Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam may or may not have intended his fighting words about migrants in Maharashtra,that if they decided not to come to work one day,north Indians could bring the city to a halt. But the Shiv Sena needed only that slender provocation,to rage and threaten,to vandalise posters and promise vengeance. Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray wilfully misunderstood his words as a slur on Maharashtrians and said: I dare Nirupam to shut down Mumbai and the Marathi people here. We will smash his teeth. Nirupam clarifies that he meant no offence,and was only stating facts about how migrant labour sustains Mumbai and keeps it thrumming. As with any great city,Mumbai draws in all kinds of outsiders,searching for opportunities denied at home. Besides those who contribute to its art,finance,sport,entertainment and other professions,these include many north Indian workers who prop up the citys informal economy,and provide a teeming variety of services drive cabs,mend shoes,deliver milk,run tea-stalls,construct buildings. cart loads occupations that locals often aspire to leave behind. And yet,their assimilation,whether temporary or more permanent,is always suspect,and the charged anti-immigrant political rhetoric often makes them marginal to the states politics. For the Shiv Sena and its variants,these disenfranchised migrants are the gift that keeps on giving. They continue to harass and intimidate them in the name of a misguided nativist politics,and it is to Maharashtras eternal shame that there has been no political force that dares to stand up to them. Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan wasted no time distancing himself and the Congress from Nirupams stand,as did its coalition partner,the NCP. The political calculus in the state has been defined by the Sena,and its mobilisation of the Marathi manoos. As this episode set off by Nirupam,a former Sena man himself,shows yet again.
