Maharashtra’s ruling allies, the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party, have for long shared a rocky relationship. But this month the Sena has taken the partnership to the brink as never before: in quick succession, its activists > forced the cancellation of a concert by Pakistani ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali in Mumbai, and > smeared black paint on ex-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s former aide Sudheendra Kulkarni for > organising a release function for a book by former Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri. Then they > stormed the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai where board president Shashank Manohar was to meet Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Shahryar Khan. Not content with thus making things difficult for Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Saamna , the Sena mouthpiece, attacked the BJP. While doing so, the Sena stressed that its “anti-Pakistan” stance was “not about politics but about national pride”. Hours later, party chief Uddhav Thackeray used his traditional > Vijaya Dasami address to the party faithful to lash out against the Central government. He attacked the BJP for the lynching outrage in Dadri, and then criticised Union Minister V.K. Singh’s insensitive comments on the murder of two Dalit children in Haryana. However, he concluded his diatribe by saying that his party would not break its ties with the BJP.
Long-time observers of the Sena say there is a method in Mr. Thackeray’s pattern of actions, which are calculated to keep his cadres united and in good humour while working on enlarging the party’s base. The Sena’s broadsides against Pakistan, its demands that > India be declared a Hindu Rashtra and that a Uniform Civil Code be enacted, were of course intended to claim the militant “nationalist” Hindutva space. The reasons for its frontal attack on the BJP on the beef issue and on Minister V.K. Singh for his ill-judged remarks are more complicated: as the Sena draws its support base largely from the backward castes, and its ambition is to eventually draw into its fold the entire OBC-Dalit constituency in Maharashtra, it is necessary for it to be seen as challenging brahminical notions of purity to make its brand of Hindutva more broad-based, one predicated on the notion of self-respect. But at the same time, the party does not wish to offend Brahmins; hence the demand that Veer Savarkar be awarded the Bharat Ratna. Mr. Thackeray, insiders say, has no intention at this stage to sever the alliance with the BJP, which has been trying to split his party: any imprudent moves now could leave him with a truncated Sena. However, in the run-up to the municipal elections scheduled for February 2017 in the major cities of Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik, Auranagabad and Nagpur, he might precipitate such a break if he feels that the party has gained sufficient strength by then to go it alone. The BJP, at the Centre and in the State, will just have to grin and bear that – unless it can crack the Sena.
