Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on Tuesday launched a sharp attack on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat over his recent remark that insistence on language and agitations around it amounted to a “disease”.
Referring to the presence of eminent personalities at Bhagwat’s programme on Sunday, Thackeray said they had not attended out of admiration for the RSS chief.
“…I want to tell Mohanrao Bhagwat one thing clearly: none of those people came there out of love for you; they came due to fear of Narendra Modi’s government. Otherwise, why has anyone ever attended such dull, monotonous sermons of yours in the past? So first, please come out of the misunderstanding that those people were present for your sake,” he wrote on social media platform X.
Thackeray said Bhagwat should be aware of the historical reasons behind the linguistic reorganisation of states in India.
“If love for one’s language and love for one’s state appear to Bhagwat as a disease, then we wish to point out to him that this ‘disease’ exists in the majority of states in this country,” he said, adding that strong linguistic and regional identities exist across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Punjab and Gujarat.
He questioned whether Bhagwat had ever tried to understand the roots of such sentiments. “When hordes of people from 4–5 states migrate to other states, behave arrogantly there, reject the local culture, insult the local language, and create their own vote banks, resentment builds among the locals and eventually erupts. Will you call this a disease?” Thackeray asked.
He further wrote that if such sentiments were to be termed a disease, it had spread to Gujarat as well. “When thousands of people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were driven out of Gujarat, why didn’t you go there and give lessons on harmony?” he said, adding that similar sermons were not delivered in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab or West Bengal.
Thackeray alleged that Bhagwat felt emboldened to make such statements because of weak political leadership in Maharashtra. “It is not because the Marathi people are tolerant, but because the rulers here have weak spines,” he wrote.
Referring to an earlier comment by RSS leader Bhaiyyaji Joshi, Thackeray said that attempts were made before elections to provoke Marathi sentiment by claiming that Mumbai’s language was not only Marathi but also Gujarati, to indirectly benefit the BJP.
He also questioned why the RSS, which claims to be apolitical, was intervening in such issues. While stating that he respected the organisation’s work, Thackeray said that did not justify indirect political positioning.
“And if you insist on doing so, then first pull up the government that is imposing Hindi across the country (which, incidentally, is not the national language), and only then teach us lessons on harmony,” he said.
Thackeray also cautioned against dragging Hindutva into language-related debates. Reiterating his party’s position, he said the MNS had consistently acted against injustice, whether during riots, the use of loudspeakers at religious places, or noise pollution during festivals.
“For us, wrong is wrong, period,” he wrote, asking Bhagwat when he would speak unequivocally against what Thackeray described as chaos in the name of Hindutva, including issues surrounding religious processions and cow politics.
Concluding his remarks, Thackeray asserted that the Marathi language and Marathi people would always remain the MNS’s highest priority. “Linguistic and regional identities will continue to exist in this country, and they will certainly continue to exist in Maharashtra as well. This is our identity, our selfhood. And whenever such situations arise, Maharashtra will rise up with fury,” he said.