Aaditya Thackeray, Maharashtra cabinet minister of Tourism and Environment, on Friday, offered a preposterous analogy to explain why his party, Shiv Sena, has departed from the hardline Hindutva ideology championed by his grandfather and founder of the party Balasaheb Thackeray.
Speaking at the ABP Ideas of India Summit on March 25, Thackeray equated hardline Hindutva to hammering and chiselling that an idol needs during its initial stages of creation, adding that once a murti is sculpted, one doesn’t need to hammer or chisel it.
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On being asked if Shiv Sena needs to do hardline Hindutva politics that its ideological fountainhead Balasaheb Thackeray was known for, Aaditya Thackeray said, “Different times have different needs. When someone carves a murti(idol), you need hammering and chiselling to give a form that murti. What will happen if you keep hammering and chiselling the murti after it is formed? After it is sculpted, hammers and chisels are kept aside and the murti is worshipped.”
Shiv Sena barters its support for Hindutva for chief ministerial post in Maharastra
Even so, this is possibly the first time that a senior Shiv Sena leader had confessed to eschewing the cause of Hindutva. Ever since Shiv Sena broke its decades-old alliance with the BJP and joined hands with Congress and NCP, it has been accused of trading its much-revered Hindutva ideology for the position of chief ministership. Shiv Sena had severed ties with its erstwhile partner after being embroiled in a dispute over the rotational chief ministerial post following the Maharashtra Assembly elections in 2019.
With the aim of installing a Shiv Sainik as the chief minister of the state, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party snapped its ties with the BJP and formed an alliance with the ideological rivals-NCP and Congress, sacrificing its support for Hindutva on the altar of chief ministerial position.
The first signs of Shiv Sena dropping the Hindutva issue came to the fore when a Common Minimum Programme(CMP) was hashed out between the allies of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra. It appeared that in their thirst for power, Shiv Sena had given up on the Hindutva cause. In fact, there were speculations then that the Congress and NCP wanted an assurance from Shiv Sena that their Hindutva agenda is going to take a back-seat once the government is formed.
After forming a government with NCP and Congress, Shiv Sena had drastically toned down its demand for a Bharat Ratna for the Hindutva ideologue and Freedom Fighter Veer Savarkar, indicating that it no longer championed the cause of Hindutva with the same intensity it once did. Reservations up to 5 per cent for Muslims in Maharashtra was another such incident that demonstrated that Shiv Sena had relinquished its support for Hindutva.
