Monday, November 19, 2012
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1970's: pro-Emergency
ReplyDeleteYes, Jai. I missed that one.
DeleteHaha So I take it that you are not for bombay.
ReplyDeleteThere's too much bias about the man on the news channels and the internet yet 2 crore people turned out at his funeral which should be enough to doubt his criticizers that something is amiss. Here is a truth about the man - both good and bad.
Bal T comes from a family of communists cum social activists. His father fought for the cause of the dalits all his life. One sad day, a group of dalits(in ignorance) beat up his his dad, vandalized his house, threw dead cows on his door steps. Since then he never fought for anything based of caste.
In the 60's he quit his job and started a campaign against the gujaratis and the south indians for taking up the jobs from the locals. Very similar to the situation in telangana now. He had said that he didn't hate them but that he had to do it for his(marathi) people.
Around 70's he had taken up the causes of union workers from the many mills in mumbai.
Around 80s, the gujaratis/south indians and the marathis had settled their issues.
In 92, the muslims rioted in mumbai to protest babri masjid demolition. The police was no where to be seen. In the chaos, bal thackeray ordered the shiv sainiks to defend mumbai. The shiv sainiks won the heart of the people of bombay and became regarded as the saviour of bombay.
After the riots, shiv sena won the bombay elections.
The good part of shiv sena govt was: The pathetic destruction of the mumbai underworld mafia.
The bad part of shiv sena govt was: Many many many bandhs. Couples were beaten up on valentines day etc.
After the of the mumbai mafia, the people didn't need bal thackeray anymore so he lost the future elections.
Bal thackeray has made two contribution to bombay:
1) Saving mumbai in 1992 from riots
2) Ending the mafia rule, gangs, random crime etc
Bad contribution to bombay was forcing bandhs on city and violent protests against valentines day.
Common myths about Bal thackeray are:
1) He murdered people: The truth is different. The only people he murdered were the rioters in 1992 and the dozens and dozens of gangsters of the mafia.
2) He was against bhaiyyas: This is also not true. Bal thackeray publishes a hindi newspaper in bombay called saamna. His employees are bhaiyya. He has many bhaiyya followers. By 80's shiv sena had abandoned immigrant politics. His nephew was not happy with it so he left shiv sena and started his own political party MNS which started violent campaigns against the bhaiyyas. Bal thackeray ordered his men to protect the bhaiyyas from MNS and both groups have clashed over it.
Bal thackeray is actually admired in bombay. That is why the state had to give him a honorable funeral.
Nairji: Thanks for writing.
DeleteMany a times we have different views of the same person. Can't say which one is the right view. For example, Modi is admired in Gujarat, but many Indians outside Gujarat do not necessarily admire Modi.
It's a common problem all across the world. We expect our characters to be all good or all bad. If the character does something good and something equally bad then it leaves us confused.
DeleteAs a kid, I used to enjoy ramayana and rama was my hero. By the time I became a teenager, my views had changed. I regarded rama as a bad person for leaving sita. When I crossed 30, I finally understood the story of rama. It was a story about a man who was just a human being like the rest of us; he was neither good, neither bad. It took me more than 30 years to understand the gist of ramayana.
This explains why both the bible and the quran are not critical of their respective heros. Their authors understood the psychology of a human brain was intrinsically vulnerable to confusion.
I read your above article. I liked it very much. I am a great fan of Bal Thakrey. Indians have tendency to look after one's negative side, same has happened with this great man. If we look after his antire political or personal history he was against castism and rasism. Almost everybody things that he was against muslims but the fact is that he was not agaist all the muslims he was against those muslims who are not respecting any other religon other than there own and who are living in India but are not the real India. The best example we can take is his favourate batsman was Sachin Tendulkar but favourate bowler was ZAHEER KHAN and IRFAN PATHAN, other all things about 1993 riots and all are covered in your abouve artical. The matter is all about perception. How we look at anybody or what opinion we have about that person.
DeleteNakme- Jitesh Saldur
Contact- 8097383124
@Nairji:Super Like to your View and reality.
DeleteBut let me correct you,the political scope of Balasaheb thackeray was not just limited to mumbai, he was right wing for maharashtrians. It was rightly done by indian government, giving him a honorable funeral.The people in maharashtara have the special space for hindu hriday samrat balashaheb thackeray in their heart, we will miss him forever.
Dear Nairji: You must be smoking something when you claimed that 2 crore people turned out for Mr T's funeral. Really? Mumbai is a big congested city and even if 1 lac people gather for funeral city gets choked. That does not mean that everyone was mourning T's death. Apart from Sena hoodlums and Marathi chauvinists who else really would care or mourn a criminal's death? If at all most of the people felt a sigh of relief on his death.
ReplyDeleteHis appeal among marathi chauvinists was that he might not have provided them any jobs or employment but at least he told them whom to blame for their failures. If marathi manoos failed the fault was with gujaratis, south indians, muslims and bhaiyyas (in that chronological order), but never with marathi manoos himself. Moreover the "enemy" was always a weak group that could be bullied and occasionally thrashed with relative ease so as to assuage maratha machismo.
The two contributions that in your opinion he made to Mumbai make a hilarious reading. To be correct i)he did not prevent 1992 riots but instigated and masterminded it. 2) he did not end mafia rule but replaced many mini mafias with his sena. There is no BMC contractor who did not pay his cuts to Mr T.
In reality he was a Hindu Dawood Ibrahim of Bombay. Adored by maratha hooligans for obvious reasons and hated (but feared) by non-marathis and right thinking marathi people - again for obvious reasons.
-Manijit
@Manjit: mind your words manijit and who are you to declare balasaheb thackeray as criminal.I think you dont have television set at your home or you may not aware about population count of mumbai.there were nearly 1 crore people from maharashtra gathered for funeral of balashaheb T form there bottom of heart.we respect him for his continuous efforts for the development of maharashtra and marathi manoos.He is our GOD.
DeleteYou written something hindu Dawood and all,you may not be knowing that Balasaheb was the only mastermind who kicked the dawood out of mumbai, the whole india praise him for that.
Also you compared shivsena with mafia, Shivsena should be strong enough to control those existing criminal gangs which are there in mumbai how could you compare them with mafia. next time think before write something nonsense written above.
-Nikhil
attractive piece of information, I had come to know about your blog from my friend arjun, ahmedabad,i have read atleast eleven posts of yours by now, and let me tell you, your website gives the best and the most interesting information. This is just the kind of information that i had been looking for, i'm already your rss reader now and i would regularly watch out for the new posts, once again hats off to you! Thanks a lot once again, Regards, Bal Thackeray Quotes
ReplyDelete