MUMBAI: An Indian film looks set to whip up sentiment against immigrants in Mumbai, the country’s financial capital, by lionizing a deceased right-wing politician and endorsing his often divisive policies.
“Balkadu,” or “Bitter Potion,” produced by a prominent lawmaker of the Shiv Sena political party, opened in India’s most cosmopolitan city on Friday, the birthday of the party’s firebrand founder, Bal Thackeray, who died in 2012.
The film, made in the Marathi language spoken in the surrounding state of Maharashtra, which is roughly the size of Italy and has a population of about 112 million, spews venom at outsiders who come to Mumbai to find work.
“It was an issue close to Balasaheb’s heart,” said producer Sanjay Raut, referring to the party’s founder. The film would help the Shiv Sena reach out to the young people of today, he added.
The influential regional party has long espoused an anti-immigrant stance, accusing arrivals from the rest of India’s 29 states of stealing jobs from sons of the soil, usually those who speak Marathi as a first language. Descendants of the original inhabitants of a city that now numbers 21 million find themselves in a minority and resent the migrants. Government data shows fewer than 30 percent of registered voters identify themselves as natives.
The protagonist of “Balkadu,” a schoolteacher who hears Thackeray’s voice in his head, tells immigrants they are welcome to stay as guests in Mumbai but have no rights.
The voice of Thackeray, a one-time newspaper cartoonist, is heard in dialogue spliced in from real-life speeches, exhorting natives to hold on to their city.
“The movie is an entertainer, but it is also a message to the Marathi youth, who were feeling rudderless after Balasaheb’s death,” said Raut.
Last year his party returned to power in Maharashtra, as the junior member of a coalition headed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Shiv Sena’s reins are now held by Thackeray’s son, but it is no longer the powerful force of the 1990s. Thackeray’s estranged nephew broke away in 2006 to form a rival party.
Nativist Indian movie targets outsiders in cosmopolis Mumbai
