The Dismantling of India by TJS George

Author:TJS George
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: S&S India
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

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BAL THACKERAY

Cartoonist Astray

Bal Thackeray was not meant to be a demagogue. The elements were so mixed in him that friends could stand up and say to all the world this was a gentle soul who found his fulfilment in a Sherlock Holmes-style pipe and a mug of beer. But he proved the elements wrong. He obliterated Bombay’s history by changing its name and altering its face, and in the process, turned himself into Balasaheb Thackeray, an apostle of urban violence leading a lumpenproletariat mafia. Bal was agreeable, unblemished. Balasaheb was virulent, pestilential. There is no doubt that the Shiv Sena (name derived not from Lord Shiva, but from Shivaji Bhonsle, the warrior king who was crowned ‘chhatrapati’ of the Maratha Empire in 1674) grew beyond the stated purpose of its formation: ensuring preferential treatment for Maharashtrians over migrants in Bombay, India’s premier city industrially, culturally, and aspirationally. The overnight appeal of the ‘Maharashtrians First’ platform saw the Shiv Sena grow into a bullying force of rowdies with enough political power to unleash violence with impunity. It went on to share power in Delhi as well as Maharashtra, yet retained its capacity to break the law and feel patriotic about it. From digging up cricket pitches to prevent Pakistan playing in India, to offering ₹2 lakh as reward to Hindu families that produced five children, the Sena set its own agenda in defiance of democracy’s checks and balances.

As much as 80 per cent of its 18 MPs in the 2014 Parliament had figured in criminal cases. The profile of a Shiv Sena MP came into view in 2017 when Ravindra Gaikwad hit a 60-year-old Air India official with his slippers 25 times, as he claimed. The reason was that he was not given a business class seat. The official’s plea that it was a flight with no business class made no impression on the honourable MP. As the entire country outraged, Air India was joined by other airlines in blacklisting Gaikwad. At no time did the man express any regret because the boss of his party, Uddhav Thackeray, backed him. It was soon discovered that Gaikwad was a habitual offender. Dissatisfied with the food provided by a Muslim caterer in Delhi’s Maharashtra Sadan one day, he forcefully stuffed food into the caterer’s mouth. It also came to light that Gaikwad previously faced charges ranging from rioting to criminal intimidation. That Uddhav Thackeray did not wince at such excesses showed how political power had influenced the outlook of the Thackerays. Unlike his son, Bal Thackeray was exposed, until he was in his 30s, to normal middle-class life and its existential problems. He had established a name as a cartoonist and built up a standing of his own unrelated to politics. He had friends and colleagues who had no association with sectarian ideals or agitational movements. Uddhav did not have the benefit of a freewheeling unaffiliated period in his adult life. The life he experienced was rooted in a political landscape where he

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