(Editorial Cartoons) Last Tuesday I mentioned the murder of Indian editorial cartoonist Irfan Hussain, but in my haste to get the subject blogged, I forgot to mention the other cartoonist with possible fingerprints on the scandal.
Allow me to rectify that now. His cartoons have been printed in newspapers worldwide. He's reviled by some and a declared hero to others. Salman Rushdie once parodied him in a novel. He controls a good chunk of the city of Mumbai, and he's one of the most driven hardliners in a conflict that may yet lead to the world's first nuclear exchange. He's Bal Thackeray, founder of the radical Hindu nationalist party Shiv Sena, and he's quite possibly the most dangerous cartoonist on Earth.
The son of renowned social reformer Keshav Sitaram Thackeray, Bal began cartooning in the 1950s for the Free Press Journal in what was then known as Bombay, the then-as-now capital of India's sprawling Maharashtra province. He soon rose to prominence in his craft, with his acerbic strips appearing as far and wide as the Asahi Shimboon in Tokyo and the New York Times. In 1960, Bal and his brother, fellow cartoonist and writer Shrikant Thackeray, launched the satirical weekly magazine Marmik, which further extended his popularity. Here's Praveen Swami, writing in Frontline Magazine, on his early years with Marmik:
"His new Marathi-language weekly, Marmik, welded lower middle class resentments with anti-Communism and parochialism. South Indian migrants were the principal targets for attack. They were referred to as yandugunduwalas, a street parody of the rolling sound of their languages; on occasion, cruder references such as lungiwalas were deployed....
"Marmik's defining moment came in 1965, when the journal began to publish lists of 1,500 corporate executives in Mumbai, purporting to show that the vast majority of them were 'outsiders'. These lists began with the caption: 'Read this and keep quiet', an appeal that soon changed to 'Read this and awaken'....
"The lists of 'outsiders' were not the result of any careful investigation and offered no information on where the 'outsiders' were born or how long they had lived in Mumbai. The claims, however, were unchallenged by the mainstream media at the time, and Marmik's circulation boomed. By 1966, research by sociologist Mary Katzenstein suggests, its readership ranged between 200,000 and 300,000, and it reached 40 per cent to 50 per cent of the literate Marathi-speaking population over 15 years of age."
Shiv Sena was founded in 1966, its formation announced in the pages of Marmik. Violence soon followed, with a string of attacks on South Indians and other perceived outsiders -- and with India's Muslim population taking an increasing share of Shiv Sena's vitriol. From here, it should go without saying, Thackeray's rise to power and influence turns murky. Writing for the Indian portal site Sify.com, Sanjay Ranade describes it thusly:
"Erosion of the Congress’s power in the country saw Jan Sangh and later Bharatiya Janata Party, headed by Vajpayee, gain power in New Delhi. The same factor brought Thackeray on centrestage in Maharashtra.
"Sharad Pawar’s opportunistic politics ensured that the Congress did not stay together. First, he triggered dissension in the party and then cultivated the Sena. The strategy backfired. Within the span of a decade, Thackeray was powerful enough to bring Mumbai to its knees anytime and for whatever causes his whims dictated.
"And catapulted him from being a cartoonist with a sharp sense of political humour operating within a parochial framework, to a puppetist who pulled strings of those in power."
By the 1980s Bal Thackeray had become one of the most powerful men in Mumbai, whose political connections equalled his populist mystique. Shiv Sena maintains effective control of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which is responsible for most aspects of Mumbai's sanitation, public hospitals and water supply. In 1989 he launched the daily newspaper Saamana, adding reach to his voice with an estimated circulation of 2 million copies daily. In Salman Rushdie's 1995 novel The Moor's Last Sigh, he's caricatured as "Mainduck" Fielding, a cartoonist turned sectarian politician who dies at the hands of the hero. And no wonder: Bal Thackeray's strident Hindu nationalism has left him perpetually implicated in anti-Muslim violence over the years -- including the wave of assassinations that may have claimed the life of Irfan Hussain.
Thackeray's latest controversy occurred on October 15th when, standing before a packed crowd, he poured gasoline on the fire in his own inimitable style:
"Terrorists should be born among you too. There must be suicide squads, ready to die for a Hindu rashtra. Otherwise it'll be a lost cause. Tomorrow, if we've to take the Muslims head on, I know my Sainiks won't lag behind."
A comforting thing to hear, so close to Kashmir, no? The comments have caused him to be charged under Section 153 A of the Indian Penal Code for allegedly promoting enmity between two communities, though he hasn't actually been arrested. A faction of Shiv Sena, meanwhile, have announced the formation of just such suicide squads. As if that weren't enough to keep life interesting, Bal's recently found himself saddled with labor problems as well, as the largest union of BMC employees threaten to strike for better wages. Also, both Shiv Sena and Saamana's websites mysteriously seem to be down at the moment -- here's a Google cache of his homepage on the Shiv Sena site, where he presents his own version of the Bal Thackeray story.
Still, for a populist cartoonist, Thackeray's in a pretty advantageous position. It's almost as though Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein had used Mad Magazine as a catapult to launch themselves on a Pat Buchanan-style political crusade, leading to the California governorship, a Mafia-like army at their command and Chinatown-style ownership of the Los Angeles Basin water supply. Now if only he can avoid sparking a nuclear holocaust...
[Postscript: I've spent the past few days trying without success to find online examples of either his cartooning or his weekly magazine Marmik. If any of our readers can provide me with such links, I would (if you wish) be happy to give you credit for the discovery.]
Issue #248: Andi Watson / Steve Rude