Maharashtra could soon become part of BIMMARU

By RN Bhaskar

Image by Kalpesh Mistry

Is Maharashtra headed in the same direction that Uttar Pradesh has taken for the past few decades? Will it become another addition to the BIMARU grouping causing a change in its spelling to BIMMARU?    BIMARU is the acronym for Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh – all sickly states, backward in literacy, communally charged, high on the most lumpen of vigilantism, and bailed out constantly by grants from the central pool (free subscription — https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/tilting-the-scales-to-suit-north).

It would appear to be so.  Two recent incidents seem to confirm this trend.

Bulldozer justice

On Monday, 24 March 2025, bulldozers and excavators tore down the two-storey home of Fahim Khan, described by the Nagpur police as “an instigator, if not the mastermind” of the violence that consumed Central Nagpur a week ago. The High Court has taken a grim view of this move, which has no basis in law or due process. It defies previous orders by the Supreme Court on similar acts by the UP government. (https://www.freepressjournal.in/analysis/bulldozer-justice-is-lawless-action-symbolises-retributive-governance).

In another incident, none less than the chief minister of Maharashtra, actually began making provocative statements about Aurangzeb, which are believed to have contributed to fanning the riots in Nagpur.  Most of the arrested persons were Muslims.  The pattern is similar to what is happening in Uttar Pradesh.

Losing vital projects

Take another incidence which demonstrates how little Maharashtra cares about protecting its turf.  Over the past decade, it has chosen to stay quiet, as the centre brazenly shifted the International Finance Centre (IFC) to Ahmedabad in Gujarat.  The IFC was designed to make Mumbai a more vibrant financial hub.  After all, this city has been acknowledged as the financial capital of the country.  By shifting the IFC to the GIFT City near Ahmedabad, the centre has created a ghost township, propped up by one concession after another.  This has hurt Mumbai grievously. The Centre’s move has also prevented the true blossoming of an IFC in Gujarat.

Maharashtra also kept silent, when the gold bourse was shifted to the GIFT city (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/international-bullion-bourses-to-come-up-at-gift-city/articleshow/73855366.cms).  This is even as the nerve centre of the gold trade remains to be Mumbai.

Maharashtra’s politicians also allowed the centre to create another diamond bourse near Surat (https://asiaconverge.com/2022/07/mahesh-gadhavi-on-the-surat-diamond-bourse/), trying to prop up the Patidar Patels.  Today, the Surat bourse is limping, and the trade in the Bharat Diamond Bouse in Mumbai continues to remain vibrant, though a bit muted.

While the centre may have been reckless in its decision-making, it was the responsibility of Maharashtra’s captains to protect the fortunes of this state. Or at least raise the banner of protest.  Instead, they acquiesced, unwilling or incapable of protecting the state’s interests. Compare the indifference of Maharashtra’s leaders with the blistering protests by states like Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh when their respective fortunes are sought to be stomped upon.

Value descruction

Instead, the state captains have been busy changing names of cities, of roads (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/where-the-streets-had-new-names-until-someone-pulled-the-plug/articleshow/80197225.cms). It has even provoked communal rifts among its people.  The recent riots in Nagpur is the latest example.  The state’s leaders forget a simple fact — no state has become prosperous when its leaders seek to divide its population.

The two incidents described above, point to the lack of vision on the part of the state’s leadership to protect Maharashtra’s interests.  They seem to be replicating incidents that have taken place in Uttar Pradesh.

At a time when the state government should be working overtime to create jobs, improve education and health services, and reduce farmer deaths, the government appears to be keen on stoking communal fires.

This is taking place even as Maharashtra saw the most number of shutdowns this year with 8,472 MSMEs closed (https://thewire.in/economy/over-35000-msmes-closed-in-2024-25-nearly-double-of-last-year).

Such moves could have the unfortunate effect to pulling down Maharashtra from the position of being the most industrialised state in the country to becoming a has-been.  Many of the indicators given below point to administrative callousness, and even connivance to make the privileged prosperous, and further weaken the vulnerable.

Callous about irrigation

Consider irrigation first.  Compare Maharashtra’s irrigated land as a percentage of gross cropped area.  It stands at a pathetic 17%.  Observe how the state does not have any information for the latest years, even though huge amounts have been allocated and distributed for enhancing the percentage and irrigation coverage.  Then compare this with the record of its neighbouring states.  Madhya Pradesh boasts of an 80% achievement.  Karnataka, which is also a sugarcane state like Maharashtra, has a record of 26% and Gujarat of 46%.

Sugarcane

The cause for poor irrigation isn’t difficult to locate.  It is the state’s obsession with sugarcane. This is the sector which feeds most kay politicians in Maharashtra.  This is the sector which is constantly granted ad hoc allocation of funds by the state. Sugarcane is a water guzzling crop, not suited for water-scarce state.  Yet there is immense greed to get higher returns from sugarcane (sugar is the least important).  Potable and industrial alcohol are extremely lucrative both on and off the books.  So is ethanol.

That explains why neighbour Karnataka can manage to have more land under irrigation than Maharashtra.  That also explains why the desperation of farmers in Maharashtra is more acute than those in other states. This is borne out by the large number of farmer suicides in the state.

Thus when it comes to exploiting farmers, Maharashtra is as callous as Uttar Pradesh (https://asiaconverge.com/2022/02/the-double-engine-growth-for-uttar-pradesh-must-not-spread-over-india/).

It also explains why the output of other crops has remained muted over the past few decades.  The only crops that appear to have done well are jowar (often for self-consumption and sustenance) and sugarcane.

Cattle vigilantes

Pursuit of cattle slaughter laws is another area where Maharashtra has begun to resemble Uttar Pradesh. In fact, the cattle population in Maharashtra has begun to decline.  Milk production, however. hasn’t declined, at least for now. But this could be because of better artificial insemination of cattle with high yield cattle sperm.  Maharashtra could have produced more milk than it does today.  But frenzied vigilantism from gau-rakshaks (or so-called cattle-protectors) has driven many away from rearing cattle.

Naturally, leather units are on a decline in this state, and so are leather and beef exports.

The state appears to nurture a death-wish.

Health and education

Maharashtra’s lack of focus on good education is another aspect that makes it like Uttar Pradesh. Look at the number of primary education schools.  While population since 1960 has gone up around 3 times in Maharashtra, the number of primary schools has grown at the same pace.  This is despite the fact, that even in the ‘sixties, it was obvious that the number of primary schools was extremely low.  They should have increased ten-fold, as the need is urgent. Compare the average output in terms of mathematics and language from any of the ASER reports (https://asiaconverge.com/2024/09/india-spurns-its-advantages/). You will discover than the students of this state perform more poorly than those in wealth generating states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh.

The same is true of healthcare.  The states allocation of funds for better healthcare is abysmally poor.  More focus has been given to promote money generating private medical colleges than on enhancing the number of beds and enrolment at government owned colleges which charge lower fees and offer better education.

As a result, doctors graduating from private (high cost-low quality) private medical colleges set the benchmark for the cost of medicare in the markets. Not surprisingly, the state pays one of the highest charges for second-rate medicare.

Without good education and healthcare, the state has begun offering fewer opportunities for new age jobs and enterprises. The paucity of quality education will jeopardise the state’s ability grow rapidly in the future.

Profligacy

Finally look at the numbers which point to a surge in debt.  The money spent could have been used for building quality roads – few of the bridges in the state last more than 50 years (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJpKwcDvw54). The money allocated for irrigation appears to have been squandered for other purposes.  The callousness is reinforced by the way high toll charges are applicable on the Atal Setu bridge. This bridge connects the relatively poorer sections of the state’s population to Mumbai city.  Compare this with the ‘zero’ toll paid by users of the coastal roads, which too were built at a huge cost. They cater to the relatively more affluent.  The speed with which old bridges are pulled down, without first building a new one also points to the disdain for the terrible inconvenience common folk experience. All of them testify to the state’s indifference to the costs the poor must pay.

Accompanying this disdain for core values is an increasing intolerance (bulldozer justice) and the willingness to destroy lives through communal statements.  At one time the chief minister screams that those who destroy property will pay for it, even while a section close to the deputy chief minister vandalises a studio and a hotel where a stand-up comedian’s video shoot took place. The inconsistency and the caprice are – once again — in full view.

Not surprisingly, the largest number of MSME closures are in Maharashtra (https://thewire.in/economy/over-35000-msmes-closed-in-2024-25-nearly-double-of-last-year).  As a report in The Wire points out “Maharashtra saw the greatest number of shutdowns this year with 8,472 MSMEs closed, followed by 4,412 in Tamil Nadu, 3,148 in Gujarat, 2,989 in Rajasthan and 2,010 in Karnataka.  The state’s leaders don’t appear to be too perturbed either by farmer suicides, or by people losing jobs.

Maharashtra deserves a lot better.  It is the state that ushered in wealth generation post-independence.  It is rapidly losing that ability.  It is beginning to look more like Uttar Pradesh instead of other states that are gaining in affluence and education.

Will the state’s leadership have the vision to steer the state away from the path to Uttar Pradesh?

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