Bal Thackeray died last week and Bombay came to a standstill. I was actually out on Saturday evening, planning to have a drink and watch football at a pub with some friends when the news arrived and everything hurriedly shut down. I took the train back and walked home from the station (there were no cabs to be seen on the road by that time). I was a little surprised to be honest, never having seen Bombay like this, not even during the bomb blasts. I assumed it had more to do with people fearing vandalism from his supporters rather than out of deference to the man. Fair enough.
Later that night, flipping through news channels I heard things like 'Thackeray phenomenon', 'Incredible Balasaheb', 'The man who never practised caste politics' and so on and so forth. Anchors like Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai spoke of him the way they might of an eccentric but lovable elderly uncle. Allright, I thought, TV studios seem to be following the adage speak no evil of the dead, though I was a little irritated at the one dimensional nature of the coverage.
The next day, he was given a funeral with full state honours. That is what really got me.
Bal Thackeray, no matter what he had done and what he didn't, was primarily a regional satrap and treated his home state and its capital as his fiefdom. He was not an electoral politician, did not even serve as a minister in his own state and took great pride in denouncing democracy. "I believe in Shivsahi and not Loksahi", he used to say.
So it was not only ironic how his body was draped in our national flag, which symbolizes our unified identity, but also sad and disheartening to see that a democratic state was bowing before a man who never adided by the rule of law and openly flouted democratic conventions.
Glowing tributes from politicians and bollywood notwithstanding, I will only remember Bal Thackeray as a goon whose inconvenient time of death caused me to miss the first half of the North London derby.
Later that night, flipping through news channels I heard things like 'Thackeray phenomenon', 'Incredible Balasaheb', 'The man who never practised caste politics' and so on and so forth. Anchors like Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai spoke of him the way they might of an eccentric but lovable elderly uncle. Allright, I thought, TV studios seem to be following the adage speak no evil of the dead, though I was a little irritated at the one dimensional nature of the coverage.
The next day, he was given a funeral with full state honours. That is what really got me.
Bal Thackeray, no matter what he had done and what he didn't, was primarily a regional satrap and treated his home state and its capital as his fiefdom. He was not an electoral politician, did not even serve as a minister in his own state and took great pride in denouncing democracy. "I believe in Shivsahi and not Loksahi", he used to say.
So it was not only ironic how his body was draped in our national flag, which symbolizes our unified identity, but also sad and disheartening to see that a democratic state was bowing before a man who never adided by the rule of law and openly flouted democratic conventions.
Glowing tributes from politicians and bollywood notwithstanding, I will only remember Bal Thackeray as a goon whose inconvenient time of death caused me to miss the first half of the North London derby.
