Slapping around in the name of Marathi

MAHARASHTRA Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray has deployed his men to give tight slaps to shopkeepers and vendors who are unable to converse in Marathi. This development has alarmed the majority of the city’s merchants who hail from Gujarat or North Indian states where Hindi is spoken.

Raj’s father was the brother of Bal Thackeray, who founded the Shiv Sena. Raj’s mother was the sister of Balasaheb’s mother — two brothers married two sisters. Raj had studied his uncle closely and tried to copy his way of speaking and his style of leadership. He came close to succeeding on both counts.

Raj was very upset when his uncle chose Uddhav, who was Balasaheb’s son, to succeed him as the Sarsenapati of the Sena. He parted from his uncle and his cousin and formed his own ‘Sena’. Most of Balasaheb’s musclemen joined Raj since the latter, unlike Uddhav, was not averse to using violence to create fear and awe on the streets of the city. The lumpen elements that joined Raj were unemployed — in fact, largely unemployable.

These elements were initially employed by Balasaheb to make the authorities and citizens conscious of his arrival on the political arena. They began with the ‘lungi hatao’ campaign against South Indian men. That spread the message that South Indians were not welcome in Mumbai since they cornered all white-collar jobs in the Railways and other Central Government establishments by outshining locals in English-language skills.

To a large extent, the Sena, led by Balasaheb, succeeded in cajoling the management of banks, Air India and the Railways to take in more Maharashtrians on their rolls. The Sena became more relevant in their lives, enabling Balasaheb to spread his wings in politics. The Congress government shut its eyes to the Sena’s lawlessness as it was happy to see communists and socialists lose ground to the right-wing Sena.

When the BJP entered Maharashtra’s political sphere, it decided to ride on the back of the Shiv Sena. Besides, Balasaheb had set himself up as a ‘Hindu Samrat’ while pandering to the ‘Marathi manoos’ pride that had given him a head start in the city and later across the state.

The BJP’s calculations have paid off. It had hardly any presence in Maharashtra before its pact with the Shiv Sena. Now, it is the senior partner in the ruling alliance. Thanks to the split that was craftily managed by the BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis, several Shiv Sena leaders were inducted into the Mahayuti government under Eknath Shinde, who broke ranks with Uddhav because of the lure of chief ministership, which was the promised carrot. The Uddhav-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government was replaced by the BJP-mentored Mahayuti dispensation in 2022.

The 2024 Assembly elections saw the BJP emerging as the largest single party, forcing Shinde to accept the Deputy CM’s post under CM Fadnavis.

The undivided Shiv Sena ruled the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for a decade. It was widely believed that the BMC, being a cash cow, provided the Sena with sufficient funds to finance its day-to-day and election expenses. If even 10 per cent of municipal contracts could be skimmed off for party needs, its longevity was ensured.

There have been no municipal elections in the state after Covid-19 was tamed. The BJP-led state government handles the affairs of the BMC. It has been doing so through the office of the Municipal Commissioner. Recently, there has been talk of elections in December. Uddhav and Raj have come together to try and restore the glory of Balasaheb’s Sena. If they fight the municipal elections together, with Raj supplying the muscle power, the chances of the Uddhav Sena gaining power in the BMC will improve substantially. Mumbai city has always been the Sena’s happy hunting ground.

It is in this background that non-Marathi-speaking shopkeepers of the city have been targeted by Raj’s sainiks. The ‘golden’ opportunity to go on a slapping spree was presented by the BJP’s obsession to make Hindi the one and only link language in the country. Out of the blue, it ordered the compulsory teaching of Hindi from classes I to V in schools under the state board in Maharashtra (later, it did a flip-flop on the issue).

At present, Marathi is compulsory in all schools under the two-language formula. So, if there is an English-medium school involved, it would be compelled to teach Hindi as the third language. The order was not well received by the parents of children, and it presented Uddhav and Raj with the handle they needed.

Actually, Hindustani, as the Mumbai version of Hindi is called, is widely spoken and understood in the city by most citizens. I was born in Bombay 96 years ago. I never faced a problem of communicating with other citizens on the city’s streets and bazaars.

The language issue is being played up by the political class for its own interests. By bringing Hindi to the fore in order to serve a political end, the BJP is making a blunder it will regret. When job-seekers feel the need to learn Hindi, they will do so on their own. Presently, the Maharashtrian lower middle class in Mumbai is sending their children to English-medium schools as it feels that will make them more employable. But all kids in English-medium schools speak Hindi fluently. My two four-year-old great-grandchildren certainly do.

Uddhav and Raj held a massive show of strength in the city on Saturday. The BMC elections to be held later this year will disclose where people’s interests lie. My own estimate is that the Uddhav Sena and the MNS will eclipse the Shinde faction and emerge as the single largest alliance in the corporation. They will be closely followed by the BJP as Gujarati- and Hindi-speaking citizens are likely to vote for the saffron party.

In the meantime, the CM has the ticklish job of dealing with Raj’s slapping brigade. Fadnavis has given them a stern warning. Newly appointed Police Commissioner Deven Bharti has come up with a brilliant idea to deal with mischief that cocks a snook at the majesty of the law. Apart from prosecuting them for rioting, the police have decided to force MNS sainiks involved in violence to produce bonds for “good behaviour”. This was termed “chapter proceedings” under the erstwhile Criminal Procedure Code. I do not know what it is called under the new laws, but I know that the procedure can be very effective in taming such ‘clever’ mischief-makers, who are aware that mere slaps are non-cognisable offences.

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