However, the fact of the matter is that the language is already corrupted beyond redemption by the Marathi middle class, which sends its children to English medium schools, and by the private Marathi TV channels. Even SS and MNS activists send their children to English medium schools. The language they speak is atrocious, to put it mildly. Indeed, neither the Shiv Sena, in its 42 years of active socio-political life and five-year rule, nor its unrecognised heir, the MNS, ever came up with a concrete programme to promote Marathi language and culture.

There are no Marathi art galleries, no Marathi theatres or bookshop chains, no Marathi restaurants, no Marathi museums, no Marathi clubs. No Marathi private channel can claim exclusive Marathi ownership. Almost no Marathi marriage has a quintessentially Marathi menu (which is quite varied and delicious) and the lingua franca of the Marathi elite is English. The so-called Marathi pride is therefore a manifestation of self-generated cultural isolation in a rapidly globalising world. It also reflects the inferiority complex of the vast lower-middle class (urban and rural), which has not managed to be upwardly mobile. (Of course, why Shobhaa De should feel nervous is a mystery, given her cosmopolitan background.)

The process of liberalisation and globalisation has led to a new class divide between the Marathi people who can find a place in the new economy and those who are denied entry into it. That is where the false fascination for English comes from. Nobody denies the role of the English language for its global status or capacity to facilitate upward mobility. But it was not necessary to undermine Marathi in promoting English, which is what the Marathi middle class did. Today, there are two broad “classes” of the Marathi urban community, one proficient in English and the other “trapped” in the Marathi language milieu. In the emerging job market, the Marathi from the lower-middle class cannot compete, so he remains unemployed or gets relatively low-paying jobs. His frustration runs deep, he needs someone to blame. He cannot do the “lowly” jobs that the poor Hindi-speaking bhayya does, such as driving taxis, selling bhelpuri, ironing, waiting tables and so on. He cannot move upward nor can he do the lowly jobs. It is this fellow of the lumpen class that joined the ranks of the Shiv Sena, which later left him in the lurch. He saw a new hope in Raj Thackeray. It is people like him who throng to MNS meetings.

... contd.