The Sena’s politics of hate has backfired

My Name is Khan is now not just a film, it’s a watershed. Not in film-making, but in the political life of Maharashtra. Its elevated status has nothing to do with  its  quality or content, both of which are irrelevant in the current context. Its elevation to a special level is due to the Shiv Sena’s new-found will to self-destruct.  The roots of the Khan controversy go back to the last two elections — the national general elections and the Maharashtra state assembly elections.From being the pre-eminent party in the state, the Shiv Sena found itself in fourth place. Even the most basic analysis of the voting pattern showed that this was not the result of a steep decline in the Sena’s popularity but the result of vote division by its splinter group the MNS. Notwithstanding that, panic set in the Thackeray camp. Until then the old patriarch Bal Thackeray enfeebled by age and illness was content to pass on the levers of party power to son Uddhav, but the shock of the election results made him grab them once again. This is also a response to the largely held belief that Uddhav was too soft a leader and lacked the dynamism of his cousin Raj Thackeray. The role of Raj Thackeray in the My Name is Khan controversy has gone unnoticed. For a very good reason too: He has played no role at all. Whether it was Bal Thackeray’s fatwa against Australian cricketers or his diatribe against Sachin Tendulkar, Raj has been strangely quiet. He has, it seems, been content to watch the unfolding drama from the sidelines, neither willing to be an active participant nor an applauding or disparaging spectator. He has, in fact, shown political savvy none of us suspected him of. What he has been doing is watch quietly as the Sena, guided by his one-time mentor, shoots itself in the foot again and again. For Raj, the biggest challenge must be to keep his grin in check. I may be wrong of course. The nephew’s silence may be a result of the spate of legal cases against him in different parts of the country. The nephew’s silence may be just temporary. It may just be a case of the wily old uncle stealing the thunder back from the cheeky young nephew who had stolen it in the first place. If that is so, Raj may be biding his time and waiting for the right opportunity to unleash another wave of violence, in which case poor Mumbai will be in for a prolonged state of siege. On the other hand, it may be because Raj Thackeray has read the signals which Bal Thackeray, stuck in a time warp, cannot see: that the country has moved on since the time the Shiv Sena first came into being in the 1960s, and the people of Maharashtra and Mumbai are no different. The old guard of the BJP, the LK Advanis, the Murli Manohar Joshis and their chaddi colleagues haven’t realised this either, which is why the party is floundering so badly too. In this changed national scenario, the electorate has different aspirations: It wants the politics of development, not the politics of hate. If Raj Thackeray has indeed read these signals the MNS will be in for a major course correction. Ironically, the man who is temperamentally much more suited to take this new path is Uddhav, and left to himself without the large presence of his father looming over him, perhaps that’s the road he would have traveled. But he is a prisoner of his father’s larger than life persona and in his shadow he will have to stay.  The criminal neglect of areas like Vidarbha, the unchecked slide of Mumbai city into paralysis are just two instances of why Maharashtra needs a strong regional party for which the interests of the state will be paramount and which will therefore push that agenda with a vigour that has so sorely been missing for so very long. The Sena debacle in the My Name is Khan agitation may be the starting point of a political formation of that kind. We can only watch and keep our fingers crossed.