By Sushil Kutty
Maharashtra is easy to roil. Wake up and get set on your mark. Sprint or marathon, hurdles or steeplechase, ‘Hindi imposition’ is readymade to start a quick-fire row! It is also political vehicle for Raj Thackeray and his cousin Uddhav Thackeray, former Chief Minister who would like nothing better than another stint as Chief Minister.
But, of course, it’s Raj Thackeray who is striving to be kingmaker, setting a “new course in Maharashtra politics” by weaponizing ‘Marathi’, something which is familiar turf? To some extent, the cousins succeeded, too. A set of government rules issued by the Devendra Fadnavis government on the three-language policy, set the cat among the pigeons and gave the Thackeray duo an excuse.
The Shiv Sena has always been proactive in shouting “Marathi is in danger”. Language chauvinism and language victimhood were staple for the unbroken Shiv Sena. Before Eknath Shinde, Raj Thackeray broke away to form the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. On a dark night, Raj Thackeray can scare the living daylights out of non-Marathi speakers.
There have been frequent MNS run-ins with the non-Marathi across the state. Speaking Hindi on Maharashtra’s streets is fraught with untold risks. People are routinely slapped and it will take a Dawood Ibrahim to survive among the locals. Most “authorities” are just ain’t equipped to uphold the law of the land, the Constitution.
So much so, the non-Marathi are oftentimes compelled to wonder if they’re in India or in some other country. Raj Thackeray’s goons make Don Corleone’s “made guys” look tame and friendly by comparison. Uddhav Thackeray is a peacenik though he is politically more powerful than Raj Thackeray has been in 20 years!
The reunion of Raj and Uddhav Thackeray comes ahead of crucial civic body polls in Maharashtra. The Thackeray cousins shared a stage after nearly two decades and marked “victory” against the Devendra Fadnavis government’s move to make Hindi compulsory, one of three languages in classes 1 to 5. But children in Maharashtra’s streets speak Hindi as easily as they chow chow in Marathi.
The hostility has come to the point that non-Marathi ears prick up at the noise of Marathi-speaking locals. Non-Marathi have a healthy dislike for the ‘Cousins Thackeray’. Such that the Hindi-speaking residents of Maharashtra want no truck with the Marathi, period! The non-Marathi, and these include the majority of Muslims living in Maharashtra, do not want to be arm-twisted into speaking Shivaji Maharaj’s mother-tongue.
In many ways, it is a fall for Marathi and Marathi speakers. This happens to be the land of Bollywood where Hindi films are made and where residents have been humming Hindi tunes of Hindi songs fine-tuned in Hindi films that churn out billions of rupees worth of hard-earned dough for everybody involved including the Thackerays.
If Uddhav Thackeray has the right to rule Maharashtra, he got the right also because of non-Marathi speaking votes. Son Aditya Thackeray also had his quota of non-Hindi votes. Raj Thackeray is an exception but that is because of his manners and his manner of speaking. Now, if they have come together, it’s because of necessity.
Both the “brothers/cousins” have come down in life. The passing away of Balasaheb Thackeray opened doors for Uddhav and Aditya and Uddhav Thackeray took full advantage. That Uddhav could live in the lion’s den for decades without betraying his secular tendencies was in itself one for the Guinness!
Today Uddhav has jettisoned all traces of Hindutva and, wonder of wonders, Raj Thackeray is also no stickler for Balasaheb’s political legacy. On the contrary, he has turned out to be as much of a political turncoat as Uddhav Thackeray. Today, Raj Thackeray is saying, “Uddhav Thackeray has done something which Balasaheb couldn’t do!”
That is talking like a Thackeray in today’s Thackeray world. The Thackeray cousins want non-Marathi, no matter which language they are born to, to switch to speaking the language of the brute majority of Maharashtra. This is what is called language tyranny!
Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray came together after the longest of gap-toothed separation. They took up Hindi imposition as an excuse to impose themselves on the people of Maharashtra. They’re self-seeking regional politicians who will never become Prime Minister. They make political ends meet by insisting on compulsory imposition of Marathi on other tongues.
Point is, they can shout in Marathi from their rooftops, but who gave them the right to shout “aalarey” on stone-deaf non-Marathi speakers? These are two Marathi speakers, nay a pair of Marathi-speaking bullies, who
have become a political metaphor. Raj and Uddhav Thackeray have appropriated Marathi chauvinism to serve their narrow political and cultural ends.
Raj and Uddhav have nothing different to say from what the language barons say. And if Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister MK Stalin speaks the same language, it is proof that birds of a feather flock together. Stalin on Sunday took the day off to show his appreciation for Uddhav Thackeray’s stance against Hindi.
Stalin didn’t have a single word in appreciation for Raj Thackeray though. Raj Thackeray had no love lost for the “Tamilian” and who doesn’t remember “pungi and lungi”. The Tamil-distortion is still fresh in the minds of the “madrasis” of Mumbai. In the 20th Century, the ‘Madrasi’ was hounded, ridiculed and often beaten blue.
Today, the Marathis are going after the ‘Hindi Bhaiya’ of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. And if the Congress and NCP (Sharad Pawar) are holding back from Hindi-bashing, it is because of the Bihar assembly elections and the Muslim votes, the votes of the electorate who speak Hindi and Urdu and therefore are legit targets for the ‘Marathi Manoos’.
Post the Uddhav-Raj reunion, people of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the most boiling mad. The Hindi-belt also includes Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and technically also Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand and since the BJP has made inroads into West Bengal, too, the Bengali-speaking are also against the Raj and Uddhav kind of politics.
Raj Thackeray’s feelers to the politically beleaguered Uddhav started the whole language shebang this time, with Uddhav Thackeray reciprocating by deciding to bury the hatchet with “cousin” Raj. The duo realized they had wasted 20 years in political wilderness. The family was losing its relevance in the state.
Uddhav Thackeray hadn’t had enough of the Chief Minister’s post and Raj Thackeray was game for the trappings of power. Even otherwise, what does Raj Thackeray have to show for other than a fierce loyalty towards Marathi?
Several languages are spoken in India and language fanatics are dime a dozen. Marathi, Kannada and Stalin’s mother-tongue Tamil, three most politically volatile. For Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray, sharing a stage and celebrating the withdrawal of government resolutions on the three-language policy, is pregnant with political possibilities.
There is a strong chance that the local body elections in Maharashtra, including for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, will be influenced by the Thackeray brothers’ “Me Marathi” politics and they might grab the reins of the richest local body in the country. Asked about the Thackerays, Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav chose to offer an excuse for Uddhav Thackeray by going after the BJP, instead.
Marathi language and Marathi identity have not just become crucial for Shiv Sena (UBT) and MNS, they’re also a rare instance of unity for INDIA bloc parties. The NCP (Sharad Pawar) and the Congress initially openly supported the Thackeray brothers but are lukewarm now.
Raj and Uddhav Thackeray’s Saturday “victory rally” stayed strictly Marathi focused and against Hindi imposition. The rally and the whole fracas centred around Marathi pride, Marathi identity and against Hindi imposition, which galvanized politics. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls have to be won even as the BJP-led coalition is trying to make the best out of the hotch-potch. (IPA Service)
