Maharashtra was the citadel of Congress with real stalwarts, so to carve out some political space for himself, Bal Thackeray had to think of a different outfit. He slyly crafted his party with a dubious name that could be understood as the Lord Shiva by Hindus and Shivaji by the Marathis. For Hindus as a whole, the deity’s name indeed was quite appealing while for the Marathi zealots, the Maratha warlord’s name was immensely appeasing. This formula clicked and gave Bal Thackeray a platform to practice his crude regional politics.

The statesmen and the senior politicians chose to ignore Thackeray’s gimmicks, not realising the serious implications later. He managed to grab quite a few seats of municipal wards of the then Bombay and in the legislature. However, it’s only now in the last few decades that Shiv Sena has really posed a threat to the integrity of the country by becoming more and more aggressive in implementing the son of the soil theory.

Though, the strategy did work for Thackeray, but has he ever realised that Lord Shiva is the ultimate divinity that destroys every evil force that is beyond the destructive power of all the other Hindu gods? While Shivaji, the iconic figure for all Maharashtrians, lived and died fighting the Mughals. He stood against the mighty Mughals to protect the Hindu religion and not just Maharashtrians. If Thackeray had understood this simple yet profound fact of mythology and history, he and his protégé wouldn’t have been such extreme Mumbaikars. In fact, Thackeray initiated this regional politics, wooing the Marathi manoos by raking the son of the soil theory. Ironically though, he crowned himself as Hindu Hirday Smarat (emperor of Hindu heart), positioning himself as the saviour of Hindus, he went out for a witch-hunt of the non-Maharashtrian Hindus.

To begin with, his Shiv Sainiks attacked the Gujratis in the 60s, then he turned against the South Indians and now he has trained his guns against the Biharis. All along Shiv Sena has been against the Muslims and there have been several clashes in between them. Initially, his success was limited to Bombay and at that time the then Congress’ old guards took him quite lightly. Sadly enough, the venom of regionalism didn’t end with senior Thackeray, as by the time he mellowed down due to his advanced age and frail health, the second generation took over with vengeance. As over the years he consolidated his position and in the meanwhile his son Uddhav and nephew Raj, graduated to Shiv Sena’s sinister politics. They grew up in a malicious milieu and were groomed in the politics of hate. No wonder that both at present are vying with each other to outdo the other in whipping anti-North Indian passion amongst the Maharashtrians. However, Raj Thackeray has gone beyond all limits and for petty gains in Marathi politics, he has emerged as the real dare devil.

Due to the laxity of the state government in restraining Thackeray right in the 60s, his hate campaign could evolve to such monstrous dimensions. It is this irresponsibility of the state and the Central government that emboldened the Thackerays to take law into their own hands. Even now the two governments have not been able to bridle Raj and stop him from unleashing atrocities on poor Biharis, who for weeks were hunted down and attacked. Since no proper action was taken against him, he went ahead on the rampage, defacing the Bombay dying sign boards as they should be Mumbai dying. Further, Raj Thackeray’s ridiculous clarion call to describe Vada Pavs as Shiv Vadas shows the kind of insanity that prevails in the Thackeray clan, especially Raj bhau.

Not to be left behind, now Uddhav is opposing the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket match to be held in Mumbai, as Pakistani players are playing in it. Even with the security measures, the 10 odd Pakistani players are able to play, yet the mental tension for them would be too high to concentrate in the game. Opposing Pakistani team has been Thackerays’ stand since long, even going to the extent of digging the pitch and giving regular threats to disrupt the match. This is to gain cheap popularity amongst the masses in the garb of nationalism. It’s rather surprising that when Thackerays are busy championing the Marathi cause and advocating such hard-core regionalism they could still have some aspect of nationalism on their agenda. This does prove that they do relate to the country but that iota of nationalism is over shadowed by their crass regional spirit.