The Shiv Sena-sangh parivar spat about who has the fitting to dwell and work in Mumbai with the Sena claiming that town be reserved solely for Marathi manoos and the RSS and the BJP counter-claiming that the metropolis must be dwelling to any Indian who chooses to make it dwelling has taken a curious flip.

 

The BJP has likened the Sena’s stance to Article 370, which disallows non-Kashmiri Indians from shopping for immovable property in Kashmir, which is anathema to each events. Aside from the Sainiks, the comparability may also put plenty of liberals in a bind. If Mumbai must be open to all and all liberals will emphatically endorse that view, even on the discomfiture of for as soon as having to facet with the despised parivar why shouldn’t Kashmir have the same open-door coverage for all Indians?

 

The outdated argument that Article 370 of the Structure was particularly put in to recognise and protect Kashmir’s ‘particular’ standing has worn skinny over time. As a substitute of enabling that beleaguered state to turn into a part of the so-called nationwide mainstream, the ‘particular’ standing that it supposedly enjoys below Article 370 has, if something, solely served to entrench separatism within the Valley. The ‘safety’ that Article 370 affords Kashmiris has been made right into a merciless mockery by the plight of hundreds of Kashmiri Pandits who out of worry of extremist menace have been pushed into exile in different elements of the nation, and whose destiny has largely been neglected by successive central governments.

 

The sangh parivar has lengthy opposed Article 370. Now, by juxtaposing Mumbai with 370 and, in impact, with Kashmir the saffronites have added appreciable power to their argument. What's going to or what can the liberal and secular response be?

 

To say that the 2 circumstances of Mumbai and of Kashmir are very totally different is barely to state the apparent. In fact they're very totally different; traditionally, politically, demographically, you title it. However equally with out query they're each integrally part of India. So, 60 years after the founding of the republic, shouldn’t the premise of their ‘Indianness’ be the identical, by way of rights of residence and the acquisition of property?

 

The parivar’s recreation plan which the secular-liberals have to this point thwarted has been to ‘saffronise’ the Valley by mass Hindu migration and so resolve the so-called ‘Kashmir downside’ as soon as and for all. The liberal quandary now could be the right way to proceed to make a particular case for Kashmir whereas siding, nonetheless uncomfortably, with the parivar’s assertion that every one of India must be equally hospitable to all Indians.

 

All of the events involved the Shiv Sena, the sangh parivar, the Congress and different self-styled ‘secularists’ are enjoying vote-bank politics with an eye fixed to their respective constituencies. Like all the pieces else from disinvestment and different financial reforms to Indo-Pak relations all of it boils right down to vote-catching politics. Besides that on this case – the case of Mumbai-Kashmir, or Mumbai 370, in the event you prefer it’s not only a single or perhaps a set of insurance policies that's at stake however the very essence of the republic, of its pluralistic coronary heart and soul. With or with out financial reforms, India can – and certainly has for all these years survived. So has it survived ups and downs, conflict and peace, with its neighbours and with different powers. However can India survive as India if Indianness is made subservient to regionalism, be it within the title of Marathi manoos or the Kashmiri ethos?

 

If Kashmir is just for Kashmiris, then what’s flawed with the demand of the Thackerays, Bal and Raj, that Mumbai ought to solely be for Marathis? Equally, ought to Assam be just for the Assamese, Bengal for the Bengalis, and so forth, until nothing stays of India however a reputation and a tattered rag that when was the proud tricolour?

 

The Sena-parivar shouting match has opened a can of worms. All 370 of them.

 

END OF ARTICLE