It’s
fast becoming worthy of a typical Hindi movie, with cast of characters that are
all allied and opposed to each other at the same time – the three Thackerays
and their two senas and the RSS-BJP stuck between Mumbai and Bharat. The
Thackerays are currently under attack from all quarters, including the RSS and
the BJP, then fellow travellors in the battle for the Hindu mind. This is a
real puzzle – as much for the fire-spewing Uddhav Thackeray as for the BJP-RSS
watchers familiar with the Sena-BJP’s cosy relationship of the past 25 years. What’s
the fight really about – the Marathi manoos? Shiv Sena’s growing irrelevance
and Uddhav’s and Raj’s political insecurity?
The
‘Mumbai for Marathis’ slogan has returned to prominence after nearly 25 years, once
again threatening to damage its cosmopolitan nature. (Historically, Mumbai, Kolkata
and Chennai, serving as major ports to the hinterland states in the west-north
west, east-north east and South India drawing
traders, entrepreneurs and working people from those areas, thus emerging as
cosmopolitan cities built over the years by all). The Shiv Sena and its off-shoot
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena are spearheading the campaign to re-fashion Mumbai.
The
issue has its roots in the struggle for Samyukta (united) Maharashtra.
At the time of formation of linguistic states, the States Re-organisation
Committee recommended a bilingual Maharashtra–Gujarat
State, with Mumbai as its
capital. Its inauguration on November 1, 1956 caused a great stir, out of which
was born Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti on Feburary 8, 1956.
In
the second Assembly election, the Samiti defeated Congress, securing 101 seats
out of 133, including 12 from Mumbai. Congress could form a government only
with the support of Gujarat, Marathwada and
Vidharbha. Yeshwantrao Chavan became the first Chief Minister of the bi-lingual
Bombay State.
Leaders
like S.M.Joshi, S.A.Dange, N.G.Gore and P.K.Atre fought for Samyukta
Maharashtra. After the sacrifice of 105 lives and the resignation of Nehru’s
Finance Minister C.D.Deshmukh, the SMS finally succeeded in convincing Congress
leaders that Maharashtra should be a separate
State. On May 1, 1960, the state of Maharashtra, which included Konkan, Khandesh,
Western Maharashtra, Vidharbha and Maharashtra
was formed.
After
six and a half years later, Balasaheb Thackeray founded Shiv Sena on June 19, 1966,
with the stated objective of ‘protecting the rights and pride of the Marathi
manoos.’ With his rabble-rousing oratory, Thackeray succeeded in creating a
xenophobic sentiment among Marathi youth among lower middle classes by raising
the twin fears that outsiders were eating up their jobs and that there was a
conspiracy to separate Mumbai from Maharashtra. He, at first, raised the bogey
that people from South India were usurping jobs at the cost of Marathi youth
and the Shiv Sena targeted South Indians (whom they called ‘Madrasis’) particularly
youth. Such chauvinist postures always have ready-takers among the lumpen
elements who are at the look out for opportunities to establish themselves as
local dadas or thugs, before influencing misguided youth. Shiv Sena adopted
violence as a creed against its targets. (It must be noted that when South
Indians–Tamils – were attacked and their properties ransacked in 1967-68, the
RSS and BJP’s earlier avtar Jan Sangh did not raise a hue and cry, as they do
now when Hindi-speaking North Indians are targeted by the Sainiks. It was only
the DMK and Communist parties which condemned the attacks and wanted protection
for South Indians, when the Lok Sabha discussed a report tabled by members G.Viswanathan
(DMK) and R.Umanath (CPI-M) at the instance of the then Speaker N.Sanjeeva
Reddy).
In
the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the Shiv Sena gained foothold exploiting, the
rising unemployment and under-development of Marathi-speaking populace and led
the frustration of the Marathi ‘manoos’ to a violent outburst after the Babri
Masjid demolition in 1992 when communal riots laid waste to property and
claimed many lives. With the Shiv Sena’s alliance with the BJP in 1984, the
Sena’s aspirations grew, Hindutva became its agenda and ‘Mumbai for Marathi’
was put on the backburner. The issue resurfaced in 2007, Raj Thackeray, who had
parted ways with Shiv Sena in 2006, was looking to create his own space in state
politics. Raj was Balasaheb’s true heir in all senses. He had studied his
uncle’s rise in politics and chose the same path for himself.
Coming
to the present bizarre state of affairs, just when it was thought it could not
get any worse, it has Uddhav’s ‘Italian mummy- Italian Rajputra’ tirade against
Rahul Gandhi and his unceasing threats to Shah Rukh Khan mark a new low in the
conduct of the party that has practiced violence as it was a sacred credo. Thackeray
Sr. wrote in ‘Saamna’ that Khan inside Shah Rukh Khan must be crushed by the
“Har Har Mahadev” war cry of the “Shivaji” inside the Hindus. This was oblique
reference to Chhatrapati Shivaji’s killing of Bijapur general Afzalkhan, sent
by Sultan Ali. While the Shiv Sena’s young leader bellows and thunders, his
cousin, Raj dangerously teeters on the brink. At a public rally, he wondered
about at ‘the irony of Samajwadi Party MP Abu Azmi not being able to speak
Marathi when terrorist Ajmal Kasab could.’
The
words and actions of Thackerays offended by the yardstick of civility and even
more by the yardstick of constitutional law and morality. Raj is playing with
fire because Shiv Sena showed the way. The Sena showed the way because
successive regimes have tolerated its violence and because its partners, the
BJP and the RSS, have successfully walked the path of intolerance. In a
theoritically pluralist, multicultural and composite India,
the Parivar’s affiliates have been practically able to uphold the notion of an
exclusivist India.
The degree of fanaticism has increased exponentially with each mutation – from
the BJP to the VHP to the Bajrang Dal on the one hand, and from the Shiv Sena
to the MNS on the other. But because the Sena and MNS are rivals, there is less
certainty about who will beat the other in the race to be more provocative.
The
Sena and MNS are unashamedly crude while the Parivar gives the impression of
being more sophisticated. Yet ‘cultural nationalism’, the parivar’s
foundational philosophy explicitly dictates that religious minorities must own
up their Hindu origins and agree to fall within the rubric of Hindutva or
suffer injuries to their identity, dignity and their persons. This explains why
the anthem invariably translates on the ground as aggression against minorities.
The
saffron brotherhood has generally been known for its unity. The reason is that
despite its long history – the Hindu supremacist RSS was founded in 1925 – its
constituents have been late entrants to the corridors of power. As such, they
did not have to contend with the pulls and pressures of competitive politics or
internal personality clashes. It is only now that they have started
experiencing such problems, which led to the split in the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. It is this rupture that is behind the
present confrontation between the RSS and the BJP on the one side and the Sena
and MNS on the other.
At
the root is the politics of one-upmanship between the Sena and MNS. Since both
use street violence as their main political tactic, they need different enemies.
The Shiv Sena’s targets have been the Muslims. The MNS, however, has chosen the
North Indians, mainly the Biharis, as its adversaries, presumably to underline
its difference from the parent organization. Herein lies the basic reason for
its confrontation with the RSS-BJP, since a large position of the latter’s base
of support is in the Hindi belt. There was no way, therefore, for the RSS to
keep quiet while the North Indians lived in fear of being attacked in Mumbai.
The
BJP was largely silent in the initial phase, evidently hoping that the MNS
would see reason or turn to some other community to vent its ire. But the
forthright manner in which the RSS, the head of the Sangh Parivar, stepped into
the fray with its strident criticism of the MNS left the BJP with no option but
fall in line. The assertiveness of the RSS bears the distinct stamp of its new
chief Mohan Bhagwat, who is also believed to have selected the BJP’s new
president Nitin Gadkari.
Apart
from the dangerous antics of the MNS, other issues, too, have cropped up, such
as the question of inclusion of Pakistani players in the Indian Premier League,
which has been strongly ariticulated by Hindi film star Shah Rukh Khan. The
Shiv Sena has been more vociferous on this matter because of the Muslim factor.
But the clash between the two sections of the saffron camp is mainly over the
targeting of North Indians. Since there is no meeting ground between the two –
as on issue of castigating Muslims, for instance – there is little immediate
chance of a resolution. For the MNS, there is no question of a retreat because
of the political gains it has been able to make in Mumbai area because of its
aggressive espousal of the cause of the Marathi manoos. It is classical
fascistic way of garnering support by blaming the immigrants for all social and
economic woes of the locals.
While
the involvement of Rahul Gandhi and Shah Rukh Khan has enlivened the scene, the
entry of the RSS–BJP duo into the fray has queered the pitch for the Hindutva
brigade. As long as the Muslims were the common ‘enemies’ of the RSS-BJP and Shiv Sena, as during the communal riots
of 1992-93, they could act in union. Their alliance also brought them to power
in the State for four years. But now that they are virtually on a collision
course, it is bad news for the saffron lobby. For one, the division of the far-right
vote will ensure safe passage to the secular forces led by the Congress. For
another, the fallout from the rupture in the Hindutva camp will not remain
confined to Maharashtra.
The
departure of the Shiv Sena and the MNS from the BJP-led NDA will be yet another
occasion when a partner of the NDA will have left the alliance in recent months
– the others being the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) of Orissa and the Trinamool
Congress of West Bengal. But the fact that
unlike the BJP and the TC, the Shiv Sena and MNS are avowedly saffronites means
that even the Hindutva camp has started to disintegrate, thereby making the end
of the Hindu nationalistic campaign which began with the Ram Janmaboomi
movement more than two decades ago. Nothing can be more disheartening for the
BJP after its defeat in two successive general elections.
But
beyond the parting of ways in Maharashtra, what
is noteworthy is how the pursuit of sectarianism leads to more and more
divisive policies by targeting different communities. The BJP’s political
advance was based on the whipping up of anti-minority sentiments. As that wave
started to recede with the electorate becoming wise to the party’s cynical
mixing of religion and politics, the cracks in the Hindutva camp in Maharashtra have virtually rung the death-knell for the
conflict-ridden doctrine!
(14-02-10)
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