TO THE EDITOR, The day 1-5-2010 will be celebrated with great pomp and noise because it is the 50th Birthday of Maharashtra.
The Maharashtra State was created on 1-5-1960 due to Re-organisation of States, breakup of the former Bombay Presidency and the protests and demonstrations mainly by the Maratha politicians/leaders/activists. 1-5-1960 onwards the Marathas who are natives of western maharashtra (Pune, Nashik, Sangli, Kolhapur, Satara, Ahmednagar and Solapur ) became wealthier and wealthier but the natives of konkan ( bombay, thane, raigad, ratnagiri, sindhudurg districts ) & Vidharbha became poorer and poorer. The inclusion of Konkan (including Bombay) & Vidharbha into Maharashtra state was a disaster for the people living in konkan and vidharbh. The Marathas dominate not just Politics in Maharashtra but also administration, police, municipalities, district collectors offices, etc and hence are in a strong position in Maharashtra to do whatever they want including sabotaging the aspirations of the people living in konkan and vidharbh to gain separate statehood. The Maratha politicians from the congress party had created and nurtured the shiv sena not just to take on the communists who were controlling the trade unions in bombay but also to prevent bombay from becoming a union territory and konkan and vidharbh from becoming separate states. The Hindutva agenda, the Marathi agenda and the promise of giving 10 Lac free 250 sq. ft. apartments to land encroachers i.e. slum dwellers enabled the shiv sena to come to power in Maharashtra in 1995. Once in power the Shiv Sena did nothing but changed names of places or seized vacant Government lands to build clubs for their middle class supporters, where they sold alcohol and made money. They invited the homeless to also encroach on vacant government lands, similarly, among whom were the now so called North Indians. These were to be, they thought, their permanent vote-banks. The Fascists grew fat with funds which were to be spent for the betterment of the people of Bombay, who had voted for them but were instead pocketed. They became hoteliers, Builders, etc. They built clubs, Wedding Halls etc,etc, which gave these non-entities, who were smart to sense the opportunity, to join the Party and make money to grow rich. It is reported that there were quotas fixed for each of these entrants to show their loyalties to the cause which entailed collections from all sources and a movement of such funds to the Headquarters. Soon these new rich had cars, Flats etc. They invested in Flats galore, all legal. Asked their Builder friends to build temples, to show how pious they were, dedicated to the memory of their dead parents, as if these were being built by them. Nobody bothered to find out the source of these funds. Their children flocked to English medium schools. Finally they were voted out. But they knew that the jackpot was the Municpal Corporation in Bombay. They resurrected the old slogan MARATHI MANOOS IN DANGER, and the frightened Marathi Manoos came out with his entire family and ensured that the Tiger's ( Bal Thackeray ) Party Shiv Sena was not voted out by the other vote banks, i.e. the North Indians. The Fascists thus saved their golden goose the B.M.C. which lays their Golden egg. This is todays Bombay. Bal Thackeray a migrant from Pune never bothered to change the name of Pune to Punaka the citys historical name but the same Thackeray took great interest in changing the name of Bombay to Mumbai and to achieve this objective the Thackerays and their Sena proliferated false propaganda that the British corrupted the name Mumbai to Bombay but historical records prove that the British corrupted the name BomBahia to Bombay. Hence Bombay has been illegally named to Mumbai on a false propaganda and by those who are not its original people. The Kolis in bombay were never bothered whether the city was known as Bombay, Mumbai or Slumbai and it was none of the business of the migrants to change the name of Bombay to Mumbai. Maybe someday Mumbai will be renamed to Bombay most probably when the Marathas loose their control over bombay and konkan. When the issue of making Bombay a Union Territory pops up the Shiv Sena issues statements that if bombay is separated from Maharashtra then they (i.e.shiv sena) will resort to riots and burn bombay. The Shiv Sena has already burned bombay by allowing slums to proliferate in Bombay. The shiv sena has dominated the BMC for the last 25 years but instead of stopping the growth of slums they encouraged slums which they thought would be their permament vote banks what is even worse the shiv sena came up with the SRA policy to reward the slum dwellers with free apartments. The SRA policy created more slums in bombay because those slumdwellers who got free apartments sold their apartment for around 10 Lakh rupees and again went back to live in slums with the connivance of slumlords and BMC/Shivsena officials. Most of the money received from sale of the apartment the slumdweller sent to his native place. The Shiv Sena opposes the creation of a konkan state but does not oppose the 64 SEZs in Konkan that will ruin the livelihood of lacs of farmers and agricultural labourers in konkan. The Shiv Sena opposes the creation of Vidharbha state but does not bother to share even 1% of their huge wealth for the benefit of the farmers in Vidharbha who are struggling to make ends meet. At present there is an agitation going on in Vidharbha for a separate statehood but sadly the agitation in konkan for separate statehood lost its steam due to some leaders from konkan joining hands with shiv sena. Although at the moment there is no Konkan Pradesh, that is no reason to assume that this will always be so; there is great pressure to carry forward the States Reorganization Committee 1957's work, that has been unjust to smaller nationalities (e.g., Kodagu, Kutch, Vidarbha, Khandesh, Telengana, Kamptapur, Bhojpur, Brajbhoom, Bundelkhand, Baghelkhand, Rohilkhand, Videha-Maithilkhand, etc.), and to establish new provinces. Anyway, regardless of the political question, the Konkan is a historic and ethnic territory and cultural region and must be recognized as such. Goa and Bombay both fall within it. The Konkan must cover all the places within the historical Konkan - Surat, Daman & Diu, Dadra, Silvasa, Districts of Thane, Bombay, Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, the state of Goa and the cities of Karwar, Honavar, Gokarn, Hubli & Dharwar, Mangalore, kerala, etc in other words the entire west coast of India should be declared a state and should be given the name Konkan Pradesh with Bombay its capital ofcourse the name Mumbai should also be changed to Bombay. Daniel Fernandes Konkan.
