One strange thing about public perception in Madras of that time was that even though we blamed LK Advani for the demolition of the mosque, he was not seen as a dangerous figure. Neither was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was misunderstood as a fringe organization that stood for bizarre ideas such as Hindu nationalism. It was Bal Thackeray who emerged as the Hindutva firebrand of that era, even though we knew he was once a cartoonist and we were never afraid of cartoonists before. And it was his syndicate, named Shiv Sena, not BJP, that showed what hatred can do. For example, power can only be gained on a campaign of hatred and malice.
The Shiv Sena first came to prominence for organized violence against South Indian migrants, which Bal Thackeray cast as job-snatchers of Marathi-speaking locals, but he could not stop that issue for long. Then the demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya sparked riots in Mumbai, and Thackeray spoke publicly about Muslims in a way politicians have never done before. His insight was that most of the speakers were boring because they preached, but what was interesting was the gossip. As he said in an interview, a lesson he learned from his father was that a speaker should “gossip with people”.
In the beginning, Thackeray might not have meant to be the person he did. A great analysis of his power came from Pritish Nandy, who told me, “At the beginning of his political career, he used to say half things jokingly, and he used to wonder how seriously his words were taken. Gradually, he began to believe what he used to say jokingly.” By the mid-90s, Thackeray had dominated Mumbai and other urban parts of Maharashtra. As a result, in 1995, the Shiv Sena formed a Formed the government. For the first time.
That year, at the age of 21, I started working as a journalist in what was still called Bombay. I thought I was going to a dangerous place and inevitably I would be in some risky situations with Shiv Sena. However, my first meetings were absurd.
A few days after I landed in Bombay, I learned that Sena runs a street gym that is reasonably priced 20 or so per month. When I went into one, half a dozen men on high-carb diets trying to look menacing, found it amusing that a South Indian with a Christian name, who spoke no Marathi at all, would enter their lair. He asked me to do 50 push-ups “for Hanuman”. And he gave me two pieces of clothes – one blue and one red – and said I could only wear these and go to the gym. Took me days to find out they were nappies
I lived in a chawl, in an area that was an army stronghold at the time, and I witnessed the life of an average Shiv Sainik. He was young and unemployed for most of the day, tried to appear too dangerous to other Maharashtrians, and the only form of entertainment he could afford were free street festivals organized by his party that began with devotional songs and the national anthem. ended together. In 1997 or so, at least in the Prabhadevi region, the typical Shiv Sena carnival did not end with the national anthem, but with another song—Aqua’s Barbie Girl.
But my most absurd experience about the army was the first time I saw Bal Thackeray. There was a press conference at his home in Matoshree. I waited with several journalists, almost all of them from Marathi newspapers. In front of us was an empty throne. At last, he appeared.
After sitting down, he saw two journalists, both women, talking among themselves. He kept looking at them, first in amusement, then in anger. I can understand I thought it was weird too. There was a very powerful person here, and the two were just talking. He scolded them for being indecent. She said, “Do you want to go home?” I don’t know if he means they will be taken out. One of the women certainly thought it was a threat. He shouted at her. This was my first acquaintance with the famous hair. Thackeray- A woman is shouting at him and he looks helpless.
Despite its fame, Shiv Sena was actually a small party. It was Mumbai that was big, not the party. In fact, it remains a regional party in Maharashtra as well. Though it has led the state government thrice, all its terms have been in power for less than eight years. It has attempted to contest elections in other states, where it has performed poorly. But whatever happens in Delhi or Mumbai, it is magnified by the media, thus creating a bigger image of Shiv Sena.
Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, like other political parties, was useless for Mumbai. Neither the party nor Bal Thackeray had any vision for the city. Its people, including me, lived and traveled in a way that was worse than what people in the rest of India had to endure. Delhi’s intellectually ascetic journalists hailed Bombay for “its spirit”, which meant that no flood or terrorist attack could stop people from going to work. The fact is that people in the city go to work every day because their homes are worse than their offices. The Shiv Sena was among the forces that contributed to the decay of Mumbai, depriving it of its rightful place as one of the world’s great megacities. Nothing is going to change with the Thackeray family losing control of the Shiv Sena party, but perhaps it is some kind of justice.
Manu Joseph is a journalist, novelist and producer of the Netflix series ‘Decauld’.