Setting off fear, Raj has the last laugh

Veteran politicians and observers in Mumbai say that although Raj8217;s latest avtaar could be a creation of 24-hour news television 8212; and the violence could simmer down soon 8212; he has ended up achieving his objective: upstaging, at least, for now, his relatively moderate cousin and rival Uddhav in the battle to prove who is the true heir of Bal Thackeray.

Senior politicians, including many in Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh8217;s Congress party itself, said the entire episode in a sense reminded them of the late 1960s when the Congress allowed the rise of a cartoonist called Bal Thackeray, whose parochial politics continues to be a hot-button issue.

Mumbai had been agog with the impending arrest of Raj for over a week now ever since his supporters went on the rampage targeting migrants from north India.

The police were ready to move in and take Raj for his inflammatory speeches within days but orders from the top never came until a second round of rioting this week meant Deshmukh could not resist the pressure from Delhi in the face of national outrage.

At Raj Thackeray8217;s Shivaji Park residence, officials from the Vikhroli police station escorted Thackeray to a police van amid tight security. As the van sped off, Mohan Wagh, theatre personality and his father-in-law, told reporters: 8220;Raj knew he was going to get arrested. He has gone to prison for a good cause.8221;

Asked what 8220;the good cause8221; was, he said: 8220;Don8217;t you know what the good cause is? I am sure every Marathi citizen knows the nature of the cause.8221;

8220;We seem to have made the same mistake we made in the 1960s,8221; said a senior Congress leader and CWC member. 8220;If we had stepped in and stopped Bal Thackeray when he launched his campaign against south Indians, there would be no Shiv Sena or all these headaches.8221;

8220;This time we have allowed Raj and his supporters to run riot for over a week, spread his message, beat up people, claim credit for the campaign and only then arrested him, making him a hero,8221; he said. 8220;I only hope we don8217;t end up paying a similar political price like we did the last time around.8221;

When Bal Thackeray formed the Shiv Sena in 1966 and subsequently launched his campaign against migrants from south India, the Congress was in the throes of a division with the Syndicate of old-timers ganging up against then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

With Communism on the rise and making inroads into a slowly industrializing Maharashtra and Indira Gandhi showing signs of leaning towards the Left, then Chief Minister Vasantrao Naik, initially a Syndicate supporter, found it convenient to turn a blind eye to the Shiv Sena.

8220;Vasantrao Naik was using Bal Thackeray to knock out the Communists from Bombay as they were particularly strong in the unions in those days,8221; said retired police officer Julio Ribeiro, who was posted to Mumbai at the end of 1968.

8220;They did not realize they were unleashing a tiger that went on to become more powerful than the people trying to use him,8221; he said. 8220;The Communist workers were mostly lumpen elements who switched sides to the Shiv Sena and were allowed to loot and run amok.8221;

Although this time around, Deshmukh has not been accused of encouraging Raj, his hesitation to act soon and nip the MNS campaign in the bud is being attributed to a weak Chief Minister8217;s fear of losing his job if the move backfired and sparked largescale violence.

Besides, there were inevitable vote-bank calculations as well.

8220;Raj was ultimately seen as eating into the ranks and file of the Shiv Sena, weakening it,8221; said a senior state Congress committee member, adding that the government was forced to arrest him due to the national outrage and 8220;media pressure8221;.

However, whether the political mileage he has earned now will get converted into electoral mileage will only be known next year when the state is due to elect a new assembly, they said.

Meanwhile, Abu Asim Azmi of the Samajwadi Party, who faced similar charges like Raj, was also arrested from his Colaba home and granted bail by a magistrate8217;s court in Bhoiwada after furnishing a bond of Rs 10,000. with inputs from Rakshit Sonawane