Balasaheb Thackeray passes away

Shiv Sena patriarch Balasaheb Thackeray passed away at 3.33 pm on Saturday, November 17. The death was announced by Dr Jalil Parkar.

Thackeray, hailed as Hindu Hriday Samrat, was ailing for a while. His health was unstable for the past for days. He kept on see-sawing between life and death. Despite a valiant fight back, he suffered a cardiac failure at 3.33 pm. He was suffering from lung and pancreatic disorders.

“We could not revive him despite efforts,” Parkar said addressing reporters.

Thackeray’s body will be kept at historic Shivaji Park at 7 am on Sunday for public ‘darshan’. He will be cremated later in the day at 3 pm. Shivaji Park was the place where the very first rally of Shiv Sena was held, and where Thackeray held his annual Dussehra rallies year after year. This year, however, he had not been able to attend the event because of ill-health.

Moments before Dr Parkar made the announcement, Raj Thackeray was seen arriving at Matoshree, raising doubts about his health. Sainiks and Mumbaikars gathered outside Matoshree in Mumbai, the Thackeray home, broke down on hearing the news.

Earlier in the day, security has been stepped up in the metropolis in the wake of Thackeray’s death. The police had pushed the mediapersons move to a distance from Matoshree.

BJP veteran LK Advani expressed his condolnences on Balasaheb’s demise. “In the sixty five years of independent India, I have never seen such a political leader who left such a deep impact on Indian polity. Uncompromising in his patriotism, Balasaheb possessed a remarkable ability of leadership which made him command great respect. His demise left a gapping void in country’s politics which is not easy to be filled,” he said.

In his condolnence message Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said, “Balasaheb’s demise marks the end of an era. The nation has lost a good cartoonist, free-thinking journalist, and a true patriot. His death is a huge personal loss to me. I have lost a true guide.”

“Thackeray’s loss would be deeply felt by the BJP and the nation,” said BJP president Nitin Gadkari. NCP supremo Sharad Pawar remembered Balasaheb as a “fighter.”

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who cancelled his scheduled dinner with Opposition leaders after news of Balasaheb’s passing came in, paid tribute to the Shiv Sena leader’s memory, “For him the interests of Maharashtra were particularly important and he always strived to inculcate a sense of pride in its people. He founded the Shiv Sena and built the party into a formidable force in State politics with his strong leadership. He was a consummate communicator whose stature in the politics of Maharashtra was unique.”

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said, “I have known him for 40 years. We used to have arguments over various issues but we always ended them amicably. Neither of made personal attacks at each other.”

BJP leader Sushma Swaraj has expressed her sorrow in response to Thackeray’s demise, “I am terrible pained to hear that the lion is dead.”

On Friday, his son Uddhav Thackeray had told the media that he was hopeful, “Balasaheb is doing better every passing day due to the good wishes of the people.”

Thackeray, who began his career as a cartoonist alongside RK Laxman with The Free Press Journal in Mumbai, left the job in 1960 to start his own political weekly Marmik. In 1966, he formed the Shiv Sena to advocate the cause of Hidutva and Marathi manus. 

Hindu Hriday Samrat 

From drawing cartoons with potent messages to etching for himself a larger-than-life image on Maharashtra’s political landscape, Bal Thackeray was the mascot of Marathi pride and Hindutva, who always placed the nation above everything else.

The 86-year-old Shiv Sena patriarch was idolised with almost god-like devotion by his sainiks.

Thackeray, Maharashtra’s tallest leader–always led both his friends and rivals to underestimate him politically as he called the shots in State politics, often playing the role of a kingmaker without himself becoming the king. For some, the Tiger of Maharashtra was also a cultural icon.

Thackeray, a fiery orator who could bring the country’s bustling financial capital to a standstill with a wave of his finger, started out as a cartoonist alongside R K Laxman at the English daily Free Press Journal in the late-1950s. But he soon charted a new course when he launched a cartoon weekly, Marmik in 1960.

The weekly contained satirical pieces that fired up the “Marathi manoos” to fight for their identity and existence in a city witnessing growing influx of migrants.

Thackeray took to politics as fish to water as he launched Shiv Sena on June 19, 1966 to champion the cause of Marathi ‘sons-of-the-soil’, seeking job security for Maharashtrians who were then facing stiff competition from non-Marathi immigrants.

The frail-looking Thackeray, through his fiery oratory, caught the imagination of young Maharashtrians.

Born on January 23, 1926, he was the second of four children of Kesav Sitaram Thackeray, a writer who actively participated in the ‘Samyukta Maharashtra Andolan’ – the movement for creation of a separate State for Marathi-speaking people with Bombay as its capital. Balasaheb soon raised a veritable army of street fighters whom he would use to obtain jobs for the Maharashtrian youth in numerous textile and other industrial units dotting Bombay, earning the epithet of ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat’ (Emperor of Hindu hearts), in the process.

Though Thackeray never contested an election himself, he sowed the seeds of a full-fledged party when his Shiv Sainiks began controlling trade unions in a variety of industries, including Bollywood.

Shiv Sena grew fast into a well-oiled political machine and gained control over the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in the 1980s, riding the pro-Marathi plank.

Thackeray’s biggest moment in politics came when he struck an alliance with BJP in 1995 and formed its Government in the State for the first time after tempering his strident pro-Marathi ideology and embracing a broader Hindu nationalist agenda.

Seated on a throne with multiple images of a tiger, Thackeray virtually lorded over Mumbai for years, receiving political leaders, captains of business and industry and film personalities at his residence, all without holding any position of power.

He was known as much for his unconventional views, which he never fought shy of airing, as for his assiduously created persona, at times leading to run-ins with the law.

Thackeray was a considerably mellowed man later in life when he said in his party mouthpiece “Saamna”, “I am not against every Muslim but only those Muslims who live in this country but don’t obey the law of the land.”

After the July 11, 2006 train bombings in Mumbai in which 187 people were killed, he “saluted” Muslims who joined in observing a two-minute silence to mourn the dead.

Known for his anti-migrant views, Thackeray was all praise for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for ushering in development in the backward State.

(With inputs from PTI)

Courtesy : Niti Central