Degradation of Shiv Sena is complete
Ramakant Tiwari
Decline and degradation of Maratha parochialism is complete. And irreversible too. Shiv Sena has evolved into another avatar of AIMIM. Just a few more notches down the hill into political hell, they will qualify to be declared another version of Muslim League of Partition-1947 ill repute.
Once upon a time, there was a Thackeray who had heralded a clarion call to all Shiv Sainiks to get up, tighten their groins, pick up arms and defend (Maharashtrian!) Hindus when a group of brutes burned down a family in Radhabai Chawl at Jogeshwari in Mumbai. He earned scores of brownies due to this heroic action. Now his third generation is visiting Dargah seeking ‘dua’ from ghost of somebody who happened to be nobody in his lifetime after winning his Assembly election seat handsomely. Now the narrow-minded regional party is arm-twisting BJP for the chair of Chief Ministership for half term for Pappu Thackeray who has been elected for the first time still in his twenties. Entire five-year long brilliant performance of incumbent Chief Minister Devendra Phadnavis simply does not matter to them as their inflated ego is more important than national interest. The Party has won substantial number of Assembly seats riding on Modi-wave as they do not have commensurate political base in Maharashtra at all. Instead of being indebted to Prime Minister Modi, they have acted as Brutus stabbing in the back of national interest.
Few are conscious of the reality that Shiv Sena brand of Hinduism is several times more farcical than the election-time Hinduism practised by Dattatreya-Gotri, Janaeudhari Shiva-Bhakta Brahmana Rahul Gandhi, born to a Muslim turned Christian father and Roman Catholic Italian mother. Shiv Sena politics has been murkily anti-national right from the beginning. They started with sectarian violence against Tamilian /Keralite migrants searching for livelihood in Mumbai. It was a violence against poor, weak Tamilians who had no way to protect themselves. It was a violence that was highly condemnable and reprehensible. Then it diversified into hatred against migrants from UP and Bihar who unfortunately were there searching for livelihood because Congress politicians had developed western Bharat at the expense of natural resources and revenues of northern and eastern Bharat. As a matter of fact, these migrants have legitimate claim over livelihood opportunities in western Bharat. Very poor, malnourished, undernourished, emaciated livelihood migrants from Bihar used to be savagely beaten on roads by goondas of Shiv Sena and MNS, their breakaway faction headed by a fringe lunatic, nephew of Bal Thackeray who had the audacity to challenge even Police Commissioner of Mumbai to come out on road in civilian clothes for a one-to-one combat. Nation was then headed by a deaf, dumb, blind and fringe member of Congress who had no guts to order a raid in his hideout, pull him out and dump him in Andamans for III-Degree hospitality. Shiv Sena always opposed cricket matches with Pakistan but hardly ever actively participated in any movement against infiltrators. On one hand they wish to appropriate entire credit of destruction of Babri Masjid in search of power while on the other, demand reservation for Muslims against even Constitutional mandate. And rub their noses on Mazars in Kabristan for secular votes. Shiv Sena is now a gang of Jaichands who at regular intervals go on ‘Hafta-vasuli’ spree in the name of Chhatrapati Shivaji. It is contemptuously known as ‘Protection money’ in Maharashtra as extorted by gangsters of Dawood Ibrahim. Nobody knows contribution of incumbent head of Shiv Sena, Uddhav Thackeray except spewing venomous statements against national interests at regular intervals and now behaving like Dhrtarashtra determined to destroy anything just to ensure, his Junior Thackeray is anointed Chief Minister of Maharashtra for two and a half years. Cycle of creation and destruction of Shiv Sena is complete. The sort of arm-twisting that they are perpetrating on Maharashtra is extremely unfortunate and highly condemnable.
Frivolity of Shiv Sena politics comes in stark contrast from ordinary perception if compared with brief tenure so far, of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. In spite of being saffron robed, Bal Thackeray did nothing to contain extortion gangs patronised from Pakistan / Dubai, Islamisation of Bollywood, Bangladeshi infiltrators capturing Mumbai slums, could not change names of Aurangabad, Ahmednagar etc. On the contrary, another saffron-robed leader CM of UP has changed name of Allahabad to Prayagraj, has come down on criminals/gangsters with hammer and tongs, Kumbh and Ayodhya has been glorified to the hilt etc. Yogi’s family members are still very ordinary mortals while Thackeray s are millionaires. This Shiv Sena shall be obliterated from Bharatiya politics sooner than later just as Communism is now gasping for survival, is a fact well-known to them.
Coming back to the issue of livelihood migrants of UP and Bihar, they were well accepted in the State of Gujarat without any recriminations and so many of them settled down there. And rewards have been bountiful. When a Gujarati crossed over entire length and breadth of Bharata, landed in Varanasi, sought their votes and MPs, they loudly cheered him and thunderously appointed him Prime Minister of the nation. Now he has become a world statesman and a living legend. That’s the difference between narrow-minded Maratha regionalism pedalled by Thackeray gangsters in the name of Chhatrapati Shivaji and Gujarati vision of Sardar Patel variety. Hail those patriotic nationalists of Gujarat.
Historically speaking, regional parties no more deserve to exist at all. Regional parties came into existence in response to autocratic politics of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who used to treat State Chief Ministers like chaparasis. Episode of HN Bahuguna is well known wherein he went to meet Indira Gandhi with prior appointment, waited for an hour then she taunted at him addressing her staff member, ‘why did you force him to wait for an hour? Don’t you know he is future Prime Minister of India?’. The way T. Anjaiah of Andhra Pradesh used to be insulted by her, is widely known that allowed NT Rama Rao and his TDP to rise and claim power. Over decades, these regional parties gained strength and became threat to national unity. Now with emergence of BJP at national level addressing all regional and national issues equitably, regional parties have completely lost their relevance except indulgence with bad politics of extortion, corruption and threat to national unity in the name of federalism. People of Bharat must rise to the occasion and extinguish this anti-national politics of treachery and regionalism as soon as possible.
Note of acknowledgement – Inspiration for this article was received from Dr. Surendra Jain, Jt. General Secretary, Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
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