A political scion embarks on a make-or-break journey

Mumbai In 2008, then 17 years old, Aaditya Thackeray wrote a sophomoric poem that spoke about the journey of self-discovery. ‘Ek khoj par nikla hu mai, nikla hu mai,’ it read. Now 32, and still young by the standards of Indian politics, Aaditya has embarked on yet another quest- to find out if the Shiv Sena that his grandfather set up, and which his father nurtured, can be saved.

Buffeted by allegations of elitism, coterie politics and devoid of institutional power, Aaditya Thackeray has begun his Nishtha yatra to connect with the party’s grassroots workers. He has been well-received in most of the constituencies so far, but whether this warm reception will convert into electoral support is to be seen.

Aaditya has sharply focused his speeches around the theme of gaddaari (treacherousness). The word gaddaar was also used by his grandfather Bal Thackeray on multiple occasions in various contexts. Anyone who celebrated Pakistan’s victory in an Indo-Pak cricket match was a traitor according to him, as was anyone who ever left the Shiv Sena. A traitor in his vocabulary was anyone who did not adhere to the Sena’s core value of faithfulness (nishtha). By using this trope, Aaditya Thackeray too is trying to tap into the emotional connect that the party of his grandfather’s time had with its loyalists.

“They betrayed us when we gave them everything. Will you tolerate such cheating?” he asked in his speech at Patan recently as his supporters responded with a resounding “Never!” Aaditya, clad in a conservative blue shirt and jeans made space for himself on a makeshift stage set up in the middle of a busy street, barely a few kilometers away from the office of Shambhuraj Desai, a popular local MLA who is now a member of the rebel faction. This confrontation with the rebels in their territory in rally after rally has become a huge hit in the state, and underscores the fact that the Sena is more about its sainiks rather than its ministers and office bearers. Aaditya’s attempts to garner support for himself and his father are similar to what Bal Thackeray did in 1978 and 1992 when he felt his hegemony was being challenged. Balasaheb made public and emotional appeals of support for his leadership and each time his followers responded with greater vigour, pledging to ‘teach the opponents a memorable lesson.’ Aaditya is hoping to evoke a similar reaction.

In all his meetings so far during the Nishtha Yatra, Thackeray has harped on the traditional values of the Shiv Sena - loyalty and familial bond. He reiterates that he has “very little experience” as he got to be a minister for only two and half years but underlines that his intention is to see a Sena that strives for samaajkaran (social work) rather than rajkaran (politics). This is a conscious attempt to course correct. Many a Sena leader in recent times had expressed apprehensions about his urban-centric concerns and closed-door style of functioning. What Aaditya is now trying to do is to marry the old ideology with newer concerns. He doesn’t shy away from speaking about Hindutva but says that their idea of Hindutva is not communal polarisation- something that distinguishes his tone and approach from that of Bal Thackeray’s. In the rallies Aaditya Thackeray speaks about how the government under his father focussed on governance rather than divisive politics, and how it helped mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the people, and he speaks of the ideas of sustainable development.

The true test for Thackeray family is to engineer the revival of the Shiv Sena from the bottom up- create a new rank and file, build grassroots support and systematically tap into the charisma and loyalty that Bal Thackeray commanded. It’s a tall ask. Between aggressive rhetoric about ‘traitors’ and an appeal to his constituents about de-escalating polarisation, Aaditya Thackeray is walking on a plank that is not fully firm. It is in fact, an approximation of what he wrote a decade and a half ago in that poem: ‘Ek khoj pe niklaa hu main…’ What he discovers as he matches Shinde’s machismo with a softer idea of Hindutva will impact politics in Maharashtra.

*Dr. Sanjay Patil’s doctoral work looks at the journey of Shiv Sena between 1985 and 2022. He works at the University of Mumbai and has been chronicling the Shiv Sena’s journey for the last ten years.