Mumbai: Last week, leaders of the Communist Party of India (CPI) offered their support to Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) nominee Rutuja Latke in the Andheri East assembly by-election. Rutuja is the widow of Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke, whose demise in May necessitated the by-poll scheduled on November 3.
Though the CPI is now a fringe player in Mumbai politics, the party’s support to the Shiv Sena is a watershed event considering the bad blood between the two parties which involved the murder of a CPI MLA in 1970 and the defeat of his widow by the Shiv Sena in a similar by-election 52 years ago.
On the night of June 5, 1970, Krishna Desai, the CPI MLA from Parel was with some of his party workers at the Lalit Rice Mill in Lalbaug, when a man from the neighborhood said some workers wanted to meet him. As Desai and his associate Prakash Patkar walked towards the waiting men, they were stabbed. Desai was taken to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. Though the party denied its complicity in the crime, fingers were pointed at the Shiv Sena soon after the murder due to the bristling relationship between the Sena and the CPI.
Desai had come to Mumbai in 1939 from Phungus village in Ratnagiri district as a 20-year-old to work in the Finlay mills. He joined the city’s robust Communist movement in the Girangaon (textile mill belt) soon after.
In the 1942 Quit India Movement, he began working with leaders of the resistance. During the 1946 mutiny of the naval ratings, he led young men from Lalbaug in their battles with the British troops. Desai formed a branch of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), a CPI splinter, in Mumbai in 1947. From 1952-1967, Desai was a corporator in the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC). In 1967, he was elected to the legislative assembly from Parel as a nominee of the CPI, which he had joined in 1962.
In 1966, the Shiv Sena was launched in Mumbai on the ‘justice for the sons-of-soil’ plank. It soon took on the Communist dominance over the labour unions, allegedly at the behest of the ruling Congress, earning it the pejorative of ‘Vasant Sena’ or private army of chief minister Vasantrao Naik. The very next year, Sainiks attacked the CPI office at Dalvi building in Parel.
Desai stood up to the Sena, often retaliating in kind. He also formed a ‘Lok Seva Dal’ as a volunteer force to take on the Shiv Sena’s storm-troopers and maintained warm relations with the youngsters and the gymnasiums in Parel and Lalbaug. Before his murder, tensions between him and the Sena were gradually building up—Desai had been attacked physically during his 1967 election campaign.
After Desai’s murder, the police arrested 16 men, allegedly Shiv Sainiks, and three of them were convicted. Bal Thackeray even publicly congratulated his Sainiks. The killing also led to retaliation—a Shiv Sena worker Sadakant Dhawan was murdered and party chief Bal Thackeray accused the socialists of masterminding this.
In the October 1970 by-elections, the CPI put up Desai’s widow Sarojini as the candidate. She was supported by a front consisting of 13 parties including the socialists and Congress (R). The Shiv Sena nominated Wamanrao Mahadik, a former BMC employee, who was also backed by parties like the Congress (O), Bharatiya Jana Sangha (BJS) and Hindu Mahasabha. On October 18, Mahadik became the Shiv Sena’s first MLA by defeating Sarojini Desai by a slender margin in a watershed election. Mahadik later became the city’s Mayor and a Lok Sabha MP (1989-1991).
It has long been argued that despite its ideological and political somersaults, anti-Communism has been the only position that the Shiv Sena has been consistent on. However, in a radical departure from the past, the CPI, which once clashed with the Shiv Sena, has now extended support to the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) in its fight against the ruling BJP- Eknath Shinde camp.
Prakash Reddy, member of the CPI national council and the state council, said their support to the Shiv Sena was driven by the pressing need to defeat the BJP. “The BJP is playing politics in an autocratic manner and weakening institutions… we want to stand up to it,” he explained.
“We have seen that history (Desai’s murder) unfold before our own eyes and have not forgotten it. The Congress promoted the Shiv Sena… to finish the labour unions and the Communists in Mumbai. We fought against Krishna Desai’s martyrdom and will continue to do so,” said Reddy.