THE MAN WHO CHANGED MAHA POLITICS

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THE MAN WHO CHANGED MAHA POLITICS

No other leader in Maharashtra evoked the extreme reactions that Bal Keshav Thackeray did — hero worship on one hand, outright hostility on the other. The Shiv Sena founder, who admired Hitler and promoted a divisive sons-of-the-soil policy, leaves behind an ambiguous legacy

Ambarish Mishra | TNN 

    For over four decades, Bal Keshav Thackeray dominated Maharashtra’s political stage, courting controversy, riding storms, earning credit and criticism — and punctuating all this with biting, often crude, humour. The Maharashtra politician, who passed away on Saturday, was the first among free India’s homespun leaders. Neither an Inner Temple lawyer nor a khadiclad Gandhian, Thackeray never carried the baggage of colonial politics.
    His sons-of-the-soil agenda changed Maharashtra’s political culture and eroded Congress’s once-impenetrable base in the state. He upheld the cause of Mumbaikar Marathis — blue-collar workers and chawlwallas — and demanded their pre-eminence in the country’s commercial capital. Little wonder, he was an icon for many Marathis though among his critics in later years were also Marathis.
    Thackeray’s socio-political thought was shaped by his father, writer-crusader K S Thackeray, also known as Prabodhankar because he edited a periodical called Prabodhan (Renaissance). Bal Thackeray never followed a cohesive political ideology. He advocated Hindutva but stayed away from casteist politics and religious dogma. Unlike DMK or Akali Dal, he didn’t allow his regional agenda to eclipse national issues. He made anti-Muslim statements but allied with Muslim parties. He loved contradictions.
    The Shiv Sena he founded in 1966 was an extension of the 1950s Samayukta Maharashtra Samiti which fought for a state for Marathis. The Samayukta stir brought Thackeray, then a Samiti activist, in contact with the Marathi manoos. He espoused their cause through speeches, activism and Marmik, his publication launched in 1960. This was when locals were getting restive about the influx of migrants into Mumbai, especially from South India, and Marmik, packed with Thackeray toons, published lists of South Indians holding government positions in Mumbai. This fanned Marathi ire. Thackeray had a cartoonist’s eye for symbolism and used this to great effect, standing on an Ambassador at the Gateway of India and demanding that the Gateway be shut to outsiders.
    It was the February 1969 Sena agitation to demand a peaceful settlement of the Maharashtra-Karnataka border row that gave Thackeray greater clout. After 56 people died in police firing on a Sena morcha and Thackeray was sent to Yeravada Jail, Sainiks made Mumbai burn for five days. Chief minister Vasantrao Naik urged Thackeray to issue a peace appeal from prison. He did, emerging the uncrowned king of Mumbai.
    Bandhs became the Sena’s weapon of mass destruction. Such was the fear of Sena gangs that none ventured out on those days. The Congress used this street power and patronised the Sena to crush communist trade unions in Mumbai and Thane. Fights between foot soldiers of both parties culminated in the murder of CPI MLA Krishna Desai. Thackeray used the state machinery to overthrow the left unions and ensure his party’s expansion.
    Long before coalition dharma became fashionable, Thackeray made and unmade poll alliances without batting an eyelid. In sealing electoral pacts he covered Maharashtra’s political spectrum — from left-secular Socialists to the right-wing BJP to the Muslim League. He could gauge the mood of the moment. In 1987, with the Ayodhya issue gathering steam, Thackeray switched from Mee Marathi to Hindutva. After the Babri Masjid demolition of December 1992, he brandished his Hindutva agenda with greater belligerence.
    The ’90s were a period of troughs and crests. If his partymen were indicted for triggering one of the worst communal conflagrations in Mumbai after the Babri demolition, what followed was victory in the 1995 assembly polls. It was also when intra-party bickering battered Sena’s monolithic structure. Thackeray’s blue-eyed boy, former Mumbai mayor Chhagan Bhujbal defected to the Congress in December 1991. This, in a way, triggered Sena’s democratisation.
    Thackeray lost his wife, Meenatai, in 1995 and eldest son, Bindumadhav, in a road accident a year later. His brother Shrikant died in 2003. Trusted colleagues Pramod Navalkar, Dattaji Salvi and Sharad Acharya, too, passed away. The biggest political blow came when nephew Raj snapped ties with the Sena in December 2005 and launched Maharashtra Navnirman Sena in 2006. “Yet, Balasaheb took everything in his stride. He bore personal tragedies and rebellion with courage — and with a hearty laugh,” said former CM and Thackeray confidante Manohar Joshi.
    Thackeray retained his wicked sense of humour till the end. When a Mumbai BJP functionary called on him at Lilavati Hospital this July, Thackeray asked him if Nitin Gadkari, the roly-poly BJP chief, was dieting to lose weight. When the visitor replied in the affirmative, Thackeray shot back: “But the BJP is already fast losing its political weight!”