A Game Of Unity, Not Reunion

Where the Thackerays are, drama follows, as it did on Saturday as the estranged cousins, Uddhav and Raj, apart for more than 20 long years, met face-to-face in a Mumbai auditorium, embraced one another, and shared the stage as thousands watched. The occasion was one of celebration. Their threat of a massive public demonstration had forced the Devendra Fadnavis-led government of Maharashtra to withdraw two Government Resolutions introducing Hindi as the third language in schools across the state. Sensing a trap to diminish Marathi, the Thackerays buried their differences and energised their cadres—of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena—to fire a few shots. 

It should not come as a surprise that the issue of language—and Marathi Asmita and pride flowing from it—brought the middle-aged cousins together. The Shiv Sena, set up in June 1966, is closely identified with Marathi identity and opportunities for Maharashtrians. The founder, the late Bal Thackeray, had forged the belligerent sub-national regionalism, though largely urban in its early decades, on the Maharashtrian-Marathi plank. The BJP’s attempts, drawing from its ideological commitment to the Hindu-Hindi-Hindutva tenet, to impose or sneak in Hindi in states have seen a pushback in states, especially those below the ‘cow belt’. The Thackeray event must be seen as a part of this resistance.

Their public embrace on a dimmed stage, blue spotlights on them, followed by the symbolic family portrait in which Uddhav’s son Aaditya stood next to Raj and Raj’s son Amit posed next to Uddhav, made for characteristic drama, but it is too early to term this a reunion, either personal or political. Raj had walked out of the unified Shiv Sena over the question of leadership; he believed the mantle should have been his after his uncle. Irrespective of the renewed personal warmth now, this issue is the elephant in the room and will arise especially if the cousins move towards merging their parties. Such a merger, a real reunion, is easier dreamt than done.

What seems possible is some form of political alignment—sharing seats during elections, not putting up candidates in each other’s strong constituencies, and so on. But even this limited political alignment leaves questions hanging about the future of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, of which Uddhav is a partner with the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party, given the Congress party’s discomfort with Raj. While the nitty-gritty is vexing, the cadres of both the Senas are expectedly excited, even emotional, at the public embrace and a future in which the Thackerays would have beaten turncoats, including deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde, at their game. While it is too early to predict that a reunion or political alignment is on the cards, the Thackeray cousins have shown that they can bury their differences to articulate limited issues of sub-nationalism in Maharashtra.

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