Raj Karega Jalsaa?
Farzana Versey December 18, 2005
#34 Posted by FarzanaVersey on December 19, 2005 9:52:25 pm
Where have I mentioned MQM in the article and drawn any comparison with the SS? Do not confuse what the interactors say with what I do.
A few clarifications…
I do not need to disguise my views. I have already written three open letters to Bal Thackeray in his territory. However, if you wish to access something more on my opinion about the Sena, you could try this: Is Thackeray a Terrorist?
The SS does not hate Hindus in Bihar, UP, Bengal, but anyone from there and other places, as well. It has used different people for target practice at different times – South Indians and Gujaratis too.
The term ‘shakha’ is not to trigger any imagery; this is the coinage used by the SS. Shiv Sena shakhas are there all over Maharashtra and they have their own shakha pramukhs (leaders); they have the women’s wing as well, with their own pramukhs. I made no ideological inferences with the RSS. This is what I said, “At the shakhas, Raj groomed the lumpens. He fit in perfectly in the Shiv Sena scheme of things. We must remember that when we talk about grassroots in Sena terminology, it essentially means being able to break things, create havoc and reduce your worldview to those who are born in the city versus the outsiders.”
If the Sena is a spent force, then there is unlikely to be any dirt on it. I had no intention of looking for dirt; that is not the only way to convey happenings. I already stated in the beginning that Mumbai is not burning, so the street talk was far more animated when Rane quit because there was a situation of the kind in the streets. Even Uddhav is talking about feeling sad and how he was hoping it would work out differently; Raj insists that Balasaheb will always be his leader. When you call someone a dark horse, you do not need proof…you just wait and watch as he comes out a winner…
I have already stated that the SS is nothing like what it used to be – its power centres have gone. I am not particularly concerned about who will benefit. Sanjay Nirupam is not an asset to the Congress, and this they have made amply clear. What I am worried about is the goons making inroads into these other parties. The situation is such that if a party does not take one goon, there are others willing to do so.
I firmly believe that if there has been any loser here, it is Raj Thackeray.
A few clarifications…
I do not need to disguise my views. I have already written three open letters to Bal Thackeray in his territory. However, if you wish to access something more on my opinion about the Sena, you could try this: Is Thackeray a Terrorist?
The SS does not hate Hindus in Bihar, UP, Bengal, but anyone from there and other places, as well. It has used different people for target practice at different times – South Indians and Gujaratis too.
The term ‘shakha’ is not to trigger any imagery; this is the coinage used by the SS. Shiv Sena shakhas are there all over Maharashtra and they have their own shakha pramukhs (leaders); they have the women’s wing as well, with their own pramukhs. I made no ideological inferences with the RSS. This is what I said, “At the shakhas, Raj groomed the lumpens. He fit in perfectly in the Shiv Sena scheme of things. We must remember that when we talk about grassroots in Sena terminology, it essentially means being able to break things, create havoc and reduce your worldview to those who are born in the city versus the outsiders.”
If the Sena is a spent force, then there is unlikely to be any dirt on it. I had no intention of looking for dirt; that is not the only way to convey happenings. I already stated in the beginning that Mumbai is not burning, so the street talk was far more animated when Rane quit because there was a situation of the kind in the streets. Even Uddhav is talking about feeling sad and how he was hoping it would work out differently; Raj insists that Balasaheb will always be his leader. When you call someone a dark horse, you do not need proof…you just wait and watch as he comes out a winner…
I have already stated that the SS is nothing like what it used to be – its power centres have gone. I am not particularly concerned about who will benefit. Sanjay Nirupam is not an asset to the Congress, and this they have made amply clear. What I am worried about is the goons making inroads into these other parties. The situation is such that if a party does not take one goon, there are others willing to do so.
I firmly believe that if there has been any loser here, it is Raj Thackeray.
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#33 Posted by khamkhwa. on December 19, 2005 7:07:48 pm
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#32 Posted by mavla on December 19, 2005 4:51:11 pm
Below is a relevant article that has tried to explain the psyche of the Marathi-Manus & rise/fall of Shiv Sena thru the career of Narayan Rane, a Shiv Sainik
Narayan Rane, Oedipus Rex
How do we read the results of the by-election in the Malvan constituency of Maharashtra, in terms of the personalities of Narayan Rane and Bal Thackeray, and their long and complex relationship with one another? How did Rane, the quintessential Shiv Sainik, defeat the very party that produced him?
KUMAR KETKAR
Posted online: Thursday, November 24, 2005 at 0006 hours IST
http://indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=82545
The Marathi psyche has a strange infatuation with rebellion. This has very little to do with ideology or any specific philosophy. It is often maverick and spontaneous. Obviously it is not based on any calculation of gains or losses. But it turns virulent very quickly. It is the passion of a rebellion that gathers supporters and transforms itself into a movement. Only later does it seek ideology and conviction. Once that conviction gets attached to the rebellion, it spreads like a prairie fire. Sanity and insanity overlap violently.
This is precisely what had happened when the Shiv Sena was launched 40 years ago. Sena in this case, means an army — but totally disorganised, lumpen and anarchic. Balasaheb Thackeray who was about 40 then, did not have any idea of how widespread it would become, what shape it would take, what ideology it would profess, which “classes” or “castes” it would attract. The name of Shivaji attached to the “sena” was surely imaginative, in the sense that it had a certain historic (almost genetic) appeal. Shivaji was perhaps the first arch-maverick rebel in Martha history. So the very name manifested the unconscious and unarticulated Marathi character. Whether this is a fair and just description of the Marathi psyche will of course be hotly debated.
Balasaheb Thackeray had the mind of a cartoonist — vicarious, hilarious and completely unencumbered. He had urged Marathi youth to come to the meetings in large numbers, but did not know what would turn out to be the response. He was stunned to see hundreds and thousands of teenagers and middle-aged men. They had only one thing in common — a feeling of frustration and anger incubated in minds sunk into an inexplicable inferiority complex.
Seeing the crowd, he thundered that the sons of the soil, the heirs of Shivaji’s spirit, will no longer tolerate humiliation. They will fight to restore the pride of being Marathi and the glory of Maratha history. But it was a warcry without an enemy around. Actually it was an expression of a deep anxiety born of an identity crisis. Narayan Rane was in his early teens when the Shiv Sena was founded. Like hundreds of other Marathi youth in the city of Mumbai, he too was at once inspired. He had found an icon. He had found a cause. He had also found an organisation, howsoever unstructured it may be. He became a sainik — ready to fight, the moment a call comes. The only thing he did not know was whom to fight.
Like most such troubled and passionate Marathi youth, Narayan hailed from the Konkan. Mumbai, geographically and culturally, is part of the Konkan. A vast number of the Mumbai proletariat belonged to the Konkan — poor, struggling and just surviving. They claimed the city’s workspace as well as political space. Only six years earlier, under their leadership, the state of Maharashtra was carved out as a linguistic unit. The hope then was that Marathi people would get priority in jobs, business, housing. But the number of the unemployed and lumpens was on the rise. Nothing to do and lots of time on hand with their mind virtually empty.
These empty minds were fired by Balasaheb Thackeray’s appeal. Since there was no identifiable enemy, because the city was always cosmopolitan and multi-lingual, the wrath of the Marathi youth was directed at the “madrasis” or “lungiwalas”. For them Tamil and Malayali, Telugu and Kannada, all were “lungiwala madrasis” who were usurping Marathi jobs. So a kind of mayhem began. Finally, the enemy was found. The enemy then defined the ideology and conviction. Throw out the “usurpers”, reclaim the city, stop the trains, call for strike, appeal for bandhs, spread terror.
Initially, the city’s middle class joined the proletarian masses in spreading the message and the mayhem. Sooner rather than later, the underworld surreptitiously infiltrated the mass movement. Their terror acquired respectability. Rane has grown in this atmosphere, in this politically charged and violent environment. He is a quintessential Shiv sainik—rabblerouser and mobiliser and also an organiser, a daredevil and a do-gooder, a streetfighter and a proud Konkani Maratha. Indeed, without him, the tentacles of the Shiv Sena could not have been spread in the Konkan. Malvan is a sub-region of the Konkan, but with a distinct dialect and character. Narayan Rane symbolises Malvan in all its splendour.
Balasaheb Thackeray stature and status had grown because of such stalwarts who took care of everything — from muscle power to money power. But with the passage of time, these stalwarts began to seek their pound of flesh. When the Shiv Sena came to power, Rane was not an immediate contender, because he was not sure how his ambition to become chief minister would be perceived by Balasaheb. So the mantle was handed over to Manohar Joshi, a sophisticated Mumbai-based brahmin with roots in a relatively developed part of Konkan, the district of Raigarh. But with the Sena-BJP rule in the saddle, he began to seek a change in the leadership. Confident that he could deliver, he began to push more and more. With his power-base, he could not be ignored and was brought in as the replacement of Manohar Joshi.
But once power went to the Congress alliance in 1999, the organisation became important again. When Balasaheb Thackeray declared Uddhav as his heir-apparent, it became clear to Rane, that he would be sidelined if the power was to come to Sena again. Last year’s election was a close call and the Sena-BJP combine lost despite utter non-governance by the Congress front.
Rane realised that even if the allies came to power, he would not be in the reckoning. And this time he would be denied even the organisational leadership. He was marginalised and humiliated and hence a rebellion was brewing.
Rane aimed and struck at the very core — the heir-apparent, who is seen by most of the second and third rank and file as a nincompoop and a lacklustre leader of the militant organisation. The bolt came from the blue and from a person who was seen as the fiery loyalist Shiv Sainik, ready to die or kill for the Sena. It was a strike which none of the Thackerays could have anticipated. He challenged the godfather and showed that in a democratic environment, the challenge would have to be taken up by the other side. His rebellion has delivered a fatal blow. Shiv Sena will soon disintegrate and collapse under its own weight, like all fascist organisations have. If indeed, its epitaph has to be written, it will be in the year 2007, when it will be eclipsed from Mumbai, following the election for the corporation. Till then, in the next two years, the Sena will continue to fall apart.
Narayan Rane, Oedipus Rex
How do we read the results of the by-election in the Malvan constituency of Maharashtra, in terms of the personalities of Narayan Rane and Bal Thackeray, and their long and complex relationship with one another? How did Rane, the quintessential Shiv Sainik, defeat the very party that produced him?
KUMAR KETKAR
Posted online: Thursday, November 24, 2005 at 0006 hours IST
http://indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=82545
The Marathi psyche has a strange infatuation with rebellion. This has very little to do with ideology or any specific philosophy. It is often maverick and spontaneous. Obviously it is not based on any calculation of gains or losses. But it turns virulent very quickly. It is the passion of a rebellion that gathers supporters and transforms itself into a movement. Only later does it seek ideology and conviction. Once that conviction gets attached to the rebellion, it spreads like a prairie fire. Sanity and insanity overlap violently.
This is precisely what had happened when the Shiv Sena was launched 40 years ago. Sena in this case, means an army — but totally disorganised, lumpen and anarchic. Balasaheb Thackeray who was about 40 then, did not have any idea of how widespread it would become, what shape it would take, what ideology it would profess, which “classes” or “castes” it would attract. The name of Shivaji attached to the “sena” was surely imaginative, in the sense that it had a certain historic (almost genetic) appeal. Shivaji was perhaps the first arch-maverick rebel in Martha history. So the very name manifested the unconscious and unarticulated Marathi character. Whether this is a fair and just description of the Marathi psyche will of course be hotly debated.
Balasaheb Thackeray had the mind of a cartoonist — vicarious, hilarious and completely unencumbered. He had urged Marathi youth to come to the meetings in large numbers, but did not know what would turn out to be the response. He was stunned to see hundreds and thousands of teenagers and middle-aged men. They had only one thing in common — a feeling of frustration and anger incubated in minds sunk into an inexplicable inferiority complex.
Seeing the crowd, he thundered that the sons of the soil, the heirs of Shivaji’s spirit, will no longer tolerate humiliation. They will fight to restore the pride of being Marathi and the glory of Maratha history. But it was a warcry without an enemy around. Actually it was an expression of a deep anxiety born of an identity crisis. Narayan Rane was in his early teens when the Shiv Sena was founded. Like hundreds of other Marathi youth in the city of Mumbai, he too was at once inspired. He had found an icon. He had found a cause. He had also found an organisation, howsoever unstructured it may be. He became a sainik — ready to fight, the moment a call comes. The only thing he did not know was whom to fight.
Like most such troubled and passionate Marathi youth, Narayan hailed from the Konkan. Mumbai, geographically and culturally, is part of the Konkan. A vast number of the Mumbai proletariat belonged to the Konkan — poor, struggling and just surviving. They claimed the city’s workspace as well as political space. Only six years earlier, under their leadership, the state of Maharashtra was carved out as a linguistic unit. The hope then was that Marathi people would get priority in jobs, business, housing. But the number of the unemployed and lumpens was on the rise. Nothing to do and lots of time on hand with their mind virtually empty.
These empty minds were fired by Balasaheb Thackeray’s appeal. Since there was no identifiable enemy, because the city was always cosmopolitan and multi-lingual, the wrath of the Marathi youth was directed at the “madrasis” or “lungiwalas”. For them Tamil and Malayali, Telugu and Kannada, all were “lungiwala madrasis” who were usurping Marathi jobs. So a kind of mayhem began. Finally, the enemy was found. The enemy then defined the ideology and conviction. Throw out the “usurpers”, reclaim the city, stop the trains, call for strike, appeal for bandhs, spread terror.
Initially, the city’s middle class joined the proletarian masses in spreading the message and the mayhem. Sooner rather than later, the underworld surreptitiously infiltrated the mass movement. Their terror acquired respectability. Rane has grown in this atmosphere, in this politically charged and violent environment. He is a quintessential Shiv sainik—rabblerouser and mobiliser and also an organiser, a daredevil and a do-gooder, a streetfighter and a proud Konkani Maratha. Indeed, without him, the tentacles of the Shiv Sena could not have been spread in the Konkan. Malvan is a sub-region of the Konkan, but with a distinct dialect and character. Narayan Rane symbolises Malvan in all its splendour.
Balasaheb Thackeray stature and status had grown because of such stalwarts who took care of everything — from muscle power to money power. But with the passage of time, these stalwarts began to seek their pound of flesh. When the Shiv Sena came to power, Rane was not an immediate contender, because he was not sure how his ambition to become chief minister would be perceived by Balasaheb. So the mantle was handed over to Manohar Joshi, a sophisticated Mumbai-based brahmin with roots in a relatively developed part of Konkan, the district of Raigarh. But with the Sena-BJP rule in the saddle, he began to seek a change in the leadership. Confident that he could deliver, he began to push more and more. With his power-base, he could not be ignored and was brought in as the replacement of Manohar Joshi.
But once power went to the Congress alliance in 1999, the organisation became important again. When Balasaheb Thackeray declared Uddhav as his heir-apparent, it became clear to Rane, that he would be sidelined if the power was to come to Sena again. Last year’s election was a close call and the Sena-BJP combine lost despite utter non-governance by the Congress front.
Rane realised that even if the allies came to power, he would not be in the reckoning. And this time he would be denied even the organisational leadership. He was marginalised and humiliated and hence a rebellion was brewing.
Rane aimed and struck at the very core — the heir-apparent, who is seen by most of the second and third rank and file as a nincompoop and a lacklustre leader of the militant organisation. The bolt came from the blue and from a person who was seen as the fiery loyalist Shiv Sainik, ready to die or kill for the Sena. It was a strike which none of the Thackerays could have anticipated. He challenged the godfather and showed that in a democratic environment, the challenge would have to be taken up by the other side. His rebellion has delivered a fatal blow. Shiv Sena will soon disintegrate and collapse under its own weight, like all fascist organisations have. If indeed, its epitaph has to be written, it will be in the year 2007, when it will be eclipsed from Mumbai, following the election for the corporation. Till then, in the next two years, the Sena will continue to fall apart.
#31 Posted by Salim_Chauhan on December 19, 2005 4:30:24 pm
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#30 Posted by dost_mittar on December 19, 2005 4:27:54 pm
Dear Farzana:
I think that the fall of Shiv Sena from grace is real and irreversible. The slide started a long time ago and Raj`s departure is merely the proverbial last nail in the coffin. The real question is who is going to benefit from Sena`s fall? Sharad Pawar for sure! Who else?
I think that the fall of Shiv Sena from grace is real and irreversible. The slide started a long time ago and Raj`s departure is merely the proverbial last nail in the coffin. The real question is who is going to benefit from Sena`s fall? Sharad Pawar for sure! Who else?
#29 Posted by jang on December 19, 2005 3:40:51 pm
http://web.mid-day.com/news/city/2005/december/126300.htm
mid-day (bombay rag) editorial
mid-day (bombay rag) editorial
#28 Posted by delhiwala on December 19, 2005 3:00:14 pm
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#27 Posted by delhiwala on December 19, 2005 2:57:50 pm
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#26 Posted by khamkhwa. on December 19, 2005 2:20:17 pm
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#25 Posted by jang on December 19, 2005 2:04:55 pm
#23 i think mr HN did that a while back (at least the rise part). the fall is unfolding as we speak, while i am in the us, so i dont have anything substantial to contribute. maybe dilliwala knows more. all i know is my mothers neighborhood cable operator now is an NCP guy and not shiv sena, so i think its a spent force.
#24 Posted by Salim_Chauhan on December 19, 2005 1:56:11 pm
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#23 Posted by JagdeeshGodbole on December 19, 2005 1:48:38 pm
Re: # 17
Jang, you should write an article on the rise and fall of Shivsena in bombay politics. It will make a fascinating reading.
Jang, you should write an article on the rise and fall of Shivsena in bombay politics. It will make a fascinating reading.
#22 Posted by khamkhwa. on December 19, 2005 1:39:18 pm
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#21 Posted by Salim_Chauhan on December 19, 2005 1:17:57 pm
#19, Dillidost,
Thank you for your enlightened differentiation of MQM from Shiv Sena. I am amazed at your superior comprehension and lack of prejudice even though you have not lived in Pakistan unlike some malicious points of view expressed here.
Thank you for your enlightened differentiation of MQM from Shiv Sena. I am amazed at your superior comprehension and lack of prejudice even though you have not lived in Pakistan unlike some malicious points of view expressed here.
#20 Posted by Salim_Chauhan on December 19, 2005 1:16:13 pm
#18, Not anymore. MQM became the Muttahda Qaumi Movement after it had consolidated its role as Mohajir Qaumi Movement. :)
Today, it is one of the few parties looking out for rural Sindhi interests in opposing the Kalabagh Dam - despite its being part of the Federal government.
Today, it is one of the few parties looking out for rural Sindhi interests in opposing the Kalabagh Dam - despite its being part of the Federal government.
#19 Posted by delhiwala on December 19, 2005 1:15:02 pm
Ferzana Jee,
Your comprison of MQM with Shiv Sena is not correct. Even a simpleton like me who believes in eat well, drink well would know that these two have no comparisons.
MQM is made up of Bhaiyyas from Bihar/UP fighting against what they call discrimination.
Shiv Sena is more of protective of Marathi culture(whatever that means).
Please note that I am not calling any one of these as bad or good.
Your comprison of MQM with Shiv Sena is not correct. Even a simpleton like me who believes in eat well, drink well would know that these two have no comparisons.
MQM is made up of Bhaiyyas from Bihar/UP fighting against what they call discrimination.
Shiv Sena is more of protective of Marathi culture(whatever that means).
Please note that I am not calling any one of these as bad or good.
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