BOMBAY, 26 December 2005 — Reacting to the threat of the radical Shiv Sena to throw out those who do not speak the regional language Marathi, Hindi-speaking immigrants to the province from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana have formed a political party to confront the movement head-on.
The new outfit, Par Pranatiya Sena, has completed the formalities of registering as an official political party, said the group’s 25-year-old founder Rajiv Mishra, who expected final confirmation in two days.
Mishra said the migrants had been targets of Shiv Sena, which operates an agenda of expelling migrants from Bombay who do not follow the tenets of the organization, which includes speaking the local language.
Tensions have been brewing since Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray launched an anti-migrant campaign called “I’m a Bombayite” that targets non-Marathi speakers.
Mishra recalled the incident last year when Shiv Sena militants assaulted migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar at the Kalyan train station near Bombay.
Speaking about the membership of Par Pranatiya Sena party workers, Mishra said that so far nearly 15,000 migrants have enrolled as members, and he said he was confident that membership of his party would steadily increase to a million in Bombay alone. Mishra said his organization is considering fielding candidates to run in future local elections.
Ashok Dubey, a migrant from Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, welcomed the new political outfit and said that the strength of the seven million migrants in Bombay was quite capable of countering Shiv Sena tactics.
“Bombay is not the fiefdom of Shiv Sena… and the constitution of the country grants absolute freedom to the citizens of the country to reside and work where they please, and practice any religion they wish. Why are these Sena workers trying to sow seeds of hatred among the citizens and trying to divide them?” he asked.
Any action against the migrants by Shiv Sena would be confronted in the future, said Ramesh Sharma, a carpenter from Gorakhpur. The Sena is not only against migrants from the Hindi belt, but they had used pressure tactics against migrants from the southern states too, he said.
In the early 70s, the Sena launched a tirade against the migrants from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Now they have trained their guns on north Indians.
“Tolerance has a limit. One cannot sit back and let the Sena workers assault and kill them,” Sharma said.
Shiv Sena appears to be politically cornered. Infighting between the son and the nephews of the Sena leader appears to indicate internal rifts, and the organization may suffer the same fate as its sickly founder, Bal Thackeray, who no longer appears to be able to keep his flock together.
