They say you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. The promised ‘free’ omelette in Kejriwal’s case rather is not of welfare, but about running his personal political roost, with many a crack on the integrity of the nation. This was evident once again in the recent speech made by Arvind Kejriwal in Gujarat.
On the first of May, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal raised questions over Gujarat BJP state President C R Patil being born in Maharashtra. Kejriwal was speaking at a rally in Gujarat’s Bharuch on the day which marked the celebration of full statehood to Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960.
महाराष्ट्र के .@CRPaatil गुजरात भाजपा अध्यक्ष है। भाजपा को अपना अध्यक्ष बनाने के लिए एक भी गुजराती नहीं मिला? लोग कहते हैं, ये केवल अध्यक्ष नहीं, गुजरात सरकार यही चलाते हैं। असली CM यही हैं। ये तो गुजरात के लोगों का घोर अपमान है
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) May 1, 2022
भाजपा वालों, गुजरात को गुजराती अध्यक्ष दो
Furthering his divisive agenda, Kejriwal questioned the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for making a Maharashtrian the head of its Gujarat state unit. Moreover, Kejriwal chose May 1, the day which also marks the separation of the two states fanned after brutal violence on linguistic lines in 1960. Kejriwal asked, “I am offended by one thing for long. Who is the president of BJP’s Gujarat state unit? CR Patil. Where does he hail from? He is from Maharashtra. So, among the 6.5 crore Gujaratis, the BJP leaders did not get a single person from the state to make the president of their state unit?” He claimed that this is a huge insult to the people of Gujarat.
However, Kejriwal did not stop here. He went a further ahead to say, “No party committed an insult bigger than this. Will these people rule Gujarat from Maharashtra? Will these people run Gujarat through a person from Maharashtra? The people of Gujarat will not tolerate this. Convert the upcoming election into a revolution. There won’t be any elections this year. Rather, we will lay the foundation of a new Gujarat.”
Perhaps, contesting new territories after Punjab would require Kejriwal a lesson in history where the people of Gujarat have not seen the sight of its Marathi-speaking leadership ‘insulting.’ Since the modern-day states were carved out of the same Bombay State Presidency after Independence, Gujarat has seen large numbers of Marathi-speakers living in the state till day and vice-versa.
Even though language formed the basis of the division of the erstwhile state, a sense of shared history and cultural ties have forged a strong relationship between the people of the two states, which is unlikely to be weakened by Mr Kejriwal’s regional chauvinism.
Kejriwal’s insinuation on C R Patil comes from a place of ignorance at the least and malice at the worst. Patil secured a place in grassroots Gujarat politics as a heartthrob leader securing high electoral margins. In the Lok Sabha 2019 elections, he won his seat of Navsari with a record margin of over 689,668 votes. He is also said to have played a pivotal role in the development of Surat as a Textile and Diamond hub through Infrastructure development.
Born in 1955, Patil started in Jalgoan in Maharashtra before the separation of states and ended up in Surat to receive post-school technical training. A Maharashtrian by birth but a Gujarati by heart, Patil knows the nitty-gritty of Gujarat Politics way better than Kejriwal, which explains his frustration in targeting the prior for being an ‘outsider.’
But if the contemporary identity of Gujarat as a region is to be considered, then one wonders how the Marathi leadership has flourished in an expanse that now represents the modern-day state of Gujarat in more ways than one.
Many a lesson for Kejriwal in History
If Maharashtra and Gujarat, were to find linkages that bound them, it would lead us to the exploration in the Maratha times when Pilaji Rao Gaekwad as lieutenant of the Maratha Army established his base in Gujarat long back in 1721. The Gaekwads administered the province of Gujarat with the title ‘Shamsher Bahadur’ given to the heirs of the family by Chhatrapati Shahu of Satara until the advent of the British.
But it was after 1871, when Sayajirao Gaekwad ascended the patriarchal throne after his adoption by dowager Jamnabai, that the modern, prosperous and equally progressive princely state of Baroda emerged under the suzerainty of the British Raj.
Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad – III, along with his wife Maharani Chimnabai – II, ruled the region when social malaise such as casteism, lack of education among girls, and the enforcement of the purdah system, and the prevalence of the child marriage plagued the society.
Gaekwad, The Maratha ruler of Gujarat, was a great institution builder who set up a national grade University in Baroda, many fine-arts institutions, aided primary schools for girls, colleges that promoted religion as well as ideological education. Gaekwad, along with his wife Maharani Chimnabai, set up libraries across Gujarat – one of which played a pivotal role in shaping the childhood of incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Maharaja Sayajirao modernised Gujarat in more ways than one. He led economic development initiatives including the establishment of railroads across the state. In 1908, he founded the Bank of Baroda with numerous operations abroad in support of the Gujarati diaspora, which still finds its place today as a leading Nationalised bank. In a true sense, Baroda with the advent of the Marathi dynasty of Gaekwads stood as a fountainhead of the progress of Modern Gujarat.
The Maratha Imperialism which brought with it a host of Marathi-speaking natives, intermingled with the Gujarati cultural ethos and became on with it. One such family was the Mavalankars, a hardworking family residing in Ahmedabad who had migrated from Ratnagiri in Maharashtra. Ganesh Vasudev Mavalankar was a first-generation migrant to the city, who had come to seek a B.A. degree in Science from Gujarat College in Ahmedabad. Mavalankar entered the legal profession in 1912, wherein he got an opportunity to interact with leaders like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
G V Mavalankar was elected to the Ahmedabad Municipality for the first time in 1919 and was a member of the Ahmedabad Municipality until 1937. After his tenure as a Speaker of the Bombay Legislative Assembly from 1937 to 1946, he was elected as a speaker of the Central Legislative Assembly. After Independence, Mavalankar, a boy from a Marathi family who made a glorious political career in Gujarat, rose to become the first speaker of the Lok Sabha until his death in 1956.
The need to rise above regionalist politics
If the cards are to be reversed today, the Gujarati community in Maharashtra remains an underlined contributor to the progress of Maharashtra as well. While our states are divided on a linguistic basis pertaining to an erstwhile historical need, Gujarati leaders are not stopped from taking part in Maharashtrian Politics while the Marathi speaking population in Gujarat too enjoys a sound representation in the politics of Gujarat as well. With the advent of leaders like Kejriwal who are hopping from one state to another for power, one should be reminded that regionalist jingoism can transform into linguistic nationalism as a challenge for tomorrow.
Arvind Kejriwal, who himself hails from Haryana, enjoys the political support of Delhiites who have elected him twice, with thumping majorities. With no hopes to contest the assembly elections in Maharashtra, he has conveniently insulted Maharashtrians with his statement, with the hope to play a momentary Gujarati pride card – a stance that even the Gujaratis would not appreciate. Pressing the unwanted regionalist buttons would make Kejriwal win yet another election, with a high cost for the nation to bear in its internally challenged sovereignty.
