After a vertical split, which led to most of its legislators embracing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), an embittered Shiv Sena under Uddhav Thackeray may resort to its tried-and-tested agenda – Marathi manoos or the sons-of-the-soil – which it sidelined of late for an ugly idealogical battle with its erstwhile saffron partner.
This may in turn help the party consolidate its core vote base ahead of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections, due later this year, where it expects a stiff challenge from the BJP and the rebel faction under chief minister Eknath Shinde.
“Sena will have to galvanise the Marathi voters if it wants to retain power in the BMC,” a senior party leader, who did not wish to be named, told HT. Initially, he said, the party would focus on holding rallies and informal meetings to ensure its cadre and voters do not shift loyalty.
The BJP, despite its surprising move to crown Shinde as head of the state, is the real power behind the throne. On the other hand, notwithstanding the support of 39 MLAs, Shinde may not command the respect of a large number of Shiv Sainiks who still hold the first family, especially Sena founder Bal Thackeray, in high regard.
Sena insiders say the party may pump up aggression on the cause of the Marathi manoos who fear being marginalised further in Mumbai and see the party as their alter ego. The BJP continues to be seen as a party dominated by the non-Maharashtrians and mercantile classes, whose interests and cultural projections are often seen as militating against the interests of the working class Marathis.
“The party will consolidate itself in Mumbai using the Marathi agenda. The Hindutva plank may not work here, though this card can be tried out in other parts of the state like Marathwada,” a Sena cadre, requesting anonymity, said. He stressed that Uddhav Thackeray needed to focus on converting the sympathy for his ouster into votes.
Sena watchers too feel the party may focus on its original cause. “Sena never really quit its Marathi stance [though it took up Hindutva in the 1980s]. However, the real question is… which group represents the real Sena? That of Uddhav Thackeray or Eknath Shinde? Will this legal battle lead to the bow-and-arrow symbol of the party being frozen like it happened with the Congress when it split in 1969?” a Congress leader, who is a keen Sena watcher, said.
Sena faces an uphill task to retain power in Mumbai. The BMC, which is the richest civic body in India, has been controlled by the party during 1985-1992, and since 1997. Many of Sena’s full-time workers survive on the spoils that trickle down through the power networks in the corporation and this ‘reward economy’ helps keep its party organisation in fine fettle.
Sena was born through the cartoon weekly Marmik started by cartoonists Bal and Shrikant Thackeray in 1960. Gradually, the magazine began reflecting the existential anxieties of the sons-of-the-soil Maharashtrians who felt discriminated against by south Indians when it came to white-collar jobs. This led to the birth of Shiv Sena in 1966.
In its initial years, Sena espoused a monocultural and monolinguistic or ethnolinguistic agenda by taking up the cause of the Marathi manoos in Mumbai and Thane. The party was born out of an urban angst, leading to Thomas Blom Hansen, a Danish anthropologist and contemporary commentator on religious and political violence in India, calling it “stylistically the most urban of all the populist movements in India.”
The turn towards Hindutva came towards the mid-1980s [though the party had skirmishes with the Muslims earlier]. Though it helped Sena create an auxiliary constituency among the non-Maharashtrians, especially in the aftermath of the 1992-93 riots in Mumbai, it inhibited the chances of the party emerging as a regional force like the nativist parties in the south.