“We cannot help but record our distress at these kinds of speeches given by a top leader of a political party. The lack of restraint in the language used and the derogatory terms used therein to refer to a group of people in an election speech is indeed to be condemned…The offending speeches in the present case discarded the cherished values of our rich cultural heritage and tended to erode the secular polity. We say this with the fervent hope that our observation has some chastening effect in the future election campaigns,” stated Judges JS Verma, NP Singh and Venkataswami in 1995.
The judgment unseated the elected MLA, Dr Ramesh Prabhoo, and disenfranchised him and Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, for appealing for votes on religious grounds. Thackeray was unfazed and unapologetic for his words spoken during the by-election in Vile Parle in December 1987 in which Prabhoo, his personal physician and Sena candidate, contested against freedom fighter and activist Prabhakar Kunte of the Congress. After he lost, Kunte dragged Prabhoo and his political boss to the Bombay High Court for violating the Representation of the People Act.
The court ruled in his favour and unseated Prabhoo in 1989. He and Thackeray appealed in the Supreme Court thereafter where it lingered till 1995. The order of their disenfranchisement, finally, came in July 1999, after the Election Commission of India (EC) processed it. Thackeray was not able to vote in any election till the 2004 general election; the six-year ban was up in 2001. He was scathing in his reaction to the disenfranchisement, questioning a democracy in which his right to vote was taken away. Given his political belligerence, he was unremorseful and was, in fact, proud of the fact that he had openly used Hindutva in elections.
The judiciary and the EC had read him the riot act, as it were. This seems another India altogether in which a powerful political leader could be hauled up for his vile and provocative religion-based utterances during an election campaign, where the courts would remind the offenders of Section 123 of the Act. This serves as a reminder that action is indeed possible when star campaigners and political leaders, who set the tone of an election campaign, openly spew hate or deride an entire community, often using falsehoods or old and twisted statements.
As the Election 2024 heats up with none other than the Prime Minister being called out for his anti-Muslim speech in Banswara, Rajasthan, the Prabhoo-Thackeray case is worth a recall. Mumbai can claim to have shown the way — to Indians who are disgusted enough to rise against the communal speeches and to political leaders who want to use religion in electioneering instead of issues and work record.
Prabhoo, like his leader, remained unfazed and led a passively political life after the disenfranchisement. Kunte was proud of his decision to take Prabhoo and Thackeray to the Bombay HC and often said that his early political exposure, with a strong Gandhian influence, and belief in the Constitution of India made him snare the tiger in its own den. For, it was no small act in the 1980-90s to take on Thackeray on any forum — judicial or otherwise — such was the clout and muscle power of Thackeray and his Shiv Sena in Mumbai.
What had Thackeray said during the campaign? The court held three speeches to be offensive and violative of the Representation of the People Act. In his thundering speech in November 1987, Thackeray had appealed to “all my Hindu brothers, sisters and mothers gathered here to send the Shiv Sena to the legislative assembly. Unless you do so, it would be difficult for us to live because they will come and there will be a war of religions.” The “they” was clear though he did not utter the word “Muslim” but it was not clear which Muslim would come because there were none contesting that particular by-election in Vile Parle.
In his second speech in December 1987, Thackeray had said: “The victory will not be mine of that of Shiv Sena or Dr Prabhoo. It will be the victory of Hinduism…Whatever masjids are there, if one starts digging the same, one will find Hindu temples. A person by the name of Prabhoo who is contesting the election in the name of religion should be sent to the Assembly.” Another speech in the same month had him saying, “…It will do if we do not get a single vote from a Muslim. If any of them are present here they should think for themselves…I am not in need of their votes but I want your (Hindu) votes. You must send Dr Prabhoo of the Shiv Sena to the Assembly or we will be finished. It will not take long for Hindustan to become green.”
This pushed the envelope in many ways but Thackeray had tasted “success” with such campaigning. It set the stage for the belligerent anti-Muslim rhetoric to become a key part of the Shiv Sena’s identity and political posturing, and provided the ammunition for the violence it unleashed in the weeks after the Babri Masjid demolition causing Bombay to burn in 1992-93. What began as an expression of anger by Muslims in parts of Mumbai, hitting out at the police and state installations, on the night of December 6, 1992, escalated within no time to a Muslim versus Sena pitched battle as sections of the Mumbai Police showed saffron beneath their khaki.
The Sena still parades the narrative that Bombay and Hindus were ‘saved’ because of its intervention. When Thackeray passed away in November 2012, the city shut down voluntarily or involuntarily, including the Muslim-majority areas which definitely did not desire another round of the Sena’s ire. It will be interesting to see how all of this is portrayed, if at all, in the memorial that is being constructed at Shivaji Park to honour Thackeray.
What is pertinent here is the atmosphere in which the 1987 by-poll happened and Thackeray’s eventual disenfranchisement for six years. There was a belief that calls to vote on religious basis and dog-whistling were not a legitimate part of election campaigns and could bring legal penalties. The judgment, as the three judges stated, should have had a chastening effect. Yet, 25 years after the disenfranchisement, given the loud volume and large amount of anti-minority rhetoric the opposite seems to have happened.
Whether seemingly benign calls to vote for those who made Ram Mandir possible or more vituperative utterances by top leaders, the use of religion and religious dog-whistling in elections has come to stay — unfortunately for India. Words that were frowned upon and carried definitive consequences for even powerful leaders now get applause from a section of the electorate. The “acceptable” has shifted, in keeping with the principles of the Overton Window. Thackeray’s disenfranchisement as penalty for his anti-Muslim utterances, it seems now, belongs to another era.
Smruti Koppikar, senior journalist and urban chronicler, writes extensively on cities, development, gender, and the media. She is the Founder Editor of the award-winning online journal ‘Question of Cities’
