The pro-Maratha Sambhaji Brigade has warned Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray against “disturbing” communal harmony with his provocative speeches and has urged the Maharashtra Government to take proactive steps to prevent a potential law and order situation in the State following the MNS chief’s ultimatum to remove loudspeakers from mosques before May 3.
Exhorting the tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition of the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress to take concrete action against the MNS, Sambhaji Brigade leader Santosh Shinde said that Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray (Mr. Raj Thackeray’s estranged cousin) and Home Minister Dilip Walse-Patil must slap a notice on the MNS chief if the government was serious about nipping potential communal disturbances in the bud.
“Apart from criticism of Raj Thackeray’s inflammatory speeches, the MVA leadership doesn’t seem serious in squelching a possible riot. It must alert the police machinery before MNS activists start causing serious trouble after their leader’s rabble-rousing speeches,” Mr. Shinde said, accusing the MNS chief of playing the communal card in a bid to revive his sagging political fortunes.
Mr. Shinde said that Mr. Raj Thackeray could resolve the issue of loudspeakers in a constitutional manner rather than deliberately stoking communal tensions with his speeches.
The Brigade also lashed out at Mr. Thackeray and the MNS’ veneration of deceased historian and Shivaji authority Babasaheb Purandare, claiming that the historian ahd deliberately falsified the history of the 17 th century Maratha warrior King Chhatrapati Shivaji with “a malafide intent”.
“Why is the MNS so beholden to Babasaheb Purandare, who praised U.S. scholar James Laine’s controversial book at an event in Solapur in September 2003? The authorities of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research of India (BORI) had also helped Laine and the Sambhaji Brigade had put them in their place,” Mr. Shinde said.
The Sambhaji Brigade had infamously snared headlines in January 2004 after it ransacked the Pune-based BORI, which houses one of South Asia’s largest and most invaluable agglomeration of rare manuscripts, while protesting against Mr. Laine’s book on Shivaji titled Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India (2003).
While indulging in wholesale vandalism of the BORI, the outfit had also vented its ire on the staff, accusing 12 members of the institute of “collaborating” with Professor Laine.
Later, the outfit had vehemently opposed the then Devendra Fadnavis-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s decision to honour Mr. Purandare with the prestigious Maharashtra Bhushan award, alleging that Mr. Purandare’s works on Shivaji had allegedly been given a “casteist” and “communal” spin.
In 2020, after the MNS’ newly minted flag incorporated Chhatrapati Shivaji’s royal seal or ‘Rajmudra’, the Sambhaji Brigade had approached the Pune Police demanding that a first information report (FIR) be lodged against Mr. Thackeray and his party for using the Maratha king’s seal for crass political purposes.
The Sambhaji Brigade had strongly condemned the MNS’ intentions behind the design of their new flag, while stating that a party that had based its politics on regional chauvinism and social divisiveness had no moral authority to use Shivaji’s royal seal.
Known for its virulent anti-Brahmin posture, the Sambhaji Brigade, which played a frontline role during the Maratha quota agitation, has since gone into political hibernation after the reservation issue reached an impasse.
