Narayan Rane, Oedipus Rex

Balasaheb Thackeray had the mind of a cartoonist 8212; vicarious, hilarious and completely unencumbered. He had urged Marathi youth to come to the meetings in large numbers, but did not know what would turn out to be the response. He was stunned to see hundreds and thousands of teenagers and middle-aged men. They had only one thing in common 8212; a feeling of frustration and anger incubated in minds sunk into an inexplicable inferiority complex.

Seeing the crowd, he thundered that the sons of the soil, the heirs of Shivaji8217;s spirit, will no longer tolerate humiliation. They will fight to restore the pride of being Marathi and the glory of Maratha history. But it was a warcry without an enemy around. Actually it was an expression of a deep anxiety born of an identity crisis. Narayan Rane was in his early teens when the Shiv Sena was founded. Like hundreds of other Marathi youth in the city of Mumbai, he too was at once inspired. He had found an icon. He had found a cause. He had also found an organisation, howsoever unstructured it may be. He became a sainik 8212; ready to fight, the moment a call comes. The only thing he did not know was whom to fight.

Like most such troubled and passionate Marathi youth, Narayan hailed from the Konkan. Mumbai, geographically and culturally, is part of the Konkan. A vast number of the Mumbai proletariat belonged to the Konkan 8212; poor, struggling and just surviving. They claimed the city8217;s workspace as well as political space. Only six years earlier, under their leadership, the state of Maharashtra was carved out as a linguistic unit. The hope then was that Marathi people would get priority in jobs, business, housing. But the number of the unemployed and lumpens was on the rise. Nothing to do and lots of time on hand with their mind virtually empty.

These empty minds were fired by Balasaheb Thackeray8217;s appeal. Since there was no identifiable enemy, because the city was always cosmopolitan and multi-lingual, the wrath of the Marathi youth was directed at the 8220;madrasis8221; or 8220;lungiwalas8221;. For them Tamil and Malayali, Telugu and Kannada, all were 8220;lungiwala madrasis8221; who were usurping Marathi jobs. So a kind of mayhem began. Finally, the enemy was found. The enemy then defined the ideology and conviction. Throw out the 8220;usurpers8221;, reclaim the city, stop the trains, call for strike, appeal for bandhs, spread terror.

Initially, the city8217;s middle class joined the proletarian masses in spreading the message and the mayhem. Sooner rather than later, the underworld surreptitiously infiltrated the mass movement. Their terror acquired respectability. Rane has grown in this atmosphere, in this politically charged and violent environment. He is a quintessential Shiv sainik8212;rabblerouser and mobiliser and also an organiser, a daredevil and a do-gooder, a streetfighter and a proud Konkani Maratha. Indeed, without him, the tentacles of the Shiv Sena could not have been spread in the Konkan. Malvan is a sub-region of the Konkan, but with a distinct dialect and character. Narayan Rane symbolises Malvan in all its splendour.

Balasaheb Thackeray stature and status had grown because of such stalwarts who took care of everything 8212; from muscle power to money power. But with the passage of time, these stalwarts began to seek their pound of flesh. When the Shiv Sena came to power, Rane was not an immediate contender, because he was not sure how his ambition to become chief minister would be perceived by Balasaheb. So the mantle was handed over to Manohar Joshi, a sophisticated Mumbai-based brahmin with roots in a relatively developed part of Konkan, the district of Raigarh. But with the Sena-BJP rule in the saddle, he began to seek a change in the leadership. Confident that he could deliver, he began to push more and more. With his power-base, he could not be ignored and was brought in as the replacement of Manohar Joshi.

But once power went to the Congress alliance in 1999, the organisation became important again. When Balasaheb Thackeray declared Uddhav as his heir-apparent, it became clear to Rane, that he would be sidelined if the power was to come to Sena again. Last year8217;s election was a close call and the Sena-BJP combine lost despite utter non-governance by the Congress front.

Rane realised that even if the allies came to power, he would not be in the reckoning. And this time he would be denied even the organisational leadership. He was marginalised and humiliated and hence a rebellion was brewing.

Rane aimed and struck at the very core 8212; the heir-apparent, who is seen by most of the second and third rank and file as a nincompoop and a lacklustre leader of the militant organisation. The bolt came from the blue and from a person who was seen as the fiery loyalist Shiv Sainik, ready to die or kill for the Sena. It was a strike which none of the Thackerays could have anticipated. He challenged the godfather and showed that in a democratic environment, the challenge would have to be taken up by the other side. His rebellion has delivered a fatal blow. Shiv Sena will soon disintegrate and collapse under its own weight, like all fascist organisations have. If indeed, its epitaph has to be written, it will be in the year 2007, when it will be eclipsed from Mumbai, following the election for the corporation. Till then, in the next two years, the Sena will continue to fall apart.