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Friday, January 21, 2005
Quit India ...
The Press Trust of India reports that villagers in the Mahakalapada block of the coastal Kendrapara district of Orissa have been asked to "quit India". They've been identified as "Bangladeshi infiltrators", and Wednesday is their deadline for leaving. The notices have been served on 1551 people, who duly "lined up before the branch of a nationalised bank to withdraw their savings and close the accounts".
The criteria for the notice was December 16, 1971, the day East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Anyone settled in the area after that was served a notice, although villagers claim that the district administration has messed up in this identification. One villager told the PTI reporter: "I was born and brought up here. My father Upen Baidya had migrated from the Shyamnagar village of Khulna district in the erstwhile East Pakistan to the uninhabited Bahakuda in 1953. As his other family members were killed in the post- partition disturbances, my father remarried here. I was born in 1960 on Indian soil and I am proud to be an Indian."
I don't think it really matters whether these people settled here before 1971 or after. Once they have settled down into the local population and are part of the economy, they should not be ill-treated. Migration is what nations and regions thrive on. The USA is a fine example of this, and so is the Indian city where I live, Mumbai, which is built on the labour of people who, to begin with, were not from here - Gujaratis, Marwaris, Sindhis, Tamilians, Punjabis and so on. The concept of "India" is a relatively new one, and we should not be dogmatic or protectionist about who is "allowed" to be a part of our country. The more people our economy embraces, the more it will flourish, because progress is not a zero-sum game.
... and quit tobacco
Maharastra's deputy chief minister, RR Patil, has given up his habit of chewing tobacco. He has done this after public criticism from Ajit Pawar, Sharad Pawar's nephew and the water-resorces minister of the state. Pawar had announced at a public gathering that he did not like taking Patil with him on trips to foreign countries because his habit of chewing tobacco, and the spitting that inevitably followed, made him an embarrassment. Patil, taking the statement to heart, duly decided to quit.
The best part of the story that I've linked to is the photograph. Patil couldn't just quit privately, it seems. He had to invite photographers over and make a big show of dropping a packet of tobacco on the floor. Nice.
The criteria for the notice was December 16, 1971, the day East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Anyone settled in the area after that was served a notice, although villagers claim that the district administration has messed up in this identification. One villager told the PTI reporter: "I was born and brought up here. My father Upen Baidya had migrated from the Shyamnagar village of Khulna district in the erstwhile East Pakistan to the uninhabited Bahakuda in 1953. As his other family members were killed in the post- partition disturbances, my father remarried here. I was born in 1960 on Indian soil and I am proud to be an Indian."
I don't think it really matters whether these people settled here before 1971 or after. Once they have settled down into the local population and are part of the economy, they should not be ill-treated. Migration is what nations and regions thrive on. The USA is a fine example of this, and so is the Indian city where I live, Mumbai, which is built on the labour of people who, to begin with, were not from here - Gujaratis, Marwaris, Sindhis, Tamilians, Punjabis and so on. The concept of "India" is a relatively new one, and we should not be dogmatic or protectionist about who is "allowed" to be a part of our country. The more people our economy embraces, the more it will flourish, because progress is not a zero-sum game.
... and quit tobacco
Maharastra's deputy chief minister, RR Patil, has given up his habit of chewing tobacco. He has done this after public criticism from Ajit Pawar, Sharad Pawar's nephew and the water-resorces minister of the state. Pawar had announced at a public gathering that he did not like taking Patil with him on trips to foreign countries because his habit of chewing tobacco, and the spitting that inevitably followed, made him an embarrassment. Patil, taking the statement to heart, duly decided to quit.
The best part of the story that I've linked to is the photograph. Patil couldn't just quit privately, it seems. He had to invite photographers over and make a big show of dropping a packet of tobacco on the floor. Nice.
