Shiv Sena’s unworthy tactics

With an ink attack on Sudheendra Kulkarni, the Shiv Sena has tried to achieve the twin objective of cashing in on anti-Pakistan sentiment as well as embarrassing the Fadnavis government. It is clear the BJP-Shiv Sena marriage is not working and each has a growing list of grouses against the other. When Prime Minister Modi visited Mumbai recently, Uddhav Thackeray chose to be out of the city. Shiv Sena ministers complain of denial of work by senior BJP ministers. The Shiv Sena therefore is reverting to old ways to recoup the lost territory. 

Pakistan-bashing comes handy in such a situation. The Shiv Sena first forced the cancellation of a Ghulam Ali concert and on Monday it tried to achieve its misplaced objective by targeting Kulkarni, a former aide of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani. While Chief Minister Fadnavis ensured that Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s book launch was without trouble, his remark that Mumbai was not a “banana republic” was meant to hurt the Shiv Sena and it did. The media publicity that the ink attack and the presence of Pakistan's former Foreign Minister generated might have stained India's image as a liberal democracy, the unrepentant Shiv Sena is pushing itself further into a corner. On Tuesday it “honoured” the Kulkarni assailants.  The Sena has indeed insulted Indian nationalism and our Army by suggesting that the ink smeared on Kulkarni was allegorical spilling of Indian jawans' blood. This rhetoric of ultra-nationalism is merely an unfortunate extension of the Sangh Parivar's stoking of anti-Pakistan prejudices. The Shiv Sena's little essay in ugly intolerance is only a chapter in Hindustan's larger book.

Mumbai is a cosmopolitan, aspirational city where people in general and educated youth in particular look for growth and jobs. For that investment, domestic and foreign, is necessary which would come only in a liberal, business-friendly environment. The divisive tactics of the Shiv Sena and Hindutva fanatics work only in select areas. People at large can no longer be lured by fundamentalism or extremism. The Shiv Sena may have to pay a political price for resorting to ways reminiscent of Afghanistan’s Taliban and Pakistan's mullahs.