A Shiv Sena leader who was in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 when Babri Masjid was swept away by frenzied kar sevaks, once narrated an anecdote that revealed the attractive talisman that the late Supreme Sena Bal Thackeray had on supporters of the aggressive Hindutva.
According to the Shiv Sena leader, there were rumors that the head of the party would make a dramatic entrance into Ayodhya on the fateful day when the domes of the Mughal-era mosque were being torn down. Every now and then, even when the distant drone of a helicopter was heard, kar sevaks I would shout ‘Balaji (Bal Thackeray) aa gaye‘said the leader of the Seine, who later became mayor of Mumbai.
However, despite Bal Thackeray’s charisma and image as a hardline Hindutva mascot, especially during the days of the Ram Temple movement, Shiv Sena was unable to open substantial ground outside of his home state of Maharashtra, even during his lifetime.
This lack of success at the national level underscores the difficult situation of the Sena as it manages the contradictions between its pro-Marathi Manoos position in Maharashtra and his subsequent change to Hindutva. The only time a Shiv Sena nominee was elected to a state assembly outside of Maharashtra was Pavan Kumar Pandey of Akbarpur in Uttar Pradesh in 1991 at the zenith of the Ram Mandir movement.
Now, as the Shiv Sena prepares to contest Bihar’s state assembly elections, there is a question mark as to whether it will overcome this curse, especially after Nitish Kumar’s government in the state campaigned for “justice.” for Bollywood actor Sushant. Singh Rajput after his death in Mumbai.
This campaign by the JDU-BJP regime led him to be at odds with the Maharashtra government Vikas Aghadi (MVA) under Sena Chairman Uddhav Thackeray.
In 2015, the Shiv Sena had contested more than 70 seats for the Bihar assembly and obtained around 2.11 lakhs of votes. Seine leaders say this time around, they are likely to be successful due to the humanitarian assistance provided by Maharashtra government and party cadres to migrant workers stranded in Maharashtra during the shutdown.
The Shiv Sena was born in 1966 as the culmination of an agenda that sought justice for Marathi speakers in Mumbai and nearby areas who had to compete with “outsiders” for access to jobs and resources. But he came to terms with changing demographic and economic realities by making a formal switch to hardline Hindutva in the 1980s.
While approaching the growing number of non-Maharashtrians, especially Hindi-speaking and merchant communities like Gujaratis, Marwaris, and Jains, in Mumbai and the larger Mumbai metropolitan region, Hindutva helped Shiv Sena expand beyond its traditional basins.
However, despite its broad social base in Maharashtra, the systematic “otherness” of the Shiv Sena of linguistic and social groups such as South Indians, Muslims and Hindi speakers ensured that any advance in these sections was only incremental and convenient.
Since accepting Hindutva in a cosmopolitan city like Mumbai, where Maharashtrians are the largest linguistic minority, and not the majority, is inconsistent with its central nativist agenda, this rapprochement came at the cost of its Marathi vote base. This had also led to the emergence of a challenger in the form of rival Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) led by Raj Thackeray.
With the Shiv Sena allied with “secular” parties like Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to form its government in Maharashtra last year by severing ties with saffron ally BJP, its balancing act in the Marathi vs Hindutva conundrum will be more obvious.
Shiv Sena leaders admit that they have not been able to shed the label of being a Maharashtra provincial party, which affects their prospects at the national level. This, together with the anti-migrant stance of the Seine, restricts its ability to mobilize public support in the northern states. By the way, the Shiv Sena has also failed to open up land in the coastal state of Goa, which shares a linguistic, cultural and economic affinity with Maharashtra.
This can be attributed to the inability of the Seine leaders to establish a party organization in states outside of Maharashtra and build the organization since the days of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. In Maharashtra, it was the Seine and not the BJP that had taken over the movement in large part because of its Bahujan social base.
Although the Shiv Sena delegated leaders like Satish Pradhan, Chandrakant Khaire, Sanjay Nirupam, and Sanjay Raut to handle party affairs in other states, sources admit that the habit of having leaders paratrooper from Mumbai caused its own set. from problems. It prevented the organization from hitting its roots organically even in regions where it had the potential to grow. Now the Shiv Sena charge in North India is led by Vinay Shukla ‘Sir’, who is the head of Yuva Sena and the Hindi tutor of Maharashtra’s Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray.
At times, decisions about allowing candidates to run as Shiv Sena nominees were influenced by motives such as consuming the voting share of other parties. Although the Shiv Sena has managed to put on a good show on seats in states like Gujarat, leaders admit this can be attributed to the candidate’s ability to win votes and local factors rather than the party’s greater appeal.
Sena leaders say its pan-Indian expansion was hampered by its nearly three-decade alliance with the BJP, in which the party assumed the role of senior partner in Maharashtra, leaving politics at the national level to its ally.
As the Shiv Sena attempts to create a cocktail of locally troubled Hindutva for success in other states, this may be hampered by the stronger pro-Hindutva appeal of BJP star politicians such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the minister Interior Amit Shah and the chief of Uttar Pradesh. Minister Yogi Adityanath. By the time an original is available, why would anyone prefer a photocopy or an imitation?
Disclaimer:The author is a Mumbai-based journalist and author of ‘The Cousins Thackeray: Uddhav, Raj and the Shadow of their Senas’. The views are personal.
.
