Mumbai has always been the dream destination for work for people all over the country. But the recent riots which started with the implications of Raj Thackeray’s outpourings against north Indians, including Amitabh Bachchan have really raised the question on Mumbai’s cosmopolitan image. The fact is that Mumbai is what it is today only because it has traditionally welcomed people from all over the country to compete and succeed on equal terms. It is the survival of the fittest and if there was a lebensraum for outsiders in Mumbai, they accordingly occupied the space left by the not-so-efficient and effective. The city’s character and culture have been developed and enriched by its citizenry.

A city like Mumbai or an equally cosmopolitan city, calls for enterprise, innovative ideas, modern technology and hard work.  Outsiders who make their presence felt are very important in the development of the place. Today, if all the emigrant technocrats including Indians were to withdraw from the US, the UK or Europe, then the economy of these countries might very well collapse. Outsiders or emigrants or refugees are always more hard working because they have a point to prove. A sub-conscious sense of insecurity makes them put in an extra effort. Mumbai’s success is embedded in its cosmopolitan character and the enterprise of its people.

If people from UP and Bihar are immigrants in Mumbai and they are called outsiders then the same reasoning can be extended to parts of the country. If people from one region are targeted in one state, there is likely to be a chain reaction in other states as well. And that would be quite disturbing for the secular nation. The insider-outsider debate makes a mockery of the appeals being made to the NRIs and People of India Origin (PIOs) to make investments in their country of birth/origin. If we expect NRIs/PIOs to do so, won’t they also be accused of the same disloyalty to their place of domicile as north Indians are being accused of in Maharashtra.

In this age of globalization, such retrograde regionalism should never be encouraged. Healthy regionalism, that encourages others to compete and perform better in a healthy spirit, should not be frowned upon. The Prime Minister, the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has not deigned to speak on the subject. Congress leaders of Maharashtra want to treat it only as a law and order problem. The Congress leadership must understand that standing up for the idea of India as envisaged in the Constitution is the most significant contribution it can make to the Indian polity and to itself as a political party. Congress is making a big fuss about resource allocation for the minorities as preferred methods of finding favor with the minorities. But for the minorities, who comprise 19.5 per cent of the population as per the last Census, a political party's demonstrated commitment to the idea of India matters far more than any form of sectional patronage.
When the Congress fails to politically oppose the anti-outsider agitation in Mumbai, it loses the support of people who support the idea of India celebrating unity in diversity.