How Raj Thackeray went from being freedom’s foe to liberal poster boy

Raj Thackeray, who has stood against most values liberals stand for, is now the apple of their eye. It says something about Modi & Rahul Gandhi.

File photo of MNS chief Raj Thackeray | PTI

In 2019, we are seeing Raj Thackeray in quite a different avatar: The object of sudden adoration of those who wish to see Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his lieutenant BJP president Amit Shah’s, stranglehold on the BJP end.

Although his party, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, is not contesting the Lok Sabha elections, Thackeray, the nephew of the late founder of the Shiv Sena, Bal Thackeray, has emerged as one of the principal antagonists of Modi-Shah.

And that has made him the liberal poster boy.

Even strategists aligned to the Congress and the independent-minded are acknowledging the damage he is doing to Prime Minister Modi’s image.

Take the case of Gaurav Pandhi. Or take the case of journalist Nikhil Wagle, who tweeted how “Godi Media” should be ashamed at being shown up by Raj Thackeray’s “investigative skills”. Perhaps Manjul’s cartoon said it best: A group of jholawalas holding Raj’s framed portrait and rejoicing: Yippeee! Finally, we’ve a hero who can take on bigot, megalomaniac, fascist, hate spreading, divisive Modi!”

#NarendraModi #RajThackeray #LokSabhaElections2019 #IndiaElections2019
My #cartoon for @mid_day pic.twitter.com/uTrDnL1nSH

— MANJUL (@MANJULtoons) April 25, 2019

Many of his new-found admirers such as Sudheendra Kulkarni are not even discomfited by his strident and toxic stand against every principle liberals stand for, including cultural peace between India and Pakistan.

Freedom’s foe

In 2016,  Raj Thackeray managed to bully Karan Johar into apologising for casting Pakistani actor Fawad Khan in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, getting him to broadcast a cringeworthy paean to patriotism. In 2010, he intimidated telecom companies into offering their services in Marathi as well as English and Hindi in order to continue in Maharashtra.

During almost the whole of 2008, his then-fledgeling party, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), allegedly assaulted north Indian taxi drivers, beat up north Indians taking a railway exam, got Amitabh Bachchan to say sorry for wife Jaya Bachchan choosing to speak in Hindi at a public function, and threatened shopkeepers into ensuring that signboards were in English as well as Marathi.

Enemy’s enemy

Cut to 2019: Armed with oratorical skills inherited from and modelled on his uncle, Raj Thackeray has held a series of rallies in Mumbai, Solapur, Latur, Satara and Pune, ripping into the promises made by Prime Minister Modi, often with video footage played on giant screens.

In the absence of any significant opposition from senior Congressmen in Maharashtra, and with younger leaders like Milind Deora and Priya Dutt sticking to what they know best – running for office – Raj Thackeray is building a formidable reputation for himself as Modi-Shah’s Critic No. 1.

It could merely be a case of my enemy’s enemy is my friend, but as veteran journalist and Rajya Sabha MP Kumar Ketkar points out: Raj has emerged as a “full-scale Rajinikanth-type hero in Maharashtra, taking on the almighty Modi, with Congress either paralysed, lukewarm or diffident”.

Raj Thackeray is nothing of the three.

Among other things, he has said that he is yet to come across such a Prime Minister who “lies endlessly”, he has described Modi and his “pithu” Shah as “brazen and shameless”, said people were “fooled and tricked” by them, and has declared he doesn’t want to see them on the political horizon after six months.

Thackeray brought on stage an entire family Tuesday whose photo was used by the BJP to spread propaganda without the family’s knowledge.

He has been destroying the BJP government’s claims on virtually all its “achievements” from digitisation to demonetisation.

And he has chosen his moment well, immediately after the announcement in February of the alliance between the BJP and Shiv Sena, led by his cousin and old rival Uddhav Thackeray. Until that point, Uddhav was also a fierce critic of the BJP, and had said it would be a mistake to underestimate Rahul Gandhi. Late last year he even repeated Rahul Gandhi’s favourite description of Prime Minister Modi: Chor.

Not wanting to be a me too, Raj waited, intelligently and intuitively, filling the vacuum for a voice from the opposition, left by the Shiv Sena’s political compulsion and the Congress-NCP’s political weakness.

The criticism, notes Ketkar, is done cleverly. Raj doesn’t attack the RSS, knowing there is a segment there that is deeply distrustful of the power of the BJP’s power duo. He restricts his ire to the two leaders, often adding National Security Adviser Ajit Doval to the mix.

Giantkiller

From his speech to his love for warm beer, from his passion for drawing cartoons to his hairstyle, Raj has always modelled himself on his uncle.

When it was clear that he was not going to be the heir to the party that was founded in 1966 on the back of the Marathi Manoos movement, he started his own organisation, the MNS in 2006,and acquired the status of giantkiller by terrorising a swathe of people, from Shah Rukh Khan to ordinary shopkeepers, even causing the death by lynching in 2008 of a migrant labourer from Gorakhpur.

But then, every war creates strange allies, even though this may well be the strangest of them all yet. A man who believes above all in saam (communicate), daam (purchase) dand (force) andbhed (divide) is now being seen as a symbol of courage.

It is a comment both on the overpromising Prime Minister Modi’s under-delivery and on the overachieving Rahul Gandhi’s underperformance.

The author is a senior journalist. Views are personal.