maharashtra

"I have great respect for Balasaheb Thackeray and we are the ones working to take his legacy forward. He is one of the most important and influential leaders in the history of our country. Throughout his life, Balasaheb stood for politics that furthered national interest and was against appeasement politics. I have also maintained decorum and dignity with every member of Balasaheb's family, irrespective of the political dynamics. But as an admirer of Balasaheb, I am pained by certain things. Today, it pains every admirer of Balasaheb, including me, to see the actions of those who claim to be torchbearers of his legacy. Mumbai and its people were so close to Balasaheb's heart. What would he have felt if he would have seen these people using those convicted in Mumbai bomb blasts for their campaigning? What would he have felt about these people allying with those who openly say they want to destroy Sanatan Dharma? What would Balasaheb have felt looking at these people aligning with those who celebrate Aurangzeb and abuse Savarkar. Can anyone claim to be upholding the legacy of Balasaheb after doing such things? Balasaheb always put principles above power. But now, it seems, power is everything for these people."

"It’s true that the state has been seeing coalition governments for a considerable period now. There was Vilasrao Deshmukh…Even when Sharad Pawar became the chief minister, he was not able to do so alone with absolute majority. Secondly, it has been Maharashtra’s misfortune that for some time now, no CM has been able to serve the five-year term. Devendra Fadnavis was the first person after a long time who served the entire term. The government then was clean and spotless. It was a government that worked for the welfare of the people."

"Bombay is energetic, exuberant, sparkling, and has building stones of many kinds and colours … on your dyspeptic days you are apt to find … Bombay's [architecture] bumptious, even riotous. In your more genial moments you might apply the adjective … 'vital'."

"The first thing you notice about Mumbai is the first thing you notice about every place the British once occupied, which is how much of themselves they left there. The United States spent over a decade and trillions of dollars in Iraq, and the only physical evidence that remains is a concrete embassy compound, some airstrips, and a sea of steel shipping containers. Maybe because they never considered that they might leave, the British built entire cities out of stone, with railways to connect them. And they did it with reliably good taste. Too often lost in the hand-wringing over the evils of colonialism is the aesthetic contribution of the British Empire. The Brits tended to colonize beautiful places and make them prettier. Bermuda, New Zealand, Fiji, Cape Town—notice a theme? Style wasn’t an ancillary benefit; it was part of the point. Behind every Gurkha regiment marched a battalion of interior designers."

"The Mosque of Qutb al-Din Mubarak Khalji at Daulatabad, dated AH 718/AD 1318, is probably the earliest surviving Muslim structure in the Deccan. It is a square, 260 feet each way, assembled into the usual orthodox plan out of destroyed Hindu pillars, brackets, and beams… It is said that the star-shaped Jaina Temple built in the Chalukya style at Bodhan in the 9th or 10th century was, also, transformed into a Mosque during the reign of Muhammad Tughlaq (AH 726-52/AD 1325-51)"

"Meanwhile, at the south end of town, the Raj still dominates the skyline, and breathtakingly so. Is there a more attractive clock building outside Europe than the Rajabai Tower, completed in 1878? Does America have a single railway station that compares to the one Mumbai commuters have used since 1887? A single post office more impressive than the one the British built there in 1913? A more majestic municipal building than the Bombay High Court? The old section of Mumbai amounts to an open-air time capsule, substantially unchanged from the day Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten flew back to London. Unfortunately, nobody has cleaned up since. The old buildings are filthy and neglected, with broken shutters, missing windows, and front lawns piled with rubbish. Just a block or two from the Taj Mahal Hotel, near the ocean in one of the priciest parts of the city, there’s a row of wooden Victorian houses, large and ornate and beautiful. It looks like a postcard, but walk closer. The roofs have been patched with blue nylon tarps. The porches sag where the support beams have rotted. Each one verges on collapse. There’s something crushingly sad about all this, but also instructive. Empires end, usually more quickly than expected. They’re not always replaced by something better. Worth remembering at election time."

"Architecturally, Bombay is one of the most appalling cities of either hemisphere. It had the misfortune to develop during what was, perhaps, the darkest period of all architectural history."

"Nowhere is the architectural contrast starker and more jarring than in Mumbai. India is on its way to becoming a rich country, and Mumbai is its financial capital. Signs of wealth abound, from ubiquitous cranes to the mobile phones that every chai vendor carries. Fewer people seem to be living on the streets of downtown Mumbai than in midtown Manhattan. The good news is there’s a building boom under way. The bad news is, the results are appalling. Much of the new architecture is ugly, of course, straight from the Soviet-occupied-Poland school of design, but the construction is also shoddy. Buildings put up ten years ago are streaked with rust from exposed rebar, their concrete peeling apart in flakes. Even the newest blocks seem temporary or half-finished, as if nobody cared enough to complete the job. Not unlike post-invasion Baghdad, actually."

"The houses of this country (Maharashtra) are exceedingly strong and built solely of stone and iron. The hatchet-men of the Government in the course of my marching do not get sufficient strength and power (i.e., time) to destroy and raze the temples of the infidels that meet the eye on the way. You should appoint an orthodox inspector (darogha) who may afterwards destroy them at leisure and dig up their foundations."

"The medieval historian, Ziauddin Barni described the invasion of Devagiri, Malik Naib Kafur reached Deogir and laid the country waste. He made Ramdeo and his sons prisoners, and took his treasures, as well as elephants. Great spoil fell into his hands .. and he returned with it triumphant to Dehli, carrying with him Ramdeo. The Sultan showed great favour to the Rai and sent him back in great honour ... to Deogir, which place he confirmed in his possession. The Rai was ever afterwards obedient, and sent his tribute regularly as long as he lived ."

"Malik Naib [Kafur] reached there expeditiously and occupied the fort... He built mosques in places occupied by temples."

"“But see the mercy with which he regarded the brokenhearted, for, after seizing the rai, he set him free again. He destroyed the temples of the idolaters, and erected pulpits and arches for mosques.”67"

"'He routed Ramdev everywhere except the fort. The fort contained temples of gold and silver and images of the same metals. Besides, there were jewels of different varieties. He ordered them to be destroyed and collected its gold. Ruler of the fort was surprised at this action and his mind got confused. He sent an envoy for conclusion of peace on condition of sparing the temples from destruction which was agreed to"

"“The tongue of the sword of the Khalifa of the time, which is the tongue of the flame of Islam, has imparted light to the entire darkness of Hindustan by the illumination of its guidance… and on the right hand and on the left hand the army has conquered from sea to sea, and several capitals of the gods of the Hindus in which Satanism had prevailed since the time of the Jinns, have been demolished. All these impurities of infidelity have been cleansed by the Sultan’s destruction of idol temples, beginning with his first expedition against Deogir, so that the flames of the light of the law illumine all these unholy countries, and places for the criers to prayers are exalted on high, and prayers are read in mosques. Allah be praised!”"

"“The Mosque of Qutb al-Din Mubarak Khalji at Daulatabad, dated AH 718/AD 1318, is probably the earliest surviving Muslim structure in the Deccan. It is a square, 260 feet each way, assembled into the usual orthodox plan out of destroyed Hindu pillars, brackets, and beams…”"

"Devagiri was attacked twice by the forces of the Delhi Sultans, first in the reign of Alauddin Khalji, and second, in the time of his successor, Mubarak Khalji. As a result of the two invasions, its physical landscape underwent a radical change. Sometime between 1313 and 1318, a grand congregational mosque, Deccan’s earliest surviving Islamic monument, was constructed at the centre of the city. It ranked next only to Delhi’s Qutab mosque in size. M.S. Mate and T. V. Pathy, who studied the mosque, showed that it was built from parts of Hindu and Jain temples. One hundred and seventy-seven columns carved in the Yadava style were used in the construction of the mosque, of which one hundred and six were placed in the central prayer hall.... Richard Eaton and Philip Wagoner argued that in constructing the mosque, the Khaljis “simultaneously liquidated and absorbed most if not all the religious monuments that had theretofore defined the city.”"

"Subject to influences from both north and south, Maharashtra had been the meeting ground of many cultures. Its marriage customs followed the pattern of the south, but its language belonged to the Indo-Aryan family of the north. Yet despite these influences Maharashtra and its people had remained distinct from their neighbours. They were united by a language which was a tongue with few variations between the high and the low and between place and place."

"I think you are unnecessarily blaming Maharashtrians. The battle of Shivaji was not just for the Marathas, but for the whole Bharatvarsha. From the last two decades and more, the flag of struggle that we have unfurled is also for the country. Have Ranade, Gokhale or Tilak fought only for Maharashtra? All the major political and revolutionary movements in the country in the last fifty years have come from this soil. Bengal was partitioned. But did Maharashtra not stand in strong protest and suffer that as though she herself had been vivisected? We protested and grieved with Punjab when the tragedy of Jallianwala Bagh happened. These are no favours that we have done; it is our sacred duty to stand with all our brethren and countrymen wherever and whenever they are in peril. Hence it is utterly ungrateful of you to not acknowledge this and rather make such atrocious allegations against Maharashtra."

"Places of pilgrimage have been destroyed, homes of the Brahmans have been desecrated, the whole earth is agitated; Dharma is gone. Therefore, Marathas should be mobilized; Maharashtra Dharma should be propagated."

"The houses of this country (Maharashtra) are exceedingly strong and built solely of stone and iron. The hatchet-men of the Government in the course of my marching do not get sufficient strength and power (i.e., time) to destroy and raze the temples of the infidels that meet the eye on the way. You should appoint an orthodox inspector (darogha) who may afterwards destroy them at leisure and dig up their foundations."