Balasaheb Thackeray (1926-2012)

Mumbai will never be the same again...Maharashtra will never be the same again, for He is no more. A one man army, the man with the iron fist, epithets galore.

(this picture says a lot. That vacant space to the right just behind Balasaheb was where not long ago Raj was. In what will be the next chapter of the Sena, it only remains to be a seen how much Raj's absence will hurt the organisation)

Balasaheb Thackeray changed the political landscape of the state. A cartoonist who rose to power on the skills of oratory, organisation and above all fearlessness, he arguably was running Mumbai like his personal fiefdom. Not many have held such sway over popular sentiment in a single region of the country. 

There are theories that Balasaheb was helped in the early days of his politicking by the Congress who used him to break the hold the Communists had on the mill trade unions in Mumbai. Vasantrao Naik and later Vasantdada Patil used the newly formed Sena to scotch the growth of the Communist party and the political advantage thus gained helped build the Sena as we know it. The 'sons of the soils' campaign was what catapulted Balasaheb into the limelight and cemented him as a leader of the masses.  Studies at the time showed how Marathi-speaking people were not getting jobs due to migrants and their cause was taken up by the Sena. The ire was against the South Indians to begin with, referred derogatorily to as the 'lungiwalas'. Balasaheb quickly became the messiah of the Marathi speaking fraternity what with the festering roits on the Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute.

As Balasaheb and the Shiv Sena grew from strength to strength, they became an alternative to the hegemony of the Congress at Mumbai. Shiv Sena aligned with the BJP and is now there longest standing ally, however in an attempt to also be nationally relevant the Shiv Sena shed its Marathi image to some extent and adopted a more Hindu nationalist ideology. However the sum total of all this was that the BJP Shiv Sena combine wrested power in the assembly elections in 1995. Balasaheb did not take up any post in the government and famously stated that he had the 'remote control' to the government. Years later, though not so openly Sonia Gandhi was to do the same at the helm of the Central Government. But such was Balasaheb, never mincing any words, calling a spade a spade while himself wielding an axe!!!

His charisma attracted thousands to his rallies. In a recent interview with Arnab Goswami, he said that his father always told him to make a speech that would appeal to the heart more than the head. Balasaheb did just that, he did not play with emotions but he brought them out. 

However I respect Balasaheb there is one qualm which I will harbor. I still feel that his decision to hand over the reins of the Sena to his son Uddhav over his nephew Raj was a mistake. Uddhav lacks his father's demeanor which Raj so effortlessly embodies. The splitting up of the Sena and the subsequent formation of the MNS is only splitting up the Sena votes and is benefitting the Cong-NCP combine. Will Raj in the near future align his forces with the BJP-Sena combine to keep the Cong-NCP away from power in Mumbai remains to be seen. Parting off Raj did seem to affect Balasaheb, whenever asked he always said that he would be more than happy to have Raj back. Frankly speaking after blaming Congress for years to be a 'Gandhi family' controlled party, by selecting Uddhav over Raj, Balasaheb ended up doing the same. 

Balasaheb in jest remarked in Saamna not long ago that sadly he doesnt have the 'remote control' to his age :). Whether Balasaheb's passing on will galvanise the Sena or further weaken it, is a question which only time can answer. With Balasaheb's passing an era in Maharashtra's politics has ended. Whether anybody else will ever rise to the same heights again in Maharashtra is a question better left unanswered!