‘I may be Marathi but…': Bal Thackeray's old video resurfaces amid Hindi language row, MNS slapgate
In the video, Bal Thackeray speaks in Marathi, saying that he may be a Marathi in Maharashtra, but he is also a Hindu. 'I may be a Marathi in Maharashtra, but I am a Hindu in Hindustan,' he is heard saying in the video.
On Saturday, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray shared the political stage after almost 20 years.
Raj claimed that the three-language formula, which the BJP-led state government tried to impose, was a precursor to its plan to separate Mumbai from Maharashtra.
After two decades, the two cousins shared the public stage and hosted a victory gathering, titled 'Awaj Marathicha', to celebrate the rollback of two Government Resolutions (GR) issued earlier by the government introducing Hindi as a third language from Class 1 in state schools.
'The Maharashtra Government reversed the decision on the three-language formula due to the strong unity shown by Marathi people. This decision was a precursor to the plan of separating Mumbai from Maharashtra,' the MNS chief said.
'This was an unnecessary issue, and there was no need for it. You may have the majority in the Vidhan Sabha (Assembly), but we rule the streets,' he said.
Late on Sunday, 48-year-old shopkeeper Babulal Chaudhary, who runs the 'Jodhpur Sweet Shop' in Mumbai's Mira Road suburb, was slapped and threatened by seven MNS workers because his staff member spoke to the men in Hindi.
The MNS workers asked Chaudhary and his staff to speak in Marathi, to which the shopkeeper replied that all languages are spoken in the state.
The MNS workers also filmed their assault and posted it on social media.
Referring to the assault, Raj said news channels showed that a Gujarati man was assaulted, but his identity was not known to MNS workers when the altercation started. "There is no need to hit anyone without any reason. But if anyone does drama, then a slap has to be given. But they have to be at fault (for doing so).'
'And whenever you do it, do not shoot videos. The person who gets hit must say that he has been assaulted and not the one who hits. This does not mean there is any need to hit anyone,' Raj said.
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A senior leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – himself a Bengali – addressed a gathering of Bengalis in Hindi in a bold, even insolent, gesture. His reasoning: Bengalis, he claimed, originally migrated from Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh, so Hindi is their true tongue. They must adopt and own it as their language, he insisted. This is the logic behind the RSS slogan in Bengal: 'No Durga, No Kali; Only Ram and Bajrangbali.' To replace Durga with Ram is to overwrite Bengali cultural identity with a north India-centric Hindi-ised Hindutva identity. Similarly, the elevation of the deity Vamana over Bali in Kerala represents an effort to impose a Sanskritic, North Indian order on Dravidian memory and Malayalam culture. Let there be no ambiguity about the project of this political Hindi: the Hindi promoted today is not the Hindi of Gandhi, writers and poets like Premchand, Mahadevi Verma, Muktibodh, Agyeya or Omprakash Valmiki. It is not the syncretic Hindi that embraced Urdu. What is seen today is a purified, Sanskritised and sanitised version, purged of 'foreign' words, molded into a Hindu tongue. This is a resentful, weaponised Hindi, the Hindi of Hindutva. That is why political scientist Suhas Palshikar warns that leaders like Raj Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray, if they continue their dalliance with Hindutva, will soon find themselves ensnared by this Hindi. Hindutva and Hindi are no longer separable. Why else would Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis advocate Hindi, or Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan champion it in the Telugu state? The answer is clear: both are emissaries of Hindutva's politics and Hindi is now its standard. Hindi speakers, too, must confront this uncomfortable truth. For their own sake, and for the sake of Hindi, they must begin the difficult task of disentangling their language from the ideology that now speaks in its name. The sooner this happens, the better. For Hindi. And for the republic.
