Award for historian Babasaheb Purandare

The BJP-Sena government has decided to confer the Maharashtra Bhushan on the right-wing historian, Babasaheb Purandare, whose major works have contributed much to the cult of King Shivaji.

A committee, headed by Cultural Affairs Minister Vinod Tawde, chose Mr. Purandare for the award, which was instituted when the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition first came to power in 1995. Chief Minister Fadnavis endorsed the decision. The award carries a cash prize of Rs. 5 lakh, a citation and a memento.

Mr. Purandare, 92, is known as Shiv Sahir (Shivaji’s poet) because of his bestselling narrative Raja Shiva Chatrapati and Janata Raja, a much-performed play, replete with medieval Indian pageantry that recreates the 17th century atmosphere in Maharashtra through incidents in Shivaji’s life.Mr. Purandare was one of the key leaders of the Bal Thackeray-led Shiv Sena in the 1970s when the party was gaining ground in Mumbai, crushing the left-wing trade union movement. His nationalistic vision of Shivaji and the Marathas, as embodied in his recreation of the king’s life and times, is at odds with the more realistic assessment of Shivaji’s importance in Indian history and society by great historians like Sir Jadunath Sarkar (in his 1919 masterpiece

Shivaji and his times ) and left-liberals in Maharashtra like Govind Pansare (in his bestselling pamphlet

Who was Shivaji? ).