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| MNS goes Bal Thackeray's way |
| It may look like a village in Tamil Nadu, but it is Madraswadi, a colony in Bhandup, a suburb north of Mumbai city.
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| INDIA
, 16-February-2008
0:10:59 AM |
| Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) may be the one which is attacking outsiders now, but Raj Thackeray is simply borrowing a leaf from his uncle Bal Thackeray's book.
It may look like a village in Tamil Nadu, but it is Madraswadi, a colony in Bhandup, a suburb north of Mumbai city.
It is a neighbourhood that in February 1967 bore the brunt of the first Shiv Sena led riots against outsiders.
Long before the people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar began to be attacked as outsiders, the South Indians and specifically people from Tamil Nadu came under attack in 1967.
And it was the neighbourhood in Mumbai that took the worst brunt of it all when houses here were set ablaze by the Shiv Sainiks.
The trigger was the former Union Defence Minister Krishna Menon's decision to contest the Bombay North East parliamentary seat as an Independent.
Pitted against him was SG Barve of the Congress, who was being supported by the Shiv Sena formed just a year ago.
The Congress used the Sena's muscle to terrorise voters in pockets like Bhandup, which had a large south Indian presence.
''They somehow felt that in the election their candidate was losing and Menon was winning. They came and broke down the tiled roofs of over 50 homes, doused them with kerosene and set them ablaze. You know I had repaired my home just a few days before that. But, I had to run away. After all no house is bigger than life no?'' said Mariya Das Suso, Survivor.
Mary, another survivor said, ''I had two small children when they came to kill me. I was screaming. Two constables came and pleaded, ''She has children. Let her go.'' Then they left and I ran away.''
The strategy worked. Barve trounced Menon. And having tasted blood it was a formula the Sena would try again and again.
But confronted with the changing demographics, the Shiv Sena has been forced to change its strategy.
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