Ripping open an old fault line
When Vedanta-Foxconn signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat government this week to set up its multi-billion-dollar semi-conductor facility in the state that Prime Minister Narendra Modi hails from, it was more than a routine business announcement. It put Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, heading a faction of the nativist Shiv Sena in the “double-engine” Sena-BJP government, in an embarrassing position of having presided over the movement of this project from his state to neighbouring Gujarat. It led the Uddhav Thackeray faction to remark that “one engine had failed”. Mr Shinde has since attempted damage control and made noises about other major projects coming Maharashtra’s way. Vedanta chairperson Anil Aggarwal, accused of shifting loyalty to Gujarat, also promised to set up affiliates of the industry in Maharashtra.
However, Mr Shinde has revealed his helplessness in the face of the determination of his deputy Devendra Fadnavis (BJP) to run the Maharashtra government along the BJP's agenda. They are unlikely to convince people that the movement was a purely business one. Since the Modi government assumed power in 2014, there has been a concerted effort to divest Mumbai – and Maharashtra – of the economic and commercial strength it commands and elevate various destinations in Gujarat instead. This has opened old fault lines between the two states that go back all the way to British India and later to the states’ reorganisation. As the colonial power built Bombay, the wealth and industry came largely from Gujaratis-Marwaris and Parsis while the working classes were predominantly Maharashtrian. During the states’ reorganisation on linguistic lines, in 1960, Gujarat wanted Bombay to be its capital; this led to an agitation by Maharashtrians — in which 105 died — so the city remained in Maharashtra.
The Vedanta-Foxconn move is being seen as emblematic of the unfinished business of the past. That this happens under the nose of a CM from the Shiv Sena, the party that claimed to uphold Maharashtra’s interests for 55 years, has caused great consternation to many in Mumbai. But business bends to politics when convenient, and political power now rests in Gujarat.