This thread has gone completely off track; which is sad really, given that the original topic (Bal Thackeray's pathological "vision") has now been replaced by a mêlée of poor comparisons between dissimilar entities (eg. BT and OBL) and nonsensical "but Muslims have the concept of Jihad" diatribes.
Just to clear a few things up:
Bal Thackeray is
NOT a religious, political or a social leader. In fact, his numerous attempts to assume these roles have
failed miserably. The influence he publicly garners in both these fields primarily comes from his control of key economic bottlenecks.
- BT's Shiv Sena controls BMC (Mumbai Municipal Corporation) and many important unions, particularly those supplying human resources for the docks (Mumbai's greatest economic lifeline), some industries, and many civil organizations. It is his control over these bodies that gives him the ability to close down Mumbai or institute a "bandh" that subsequently gives him sway with governmental authorities. As a side note, it is interesting to see how the state and city government in order to counter the influence of the BMC have come up with the MMRDA (mumbai metropolitan regional developmental authority) giving the city two redundant parallel developmental bodies.
- Shiv Sena through the BMC controls most governmental lands which are prime real estate for illegal businesses and residential occupation. This is where he makes most of his money.Ironically almost all of this money comes from his supposed enemies given that the organized crime syndicates are overwhelmingly Muslim owned and operated and the illegal housing market is predominantly occupied by Biharis and other North Indians. His second greatest source of income are the docks, that his union muscle runs.
- Through the unions and the civil organizations he controls virtually all the bureaucratic operations i.e the license raj. This is his main source of "public support", particularly among the business community and the middle class whose day to day existence depends upon the bureaucratic machine.
- On the street, he runs half the muscle because of his vast reaches into the blue collar unions. This is what he publicly uses as a foil to the Muslim run crime syndicates (who run the other half of the muscle) thereby making himself the "balancing factor" in eyes of the common non Muslim man (behind the scenes he makes a hefty income from the very Muslim run crime syndicates who use his land and dock facilities to run their businesses).
As you can see, most of his influence and "following" is either bought or usurped under threat/pressure. Unlike most of the people he is erroneously being compared to in this thread, he has failed to inspire a following. He lost most of his direct support in the mid-late 90s when it was clear that he didn't really give a hoot about any of the causes he is publicly vociferous about. Also, he hasn't done anything for his primary protectorate, the local Mararashtrians or the
Marathi Manus which served as the initial rallying cause when he entered public life in full force back in the 60s. One has only to look at the rapidly eroding civil services and the cultural associations in the Shivaji Park district of Mumbai, which has historically been the stronghold of the Maharashtrian community and also home to the Shiv Sena Bhavan (headquarters) itself to see his complete disregard for the people he's supposed to represent. On my recent trip to Mumbai, I started a photo journal which includes a few shots of the area. I have this really great one of the swanky new multi million dollar Shiv Sena Bhavan right next to the decrepit Shivaji Mandir with an increasingly deteriorating Shivaji Park in the background. This picture perfectly symbolizes the farce that is Bal Thackeray because the dilapidated structures are actually of a lot more cultural significance than the Shiv Sena Bhavan. The Shivaji Mandir playhouse and performance center is famous for producing some of the region's (and perhaps even India's) greatest playwrights, actors, folk singers etc (including the recently deceased Vijay Tendulkar) and has also served as a performance venue for great classical musics such as Bhimsen Joshi, Kumar Gandharva, Kishori Amonkar etc who are all indigenous to the region. Shivaji Park which is now a dustbed often used for Shiv Sena's comical "rallies" until the late 80s produced practically all of India's Maharashtrian cricketing greats (such as Sunil Gavaskar, Chandu Borde, Tendulkar, Kambli, Sandeep Patil, Ravi Shastri, Ajit Wadekar etc etc). Needless to say these places are of great cultural importance and pride to the Maharashtrians who clearly see that BT isn't doing anything for them and is instead using all the local funds to further his own cause. Of course nobody says anything because it's not worth risking getting your electricity cut, your drivers license suspended, having your daughter harassed by goons at the local college or having thugs vandalize your home and car. But rest assured the general public don't feel inspired by him, don't consider him a religious icon of any sort and certainly won't ever vote him into public office.
If anybody is interested in this topic, I suggest starting out with Suketu Mehta's "Maximum City" (2005 Pulitzer finalist for non-fiction) which does a very good job of explaining the inner workings of Thackeray and Shiv Sena. Or wait a few years until I finally organize all of my material and publish a book
(the way I'm going chances are slim)