Bal Thackeray & The Rise of the Shiv Sena

Vaibhav Purandare

Description

How did a quiet, unassuming cartoonist at one of India’s leading newspapers transform into the fire-breathing chief of a militant political outfit? How did his essentially sons-of-the-soil movement take Mumbai by storm in the 1960s with its demands for the Marathi people’s employment rights and attacks on South Indians and the Communists? How did he make the shift from an aggressive Maharashtrianism to strident Hindutva to become one of the major players in Indian politics? What explains his control over India’s financial capital, his capture of power in India’s industrial powerhouse, Maharashtra, and his ability to win over the minds of millions and to strike fear in so many hearts? How did he and his Shiv Sena establish sway over the multi-crore film industry and, with its longstanding alliance with the BJP, become a subject of intense curiosity all over India and even in Pakistan?
This book tells the complete story of Bal Thackeray and the rise, fall and split of the Shiv Sena. It examines Thackeray the person and his intriguing political personality, his party’s militaristic methods of operation, its controversial role at major junctures, the fight between Thackeray’s nephew Raj and son Uddhav, the end of an era in Maharashtra politics after his death in November 2012 and the future of the Shiv Sena without his imposing presence. A must-read for an understanding of contemporary Indian politics and the rise of the Hindu nationalist phenomenon.

Sujets

• Political
• Lettres et linguistique
• Idioma maratí
• Aditya Thackeray
• Communism
• Biography
• Uddhav Thackeray
• Raj Thackeray
• South India
• Film industry
• Bharatiya Janata Party
• Politics
• Nationalism
• Bal Thackeray
• Hindutva
• Industry
• Finance
• Autobiography
• Cartoonist
• Shiv Sena
• India
• BJP
• Marathi
• Split
• Maharashtra
• Bollywood
• Militant

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 27 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9788174369918
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Bal Thackeray’s tribute to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (published in Marmik ) after she was assassinated in October 1984 .

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© Vaibhav Purandare, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published in 2012
The Lotus Collection
An imprint of
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Editor: Padma Rao Sundarji
Cover picture © Getty Images
Cover design: Shrabani Dasgupta
Layout: Sanjeev Mathpal
Production: Shaji Sahadevan

Frontispiece , i : A note of appreciation from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the young cartoonist Bal Thackeray, 1960.


Typeset in Bembo by Roli Books Pvt Ltd, and printed at HT Media, India.
In memory of
Suryakant Chemburkar,
my grandfather.



A young Bal Thackeray at work, before he had formed the Shiv Sena. Thackeray said a cartoonist needed to have intimate knowledge of human anatomy in order to be good.


Thackeray addressing a Shiv Sena rally in the 1960s, with the Sena symbol, a growling tiger, in the background.


Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray tries his hand at a game of Cricket.


Bal Thackeray with Meenatai and Kishore Kumar.


By using the name of Chhatrapati Shivaji, Thackeray evoked the memory of the Maratha warrior tradition and thereby converted the Shiv Sena into a militant outfit.


One of Bal Thackeray’s cartoons in the Free Press Journal on the duplicitous role of colonial rulers. He drew many cartoons on international affairs at the FPJ, depicting personalities such as Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt and Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia.


The Thackeray family: (Standing from L to R) Jaidev (Thackeray’s estranged son), his wife Smita (since separated), Madhavi (wife of Thackeray’s eldest son Bindumadhav), Bindumadhav, Uddhav and Rashmi (Uddhav’s wife). (Seated) Bindumadhav’s children Neha and Nihar, Bal Thackeray, Uddhav’s son Aditya, Jaidev’s son Rahul and Meenatai Thackeray.


Thackeray and his grandchildren with Michael Jackson at the Thackerays’ residence, Matoshree, in 1996.


Bhendi Bazaar’s Muslims meet Bal Thackeray at Matoshree, after his wife Meenatai Thackeray’s demise.


Thackeray being taught the tricks of the trade by his son, Uddhav, who is an avid photographer.


Thackeray and Amitabh Bachchan have been close friends. After Amitabh was injured on the sets of Coolie in Bangalore in 1982, it was a Shiv Sena ambulance which took him from the Mumbai airport to Breach Candy Hospital.


Another close friend, Dilip Kumar (with Hollywood action hero Steven Seagal to his left). Kumar and Thackeray would have ‘chana and beer’ on the terrace of Matoshree.


With Anna Hazare, who had carried out an agitation against ministers in the Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra.


With Pranab Mukherjee, whom he supported in the 2012 presidential polls, going against the NDA nominee P.A. Sangma.


With nephew Raj, who quit the Shiv Sena in 2005 and formed his own party, the MNS. Raj has been among the people closest to Thackeray, and could not hold back his tears at his funeral at Shivaji Park.


With Lata Mangeshkar and Madhuri Dixit at a function on the occasion of Lata’s father Dinanath Mangeshkar’s 70th death anniversary in April 2012. In the aftermath of Bal Thackeray’s death, Lata said that Maharashtra had lost a father figure.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Prologue

1. The early years
2. The political cartoonist
3. Maharashtrians and migrants
4. Mobilising the Sena corps
5. Bal Thackeray: The person and the persona
6. Politics, promises and violence
7. The battle with the Communists
8. Greater Maharashtra and the first arrest
9. Bhiwandi burns
10. Murder and mandate
11. The tenets of Thokshahi and the success in Parel
12. Humbled at the hustings
13. The tiger’s white collar
14. Sena stamp on Congress’s employment directives: Locals first
15. Support for Congress, the Emergency and zero tolerance for artistic dissent
16. The surprise announcement
17. Textile tragedy leads to divorce
18. Swaying to the socialist song
19. Over to Hindutva and back to Bhiwandi
20. Joining hands with the BJP
21. Mumbai polls 1985: A fresh lease of life
22. Inroads into rural areas
23. Rolling out the saffron carpet
24. At the centre stage
25. Cross-voting and the ban on voting
26. Alliance with the BJP, again
27. Bhujbal sulks, quits Sena
28. The 1992–93 riots
29. The path to power
30. The Sena government
31. Raj versus Uddhav
32. Bal Thackeray = Shiv Sena
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Photo Credits
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
his book on Bal Thackeray and one of the most controversial political outfits of modern India would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of many.
I would first like to thank my publisher, Priya Kapoor, for the enthusiasm she showed for the project and for her efforts to make this book available to readers remarkably quickly. Priya also pushed me into putting in more biographical information on Bal Thackeray than I originally had; that has only made the book better.
A big thank you also to her father, Pramod Kapoor, the guiding force behind Roli Books, who has also published my biography of Sachin Tendulkar. Padma Rao Sundarji has been an outstanding editor. She went through the text in what must have been record time, and her intervention has made the text crisper and more readable.
Sanjay Raut, executive editor of the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna helped me in every possible way he could, fulfilling the role of Bal Thackeray’s alter ego which he has performed so well for close to two decades. Dilip Ghatpande and Vijay Gaonkar, among Thackeray’s earliest associates, helped with their recollections, as did the Sena’s counsel, Barrister Achyut Chafekar; Suresh Gothankar helped with the archival material he has painstakingly collected over the years; and K. Bala, Kishor Dhargalkar, Vasant Kher and Dr Satish Naik provided constant encouragement.
Some of the Sena’s strongest opponents, Mrinal Gore, Ahilya Rangnekar (who are sadly no longer with us), Roza Deshpande and B.S. Dhume, opened up to me with candour.
The debt of gratitude I owe to my parents, Jyotsna and Jagdish Purandare, is incalculable. I would not like to repay it, because it is not money that you repay and forget. And thanks, as ever, to my brother Kunal, for his quiet and constant support. Finally, I would first like to thank Bal Thackeray himself, for being such an interesting subject, and for promptly agreeing to release the first edition of this book in 1999. The edition you hold in your hands is a revised and fully updated one. All these people are responsible for the good things in this book. For any errors, I alone am accountable.

Vaibhav Purandare
Mumbai
November 2012
PROLOGUE
‘I’m 86 and tired… I have physically collapsed. Look after my son and grandson just as you looked after me all these years.’


Thousands of Bal Thackeray’s followers had gathered at Shivaji Park, in north-central Mumbai, for the Shiv Sena’s Dussehra rally on 24 October 2012. This was part of their annual ritual, the coming-together of party faithfuls for the annual address by their Senapati or chief. Thackeray had addressed his first Dussehra rally in 1966, the year in which the Shiv Sena was established, and had since held forth from the dais on this very ground every Dussehra, for 45 consecutive years, each time attracting a crowd of at least one lakh, a record of sorts.
There were some doubts about whether he’d attend this time. He had been ailing for a while and had just recently spent nine days in hospital for a gastro-intestinal ailment. Nevertheless, the Sainiks hoped he would come.
He did not.
Instead, after