Sena (army) is meant to fight at the front with the enemy. But here we have an army which relish in fighting within the family – Bal, Raj and Udhav – and also wage a war with one’s own countrymen.
Named after the famous 17th century Maratha warrior king, Shivaji, who fought the central Indian rule of Aurangzeb, Shiv Sena came into existence in 1966. Initially it got the moral support of the then Congress chief minister of Maharashtra, V.P. Naik, as its style of anti-South Indian, anti-Gujarati, anti-trade union, and also of course, anti-Dalit politics suited him.
It did not take much time for Sena to change gear: from anti-non-Marathi to anti-Muslim. The Bharatiya Janata Party became its natural ally both at the national and state levels. The Sena and BJP storm-troopers gleefully brought down Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. After that the two parties went on Muslim-killing spree in Mumbai and elsewhere in that state. They both enjoyed the fruit of power at the Centre as well as in Maharashtra.
On the contrary, today Shiv Sena’s distance from the Congress can be measured from the fact that late in the night of February 7, its supporters lynched a senior Congress leader of Nagpur, Dyaneshwar Sathwane, in a village 40 km from the district headquarters. What is more shocking is that Anil Deshmukh, a minister in the Vilasrao Deshmukh cabinet, also sustained injuries in that attack.
With the BJP as an ally at the Centre and the state, and virtually very fewer enemies left, it was high time for the Sena to fight within. Thus there started a war between nephew, Raj Thackeray, who was till then the second in command to the Senapati, and son, Udhav. Father Bal finally sided with the son and left nephew high and dry.
The angry nephew broke away and formed his own army of hooligans, namely the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). The family infighting took a huge toll as many senior leaders, either aligned to uncle or nephew, switched over to join Congress and other parties.
The two Senas adopted a new kind of ‘recruitment drive’. They both started alluring unemployed and frustrated Maharashtrians in their own respective ways. First they got locked in a competition to hurl choicest abuses against the people of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Then the Sainiks of warring Senas started targeting North Indians, especially Biharis, going to appear in competitive examinations in that state. Even those students studying in Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, etc. were not spared. In this process both managed to enlist some Sainiks in their rank and file.
In this competition Raj went one-up when instead of just attacking the North Indians he targeted the most popular Hindu festival of Bihar and East Uttar Pradesh – Chhath. By dubbing this Hindu festival as a drama he not only opened a big front against the North Indians, but also created a North-South divide within the Hindu religion.
His going overboard damaged the so-called theory of Hindu unity spread by his uncle Bal Thackeray, and the BJP. The champions of Hindutva and Moditva suddenly started condemning Raj, not knowing that his outburst was the natural corollary of their style of politics. After all Raj was brought up and encouraged by these very people.
Now they were suddenly reminded of the Hindu identity. The BJP washed its hands off because it now started realising that it would lose non-Marathi Hindu votes in Maharashtra and in other parts of the country.
Similarly on February 8 issue of Saamna, the mouthpiece of Shiv Sena, Bal Thackeray, who in fact started his career as a cartoonist, wrote: “Today it was necessary for the Marathi Manoos and Hindutva policies to go hand-in-hand to tackle Islamic threats.” But the moment Saamna was going to the press, Shiv Sainiks were lynching a Hindu Maharashtrian Congress leader in a village in Nagpur. It was certainly not a friendly fire.
A day later, on February 9, Raj called a Press conference in Mumbai only to justify his statement against the north Indians and their festivals. Notwithstanding the blatant hooliganism neither the Centre nor the state government did anything to rein in the two Senas and their respective Senapatis. India has a Maharashtrian home minister.
Nothing could be worse for a country than its Sena (army) going berserk. Senas are meant to fight – be it Shiv Sena, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena or Ranvir Sena, the private army of upper caste Bhumihar farmers of Bihar, which has mastered the art of massacring Dalits. They love violence and they can throw the country into civil war by their acts.
Like the Ranvir Sena in Bihar, the Shiv Sena too had its quota of anti-Dalit politics in Maharashtra, the land of Bhim Rao Ambedkar, the father of our Constitution. Besides, with about one-fourth Schedule Caste population it is the state with one of the highest Dalit concentration in the country. A couple of decades back the Sainiks went on rampage when Marathwada University in Aurangabad was proposed to be named after Bhim Rao Ambedkar. They continue to resist its renaming till date. In near future they might have to fight once again on the Dalit front as the influence of the latter is increasing in the country as well as the state.
A run-down of history would make an interesting reading. Private armies and storm-troopers – be it of Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany – initially succeeded in the battle which they fought within the country with their own people. But they got enlisted in their respective armies too to fight – or say invade – the enemy countries. They might have lost, but they at least joined the real army. In our case none of these private Sena-men volunteered to sacrifice their life for the country on the front. The Kargil War of 1999 came and went when they were in power with the NDA, yet none chose to switch over from private Sena to the real army. They love to fight civil war, not full-fledged war with the military of the enemies.