THE tyrant Thackerays appear to have taken some powerful punches in its face in the recent weeks. The attack has come from all corners, some of them unexpected, such as that from the RSS and the BJP. Then for the first time a Bollywood star refused to go down on his knees before them.

 The Sena has retreated on their ‘boycott’ of Shah Rukh Khan’s movie and ‘no entry’ notice to Pakistani and Australian players. In an editorial in Saamna, Mr Balasaheb Thackeray said, “The Congress is free to rule the country in the manner it thinks proper. Let Pakistan carry on its terrorist activity in Mumbai and let Shah Rukh Khan release his film with the blessings of the Gandhi dynasty. The Sena will not do anything.”  His son and successor, Mr Uddhav Thackeray said: “Why should the Sena alone stick its neck out on terrorism or regional pride? Pak-sponsored terrorism is a major threat to India’s and Mumbai’s security. However, the Congress leaders are not willing to take a firm stand on these issues as they believe in taking orders from 10 Janpath. Other political parties too keep mum on this sensitive issue. So why should Shiv Sainiks suffer police excesses and imprisonment? Matoshree, after all, is also on the hit list of Pak terrorists.”
Their ‘resentful surrender’ shows that Father and son Thackerays are obviously very depressed. And the immediate reason for their depression is the busting of their bluster about being the sole representative of the soul of Mumbai with Mr Rahul Gandhi outsmarting them by taking the plebeian route and being received with pleasure and cordiality by the people of Mumbai, Marathis included, during his changed travel route interactions on the local train and other places. Even at Dadar, which is the capital of Sena overlordship, the Marathis welcomed Mr Rahul Gandhi. Nobody had a black flag in his or her hand and nobody shouted any slogan against him, except the bunch of Shiv Sainiks. Now, the question that the warmth of welcome to Mr Gandhi everywhere in Mumbai flung in the face of the Father and son Thackeray was: Can you still say that   Mumbai is with you? The huge indifference of the non-Sainik Marathi people to the Sena’s black flag directive is what has caused the Thackerays depression which is reflected in Mr Uddhav Thackeray’s remark, “Why should the Sena alone stick its neck out on regional pride? Why should Sainiks suffer police excesses and imprisonment?”
It would be too hasty to conclude that this was the Sena tiger’s last roar. But this has provided one more definite sign that the Sena is down the anti-climax part of the curve of its political life. In its journey upward since its formation in 1966, it had raised viciously parochial and communal issues–and demands that threatened the life and career of many a famous man, and had won most of the time.
During its upward journey, the Sena was helped by the fact that there was a large constituency of Marathi people who felt that private industries and public sector in the state had only marginal percentage of Marathi-speaking employees. Maharashtra had not long ago before that fought for a Samyukta Maharashtra and ultimately succeeded in keeping Mumbai as a part of Maharashtra. There were deep feelings that Mumbai belonged to Maharashtra and hence axiomatically to Maharashtrians. The formation of the Sena came at a time when the Marathis felt outraged by the reality of Mumbai being theirs and yet being in the hands of others in terms of jobs and petty self-employment. The Shiv Sena was not actually created by Mr Balasaheb Thackeray but by the masses of Marathis who wanted to have a strong organisation to fight for increasing their share of jobs and businesses and thus their hold over Mumbai, so that they could proudly feel and say that Mumbai was Maharashtra’s and Maharashtrians’.
For Mr Thackeray, it was like being there with the right idea in the right time and in the right place. While both private and public sectors were shaken by the mass support of the Sena, Mr Thackeray added to this mass power his own unique brand of mob terror. Mass support and mob terror were to become the twin bugbears of business and political leaders. Mr Thackeray successfully used it and made the Sena work almost like a mass/mob-backed placement agency for Marathis. If today Marathis have a large share of employment in Mumbai much of the credit goes to the Thackeray Sena.
But as it happens to every organisation with a limited objective, people start deserting it once their demands are fulfilled. The Marathis in Mumbai today are largely secure; a strong Marathi middle class has emerged that can compete with others in any field; so they do not need the Sena any more. The indifference shown to the Sena call for a black flag protest against Mr Rahul Gandhi by the Marathis shows that the Marathis are too confident and secure to feel disturbed by statements such as what Mr Gandhi made.
It is interesting to see the emergence of Mr Raj Thackeray on the scene when the Marathi constituency is shrinking. What would he get out of the shrinking pie? The fight is therefore within the shrinking constituency; the MNS is claiming a share from the Sena constituency. And the Sena is thus hurt by a second factor: fragmentation of the Marathi constituency. For the Sena, it seems a blind alley: a shrinking share in a shrinking constituency.