There’s tension simmering in Mumbai as Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray’s deadline to play Hanuman Chalisa in front of mosques if loudspeakers are not removed ends today.
The leaves of all state police personnel have been cancelled and notices have been served to Thackeray, who in a rally in Aurangabad asked people to play the Hindu mantra from May 4 if his demand was not adhered to. The Aurangabad Police has registered a case against the MNS leader for delivering a provocative speech on 1 May, reports NDTV.
One journalist asked me why do you take a stand on loudspeakers today. I said that we chant Hanuman Chalisa and Muslims should listen. A Nashik journalist told me that he is a Muslim & that he also has a problem with loudspeakers. His children can't sleep: Raj Thackeray pic.twitter.com/Px3i8IpGwU
— ANI (@ANI) May 1, 2022
Meanwhile, several mosques in and around Mumbai kept the loudspeakers off during the morning azan on Wednesday. Thackeray, who reiterated his demand in a tweet last night, said, “… this is not a religious issue but a social one. People of every religion of this country are exposed to noise pollution.”
Appeal to all pic.twitter.com/ptN8sLUA8Z
— Raj Thackeray (@RajThackeray) May 3, 2022
The ruling Shiv Sena meanwhile has said that Thackeray’s ultimatum would not work in Maharashtra. The state government, which is helmed by Raj Thackeray’s cousin Uddhav, is at loggerheads with the MNS ahead of the civic body elections. However, Thackeray has been a perennial troublemaker in the state. We take a look at the many times the MNS chief kicked up a political storm.
Quitting the Shiv Sena
Raj Thackeray quit the Shiv Sena in 2005 to form his own party and has since then attempted time and again to prove himself as his uncle Bal Thackeray’s real political heir. While he remains a popular face he is not managed to get the votes.
He floated the MNS in 2006 on the development plank but it did not earn him any electoral success. In its debut municipal polls in 2007, the party won seven seats.
Anti-migrant stand
Thackeray then peddled the Marathi manoos agenda. He took a stand against migrants from north India who compete with locals in the state for jobs. In February 2008, MNS workers clashed with the Samajwadi Party in Mumbai’s Dadar, assaulted taxi drivers from north India, and vandalised their vehicles.
Thackeray justified the attacks saying it was a reaction to the uncontrolled dadagiri of migrants and leaders from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The MNS chief even launched a scathing attack on Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan and alleged that he was more interested in his home state UP. The party workers even hurled bottles at the actor’s residence in Mumbai’s suburban Juhu.
The attacks continued until October 2008 when MNS activists beat up North Indian candidates appearing for the railway entrance exam from Mumbai. It led to Thackeray’s arrest which led to mayhem across the state.
No electoral success
Riding on the son-of-the-soil agenda, Thackeray ate into the Shiv Sena-BJP votes in Mumbai, Thane, Pune, and Nashik in 2009. In the state Assembly elections in the same year, MNS bagged 13 seats of 288, paving the way for an easy win for the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party. The 2009 Assembly polls have been the best performance of the party so far.
It has been a downward spiral since. In 2014, the party contested 219 seats but bagged just one. In May 2014, ahead of the general elections, Thackeray backed Narendra Modi and fielded candidates against the Shiv Sena. Despite backing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the MNS got a big zero in the Lok Sabha polls.
Yet, the party hit headlines from time to time as it kept raking the Marathi identity issue. In 2016 and 2017, party workers targeted shops in Mumbai and Thane over non-Marathi signboards.
Arm-twisting Bollywood
With no new agenda, the party created a furore over Pakistan actors finding work in Bollywood even as tensions with the neighbouring nation continued. Raj Thackeray’s party first went after Karan Johar for Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, which starred Pakistani actor Fawad Khan. The movie was released in Mumbai after then Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis brokered a deal between the MNS leader and Johar that included a payout of Rs 5 crore to the Army Welfare Fund. The move was labelled as extortion and then Defence Miniter Manohar Parikkar refused to accept the money causing embrassement to Thackeray.
The MNS then targeted Shah Rukh Khan’s Raees in 2016 and it was only after the star visited Thackeray and assured that Pakistani actor Mahira Khan would not promote the movie that the party said it would not create trouble during its release.
Going against Modi
Thackeray continued his ‘bullying’ tactics to stay relevant even though it did not win him any votes.
By 2019, Thackeray who was until now backing Modi did a U-turn and slammed the prime minister, even when MNS did not contest the Lok Sabha polls. Before the elections, Thackeray held rallies across the state, highlighting issues on which the BJP government had “failed the people”.
At a public meeting in Mumbai’s Shivaji Party in April 2019, the MNS leader took multiple jibes at Modi, even comparing him to Hitler. Calling for a Modi-mukt Bharat, he said “PM Narendra Modi is another Adolf Hitler… Our prime minister is known as feku (big mouth). Go to the internet and search for feku, our PM Narendra Modi’s name will pop up.”
He even said that he was not against the idea of Rahul Gandhi. Thackeray’s decision to move away from the BJP, whose idealogy was more in tune with the MNS, and seemingly back the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance was surprising. But experts said that it was motivated by the fact that it was his party’s only chance of revival. The NCP wanted to ally with Thackeray but Congress was not on board.
In the state Assembly polls held that year, the MNS contested 101 seats but bagged only one in Maharashtra.
The pro-Hindutva stance
Prakash Akolkar, senior journalist and author of Jai Maharashtra and Ha Shiv Sena navacha itihas hain, a book on the party and its evolution, said Raj Thackeray’s aim all along has been to attack his cousin Uddhav Thackeray. “Whatever positions Raj took, his target was Uddhav,” he told news agency PTI.
In 2022, Thackeray has once again trained his gun on the Shiv Sena. The party had a bitter split with the BJP and now what Thackeray is trying to do is speak a pro-Hindutva language adopted by the Centre.
The MNS leader met Union Minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari at his Shivaji Park residence in April, intensifying speculation of an alliance between the two parties for the upcoming civic polls in Mumbai.
The MNS has trying to make amends with the BJP and at the same time hit out at its rival Shiv Sena, once again trying to prove that it’s Raj Thackeray who is the true heir of Bal Thackeray. The party put up posters outside the Shiv Sena headquarters – Sena Bhawan – making a similar declaration. It’s something that even the BJP has now started to echo.
Last week, the party’s IT cell in-charge Amit Malviya took a dig at Uddhav. “Balasaheb Thackeray’s son is scared on Hanuman Chalisa,” he tweeted.
Balasaheb Thackrey’s son is scared of Hanuman Chalisa.
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) April 23, 2022
Thackeray is also scheduled to visit Ayodhya on 5 June, another move to continue to woo the BJP. It was only last week that the MNS leader heaped praise upon Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath over the loudspeaker ban. “I wholeheartedly congratulate and stand grateful to the Yogi government for having removed the loudspeakers from religious places, especially the masjids,” he tweeted.
#Azaan #Loudspeakers pic.twitter.com/Z6sCSPwJdK
— Raj Thackeray (@RajThackeray) April 28, 2022
Raj Thackeray seems to create more trouble for the Shiv Sena as he is going all out to become the latest advocate of Hindutva. And it is leaving the rival party worried. It fears that allowing the BJP and MNS to become the “only custodians of Hindutva” would affect its vote bank.
The Shiva Sena has softened under Uddhav, its trademark bullying tactics and the constant spewing of hatred against the minority have taken a backseat. But now with Raj Thackeray’s “loudspeaker ban” political ploy, the Maharashtra chief minister has to reinforce that Shiv Sena does not have to tell people again and again that it is pro-Hindutva as the party has never quit it.
“Raj can sense which way the wind is blowing,” a BJP leader told Hindustan Times while pointing to the growing religious polarisation in India. “Shiv Sainiks are confused about Sena’s commitment to Hindutva… and Raj may attract at least some of them in Mumbai [in the civic polls],” he said.
Raj Thackeray has never proven to be a real threat to the Shiv Sena yet. But he has made sure he continues to rankle his cousin Uddav. However, if he joins hands with the BJP, he could cost the party more than a few votes.
With inputs from agencies
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May 04, 2022 at 12:45PM
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