On his 93rd birth anniversary, ThePrint takes a look at the life of former Shiv Sena chief who changed the course of Maharashtra politics forever.
The image of this political firebrand was unmistakable. Thick-lensed glasses, a trademark rudraksh beaded necklace, a razor-sharp tongue and a throng of followers who loved and feared him in equal measure.
This week, the Shiv Sena takes decisive steps to etch the memory of Balasaheb Thackeray more permanently into Mumbai’s cityscape and its popular culture.
The party will perform a ceremony at the proposed site of his memorial in Mumbai — a heritage sea-front bungalow and until now the mayor’s residence.
Later this week, Thackeray, a biopic produced by senior Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the politician, will be released.
These events coincide with Thackeray’s 93rd birth anniversary Wednesday.
The Shiv Sena supremo’s life was synonymous with a coercive nativist agenda in Maharashtrian politics. He was the original flag-bearer of Marathi chauvinism. But much before that he was a cartoonist with a cause.
On his birth anniversary, ThePrint takes a look at the life of the cartoonist who changed the course of Maharashtra politics permanently.
Early professional life and ‘Marmik’
Thackeray was born on 23 January 1926, in Pune to Prabodhankar Thackeray, a leading figure in the United Maharashtra movement which advocated a separate Marathi-speaking political entity out of what was then state of Bombay, said a Time report.
A young Thackeray began his career as a political cartoonist with the Free Press Journal. His cartoons were wielded like a political weapon but he was forced to suppress his critical commentary. Frustrated, he quit in 1960 and started his own political weekly, Marmik.
Thackeray vehemently criticised Left-aligned politicians in his columns, a platform for his ‘anti-outsider’ rhetoric that came to define his politics.
He repeatedly urged the Marathi manoos, or the Marathi common man, against “bending down” before “outsiders” — his targets shifting over the years from South Indians to Muslims to North Indians.
To embody the ‘angst’ of the Marathi manoos, Thackeray created ‘Kakaji’.
In the mid-60s, Thackeray first began pandering to a sense of alienation among Maharashtrians. He published lists of corporate workers employed in Mumbai, then Bombay, to highlight the number of “outsiders”, specifically South Indians.
It sparked an avalanche of letters to Marmik, many sharing experiences of being “pushed out” by non-Maharashtrians. This solidified Thackeray’s pro-Maharashtra slogan that later amplified into a louder pro-Hindu and anti-Muslim voice.
Also read: BJP’s latest olive branch for Shiv Sena — Rs 100 cr memorial for Bal Thackeray
Shiv Sena and ‘Saamana’
In 1966, Thackeray abandoned his longstanding aversion to party politics and formed the Hindu Right-wing political outfit, Shiv Sena.
Thackeray and Shiv Sena drew their inspiration from Shivaji, a 17th-century king of the Maratha kingdom.
Marathi newspaper Saamana was also launched as the party’s mouthpiece. However, as the Shiv Sena chief got involved in full-time politics, the cartoonist in him had to take a backseat.
He set the tone for his politics, saying he wanted a “respectable” place for Maharashtrians in Mumbai’s political and professional landscape.
Declaring himself as the pramukh (chief) of the Shiv Sena, he employed military metaphors and slogans advocating muscle power to mobilise his followers. Violence and intimidation were Thackeray’s weapons against his enemies.
In 1970, Krishna Desai, a popular trade union leader was stabbed to death, allegedly by members of the Shiv Sena. Arrests followed: 16 people from the Shiv Sena were charged and convicted.
The Desai murder set the template for the Shiv Sena’s activities.
Thackeray always sought and got attention by evocatively expressing his admiration for Hitler. In a 1993 Time magazine interview he said, “There is nothing wrong if Indian Muslims are treated as Jews were in Nazi Germany.”
The most ghastly period in Sena’s history of violence came in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition on 6 December, 1992. The party was indicted by the Shri Krishna Commission for its role in the 1992-93 Bombay riots. The commission report highlighted Thackeray’s role in commanding his troops to retaliate with organised attacks against Muslims.
Thackeray and Hindutva
Electorally, Thackeray realised that a nativist ‘sons of the soil’ agenda would help the Shiv Sena in Mumbai. The party, therefore, gradually showcased a larger Hindutva ideology.
This led to an electoral alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1989. He intensified his criticism of Muslims and gave his followers the catchphrase, “garv se kaho hum Hindu hain”.
In 1995, Thackeray’s party secured its first major electoral victory when the saffron alliance won 138 assembly seats and formed the state government with a Shiv Sena CM – Manohar Joshi.
Although Joshi was CM, Thackeray was always in control. He demonstrated this more than once, the most emphatically when he removed Joshi in 1999 and replaced him with Narayan Rane, then a Shiv Sainik.
Also read: I asked Balasaheb Thackeray, “Are you a mafioso?” — and lived to tell the tale
The final decade
The last decade of Thackeray’s life was the most subdued, personally as well as politically.
The 2000s saw infighting within the Shiv Sena as several key leaders exited the party: Sanjay Nirupam and Rane joined Congress.
Thackeray also fell out with his aggressive, charismatic nephew Raj Thackeray when he named the shy and quieter Uddhav his successor. In 2005, an irate Raj quit the Shiv Sena with a handful of leaders and created his own party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
Thackeray’s health deteriorated with the years and his public appearances decreased.
A month before his death, too frail to attend the Shiv Sena’s much-celebrated Dussehra rally, an annual tradition since 1966, Thackeray recorded his thoughts in a video that was played at the venue.
He died on 17 November, 2012. His supporters thronged the streets, waiting along the route of his funeral rally to get a last glimpse of their leader.
The man, known to stop Mumbai functioning at his will, halted the city for a day even death.
Imagine being in Mr.Bal Thackeray’s position. In a hell of a marginalization, that when existed during the democratic rule for long where no government assistance for the sufferers and when the sufferers were instead boiled to vapour (uncared and unrecorded by media and people). One has to be able to define who is violent, for what and what does it mean to be “bad for the bad”. Our Indians were and are so great that even when tears are saturated, peace and non-militant behaviour is unrealized as derogatory of living. Most were, are and possible, will be sensitised about the sort of a fear and intimidation that was a significant counter point for most during his rising times but who are fearing, intimidated and why? Why can’t one think of it. There are numerous examples of why he was a simple matter of talk but was a huge deal because natural instinct of humans is to complicate the simple to a degree such that still none realise it’s better to go back to square 1 and listen to what he always said in his interviews, speeches and etc. The ones who he inherently opposed were instead asked to unite or either stay away from their uncontrollably cruel actions (we sure know who they actually are) because limits nearly broke away from the streamline where nonaboriginal domination was reaching beyond peaks and further irresistible treatment of the aboriginals was flourishing, but he neither said nor did oppose all of a particular community. Fighting for truth is against law and order, humanity and is completely unproductive? If so, with peace, handful things came true and peaceful approach would not have excelled when the opponents were in no way that kind peaceful and serene, going to listen and a treaty would have failed, rather killed the peaceful approach believers. Hope one tries to understand one of his decisions and actions to truly know why he was a simple matter of talk yet made a big deal and horribly misunderstood by the help of LTTE’s start and end (To hint more of why a severe action is required which our law and order, the great democratic governance and people could never attain except in words and theories).