Marathi Manoos – By Nikhil Sanjay-Rekha Adsule Recently, Shivaji Park in Mumbai witnessed an unexpected event — the reunion of estranged cousins, Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray. This took place after almost 20 years, against the backdrop of local body elections in Maharashtra and Mumbai. Their emotional appeal during their rally was mainly centred on the rhetoric of “Marathi Manoos”.
This “politics of emotion” was the foundational plank of Shiv Sena Supremo Balasaheb Thackeray’s politics. The construct of “Marathi Manoos” was used early in the 1960s against the Indians from the southern states. Later, the Sena mixed its politics of language with religion to remain relevant in the 1980s and 1990s.
The recent Thackeray reunion, though, must be viewed beyond the rhetoric of “Marathi Manoos”. It is a battle for the political legacy of Bal Thackeray in the face of an existential crisis.
Advertisement Even today, the rhetoric of “Marathi Manoos” carries an emotional appeal for all Marathi speakers. It originated from the demand for the creation of Maharashtra out of Bombay State during the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, with the demand for Mumbai to be the capital of Maharashtra. The then RSS supremo took an opposing stand, arguing that Mumbai (then Bombay) should not be given to Maharashtra.
Today’s “Marathi Manoos” — a mix of lumpen-proletariat, neo-middle classes, and elite sections who speak Marathi — is the bearer of a political Marathi identity. In their speeches, the Thackeray brothers depicted the BJP as a “party of outsiders,” crony capitalists, and the party imposing Hindi.
Raj Thackrey’s presentation highlighted how Mumbai, led by the BJP government, is following the Delhi model of “Adani-isation”. This new unity among the Thackeray brothers has energised the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections. The polls will answer the question posed in the movie Satya by Bhiku Mhatre (played by Manoj Bajpayee): Mumbai ka king kaun? Control over the BMC is important for the Thackreys, as it has a budget of around Rs 74,500 crore.
This resource-rich entity has traditionally been a matter of prestige for the family and has given the Thackerays leverage in Maharashtra and national politics. The BMC’s resources have helped the Shiv Sena create a system of patronage whose benefits trickle down to party workers.
The BMC poll, then, could be a make-or-break moment for the SS-UBT as well as the MNS. Also Read | Mumbai civic poll is latest theatre of freebie politics The BMC elections are also the last battle for the Marathi Manoos as a political construct. And it will be fought in an atmosphere where the BJP is using saam, daam, dand, andbheda to cripple the Thackeray brand, as seen in the infamous Shiv Sena split of 2022.
Thus, these elections are a way for Uddhav Thackarey to reclaim and reassert his natural right to be the true heir of his father, the late Balasaheb Thackrey’s legacy. Advertisement The emotional appeal of Marathi Manoos and “Mumbai for Maharashtra and Maharashtrians” and the Thackeray reunion did have some apparent traction.
The BJP may have helped matters along when K Annamalai sparked a controversy by stating, “Bombay is not a Maharashtra city; it is an international city. ” The use of “Bombay” rather than Mumbai has added fuel to the fire, with the opposition branding this statement as an insult to the martyrs of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement.
Even Deputy CM Eknath Shinde, an ally of the BJP, has called the remarks “wrong and inappropriate”. The headlines and controversies, though, can be misleading.
On Friday, the results will tell us if the Thackerays are on the rise. The writer is a senior research scholar at IIT-Delhi.