Mumbai: January 23, 2026, marks the centenary of Bal Keshav Thackeray, a man who did not just participate in Maharashtra’s politics, he authored it. As the state and the nation celebrate his 100th birth anniversary, the air is thick with a poignant, inescapable question: What would Maharashtra look like today if the 'Tiger' had lived to see this century?
The landscape he left behind in 2012 has been irrevocably altered. The party he built with the sweat of the Marathi Manoos has fractured; the 'remote control' he once wielded has been replaced by complex coalition arithmetic and the very definition of Hindutva in the state has become a tug-of-war between competing legacies.
Perhaps the most jarring reality Balasaheb would face today is the split of the Shiv Sena. For forty-six years, Balasaheb’s word was the final decree. The idea of a 'rebellion' that could successfully claim the party name and the iconic 'Bow and Arrow' symbol would have been unthinkable under his watch.
Balasaheb Thackeray addressing Mumbaikars |
Politically, the 'Big Brother' dynamic with the Bharatiya Janata Party would have remained the cornerstone of the state's power structure. While the BJP has grown into a national behemoth, Balasaheb’s 100-year-old stature would have ensured that the Shiv Sena remained the dominant partner within the borders of Maharashtra. He had a unique ability to bridge the gap between regional pride and Hindutva, never allowing one to be swallowed by the other.
In today’s landscape, where alliances are often dictated by complex mathematical permutations and central directives, Balasaheb’s uncompromising stance on 'Sons of the Soil' would have forced a more localised, Marathi-centric agenda upon any coalition, preventing the dilution of the state's regional character.
The cultural void left by his absence is perhaps even more significant than the political one. The Dussehra rallies at Shivaji Park, which have now become battlegrounds for competing claims of legitimacy, would still be the singular focal point of the state's attention. Even at a hundred, a single sentence from him, delivered with his trademark wit and sharp-tongued satire, would have had the power to neutralize the loudest of modern media campaigns.
He provided a sense of psychological security to the middle-class Maharashtrian, a feeling that someone was watching over the interests of the local population in an increasingly globalised Mumbai. Without him, that voice has fragmented into a chorus of noise, leaving the common citizen to navigate a maze of shifting loyalties.
Ultimately, if Balasaheb Thackeray were alive today, Maharashtra would likely be a state of less political litigation and more decisive action. The internal strife that has characterised the last few years of the state's governance would have been traded for a rigid, yet stable, hierarchy.
As the nation observes his centenary, the realisation remains that while his images adorn every street corner and his name is invoked by every faction, the sheer 'authority of the soul' that he possessed remains unreplicable. His hundredth year would not have been a quiet retirement, but a final, defiant stand for the primacy of the Marathi identity in a rapidly changing India.
