The results of the Maharashtra state assembly elections held in October 2019 were assumed to be a foregone conclusion with the Bharatiya Janata Party–Shiv Sena ruling alliance set to sweep the polls. However, the Nationalist Congress Party led by Sharad Pawar won a large haul of seats and its ally Congress too improved upon its previous tally. The run-up to the polls as well as the immediate aftermath has been anything but smooth between and for the BJP–Shiv Sena alliance.
Bal Thackeray, the son of an anti-caste reformist, came from a background rich in learning and culture. Yet, he chose to use his learning and wit to destroy rather than create. Under his direction, the Sena resorted to intimidation and terror, first against south Indians, then communists and Muslims.
The Shiv Sena's rise from the 1960s was assisted in large part by its ability to effectively channel emotions based on identity. It was the mill areas of central Bombay that formed the battleground for different political parties as they fought for representation of the class that had played a key role in shaping the city's destiny. Whereas the actions of the left parties were limited to the workplace, the Sena, through its shakhas, ensconced itself in the neighbourhood and rather than radical worker concerns took up emotive issues relating to livelihood and identity that played up the image of the deprived Maharashtrian.
A play was staged in this year's Ganesh festival in Delhi. The speaker of the Lok Sabha seemed to have liked it. Soon after the play was done in Mumbai. The current culture expert in the capital city of the Marathas, Uddhav Thackeray, did not like it. He wondered how such a play could have been performed in the festival. The episode is yet another example of a phenomenon of Maharashtra's cultural life - that of extragovernmental censorship, much more damaging than governmental censorship.
It would, of course, be naive to imagine that the corrosion of our political life could be arrested simply by tightening up lawenforcement. And yet one can't escape the conclusion that the accelerating erosion of our public institutions, the apathy of the judges and the death of professionalism in the civil services - particularly the last of them - are matters of far more concern than the inroads of religion into the nation's politics.
Malegaon and Kanpur witnessed the most serious communal disturbances in 2001, which also saw several other riots as in previous years. The average riot in the post-Babri masjid demolition period is not as horrifying as previous ones; however, this provides little comfort. The West Bengal government, which has succeeded in maintaining communal peace, should become a role model for other states so that we achieve the goal of total amity.
