Taking on Thackeray

So it stands to reason that Bhujbal should have been duly rewarded with the job of leader of the opposition when the Sena-BJP won 85 of the 288 seats in the House in 1990. Bhujbal has claimed that he was responsible for popularising the Sena outside Bombay, snipping `V’s out of saffron-dyed cloth to form the Sena standard, and planting these around liberally at a time when “none of the party’s leaders even knew which roads led out of the city”.

Ironically, it was this very success, combined by his backward-class profile, that caused Thackeray to take fright when the time came to divide the spoils of all that effort. And so Bhujbal found his ambition to be leader of the opposition nipped in the bud by Joshi, who until then had been preoccupied with building his own personal education and hotel empire. He was pacified by the promise that the job would be his by rotation next year.

But when this did not happen, who could blame him for seeking a better pasture across the meadow? He was made a Minister by the Sudhakarrao Naik government. Today, as a Congressman, he has the job he so coveted as a Shiv Sainik. He is now more troublesome to the ruling Sena than he was to the Congress.

So while Thackeray was said to be actually glad to see the back of him while the Sena was in the opposition, Bhujbal’s existence appears to have once again become a liability for him now that his party leads the government in Maharashtra. Because Bhujbal is now challenging not just Thackeray’s leadership but also his free reign as the sarsenapati of Maharashtra.

There is no disputing the fact that the internecine war within the Congress has rendered it thoroughly impotent in terms of taking on the current dispensation in Maharashtra. The lethargy within its ranks has been broken only by Bhujbal’s energetic battles in the Legislative Council. His style is alien to the party and so he is certainly not loved by many Congressmen. But there is no denying the fact that but for him the Ramesh Kini episode may never have come to light. Says Vasant Chavan, spokesperson of the Maharashtra Congress:“Thackeray and his family might have been left undeterred in grabbing hundreds of acres of real estate which has been effectively stopped by Bhujbal.” The use of power to subvert all democratic and constitutional norms by Thackeray and his remote-controlled government may have also gone undetected, leaving them a free reign for an indefinite length of time, says Chavan.

But, important though that may be, the legislature battles alone did not precipitate the Sena’s recent attack on Bhujbal. Rather, it was triggered by yet another of Bhujbal’s successes in organising an unusually effective morcha unusual for the Congress, that is. Two days before the police firing on Dalits in Bombay, Bhujbal succeeded in mobilising more than one lakh slum dwellers, dishoused after a rather brutal razing of their homes when the monsoon was lashing the city. It focussed on the government’s failure with its famous slum redevelopment scheme. And because the morcha comprised north and south Indians, Hindus and Muslims, upper castes as well as Dalits, and all political parties besides, it had Thackeray worried.

There is a theory that the recent incidents following the desecration of the B R Ambedkar statue was the consequence of Thackeray’s nervousness over Bhujbal’s growing presence. In fact, the Sena functionaries, including MP Mohan Rawle who led the attack, had placards that accused Bhujbal of precipitating the events. It must have been galling for Thackeray to learn that only Bhujbal was welcomed by the grieving Dalit community — even the State’s chief minister and deputy chief minister were chased out of the area with stones.

But perhaps the Sena is overestimating the Dalit acceptance of Bhujbal. After all, the community has still not forgotten the 1986 incident of the alleged shuddhikaran (purification) of Flora Fountain, by Bhujbal, then the mayor of Bombay, after a Dalit rally had supposedly “despoiled” the Martyrs’ Memorial there. Bhujbal now says the incident was given an anti-Dalit complexion because he was then a Sena MLA and his party was always anti-Dalit, but all that he did was to ask the nearby Pyrkes Restaurant for water and help to clear the square of the debris left behind.

“A shuddhikaran should have necessarily had Ganga jal and purohits (priests), not Muslim boys and water from an Irani restaurant,” he now maintains. “I left the Sena over Thackeray’s non-acceptance of the Mandal Commission recommendations. I grew up in a neighbourhood where we lived almost cheek-by-jowl with Dalits. How can I be against them?” But despite his fiery positions and strong enemies, Bhujbal did not anticipate last Sunday’s attack on him. After all he was living in a area dotted with highly-protected government bungalows, with the State headquarters opposite his home and the Council Hall behind it. “They had intended to murder me, only they could not find me,” he says pointing to the complete devastation of his front rooms. He was cowering in a corner at the back of his house. “I died that day,” he says pensively, sitting in the backroom that saved his life. “Now the rest of my life is a bonus from God which shall be devoted to the underprivileged people at large.”

Lightning never strikes twice. So Bhujbal believes he might be allowed to carry on a peaceful existence henceforth. Not so, warns Chavan. “Now that they have failed, they might return in the guise of Dalits, in order to justify the attack.” Bhujbal shrugs: “Bache hain, tho ladenge (now that I have survived, I will fight back).”

And how! Thackeray and and his mouthpiece Saamna have never tired of describing him as Lakhoba, the legendary character who is believed to have betrayed the Maratha warrior King Chhatrapati Shivaji. More abusive terms have been added from time to time. “He is just misusing his newspaper,” says Bhujbal. In the meantime, he has his own name for Thackeray: T. Balu. `T’ for Thackeray and Balu, obviously, for Balasaheb.

But it could also stand for Talu-Balu, a colloquial way of saying aira gaira or `Tom, Dick or Harry’. Until Thackeray relents, he shall continue to refer to the Sena chief thus, albeit in a slightly more polite tone than the one Thackeray employs against him.