As the rebellion in the Shiv Sena gathered momentum in late June, flex boards went up in several parts of Mumbai, especially those considered the party’s stronghold areas. Bathed in the party’s trademark saffron with its symbol of bow-and-arrow prominently displayed, the boards invoked the late Bal Thackeray, founder of the party, his son Uddhav who was then Maharashtra’s chief minister, grandson Aaditya considered the young urbane face of the 56-year-old party. Five Marathi words on the boards – Saheb, amchi tumcha sobat aahot (Saheb, we are with you) – encapsulated the support that Uddhav Thackeray still had after Thane’s satrap Eknath Shinde walked out with other rebels in the party’s legislature wings.
Politics, it is said, is visual and symbolic besides being ideological and theoretical. The boards and banners, crowds outside Thackeray’s bungalow in Bandra, a steady stream of visitors to the Sena Bhavan in Dadar, all evoked visual imagery at a time of grave crisis in the party. The party that took shape in Bombay and, in return, deeply influenced the city in the last few decades was being bolstered on its streets and pavements such as they are. The Sena workers’ roar added to the mood of the moment, particularly poignant at a time of crisis like this.
The Shiv Sena and the city were, and are, spoken of in the same breath. Its formative years were in the then Bombay, its cause celebre – the sons of the soil or Marathi manoos narrative – was tried out here, its political battles with the Communists and its first electoral victories were in Bombay, its earliest leaders came from the city and were rooted in the Maharashtrian ethos here, the Thackerays lived in the city too, its annual Dussehra meetings were held in the Marathi heartland of Shivaji park, and the late Bal Thackeray claimed many a time that it was the Sena which “protected” the city when the occasion demanded it. In this list of occasions of when the Sena supposedly played saviour to the city, he never failed to include the post-Babri Masjid demolition riots of December 1992-January 1993 though the Justice Srikrishna Commission which probed the carnage indicted him for acting as a “veteran general” who led his boys in lighting the fires across the city.
The strong identification of the party and the city was also on account of the Sena’s majority in the Mumbai municipal corporation since the mid-1980s except for a brief hiatus in between of about four-five years. That’s almost 35 years of being at the helm of the country’s richest and most influential municipal corporation, whose annual budgets typically surpass those of mid-size and small states of India. That’s also 35 years of determining the growth trajectory, urban development, and the quality of life in one of India’s premier cities with commercial links to international metropolitan cities such as New York, London, Dubai, and Tokyo. The Sena, in charge of not only Mumbai’s municipal corporation but also those in neighbouring Thane, Kalyan and Dombivli, and a substantive presence in Navi Mumbai, had an enviable footprint of urban governance through the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world.
Did it come good? Unless it’s a committed Shiv Sainik answering the question, the common responses, backed by empirical work, would be that these cities are a mess with ill-planned infrastructure and uneven development which happened at the cost of their natural areas and ecology. The daily commute and life presents multiple challenges to the millions who have made these cities their home, and the water supply and garbage removal as also the drainage of rain water make for unsavoury headlines year after year. A less-discussed or rarely-discussed issue is of the declining presence and proportion of “Marathi manoos” in Mumbai on the Sena’s watch, including in community strongholds such as Parel-Dadar and Girgaum, as the lower-middle-class working population of the city was driven out to the far suburbs.
The Sena has been accused of, and analysts have documented, running its version of the “reward economy” or organised corruption in the civic bodies, especially in Mumbai. Contractors and firms awarded lucrative work contracts by the usual tendering process were allegedly traced back to party sympathisers if not the elected corporators themselves. These contractors inexplicably kept getting contracts and draining the public exchequer, despite the shoddy work they delivered – which meant that basic issues such as potholes on roads or water-logging during the monsoon due to sloppy desilting work had to be repeatedly taken to the Bombay High Court for redressal. The Sena’s strong-arm tactics and street-corner violence also turned off many.
In sum, the Sena which built a formidable network, an enviable structure with shakhas and vibhags, and a devoted political cadre did not rise to the bar on two counts: urban governance and ideological profundity.
Hindutva was not its core ideology though the plank allowed it to expand and grow beyond what was imagined in 1966; Hindutva did not come into the Sena’s parlance until late 1980s, and Uddhav Thackeray was at pains lately to explain how his party’s Hindutva was different from that of the BJP’s. The alleged “dilution” of Hindutva is what’s supposed to have sparked off the current rebellion by Shinde. The Sena’s lack of political theory or clear ideological framework is hardly new; analysts had pointed it out back in the ’80s too.
Urban governance, even more than ideology, is where the Sena finds itself cornered. Whether in the Mumbai municipal corporation, or in Thane or other cities, what will hurt the Sena now is the common citizen’s belief that these cities, where millions struggle every day to live a safe and decent quality of life, are poorly governed from planning to implementation. Its abject disregard for governance – allowing state or central governments the decision-making power about mega projects, taking only cursory interest in managing the cities with bureaucrats exercising more power, unwillingness to systematically train its elected representatives in the demands and nuances of urban governance – will all come to haunt it as these corporations prepare for elections. Being in power in urban local bodies and governing mega cities reasonably well is not the same thing, but the Shiv Sena barely internalised this distinction.
Mumbai and Thane municipal corporations, besides a dozen more, are going to the polls in the next few months. Also, hundreds of municipal councils in Maharashtra will see elections till the end of this year. If governance was the only card to seek votes on, the Sena would not fancy its chances in many of these bodies, especially in Thane which is also rebel leader Eknath Shinde’s home turf. But the party has an emotive connection with people in these cities, and cadres that still swear by Thackeray’s legacy. Besides, the rebellion might just fetch Uddhav Thackeray some sympathy too.
If the Sena manages to retain its majority in the Mumbai municipal corporation and scrapes through in Thane – the odds are high but politics is all about twists and turns – it has another shot at upping its game on governance. We should not hold our breath on this – the Sena may have an urban identity, but has rarely come good on urban governance.
The author is an independent journalist and urban chronicler who writes extensively on cities, development, gender, and media, and has tracked the Shiv Sena since the 1980s. She is the founder editor of ‘Question of Cities’.
