Feb.08 : Periodically, the Shiv Sena, the parochial regional party that once ruled Maharashtra along with its ally, launches a campaign for the ostensible protection of the sons of the soil, the Marathi manoos (Marathi people). In its four decades’ history, there have been many such programmes — the party first began by asking South Indians to get out of the city, then shifted for a brief moment to Gujaratis, then became an aggressive, anti-Muslim, Hindutva spouting party and is now railing against “North Indians” which translates as Biharis and UPites.
In addition is its anti-Pakistan rhetoric, which is wheeled out from time to time. The build-up and aftermath is more or less consistent — there is some rhetoric, some slogan shouting, occasionally some stray violence against common people and then it all subsides till the next time. It helps to have a high profile target to raise the ante of the campaign.This time there are many targets. The Sena has attacked Sachin Tendulkar, Mukesh Ambani, Shah Rukh Khan and now Rahul Gandhi. Shah Rukh has been criticised for saying the Indian Premier League should have hired Pakistani players and the others for emphasising the constitutionally correct position that Mumbai belongs to all, not just to Marathi speakers. The Sena has also “warned” Shah Rukh Khan and darkly hinted that he lives in Mumbai and should be prepared to face the consequences. Mumbaikars are worried that more violence is in store, especially since the ruling combine’s past record in managing such trouble is far from heartening.We have been here before. Nearly two decades ago, the Sena had targetted Dilip Kumar after he got the Nishan-e-Pakistan award. Party activists shouted slogans outside his house and took off their clothes to create a spectacle. Only recently MLAs of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which is the breakaway group of the Shiv Sena attacked fellow MLA Abu Azmi for taking his legislative oath in Hindi. Periodically, North Indians taxi drivers are beaten up by MNS members. So the threat of violence is real.The bigger question is: what prompted the Shiv Sena to suddenly start firing on these old issues? The Mumbai-is-for-local plank has been around for years. Why did the Sena raise it now?To understand this, one has to look back on the last few years. The last five years or so have been the worst in the party’s existence. Two leading stalwarts — Narayan Rane and Raj Thackeray — and countless other mid-level office bearers have left the Shiv Sena out of disenchantment at the way it is shaping up. The say the party has lost its way and under Uddhav Thackeray, the supremo Bal Thackeray’s son, it has gone into the hands of a small coterie which is keeping old loyalists out. Raj Thackeray’s departure was a major shock, since he was a nephew and close to the party chief.Raj’s new organisation the MNS has already demonstrated its nuisance value. In the last general elections the party’s candidates cut into the votes of the Shiv Sena in Mumbai and other neighbouring places to the extent that the Sena lost at least four seats which it could have won. The situation repeated itself in the state elections in October 2009, when the MNS won 13 seats. The Shiv Sena got 44, a drastic fall from the previous figure of 62. What is more, the Sena came second to its ally the BJP which made it the junior partner.The party has been smarting under this humiliation. One of the fallouts was that in the dying months of 2009, Bal Thackeray, who had been keeping a low profile because of health reasons, decided to once again take charge of his party’s day-to-day affairs. The difference in the way the party functions has been palpable; its newspaper Saamna has become more aggressive and once again there is a sense of direction. The recent campaigns are a direct result of this new found aggression and all the hallmarks of Bal Thackeray’s style are visible in them, from the content to the language and to the tactics.This has made the Sena’s key ally the BJP uncomfortable. Faced with an election in Bihar, it has made sure that it disassociates itself from the anti-North Indian platform and has fallen back on the RSS to make that clear. The BJP cannot afford — yet — to take the Shiv Sena head on though the party chief Nitin Gadkari would be happy to break off ties. The Sena has no alternative but to raise the ante — it is now a question of survival. If young voters drift towards the MNS and even its own ally starts getting restive, then something must be done to get back lost ground and launching a pro-native campaign is the only way to do it. The party is suffering from lack of imaginative leadership and depleting loyalists in key positions; it knows only its old, familiar tactics. There is a real danger the old style strategies won’t work any more. If the party continues to haemorrhage soldiers and voters, then in the next few years it will be reduced to its former self. The MNS will emerge as the key representative of Marathi speakers. In which case the Sena will become irrelevant. This is therefore a desperate gamble to survive.Sidharth Bhatia is a senior journalist
Sidharth Bhatia