Destructive politics is always dangerous Merchants of hatred have a secret weapon up their sleeve. Once they have cast the first stone, both sides invariably make mistakes and the trouble starts multiplying automatically. That is what Raj and other Thackerays of his ilk have managed to do. They targeted north Indians in Maharashtra ruthlessly. There was inevitable reaction in Bihar which degenerated into a systematic destruction of railway property, as if the attacker was the railway employees and not MNS goons. That perhaps provoked a 23-year-old Rahul Raj to procure a weapon, commandeer a bus and try to get even with his namesake in Mumbai. The policemen proved to be more trigger-happy than him. They could have easily overpowered him, but instead gunned him down. No wonder, there is outrage in Bihar and it is being seen as yet another instance of bias against people from that state going to Mumbai for work. The situation has been made worse by the murder of a labourer from Uttar Pradesh by a few Marathi-speaking youth on a Mumbai local train.

Such tit for tat match can quickly go out of hand. Already, there are rumblings of bigger trouble ahead in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. One will have to keep one’s fingers crossed. Ironically, Raj Thackeray must be gloating that the bushfire he had started was catching on and will make him a “big” name. There is no toning down of his incendiary statements so far despite the all-too-brief arrest or gag orders.

Such elements thrive only because the state government, instead of calling their bluff, humours them. In this particular case, there are even reasons to suspect that he is being deliberately given a long rope for political reasons. The trouble is that such Frankensteins are difficult to control once they become larger than life. Most often, they bite the very hand that fed them. This warning should be heeded before it is too late. This phenomenon was seen at its destructive worst when Bhindranwale was raised in Punjab with disastrous results, and in Sri Lanka where Prabhakaran was encouraged to become a force that ultimately devoured Rajiv Gandhi. The politics of the kind being played by the politicians in Mumbai can only lead to unintended consequences.(TT)