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Uddhav: Marathi is soul and Hindutva, breath

Uddhav Thackeray

MUMBAI: Hindutva is the “shwas” or breath of life. “Marathi is the soul and Hindutva is the breath, one cannot exist without the other,” Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray said addressing the party’s Dussehra rally for the first time.

Till Thursday, it was his father and Sena supremo, Bal Thackeray, who had been delivering speeches at the annual rally at Shivaji Park here.

No one should worry about the issue of Marathi or Hindutva as long as the Sena was alive, Mr. Uddhav Thackeray said in a 45-minute speech. The Sena had bred tiger cubs and not kittens, and it was there to defend Marathi and Maharashtra in a crisis.

Recalling that he watched his first Dussehra rally sitting in his mother’s lap, Mr. Thackeray said he had witnessed many historic gatherings at the Shivaji Park. This place was the centre of the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement, he said and urged Mayor Shubha Raul to build a museum dedicated to it. (After independence, this movement demanded and succeeded in the creation of a separate Maharashtra State in 1961.)

He referred to the continuing suicide by farmers, terrorism and the opposition to the Dow project in Pune, and pointed out that the aim of the movement was not fulfilled. Belgaum, Karwar and Nippani were still in Karnataka, he rued.

Mr. Thackeray said Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was dragging Maharashtra down. Even the Nano car project could not come here. “The Chief Minister talks of so much foreign investment but where is it? Even Indian projects don’t come to the State.”

On Thursday, Maruti Rao Jadhav, an old Congressman from Karad, and Sachin Vaze, Mumbai cop known for his encounters, joined the Sena.

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