Maharashtra is one of the major states in western India. Current ruling party in Maharashtra decided that new taxi (cab) licenses shall be given to only those who are well versed in Marathi and have resided in the state for at least 15 years.
I feel this is direct violation of one’s constitutional right to equality which is one of the 6 corners stones of our Indian constitution.
My interpretations of “right to equality” is that any Indian has right to pursue their career and ear their living in any part of India without being discriminated by caste, religion, language or place of birth. Government should be in the business of creating jobs and not in the business of preventing people from pursuing their jobs. In-order for the booming economy of India to grow, each and every Indian should be allowed to do the job of his/her choice and have equal opportunity to make money and earn a living.
I also don’t understand the rationale behind this decision? As per Wikipedia, the linguistic/ethnic demographics in Mumbai consists of: Maharashtrians (42%), Gujaratis (19%), North Indians (24%) and South Indians make up the rest.
Even if all cab drivers in Mumbai learn to speak Marathi, what will be the benefit? They will still be serving 58% of population that doesn’t speak Marathi. And out of the rest of 42% (Maharashtrians), people actually riding cabs would be insignificant. So would the next step be to make mandatory for people riding cabs to speak Marathi as well?
Where will all this end? Major population from North India has migrated to Mumbai to work for security agencies. Should we make it mandatory for them to speak Marathi as well? I am not sure how this would reciprocate to other parts of country. It is possible that other states may start passing laws that will promote jobs to local people residing in that state. So our country will be reduced Gujarati’s in Gujarat, Maharashtrians in Maharashta, Tamil’s in Tamil Naidu and so on. I feel as a country we should be promoting cross country migration to spread harmony and unity between various religions and ethnic groups.
What if IT industry in Hyderabad and Bangalore starts to give jobs only to those living in state for 15 years or to those who know the regional language of the state? Will this be acceptable? What impact will it have on Indian dominance in global IT industry and quality of software Engineers in our country? I agree that I might have gone a bit farther and compared apples to oranges here. Perhaps, skills required for high tech industry cannot be compared to those of a cab driver. But, where would you draw the line? Now is the time to say “Enough is enough” and we cannot tolerate this kind of political decisions by the government to please popular vote banks and certain sections of the society.
This kind of politics will create a rift between Marathi speaking and non-Marathi speaking population. Isn’t the rift between Hindu-Muslim enough? If this continues we will soon have tensions between Marathi and Non-Marathi communities.
The famous spirit of Mumbai is built by people of all religions, cultural and ethnic background living in perfect harmony. The Spirit has never dampened in face of worst calamities, may it be bomb blasts of 1993 or terror attacks of 2008.The “Bindaas” attitude and spirit of “Mumbaikars” has kept Mumbai going for long in worst situations.And I feel People from various ethnicities have played important role in harnessing Mumbaikar’s spirit. Therefore, if we remove one section of this society,this spirit will break.
Chief Minister of Maharashtra State, Mr. Ashok Chavan, told reporters on January 20, 2010 that taxi driver permits would be issued only to those who can read and write Marathi, the language of Maharashtra area for over a thousand years. There are over 200000 taxi drivers in the city of Mumbai (Bombay) and many of them are from Hindi states who have come to Maharashtra seeking jobs. Most of them cannot read or write Marathi. General Secretary of Mumbai Taxi Drivers Association strongly opposed the new requirement and said, “These are laborers. They cannot go to school and learn Marathi.” We have to wonder. These taxi drivers must have passed drivers’ test. If they can learn the rules of the road, why can’t they learn the language of the state? How can a Maharashtrian visiting their state’s crown jewel Mumbai (Bombay) converse with taxi drivers to go from railway station to a hotel or from bus station to a hotel? Hindians want people all over India, including the non-Hindi state of Maharashtra, to learn Hindi and communicate with them in their language while they refuse to learn the language of the soil – Marathi. This arrogance, this imperial attitude, pervades not only among Mumbai Hindians but also among most Hindians who migrate to work in other non-Hindi states . Can a Marathi go to the Hindi city Lucknow and expect to drive taxicabs there without knowing Hindi? No, absolutely not. Shirish Parkar of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) correctly pointed out, “People from other states come to Maharashtra because of their need, not ours. It should be made imperative for them to learn Marathi.”