Raj Thackeray breaks the sanity barrier

The other day Laloo Yadav observed: "Raj Thackeray to full mental case ban gaye hain" (Raj Thackeray has a mental health condition) . One can't agree more. Now, politics watchers in India are a hardened lot; we have seen so much of nonsense and rabble rousing, even the worst kind of violence, that one does not expect to be taken completely by surprise. Remember when George Fernandes said cynically in Parliament, referring to the Gujarat riots: "Is this the first time in India that a daughter has been raped in front of her mother"? Even so, Raj Thackeray's achievement of pulling out a riot out of nowhere is truly remarkable.

As Raj's version of the Sena threw Mumbai into disarray, several points came to fore. On the question of whether people of Bihar, or any other part of the country, have an inalienable right to live and work in Mumbai, and on whether the people of Maharashtra enjoy reciprocal rights anywhere else in India, there is only one reasonable side in the debate. We will not go into this; rather we shall try to understand what hit Mumbai and why it did.

1) Raj Thackeray's lack of a support base is rather appalling. As I have observed so many times before on this blog, regional identities in India are on the wane; an appeal to regionalism just doesn't work any more. The dream of a common glorious future, apart from the hardships we face, and even the terrorism we suffer as a nation have brought the people together. When Balasaheb founded the Shiv Sena in 1966, there was still room for a middle class Marathi Manoos that wanted to live a sheltered life and enjoy the benefits of being in proximity to India's premier city. There are no sleepy classes in India any more. The mobilized masses of today have little patience for narrow minded struggles over linguistic and regional identity; most are energized by global dreams. As such, Raj's gambit is a mere throwback to the past; he himself is only a shadow of his illustrious uncle and as such, he is doomed to failure.

2) Given that Raj's party is a fringe player in Maharashtra politics, one may well ask how he manages to hold the entire state to ransom. In this both the Congress and the Shiv Sena are at fault. When Raj Thackeray broke away from the Shiv Sena, the Congress was understandably delighted. Raj's dissociation from what some may call his "ancestral party" and his very public spat with cousin Uddhav; coming on the heels of other high profile desertions from the Sena (from Bhaskar Jadhav to Sanjay Nirupam and even Narayan Rane) was supposed to bring the Shiv Sena to its knees.

That didn't happen. The Congress tried harder. When Raj Thackeray first embarked on his militant campaign to oust North Indians from Mumbai, the Congress kept mum. They expected that his foul mouthed utterances would wean away chunks of Sena support in Mumbai and the rest of the state. Each time Raj broke another law, the Congress stepped back a little more. And Raj's confidence kept growing.

Now that Raj has broken the sanity barrier, the Congress led government has finally put its act together and set the wheels of justice in motion. The Congress had tried to maintain a lackasaidal attitude this time around as well. When MNS goons attacked Bihari students in Mumbai, the Chief Minister cheekily told the media that the Railway should have asked for protection in advance if it had needed any. Should Mumbai be attacked tomorrow by terrorists, one wonders whether the Chief Minister will say "If the public needed any protection, they should have asked for it".

3) The Shiv Sena's role in this entire episode has been quite mysterious. Although the Left Parties have tried to play fast and loose with facts and accused the Sena itself and by extension, even the BJP, of being in cahoots with the MNS (one wonders how the Left feels about about the political culture of its own allies like RJD and BSP) the Sena has, in fact, stayed away from the MNS' campaign. In fact the only reaction from the Sena has been an article in Saamna by Balasaheb who has accused Raj of not being the "real" defender of the Marathi Manoos; fairly routine... no fireworks there.

What is surprising here is the restraint with which the Sena has attacked Raj Thackeray, especially if one compares it to the violent condemnation with which the party has treated other renegades. "Lakhobha" (Chhagan Bhujbal) and "Narya" (Narayan Rane) are still swear words in Shiv Sena rhetoric. At one time, Balasaheb used to greet dissenters with a defiant "Jao, chale jao!" (go, get lost!) When Bhaskar Jadhav deserted right before the 2004 Assembly Elections, the normally suave Uddhav called on his party workers : "Nestanabood kara" (destroy him!). In contrast Raj Thackeray has faced little vitriol from his party. Despite his departure, Raj refuses to criticize Balasaheb directly to this day and reserves his venom for cousin Uddhav. Neither does the Sena supremo respond in his familiar tone of voice. Is it because a section of the party itself, and even a part of their leader, is sympathetic to Raj and his Marathi rhetoric? One will never know unless the Sena says something.

At the time of Raj's last tirade, the Sena actually gave protection to some North Indian settlements in Mumbai. Apparently this has not happened this time around. Also, one wonders why the Sena, which is considerably stronger than Raj's ragtag army does not come out in the streets against the MNS. That the Sena refuses to engage Raj's men physically on the streets out of sheer respect for the law, is too much more than what one would logically expect from Shivsainiks.

4) Raj's activities have also sparked off a race in Bihar. The backward state is critically dependent on money sent home by manual labourers working in metros outside; its youth lives only to compete in nationwide examinations. The RJD and JDU are trying to outrun each other in condemning Raj Thackeray. Both are plagued by difficulties. While the RJD and its Congress allies have to accept blame for the loose handling of Raj Thackeray, the JDU and BJP will suffer from the perception that Raj is still very much toeing a core Shiv Sena line, albeit much more emphatically. Who will suffer the most is yet to be seen, but one would normally expect equal damage.

A final point that needs to be touched upon is the strange sentiment that seems to be sweeping Bihar that is not altogether different from Raj's. Although Laloo is the Railway minister and the former Chief Minister is wont to running things as though they were his personal fiefdom, the Indian Railway does not belong to Bihar or to Laloo in any sense. The mobs that torched trains at Barh station did seem to project a sense that Bihar has somehow more entitled to having its way with the Railways. Obviously the immediate guilt does not lie with them and they were responding to an extreme provocation. Rather, it is just another item in an aggravated behavioural pattern that has been observed in Bihar since 2004. Of course, such a sentiment is nothing new; the Railway in India is almost a state in itself and the sentiment of "our minister, our railway" has made its rounds around the country.


Mumbai did not become India's premier city in a day. The people of the city have steely resolve that has seen them through calamity and terror. And they have the people of India behind them. As I said before, we the people of India have been through a lot together. We have put a flag on the moon. Regional squabbles just do not register in our pschye any more. The Indian dream has begun; with the whiff of achievement, a thousand squabbles are forgotten.