The NewSense

January 23, 2010

Mumbai: Are you unemployed? Can you speak, read and write Marathi? Are you resident of Maharashtra since last 15 years? ……If your answer is yes for all the three questions then don’t worry you have got a job. You can be taxi driver in Mumbai as per the new law proposed by congress government and endorsed by opposition party leader Raj Thackeray. You can learn driving the taxi later on but first get permit because you are Marathi manoos. Don’t worry about the other better jobs, they are for outsiders. There are lots of people from Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka who will take those jobs.             After all Mumbai is for all but taxi driver job is only for Marathi people. It is reserved for Marathi manoos. All local jobs should go to Marathi people and let the global and corporate jobs be given to outsiders. This is what MNS wants and that is what congress is proposing. Local employment for local people is demand of these “sons of the Marathi soil”. The government may come out with even more such policies in future making so many things mandatory for Marathi people and it wants to do it before Raj Thackeray starts acting on it. After all it is vote bank policy. And everybody wants votes of Marathi manoos.

The decision by state government is very unfortunate and it in fact condemns the Marathi pride by making taxi driver job mandatory for them. The people who come to Mumbai from other states hardly wants to be taxi drivers. They have higher aim and goals to achieve in life and they come to Mumbai with dream in their eyes and they work hard to realize it. If at all government is serious about the welfare of the local Marathi people then it would have made all state government jobs for only Marathi people. Even it would have asked all the private sectors to recruit only Marathi people in their company and even it would have asked central government offices situated in Maharashtra to have Marathi people only. But they don’t want to do so. They know it is not practical and not correct either.

Just to seek Marathi votes for coming civic elections congress has deliberately taken this move and this has in fact hurt the Marathi pride. If this kind of Marathi manoos issue keeps surfacing again and again in Mumbai then it is going to be hurdle for the total growth of the Mumbai and any attack on non-Marathi in Mumbai proves that we are no different than Australians who are doing racial attacks on Indians. Politicians should keep such issues away from politics and see that Mumbai belongs to every Indian. Let Marathi ride on wheels if it feels pride for being taxi driver, but passengers belongs to whole India.