong and effective action against people who indulge in hooliganism in local trains (or indeed anywhere), or of other factors leading to greater and more rage-filled crowds in Mumbai locals, such as the introduction of a large number of frequent AC locals which cause ever increasing and frantic crowds of common people – i.e. non-users of AC trains − on platforms. The whole focus is on what the above news video calls “Killer Language Chauvinism in Maharashtra”.

Naturally this has been immediately grabbed by anti-Marathi people to attack the very idea that people staying in Mumbai should at least learn to speak Marathi.

I am a speaker of Konkani (though, to people in my community, Marathi and Kannada are also practically second-languages). To me, English (the language in which I studied and in which I always read and write) and Hindi (the songs of which are the passion and solace of my life) are also my life-breath, and to me personally, as anyone who reads my books and articles should be aware, every Indian language (whether Sanskrit, Tamil, Santali, Burushaski, Meitei or Andamanese, or any other) is my language, to be loved and fought for. Also, I have written books and articles proving that Konkani is a totally distinct language from Marathi, and not its dialect, and both have distinct origins within the “Indo-Aryan” family. So I don’t care if people choose to attribute chauvinistic motives to what I am writing in this article. In a previous article, “Al Jazeera, Stop Using Children as Weapons!”, I showed how children are used as propaganda weapons especially against Hindus and Jews. In this article, I want to show how any and every incident is used as a propaganda weapon against Marathi being given its rightful place in Mumbai.

I will not bother to read the kind of anti-Marathi comments that are being made in the social media and elsewhere. But anyone can read them for himself/herself.

 

In my article “Is or Was Konkani a dialect of Marathi”, I wrote:

“Speaking particularly of my own position vis-à-vis Marathi, I have always been (like all Konkani speakers) a lover of Marathi and have resented the indifferent and lackadaisical attitude of Marathi speakers and politicians (however much they may claim otherwise, and however much politics they may do in the name of Marathi) towards their rich language and culture:

1. Mumbai is probably the only place in India or the world where large numbers of people from other areas (and speaking other languages) can be born, brought up, and live their entire lives, without bothering to be able to speak the local language (Marathi) intelligibly.

2. While regional cultural bigwigs and politicians in many parts of India (after the start of cable TV in the early nineties) were busy starting or backing regional language channels in their states (DMK's Sun TV in 1993, Jaya TV in 1999), it was Maharashtra alone (though under a BJP-SS "Marathi manoos" government from 1995-1999) which never bothered to start a private Marathi language channel: the first two were started by non-Marathi sources: Alpha (now Zee) TV by the Goenkas in 1999 and ETV Marathi (now Colors Marathi) by the Eenadu Telugu group from Andhra in 2000.

3. In regional TV channels, Marathi channels even today are the only ones where musical competitions (like Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, etc.) prominently feature Hindi songs equally or more frequently than the regional language (Marathi) ones.

4. While speakers of other major regional languages were busy uploading their old regional musical heritage of songs on youtube from the earliest days, Marathi music with its very rich heritage of songs was neglected by its speakers. So few songs were being uploaded (there were only one or two dedicated people doing this) that I myself started searching out and uploading old Marathi songs on youtube in 2011. [Today, there is an improvement in the situation, and there are many people doing this].

5. Which other language, than Marathi, has speakers who would not bother to correct (before it was too late, or even after it was too late) one of its greatest historical heroes having his name wrongly presented in the title of a film made in his name (Tanaji Malusare as "Tanhaji"), whatever the other undoubted merits of that film?”

See the underlined paragraph above (point 1). I defy anyone to conduct a survey of different parts of India or even of the world, other than Mumbai and its surrounding urban cluster, and show another place where massive numbers of people, who have lived there for a major part (or even the whole) of their lifetime, can coolly and proudly claim to not be able to speak the local language when that local language is a major and important language like Marathi.   

 

I will not speculate on whether what happened could have been on a scale such as to make someone commit suicide, and anyway I don’t know all the details of the incident, and only a person who actually personally faces any such situation can be in a position to fully be able to understand the horribleness and traumatic nature of it. But basically it is not an issue of language but of the horribleness of travelling in Mumbai local trains during peak hours. It is not a question of language politics but of criminal attacks and traumatic situations that common people face in the public space or arena. It should not be misused as a weapon to politically victimize the Marathi language.