From militant chauvinism to mid-life blues Party
After many ups and down, mostly the latter, the saffron, ultra-right party is now celebrating the golden jubilee of its founding. A mega-bash is planned on Sunday to mark the milestone, but doubts linger among its loyal soldiers, outside supporters, its allies and opponents and some
​Chief Uddhav Thackeray with son and youth wing leader Aditya
Thus, like the good old days of Bal Thackeray, the jaded 'army' is now looking up to current chief Uddhav Thackeray, who in turn appears to be a fatigued 'general,' who keeps glancing at son Aditya, as the party totters on behind them.Quaid Najmi
Mumbai: It was a cool rainy day on June 19, 1966, that a frail, young political cartoonist with fiery eyes assembled a loose 'Army of Shivaji' and launched the Shiv Sena for espousing the case and cause of 'sons of the soil'.
After many ups and down, mostly the latter, the saffron, ultra-right party is now celebrating the golden jubilee of its founding.
A mega-bash is planned on Sunday to mark the milestone, but doubts linger among its loyal soldiers, outside supporters, its allies and opponents and some others who barely tolerate it.
Battle-weary with several causes it championed, depending on the political weather -- pro-Marathi chauvinism vis-a-vis anti-South Indian, anti-North Indian, anti-Gujarati, its all-time favourites -- anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim and self-proclaimed guardian of Hindutva versus 'green terror' and the like, the party finally tasted the fruits of power in 1995.
It was voted to office first in 1995 in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party and in 2014 piggybacking on the BJP, besides a nominal share in power at the Centre under both NDA regimes headed by then Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee and now Prime Minister Narendra modi.
Perhaps out of sheer habit, whilst in government, it continues to run riot as 'the embedded opposition', occasionally even embarrassing the official Opposition parties. The 'Tiger' Thackeray's personality, his dragon-fire speeches and bold writings through Marmik, Saamana and Dopahar Ka Saamana managed to hold the party together and terrorised all opposition, within and outside.
Slowly, leakages started in the family and the party -- members like nephew Raj Thackeray walked out and formed a new party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, and diehard loyalists like Chhagan Bhujbal, Narayan Rane, Sanjay Nirupam and other less prominent ones quit Shiv Sena to join different parties and flourished.
Among the current crop, many potentially strong leaders like Manohar Joshi are sidelined, or retired, some others have been softened with ministerial posts and many more are simply ignored. The Sena continues to lack a strong party organisation, a support base mostly restricted to some urban centres like Mumbai, Thane, Palghar, Pune, Aurangabad and Nashik.
It is still struggling in other parts of the state and is obsessed with local level politics to capture civic bodies, especially the prosperous milch cow called Mumbai.
Thus, like the good old days of Bal Thackeray, the jaded 'army' is now looking up to current chief Uddhav Thackeray, who in turn appears to be a fatigued 'general,' who keeps glancing at son Aditya, as the party totters on behind them.
Apparent contradictions are galore: Shiv Sena harbours national ambitions, effectively put forth by Bal Thackeray, and has even fought elections independently in several states but is moored in regionalism.
It passionately seeks to be the torch-bearer of hardcore 'Hindutva' but is constrained by realpolitik and electoral compulsions, though nobody objected when the late Thackeray was proclaimed as 'Hindu Hriday Samrat'.
Its gen-next is largedly confined to siblings or cousins, or children of existing leaders, with limited appeal among the youngsters. Sorely lacking a dedicated think tank, the party gets its daily dose of 'englightenment' thanks to the tankful of wisdom emanating from its mouthpieces delivered by the newspaper vendor.
By:Quaid Najmi
