Celebrating chauvinism

Released in January 2019, Thackeray – a biopic on Bal Keshav Thackeray, founder of the Marathi nationalist party Shiv Sena – is a celebration, rather than a critical take, of the chauvinist politics of the party and its founder. Played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Thackeray, emerges in the film as a heroic figure, making the film an effective propaganda that brazenly justifies the violence, hate and bigotry that his politics came to represent.

Starting in the 1950s, the erstwhile Bombay State – which included large parts of present-day Gujarat – saw a number of struggles for the creation of a state for Marathi-speaking people. Following the passage of the 1956 States Reorganisation Act, which enabled the formation of states along linguistic identities, Bombay State was divided into Gujarat and Maharashtra in 1960. In the process, Marathi-speaking areas of erstwhile Hyderabad State were joined with Maharashtra. Bombay city's cosmopolitanism was, therefore, always built on the presence of Gujarati merchants, migrants from southern India – large sections of whom were involved in white-collar jobs – and the majority Marathi-speaking locals. Named after the 17th-century founder of the Maratha empire – its name translates to Shivaji's Army – Shiv Sena promoted a 'son of the soil' Marathi nationalism since its inception in 1966, advocating for the preferential treatment of Marathi-speaking people and opposing non-Marathi speakers living in the state – first those from southern India, and in later years, those from northern India.