The current move on the part of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Mr. Raj Thackeray to arouse the feeling of rabid provincialism in Maharashtra in order to reap rich political dividend appears to be an action replay of what many politicians, including his uncle and Shiv Sena leader Mr. Bal Thackeray, had done in the past. In general, it manifests a sinister and selfish design on the part of unscrupulous politicians in the country to exploit the emotions of the common people for electoral gain. At other times such shenanigans are argued to be an articulation of a genuine grievance of the people to secure wider access to the jobs and educational opportunities in a particular province.

Conceptually, the notion of sons-of-the-soil is a form of regionalism. The principal demand of all sons-of-the-soil movements is governmental intervention - in the form of laws, regulations and administrative orders - to provide jobs and admission to educational institutions to the members of local ethnic groups. The demand of preference for sons-of-the-soil is made by a majority in relation to a minority and the  primary justification is the group’s unequal status - in education, employment, and income – in relation to other groups within the urban locality or the state as a whole and is not linked to the question of why the group is economically, educationally or occupationally behind.

Interestingly, the issue of affording preferential treatment or affirmative action, bothered the minds of the nationalist leaders of the country even at the time of drafting the Constitution itself. For instance, in a report endorsed by the Indian National Congress in 1938 on the Bihar situation, it was argued to be just and proper that the residents of a province should get preference in their own province in the matter of public services and educational facilities. What, however, turned out to be the bane of the national integration in the country appeared to be the politicisation of the issue in the hands of the politicians for the sake of their selfish political gain.

Quite evidently, therefore, the post-independent political scenario in India was witness to a number of regional movements enamored around the idea of sons of the soil. While the genesis was found in the Dravidian movement in South India, the issue attained notoriety and alarming proportions with the rise of the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra during the 1960s. Incidentally, the Shiv Sena was originally driven by the fear that the States Reorganisation Committee would take away, Bombay, the capital of the then composite Bombay State at the time when Gujarat was being carved out. Subsequently the Shiv Sena began to be driven by the slogan of Maharashtra for the Maharashtrians.

In the early decades post-independence, such affirmative action movements derived considerable strength from the decision to form states on the basis of linguistic homogeneity. And once linguistic homogeneity is recognized as the basis for state formation, the speakers of the local language begin to feel that those who speak a different language, do not belong, and are therefore, inferior, irrespective of what is stated in the Constitution. But every Indian state, including the linguistically most homogenous, has living within its borders speakers from a variety of languages for, historically, people have moved from one part of the country to another propelled by wars, famines, religious hostility, etc. Frequently, tribal and other ethnic groups living in a state for centuries were found speaking dialects of their own which are incomprehensible to the others. This is quite apart from the fact that the State language is also frequently spoken differently in different parts of India.

But none of this prevents the rise of a sons-of-the-soil movement particularly in the larger cities, which are generally multilingual, and when ‘outsiders’ occupy highly visible positions in government, industry, trade and commerce, media and entertainment. Their firms, shops, restaurants and houses may be attacked and vandalized on occasion in order to strike terror in the minds of the ‘outsiders’ resident in the state, and also to discourage future immigration. Demands are made that the lion’s share of jobs created in any firm or factory be reserved for the natives, even when such enterprises are set up by the government of India. The provision of reservation for ‘natives’ at the lower-levels of a firm or factory makes sense as such jobs do not demand great skills, and it is uneconomic to bring people from distant places to man them.  But where high technical expertise is required, it is not in the interest of the enterprise to appoint unqualified or under-qualified persons. But sons-of-the-soil movements have become highly charged with emotions, and the voice of reason is reduced to a voice in the wilderness.

It is likely that in the coming years, as the number of cities increase, and the existing big cities get even bigger, the conflict between ‘natives’ and ‘outsiders’ may become sharper and nastier.

One way of tackling this problem is the rapid promotion of agricultural development in the regions, particularly the arid ones, from which a large number of very poor people, from lower levels of economic and social hierarchy, emigrate habitually. It may be remarked here that the country’s present plight is at least partly due to the gross neglect of family planning right from Nehru’s days. Further, ill-advised attempts at the forcible sterilisation of people during the Emergency years (1975-77) have made family planning so unpopular that political parties shy away from it. The net result is that an issue of paramount importance to the nation’s well-being is being swept under the carpet. Another significant phenomenon is the emergence of new group identities at the sub-national level.

It is necessary to recall here that emergence of nationalism in any country is marked by the heightened awareness of every kind of group identity. In fact, every nodal point in the social structure finds articulation but there does not seem to be enough understanding of this fact. However, what is far more common is the denial of the legitimacy of all lower-level loyalties in the mistaken idea that they are anti-national. It is not understood that identities are contextual: In one context one is a member of a region while in another one is a speaker of a language, follower of a faith and a citizen of a nation-state. It is only when lower-level loyalties come to be regarded as far more important than loyalty to the nation, that there is cause for real worry.