Hindustan Times
The happiness of being cheerfully yourself!
This one is for Raj Thackeray….
For the past two weeks, I have been constantly on the road, gathering stories for our State of the State coverage prior to elections in Maharashtra due on October 13.
I have been to remote villages, walked six kms and back through jowar and tuar fields and hilly terrains to reach witch doctors, got threatened by moneylenders making the lives of farmers in Vidarbha miserable (I was told I could be arrested if I persisted in probing into their unsavoury deals) and got stuck in the mud in a paddy field with no prospects of getting out of my muddy clothes and into a fresh change for hours after that. I have survived.
But my most enduring memory from this year’s Maharashtra Yatra will forever be meeting up with a cheerful bevy of women in the Bhadole village of Kolhapur district where I had gone to nose into their ‘bottle down’ agitation – Maharashtra is the only state in the country which has given women in the villages the right to shut down their liquor stores/bars or dens if more than 50 per cent of them so wish it, never mind that that might cause the state exchequer millions in excise duties.
These women knew I was coming and they were all gathered at their local gram panchayat office. They helped me wade through the puddle last night’s rain had made and then pulled a chair for me before deciding to squat on the floor. “I will not talk to you if any of you sit at my feet. Get up and get yourselves a chair each,” I said.
They laughed delightedly and then made a circle of chairs round me, talking nineteen to the dozen, giving my head a real spin as I turned in all directions simultaneously to catch what each one of them was saying. I had never seen a brighter, more cheerful and contented lot of women willing to help their sisters in distress than these women from Bhadole village. The hour or more I spent with them was really great and gave me great insights into how life had really changed for the women in our villages, and not just because of the Bottle Down agitation. Where villages are not remote and within easy reach of communication facilities, including satellite television and mobile telephony, I discovered they are well aware, educated and happily living out the best of both worlds – they have something like chit fund committees or kitty parties every week but these are not really either chit funds or kitty parties. These women put together their savings from each week’s domestic expenses, even if it be as low as fifty rupees, and bring them to these gatherings and deposit it into an account started for them by the government which matches every rupee they pay into their accounts with one of its own. But these gatherings also become occasions to ask after each other’s welfare and if they discover that one of them is being troubled by a drunkard of a husband or by any one else in any manner, they get together to straighten out things for the other woman and no man dare interfere once they have set their sights on the goal!
But Bhadole also brought to me a moment of self-discovery . When I had started out as a journalist, despite having been entirely educated in Maharashtra, I stuck out like a sore thumb when I travelled to its villages. But two-and-a-half decades down the line, I know Maharashtra better than I do any other State in India, including the home States of my parents where I believe I will always be seen as an outcaste.
If Raj Thackeray’s sons-of-the-soil theory were to be implemented as policy in any State, I am sure there will be many like me who will suddenly belong to none. But the enlightened Bhadole women have today brought me a good deal of enlightenment of my own.
After two hours of chatting with them, when I decided to leave, one of the women who headed the Savings Committee of the village, asked if I would write a remark for their Visitors’ Book. “I can’t think that well in Marathi,” I said apologetically.
“Never mind,” she said cheerfully. “Write it in English and then translate that for us into Hindi so that most of the rest of us can understand. English is still beyond us.”
As I gladly agreed, I was surprised to note that they had put my name down in the Visitor’s Book as ‘Sujata Anandane’.
“Hey!” said I. “I am Anandan, not Anandane. By giving this twist to the spelling you have turned me into a Maharashtrian!”
It brought to mind the father of my Bengali friend who once told me, “If the Shiv Sainiks come for me, I will tell them I am not Bose but Bosay!”
But these women really did put a more cheerful interpretation on the sons of the soil theory. “Well, you are in Maharashtra and even if it was a little broken, you did speak to us in Marathi. We have no reason to presume that you are not a Maharashtrian, then. But English-educated , perhaps. And since we don’t have any Anandans in our state, we put you down as Anandane.”
I just laughed and accepted their acceptance of me with good grace. I signed their Visitors Book as Sujata Anandane – in English, Hindi and Marathi!
And Bose Uncle now need not be afraid of being a Bose any more!
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...Posted by Sujata Anandan on Friday, October 2, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Filed under India · Tagged Bhadole, elections, excise duties, Kolhapur district, Maharashtra, Maharashtra Yatra, Raj Thackeray, villages
(4.75 out of 5)
Amazing program this bottle down agitation sounds.. Each and every state should adopt it… Even chit fund sounds great..
BTW this langauge chauvinisim only idios indulge into anyone who is sane will know better..
I have my telugu freind we both talk in hidni . I keep pestering him to teach me telugu and every time he will end up saying yaar sare words to hindi wale hi use hote hain..
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Sujata Anandan Reply:
October 5th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Yes, the programme is amazing. The women vote in a secret ballot, even get a mark like at other elections but on their little fingers. In the fifteen years since this policy has been in force one taluka in Satara district of Maharashtra has become liquor-free. Now Kolhapur is going the same way
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You drop ‘an’ from your name and you have ‘Sujata Anand’. A you become a Panjabi Kudi. You add ‘h’ and ‘O’ in your name and you have ‘Shujata Onand’ a Bong belle. To apologise for calling it ‘Bombay’ is ransom. That to from Raj who has an anglicised name in “Thackerey”. Sort of related to “William Makepeace Thackerey”. Should change his name to Raju Thakar !
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Sujata Anandan Reply:
October 5th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Ha, ha, ha! Completely agree with you abou Raju Thakar. I have vowed never to refer to Bombay as Mumbai until the Thackerays stop calling thmselves anything other than Thakre — and just to let you into something : I have a tape where Bal Thackeray has referred to himself as Thackeray six times rhyming the Thack in his name with `hack’. So how original and Marathi manoos can you get?
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Bob Mathews Reply:
October 5th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Sujata,
That was interesting!!! But I’m not surprised at their double speak.
Thank you for sharing this with us.I hope the relevant extract of this tape could be aired as a public service.
Will the electronic media take up this challenge?
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ripal mehta Reply:
October 5th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
here comes bob mathews,
communal christian , never misses an oppourtunity to defame anybody speaking for hindus.
What challenge you want media to take up ? u bloody opportunist. its obvious that the media is financed by vatican and arab world . If at all the challenge media needs to take up is against islamic fanatism, for uniform civil code, population explosion, family planning, illeteracy, government failures, muslims still having half doezen kids because there is no law to stop them doing it, christians and so called missionaries illegal acts of religious conversion of poor and illeterate people resulting in communal violence. can media take up those challenges and tame bob mathews and abu azmis… ???!!!??/
Sujata Anandan Reply:
October 6th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Bob,
have written in detail about the tape earlier in one of my columns `anandan ON WEDNESDAY’ in the Bombay edition of Hindustan Times sometime back when the Shiv sena was hell bent on turning `Bombay Scottish’ (from where Aditya, Uddhav’s son passed out) to `Mumbai Scottish’ and Bombay Dyeing to Mumbai Dyeing.
Will air it at a relevant time, but it will have to be on HT
Sujata,
I hope Raj Thackeray and his politics is conclusively demolished in these elections. It is his kind of politics that needs to be nipped in the bid.
If his prescriptions ever take any substantiative form in the mainland, then what is stopping, say, the insurgent groups in North East from making even more outrageous demands. Or, say, some enterprising politician in Tamil Nadu demanding a separate homeland again comprising TN and Sri Lankan Tamils?
The tragedy, however, is that Raj Thackeray is propped up as a clever ploy by Congress. And the mainstream English media is so smitten these days by all things Congress. So inspite of the obvious vituperative theme of Raj raj Thackeray’s campaign, the media will not similarly tear apart Raj as it is it’s wont in case of all things BJP.
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Sujata Anandan Reply:
October 6th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
I have torn Raj apart at every one of his misplaced campaigns. And, yes, like you I hope this election puts paid to his divisive agenda. Denying ration cards to `migrants’, calling for work pemits for so-called `outsiders’ etc are unfeasible programmes and I am taken by somehing Narayan Rane said last week — these are the agendas of people who know they won’t come to power and so are not troubled by having to implement the policies. I hope he is right.
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Akhilesh Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
That is exactly my point mam.
Raj’s camapign as “misplaced.” That is a very very mild word as compared to what is used against Modi or BJP types. There mass murderers, maut ka sudagars, man-eaters, state terrorists are very common.
Never seen you or other liberal writers calling BJP’s campaign for blocking Bangladeshi immigirants as misplaced ( although it is higly “placed” and appropriate). It is instead called communal, ani national, etc etc.
You do get the drift of my arguments, don’t you ?
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Sujata Anandan Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
When Bal Thackeray’s government in Maharashtra rounded up `Bangladeshis’ in Bombay in 1996 and packed them off on the Bombay-Howrah Express, Jyoti Basu sent them right back by return mail. For they all turned out to be Bengali and Bihari Muslims who are ethnically similar to Bangladeshis. They had neither ration cards nor passports on them because they believed they were Indians and in their own country and so didn’t need these documents. So they went back to their villages and returned with certificates from their Sarpanches stating that they were born in India and had every right to live in Bombay as anybody else.
My take is this: there are indeed Bangladeshis in large numbers in Bombay and elsewhere in the country. But they all have Indian passports and Indian ration cards and so have legal grounds to stay in India. My question is: how do they get these documents? Who arms them with these identities?
Those guys who do are the real traitors. Aren’t they Indians? So Who will weed them out?
Akhilesh Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
” there are indeed Bangladeshis in large numbers in Bombay and elsewhere in the country. But they all have Indian passports and Indian ration cards and so have legal grounds to stay in India. ”
All bangladeshi migrants have passports and ration cards??? This is an astonding staement you are making. Do you know this for a fact? Have you done research on it? Ir was this just a rhetorical point you made to rebutt my arguments?
Anyways the question you missed answering is this ( and I ask it again) : You agree that there are large number of Bagladeshis in India. India, already a poor country cannot take the burden of a neighbouring country. So we must now allow immigration from there. Right?
You say BJP’ s approach is communal. For argument’s sake, let’s say I agree with you. Why does the Congress, a secular party, then not take a non-communal approach and send them back. Why is it, that they have never taken even one step to send them back. Surely Congress does not argue that we must allow Bangladeshis in? Surely Congress is secular. Surely if it gets down to doing this, it’s approach will be non-communal. Then why does it not do it?
Infact I say, please suggest a non-communal way to send non-Indians back to their home country and we will back you.?
Do you have a suggestion Ms. Anandan ?
I am sure you will have none. You know why? Because Bangladesh is a Muslim majority country. Any one who comes from there in India will invariably be a Muslim. But when someone says send that person back, secularists jump up and say - no, no, that is communal. This is an amazing argument. That the BJP targets Bangladeshis because they are Muslims.
How does the BJP help, if all Bagladeshis are Muslims. Is it BJP’s fault that there are no other religion people there who migrate? How can BJP invent non-Muslim Bangladeshis just to appear secular? Or, should it mean, just because they are Muslims, we should not send them back?
Any answers, Ms. Anandan?
As about those who give them false identities - don’t you know the answer already, mam ? They do that at the behest of the Communists in Bengal and Congress in Assam? Becuase these illegal immigrants form a permanent vote bank.
How do you blame the BJP for this. It has never been in power in either Assam or WB. And just for 4 years in Maharashtra. Surely the Congress and other secular worthies need to answer your question.
have you ever asked them this question, mam?
Akhilesh,
Do us journalists the favour of knowing more than you as a common man do. Just talk to the cops in Bombay and they will let you know how difficult it is because Indian — yes Indian — touts arm these immigrants with passports and ration cards. Pl do not see a saffron agenda in every fact of life. After all Bal Thackeray tried to weed the Bangladeshis out and couldn’t succeed. I just had to laugh at your reply because you seem to see a ghost behind every door. I hadn’t even been thinking about the BJP when I replied to you — perhaps it is a guilty conscience that makes you make those allegations? For the BJP was in power for six years and did it even try — as Bal Thackeray did — to throw out the Bangaldeshis?
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Akhilesh Reply:
October 10th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Good riposte.
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did bjp do anything when they were in power for six years??? havent i heard this from many many congressy muslim and christian bigots..?? who is this anandan .. harcore congress chamchi.. side kick.. they expect bjp to do things which they couldnt do for 60 years in 6 years… they couldnt do it so congress is better .. i sometimes wonder the iq level of theses journos.. god save hindus of this country..
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