Look at what happened when Arun Bhatia became commissioner of Pune – 48 hours and he was kicked out. He removed illegal slums and illegal mansions. If you want local development we must promote adherence to the Law of the Land. If the MNS wants to allow illegal constructions based on what language the occupants speak, then they are not doing anything good for anyone.

So far as I know, none of the violent people took strict action against encroachments of marathi-speaking people. How many MNS members themselves are stealing power, cheating on taxes, have broken traffic signals, etc.? How are such people living in my beloved state going to bring anything but bad news for me?

What happens in their state is their business. But generally speaking, more immigrants should mean more prosperity if the law is followed, because it means that many more mouths to feed, that much more power generation, that much more water consumption, that many more exponentially-increased support services, that many more jobs. This is, of course, if the law is followed and implemented. When an Indian goes and studies in the US or Britain or anywhere else, the law ensures the local State benefits from them. Maharashtra has that law too.

Today, a Mumbaikar wants to live in an expensive flat and take a Rs. 10 auto. He wants the best of both worlds – something nowhere else found in the world. Those living in Manhattan don’t get the same priced services as those living in Oklahoma – something that Mumbai-residents want. Where will that auto-wala stay? In a neighbouring flat? Seriously? They stay in a slum out of necessity.

There is an inherent interest in not removing slums of every single party – that slum population gone would certainly make Mumbai a much better city by my personal standards, but I doubt many people living in Mumbai would agree. Again, I only demand remove all illegal constructions. That is what is best for Maharashtra and Mumbai. It would mean Mumbai would only be occupied by those willing to pay the price.

This is something you will notice in every other developed city including Hyderabad and Banglore. Certain areas of the city are unlivable unless you have the means to survive there. Far from opposing it, I love it. It means that even if someone inherits a house in Banjara Hills in Hyderabad, doesn’t mean they can sustain there unless they can make enough money themselves. How many people in Pune are stagnant because of inherited expensive houses in the heart of the city, but still want everything else cheap? How is it economically possible unless the cheap service provider lives in an equally cheap residence – namely slums?

That’s the dirty secret no politician wants you to know. If we enforce payment for power in all slums, you know they will enforce paid power for everyone in the city too. I know many people personally who have hijacked meters. They will lose too.

If Raj Thakery had labelled “illegal residents”, “non-tax paying residents”, “illegal constructions”, etc. etc. I would be the first person out there with red-hot pitch forks on their asses. Simply saying “Biharis” alieanates even those good biharis who might be paying billions in taxes to Maharashtra today. That’s no good for anyone.

This is my request to all those out there, I don’t wish to preach and I don’t wish to pass judgment, but I do want each and everyone of you to make sure that the day they come for you, you will have someone left to speak.

The problem is not the person who pays taxes and is a known/recorded part of the infrastructure.

The problem is someone who “just shows up” in the city and starts consuming resources, not being accounted for anywhere and ends up driving prices up. Also, not paying back (taxes) to the place where he/she is consuming resources from.

This is true for any city/state/country and not only for Maharashtra.

Solution … create opportunities everywhere and there will be “migration” to all parts pf the country and no one will be really bothered by it.

Y’know … “If one is not part of the solution …”

As a matter of fact, this has always been a VERY large part of my criticism of what’s really going wrong in the state. If you look at Hyderabad or Banglore or Delhi, people probably make shitloads of more money than any other city in India, but the local economy is structured in such a way that the money is also spent there.

This means more rickshaw-walas, more power generation, more water supplies, more shops, more malls, more stores, more of everything. Tons of jobs, tons of money, all rotating within Hyderabad.

Heck this is exactly what Mumbai really needs. You wanna live there? Look at Mumbai’s traffic, look at Mumbai’s roads. Wanna look at UP’s roads? Go to UP and look at them.

I notice this problem every single time I visit Pune in fact. People are so used to a sub-standard life. People will compromise on broken broadband connections, people will go by horribly-managed public transport, but nobody will stand up and say, “Hey, I’m paying you for this service, not give me some goddamn service.”

There I totally agree that we dropped the ball as localites. If you look at Hyderabad, many of the peasants and adivasis became billionaires when they built hostels and guest houses and bunglows, etc. on land they owned historically. The Government gave them loans to build so that their profits would not leave the state. Same applies to Banglore, Chennai, etc. More than the Government though, even the local people will do everything it takes to prevent money from leaving their ecosystem. Instead, our people sold the land to outsiders for a quick buck and are now regretting it.

A simple case in point from last week. A bottle of Gordons that costs $20 in Europe, costs Rs. 1,500 in Pune, and Rs. 7,500 in Hyderabad. Instead of placing unenforcable bans on alchohol then spending more taxpayer rupees on enforcing it, and even more money on the damages done by drunken driving, they simply say, “If you’re pretentious enough to donate 6K rupees to the state, you can have your liquor.”

You know what? It works. I pay the price for being pretentious in my social circle, and Hyderabad just sucked out 6K rupees of this “MNC” money into their local ecosystem.

We are supposed to be the city where people come from all over India to study, and it is our own people who give illegal admissions by taking donations. We do not have the spirit of cross-subsidizing which I guess you see in the US every single day. Your own university perhaps gives admissions with exhorbitant fees to those who can afford it and in the process 10 poor students get high-quality education for free, plus their ecosystem gets money and manpower.

And yes, I am speaking out against people who are not looking after the interests of Maharashtra, which is why I’m questioning the very people who live there – regardless of where they came from.

1. Indians from all places come to Maharashtra.
2. They decide to settle down in Maharashtra.
3. They don’t think of themselves as Maharashtrians. They will label themselves as Bihari or UP or Punjab or , but never god forbid a Maharashtrian (maximum a Mumbaikar).
4. Due to mass migration, the demographics of state have changed. Now more assembly seats are from Mumbai region as compared to other regions.

Notice that I am not saying anything about “better” or “worse”, or people being “bad” They are just Indians, just people. Do you agree that this is the ground reality ? Are you suggesting that I should not really care about this happening?

Right now, MNS is taking an extreme view on this situation. You are criticizing MNS and its actions. At the same time, speak out against people who are not looking after the interest of Maharashtra. There is no problem with Pro-Maharashtra politics if it means that people of Maharashtra looking after the interest of Maharashtra. At the same time, Pro-Maharashtra politics need not mean Raj Thackeray/MNS politics.

The North Indians didn’t come to Mumbai saying, “Hey look we’re here to break your laws.” They came as our friends. They came to “help us”. They came when “our politicians” weren’t looking after our interests, so they said, “Give me a chance, and I’ll fix it.” When they gained power, they did whatever the hell they wanted.

Raj Thakery’s methods don’t inspire any more confidence than them today. He’ll post anything he wants on the website, but when he wants if he will break the law, then he violates the one last protection that remains for me against goons, and he takes that away. I wouldn’t want to test what he would be like in power, when he holds the power of prosecution.

Now another equally series angle applies rhetorically which I was trying to make is, if Raj Thakery is breaking the law and the current government is unable to prosecute him, it says a lot about their incompetence too.

Arun Bhatia inspires confidence in me mainly because you should note his methods on his website – they went to the courts and started filing show-cause notices against every officer who wouldn’t proscecute forcing action in a day. It’s a more difficult method and takes maybe 500 people to move just one case of drunken driving, but it’s the only method that assures me protection if Arun Bhatia goes haywire against me some day. It’s an equally news-worthy method too.

When we try to label people as “better” or “worse” it’s not the flaws in Raj Thakery that I point out, but the flaws in all his believers. We all want to be “better”, and we all internally resort to such comparisons between us and other people. When we do something wrong, we’ll self-justify it as being “less worse” than the other guy. That’s what caused the problem in the first place. Today, Maharashtrians aren’t conserving any more water or power than the North Indians. It’s not like pure-marathi villages don’t have wire-taps onto the power grid, or have better law and order.

What I’m trying to say is, driving out a North Indian is not going to make our life any better unless we change. And every time someone breaks the law on behalf of Maharashtrians, he takes away part of my credibility to comment on the dangers of outsiders.

I am not saying that you are the enemy or anything. But I think you and me are in a better position to understand the situation. So we can also present the other side of the coin. And put up a balanced view instead of just hearing it from Raj Thackeray.

BTW, I am a man of my word. I’m not “better” or “worse” than anyone else, and I follow a mathematical principal I laid out.

I do criticise anyone who would use labelling as a mechanism to divide and conquer. This Abu Azmi character is as much an asshole as one can get. You know how you show you’re better than him? By NOT doing it.

Imitation is the higest form of flattery. You don’t teach a theif “a lesson” by stealing from him. What lesson do you teach him? That you admire his methods? That you endorse stealing?

It is exactly that I am a Maharashtrian and I love Maharashtrians that I am asking them to set a better example. I’m not the enemy here.

As I said, when they talk of dharma and stuff, I would actually demonstrate true Marathi culture. I would have dared anyone on earth to walk on Laxmi road on Ganesh Chaturthi and assured them that they will find it the safest road on earth. It’s a difficult ideal to live up to, but then that’s the price we must pay for grandeur. Let any other religious gathering in the world say the same before they criticize “my culture”. That’s the dream I look forward to some day…

EDIT: I just saw Devendra’s link and I appeal to all people who follow Islamic beliefs – you have sects and you have labels within yourself. Today you are “special” for this Azmi guy because there aren’t enough “sub-special” people for him. Make sure that when he uses his right to decide who falls into the “better musalman” and “worse musalman”, you have someone to speak.

Now we need to speak out by “doing a better job than they do.”, by “trading better than they do”, by “Being better Mumbaikar’s than they are.” (Meaning showing much better culture than they will ever be capable of demonstrating)

That’s the way to win.