The ‘Raj Thackeray’ phenomenon— Deeper malaise in our polity

Recent rise of Raj Thackeray and his brand of aggressive violent politics in Maratha land gives a ‘déjà vu’ feeling about reckless sense and sensibility of mainstream Indian polity. This is a longstanding malaise which perpetuates our socio-political fabric with disastrous consequences yet our political chieftains refuse to take any lesson and keep on playing havoc with social diversity and national integrity for their short-term gains with impunity.

Here I am going to elaborate on some of previous similar political commissions and omissions which cost dearly to our country.

But first Raj Thackeray…....

In My view, following factors are involved in facilitating his emergence on Maratha Political Landscape----

1. Bal Thackeray’s “PUTRAMOH” is the prime trigger which created identity crisis for Raj .He opted to go two steps ahead of the shiv-sena brand of aggressive posturing in politics because he had graduated from the same.

2. The existing political parties and leaders of Maharastra seem to have failed to address the grassroot aspirations and maladies of Maratha Manoos, taking them for granted once they grabbed power. Disgruntled Marathi people opted to go with Raj even though many are not comfortable with his ways and means.

3. Bal Thackeray emerged on Indian political spectrum in seventies because of wrong appeasement policies and Delhi-centric politics of Congress. It wasn’t limited only to Maharastra. Regional political parties in various other states, ether south or north, emerged and elbowed congress out of its cozy complacency. But over the years, Shiv-sena seems to have stagnated and entangled in dynastic imbroglio with this inevitable outcome in the form of MNS-Raj.

4. Changing demography of Mumbai, poverty-stricken farmers committing suicide, rising unemployment of Marathi youths, lesser space for Marathi on the national scene despite rich socio-cultural and strong economic clout and despicable political posturing by Lalu-Mulayam-Amarsingh brand of leaders etc. pushed the common Marathi manoos towards Raj-MNS platform in search of identity.

The backdoor divisive politics of congress trying to promote Raj-MNS to neutralize Shiv-sena is short-sighted and highly deplorable. They did the same with ‘Asom Gan Sangram Parishad’ and Assam is still paying the price. Indira Gandhi nurtured Bhindrawale to counter Alkalis and it led to khalistani-mayhem throughout Punjab and rest of the nation. Congress never learns from its past mistakes and keeps on playing the divisive game which they seem to have inherited from their British-cultured great leaders.
-----Contd……..