To non-Maharashtrians, this may appear to be strange. But the fact is that the average Marathi person is far less ethnically chauvinistic than he is made out to be by the Shiv Sena and the English media. With malice towards none, one can say that Maharashtra does not have the ethnic-cultural-linguistic pride which is so dominant in Bengali, Tamil, Telugu or Punjabi societies.

In communist West Bengal, from Vivekanand to Jyoti Basu and from Rabindranath Tagore to Sourav Ganguly, each stalwart generates proud ethnic waves. In the south, MGR in Tamil Nadu and NTR in Andhra Pradesh captured people’s imagination. There is nothing comparable to this regional pride in Maharashtra. It is necessary to underline here that Balasaheb Thackeray does not create waves across Maharashtra. The Shiv Sena has never received and will never receive more than 30 per cent of the vote, and that too in alliance with the BJP. Most people do not recognise that despite its many progressive movements led by Mahatma Phule, Shahu Maharaj and Babasaheb Ambedkar, Maharashtra is deeply caste-ridden and often very reactionary. For instance, Maharashtra has never considered a woman as chief minister. Once in the early eighties, when Pratibha Patil’s name appeared in the media as a possible candidate for the post, it was quickly dismissed and never mentioned again. Can a state that would not countenance her as chief minister really be proud of her for becoming the rashtrapati? Indeed, the male-chauvinist and patriarchal political class will now use her presidential achievement to deny the chief minister’s post to any woman!

... contd.