Maharashtra is a state full of contradictions.
It is a state rife with more inequality than most.
And it is a state where each territory tries to exploit, and ends up feeling exploited.
The cries for water and the spurt in suicides in parched Marathwada are just some of the sharp manifestations of the rot that threatens to tear the state apart. Maharashtra has almost 20 percent of its population living on just two percent of its land area (around Mumbai, Pune and Nashik). The western regions generate much of the money for the state. Marathwada remains the biggest exploiter in the entire state. And Vidarbha ends up remaining the most exploited; a shriller Marathwada, seeking a greater share of drought relief meant for the state, can drown out its cries.
It is undeniable that Marathwada faces a crisis.
But it is a crisis of its own making, abetted by politicians and policymakers who have allowed this situation to develop. This region’s politicians have misused funds for irrigation, have run cooperative banks into losses (remember how the Rs 1,100-crore losses of the Maharashtra Cooperative Bank turned into profits in the very first year its board was dissolved by the RBI and a professional board appointed?). That Marathwada has been an exploiter all along cannot be denied. Only, this time, it claims to have become the exploited.
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