Revolt in the Shiv Sena

Until recently, Mr Rane was the Sena's most-rooted leader, with a base in Konkan. Like Raj, his inner-party battle was directed against Uddhav.

Mr Raj Thackeray hasn't directly criticised his uncle, who remains his "God." But logic pits him against the Senapati. Mr Bal Thackeray anointed Uddhav as the Sena's "executive president" four years ago -- despite Raj's seniority and superior organising capabilities.

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Given Raj's marginalisation by Uddhav, especially in the last few months, a patch-up seems unlikely.

Raj will probably set float a "parallel Sena." He will be the fifth major leader to quit the Sena -- after Hemchandra Gupte and Datta Pradhan (1977), Chhagan Bhujbal (1991), and Rane. The pattern is well-established. You might be talented and loyal to the Sena. But if you don't get on with the Fuehrer & Son, you don't count.

Raj's Thackeray family connection only magnifies his revolt's impact. It's highly probable that the Sena will soon stop being a significant force -- in the Fuehrer's own life-time.

We must rejoice in the Sena's demise -- without feeling embarrassed. The Sena was the nearest thing to European fascism that India produced. For four decades, its goons played havoc with politics, the law, culture, sports, and the courts. They ruled India's largest -- and wealthiest -- city through blackmail, coercion, fear, and violence.

The Sena fomented religious hatred and communalised politics. Its demagogues manufactured chauvinist prejudice against non-Maharashtrians and instigated hate-crimes.

The Sena represents unadulterated evil. It concentrates much that's negative in Indian society, including ultra-conservatism, authoritarianism, and addiction to force.

Its disintegration will deprive the BJP of its sole Hindutva ally. That too warrants a celebration, as does the BJP's own crisis, aggravated by Ms Uma Bharati. Parties that reject India's multicultural, multi-religious heritage and the bedrock Constitutional value of secularism can only cause retrogression.

The Shiv Sena was created in 1966 by Bombay's industrialists as a counterweight to the Communists' growing trade unionism in "sunrise" industries like engineering, electricals, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.

Sena goons would break strikes, disrupt union meetings, and beat up worker-activists -- especially the educated, skilled new migrants from the South, with Left-wing sympathies.

These were the Sena's earliest targets. Next came the Gujaratis and Muslims. However, it again returned to Southerners. When the anti-Babri campaign grew in the mid-1980s, the Sena became rabidly anti-Muslim.

The Sena was a tool in the hands of the Right. The Bombay Congress boss, SK Patil, used it to disrupt the 1967 election campaign of the Left-leaning VK Krishna Menon, who had been denied the Congress ticket.

The greatest resistance to the Sena's thuggery came from the Communists. Krishna Desai, CPI MLA from Parel, gave Left-leaning youths self-defence training. The police, he rightly believed, won't defend the Left against the Sena.

In 1970, Sena thugs hacked Desai to death -- Independent India's first political murder. They got away lightly under the deeply-compromised Congress. The Sena's politics of violence and murder came to prevail. Resistance to it got subdued.

The Sena's anti-unionism was supported by the Maharashtra government, which regarded "industrial peace" a higher priority than fundamental rights, even law-and-order. Without Congressmen like VP Naik, the Sena couldn't have grown. The Congress nurtured the monster. Later, the BJP boosted it.

Equally reprehensible were the industrialists who financed and mentored the Sena. They formulated political strategy for Mr Thackeray. He demanded jobs for "sons-of-the-soil" and exploited the sense of inferiority and identity-loss among Bombay's Maharashtrian middle class.

Unlike other Indian metropolises, Bombay has never been dominated by one ethnic-linguistic group. The slogan of "neglect" of "Marathi Manoos" evoked a response especially when jobs became scarce. The Sena-built cult of Shivaji helped consolidate Maratha power, and promote rabidly communal, illiberal, and macho ideas.

The Shiv Sena's historic role was fourfold: destroy working-class radicalism; infuse extreme intolerance into society and reverse Maharashtra's rich tradition of liberal social reform which began with Jyotiba Phule; institutionalise lawlessness and coercion; and, push mainstream politics to the communal Right.

The Sena succeeded in imposing the first half of this agenda with the Congress's help and the second half through the BJP, especially after the 1993 Bombay pogrom, which it organised.

The Sena's greatest political gains, ironically, came not through its "sons-of-the-soil" appeal, but through OBC support in Marathwada and Vidarbha. The key here wasn't Mr Thackeray, but OBC leader Chhagan Bhujbal.

In 1995, the Sena for the first time took power in Maharashtra, in alliance with the BJP. Crucial to its success was the 1993 violence and the March bomb-blasts.

It leveraged its power to drive crooked deals and award "crony-capitalist" contracts, including tripling the Enron power project after promising to "drown it in the sea."

By 1999, the Sena was out of power. Politics took the back seat. Sena leaders had accumulated enormous wealth. Mr Raj Thackeray and former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi bought Kohinoor Mill lands worth Rs 350 crores.

The Sena had every opportunity to outmanoeuvre the shaky Congress-Nationalist Congress government which replaced it. But it failed. Its appeal shrank, as did the Senapati's manufactured charisma.

Eventually, Mr Thackeray went the way of all tin-pot dictators. He became a prisoner of a small coterie based upon family loyalties. His actions have produced repeated revolts.

The Sena story is probably over. But the "Marathi Manoos" sentiment and sense of injury the Sena cultivated within a chauvinist political space hasn't gone. It could well be exploited by others, including sections of the NCP or Congress.

That would be a tragedy of historic proportions. One can only hope that Ms Sonia Gandhi doesn't repeat her mother-in-law's blunders of the 1960s, and that Mr Sharad Pawar doesn't emulate VP Naik.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.