Don't know Marathi, can't drive autos: Here's how Shiv Sena plans to gain from the move in Maharashtra

If Diwakar Raote, Maharashtra’s transport minister wants to issue autorickshaw licences only to Marathi speaking autorickshaw drivers, he would have a major legal issue on hand. But then, that would be the government’s headache, not his. As a Shiv Sena minister in the government, he will come up with ideas for his department, though so far nothing has been done on two major fronts.

One is the constant threats issued by politicians to thwart Mumbai’s movement by attacking taxis. This has been a habit of Nitish Rane’s union.

Two, the inability to settle the issue of taxi aggregation by Uber, TaxiForSure, and Ola, etc. The government talks about it, does nothing.

The current scheme under which licences will be doled out only to Marathi-speaking drivers will mean the targeting of 70,000 families who could immediately turn into Shiv Sena voters, if they are currently supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party. If they are handed out to Shiv Sena supporters, the message goes out: be with us and benefit. It is consolidating a base using, for the first time, an economic carrot.

This method of getting supporters isn’t anything new. Earlier, it had put all Sikhs on the edge by calling them terrorists during the Khalistan days. The community publicly denounced the party and it took much courage to do so in those days. Thereafter, a restaurateur who led the press conference, Kulwant Singh Kohli became the sheriff of Mumbai during the Sena’s rule.

Recently, party leaders urged the Jain community “not to be fanatics like Muslims”, told them “Muslims have a Pakistan to go to, but what about you?”, and reminded them that the “Sena protected you during the 1993 riots”. Then suddenly, Uddhav Thackeray ended the whole controversy after a meeting with the Jain community, who went to the leader’s home and genuflected. Both communities are BJP supporters and the Sena wants them in.

With the autorickshaw issue, the Shiv Sena is likely to have the clause that a potential licensee has to have been a resident of the state for at least the previous 15 years. They will also have to be able to speak in, even if only broken, Marathi. But this is not likely even if an aspirant for a licence is domiciled – and thus local.

Look around you and count the non-Marathis who speak the language. With a declining Marathi population, though it is the largest of the several linguistic groups inhabiting Mumbai, it is not the majority. There has been a constant unidirectional shift away from Marathi. Even old migrants have all the markers – ration cards, voter’s ID, Aadhaar – but they do not speak Marathi. Or never thought they would be required to and enhance the cosmopolitan character of the city.

This is primarily the Sena’s worry since it finds Hindi-speaking persons ferrying people around in the autorickshaws even in Maharashtra’s most ‘Marathi city’ Pune. So much so, the labourers in smaller cities which we never thought were likely destinations, like Latur, are people from Jharkhand. Despite the people of the region being familiar with Hindi-Urdu because of it being a part of the Hyderabad State, locals find it hard to converse with them.

This refusal to speak the Marathi gets the goat of the nativists who have great pride in their identity, which hinges on language. The Shiv Sena, which started its journey with the plank of sons of the soil and language – together, it is asmita – has not given up on them.

It later flirted with people from the Hindi heartland who made Mumbai their home, but it is not the party’s main plank. This, despite the continuing migration, into the surrounding the metropolitan region which hosts several burgeoning cities. There are chances that there are more Hindi-speaking autorickshaw drivers than Marathi persons in a city like Thane. The owners rent it out but the image you are left with is that an outsider is ferrying you, and is being insolent by refusing fares.

The new licences are for autorickshaws, not drivers. The owners can be Maharashtrian, but they can turn it into a business. Few rickshaws are owner-driven because the vehicles can be hired out in shifts. As a result, for most of the day, it is in the hands of the person renting it. Many of the three-wheelers are also illegal, some are run by politicians and sometimes officials who take bribes invest in rickshaws. Thus, the Sena has found yet another means of disbursing patronage.