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Bringing the Sena to justice
It is no secret that the Shiv Sena has regularly attempted to stifle free expression by carrying out violent attacks on journalists and media establishments - and has got away with it thanks to a policy of appeasement pursued by successive governments in Maharashtra, mostly Congress or Congress-led regimes. But the regional party may have gone too far this time. The recent assault on the offices of the IBN television network, captured blow-by-blow
by CCTV cameras, featured a mob of Sainiks armed
with rods and baseball bats punching and kicking male
and female journalists and trashing furniture, fittings,
and electronic equipment. The Sena leadership would
have us believe the attack was a "spontaneous" reaction
to strong remarks made on the channel against supremo
Bal Thackeray. This is demonstrably false. That it
was a planned attack is evidenced by the fact that the
mobs carried out simultaneous attacks on the TV network
in Mumbai and Pune, and by information gathered
by the police investigation that, among others,
Sunil Raut, the brother of Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut,
was involved. A special target of the Sena's wrath was
its intrepid critic, Nikhil Wagle, Editor-in-Chief of the
Marathi channel IBN-Lokmat and former Editor of the
Marathi daily Mahanagar who has been assaulted repeatedly
by Sena goons.
At one level, the brazen assault reveals the ugly face
of competitive chauvinism, and the continued existence
of a goon political culture, in India's `maximum'
city. At another level, it reflects the Sena's sense of
insecurity during a phase of political decline - when it
has been challenged by the copycat methods of a youthful
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, and has fared poorly
in elections. It is no accident that Bal Thackeray's, and
Saamna's, broadsides against Sachin Tendulkar for implicitly
making a stand against linguistic chauvinism by
affirming his Indianness alongside his Maharastrian
identity have been followed up by targeting a channel
that has aired opposition to the chauvinism. Such acts
of vandalism have gone virtually unpunished in the
past. This time, under pressure from an aggressive
media, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan has pledged nononsense
action and the Mumbai police have arrested
close to 20 of the perpetrators and registered cases of
attempted murder. The investigation, however, has not
so far led to anyone more significant than Sunil Raut,
who has just been arrested. The widely shared suspicion
is that the State government's response will return
to the traditional policy of appeasement once the feelings
of shock and anger subside. This is decidedly a case
to be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
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