Maharashtra Marathi Language Mandate Migrant Drivers

When the government tells you to learn a new language or lose your livelihood, you find a way. For thousands of migrant auto and taxi drivers in Maharashtra, that way looks different depending on who you are and where you live. For thousands of migrant auto and taxi drivers in Maharashtra, that way looks different depending on who you are and where you live. Some are filing into classrooms after 11-hour shifts, sitting in the front row, tracing alphabets with the same hands that grip steering wheels all day. Others have quietly turned their phones into classrooms, swapping entertainment reels for Marathi lessons, buying newspapers in a script they’re still learning to read. Maharashtra’s Marathi mandate, now a month old, requires all auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers to demonstrate working knowledge of the language by August 15 or risk losing their permits. The directive has sent ripples through a community of 2.8 lakh auto-rickshaw and 20,000 taxi permit holders in Mumbai alone, many of them migrants from Hindi-speaking states who have spent decades navigating the city without needing Marathi. Political parties have rushed to organise language classes. The state government has announced its own initiative starting June. Nayonika Bose attended classes across the city to meet drivers now walking a tightrope between eking out a living and a genuine desire to learn the language. Shadaab Qureshi, 43, taxi driver, Grant Road After an 11-hour shift, Shadaab Qureshi pressed his last cup of chai at Asha hotel. On a normal day, that 6 pm cup would mean curtains down for the 43-year-old cabbie, whose day takes him across South Mumbai ferrying passengers. But May 20 was different. Instead of heading home to Grant Road’s Kamathipura, Qureshi walked towards Nagpada’s Ahmed Sailor Primary School with a spring in his step, powered not just by chai but by the excitement that comes with a new experience. He had good reason to be excited. Nearly three decades after quitting school, he was back in a classroom, this time as a student of Marathi. Thrilled, he was the first to arrive. Qureshi, known as ‘Bhola’ among friends, says, “When I told my friends about my class, they laughed at me. But it doesn’t make a difference to me. I have come alone to learn.” Though he can follow the language, he had signed up to learn spoken Marathi after the government’s latest diktat. “I can understand when my passengers speak to me. If they say ‘Pudhe’, I know they want me to go straight, or ‘Thamba’ means stop. But speaking Marathi is when I get stuck. Increasingly, I have started to feel embarrassed when I am unable to speak in Marathi.” Shadaab arrived in Mumbai from Delhi in 1991. After a few years as a mechanic, he bought a Fiat and started driving a taxi in the early 2000s. The problem, he says, isn’t passengers. “While customers don’t generally speak in Marathi, the problem arises when RTO officers stop us. Their Marathi is very fluent, so