Shiv Sena | The Maratha tiger in its labyrinth 

With a revolt toppling his government, Uddhav Thackeray faces a legitimacy crisis as he struggles to retain his hold over the party rank and file

In the fall of 2012, an ailing Bal Thackeray, founder and patriarch of Maharashtra’s then dominant right-wing party — the Shiv Sena (Army of Shivaji) — had appealed to his Shiv Sainiks to stand by his son Uddhav and grandson Aaditya Thackeray.

In what would be his final address to his party workers, Bal Thackeray, in his pre-recorded speech at the party’s annual Dussehra rally in Mumbai’s Shivaji Park, called upon the Marathi manoos (Marathi-speaking sons-of-the soil) to remain united and smash the Congress. The speech, three weeks before the 86-year-old Thackeray’s death in November that year, also had an implied appeal to his estranged nephew, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, to join forces with the Shiv Sena.

A decade later, while the prospects of the Sena and the MNS uniting have completely evaporated, a bleaker question facing Mr. Uddhav and his son today is whether ordinary Sainiks will stand by them after the recent rebellion of 40 MLAs led by Eknath Shinde has rent the Shiv Sena asunder while toppling Mr. Uddhav from the Chief Minister’s post.

In many ways, Mr. Shinde’s revolt, which saw him installed as Maharashtra Chief Minister, aided and abetted by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is the culmination of a question that has haunted the Sena leadership since 2012 — the existence of their party without its authoritarian embodiment, Bal Thackeray. That Mr. Shinde, the dour, laconic, erstwhile autorickshaw driver from Thane and a dyed-in-the-wool Shiv Sainik, would be the linchpin of the BJP and its State leader Devendra Fadnavis’s ‘master plan’ to checkmate Mr. Uddhav and his tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government exposed the chinks in the latter’s armour.

One of the chief complaints of the rebel camp was Mr. Uddhav’s “deference” to the NCP and the Congress. Yet, the Sena’s alliance with the Congress in 2019 was hardly novel, given its past dalliance with the grand old party in the 1970s.

In fact, the vicissitudes of the Sena — from Bal Thackeray’s rise in the mid-1960s to Mr. Uddhav’s acrimonious break with the BJP and fall from power — follow decades of murky twists and strange alliances. Founded in June 1966 with its avowed aim of safeguarding the welfare of the people of Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena tasted popular success almost immediately with its ‘sons of the soil’ agenda, with Bal Thackeray persuasively highlighting the plight of unemployed Marathi youth through the party’s weekly Marmik.

Since the Sena’s inception, Bal Thackeray skilfully blended the nativist appeal of the Marathi Manoos with Hindu nationalism, anchored in the persona of Chhatrapati Shivaji, the 17th century Maratha warrior king. But it also added a strong dose of social service in the mix, enabling its appeal not only among the urban sections but the slum areas as well.