60 years on, two Senas fight for legacy
Bal Thackeray had been advised to choose a smaller venue, Subhash Desai, a senior Sena leader who attended the rally, told The Indian Express in an earlier interview. The Shiv Sena, founded just four months earlier, was still an untested political organisation. Dadar’s Shivaji Park was a vast ground, and there was no guarantee that enough people would turn up to fill it. Thackeray refused to change the venue.
On October 30, 1966, the ground was brimming with a crowd that surprised even the organisers. Thackeray, then known primarily as a cartoonist and editor of the Marathi weekly Marmik, arrived in a shirt and formal trousers, according to Desai. Volunteers from local gymnasiums helped manage the gathering, and a steel tiffin box was passed around to collect donations. There was none of the elaborate stagecraft or security machinery that would later accompany the Sena’s annual show of strength.
The meeting was the first public test of an organisation built around Thackeray’s campaign for the rights of Marathi-speaking people in Bombay. It also laid the foundation for a political ritual that, six decades later, continues to draw thousands of supporters to Mumbai.
Shiv Sena’s first Dussehra rally on Oct 30, 1966. (Express Archive)
On October 20, that ritual will be held twice. Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) returns to Shivaji Park, while Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena holds a rival rally at the Nesco grounds in Goregaon, each claiming the legacy of the party Bal Thackeray founded.
Journalist Vaibhav Purandare, in his book ‘The Sena Story,’ notes that the meeting had been announced in Marmik, the magazine Thackeray founded in 1960, which had become the main vehicle for his campaign for employment opportunities for Marathi-speaking people.
In the years leading up to the rally, Marmik published lists of officials in government-owned concerns and private companies, arguing that Marathi candidates were being overlooked. One campaign used the phrase “vacha ani thanda basaa” (read and do nothing). It was later changed to “vacha ani utha” (read and rise up).
The message found an audience in a city still adjusting to the formation of Maharashtra in 1960. Statehood had fulfilled the demand for a Marathi-speaking state, but it had not settled anxieties over jobs, language and influence in Bombay. Thackeray argued that Marathi-speaking residents needed to organise to secure their place in the city. South Indians, most prominently, became early targets of the Sena’s sons-of-the-soil politics.
Shiv Sena’s first Dussehra rally on Oct 30, 1966. (Express Archive)
The run-up to the rally involved small meetings in chawls and the homes of friends. Local gymnasiums and neighbourhood clubs helped mobilise supporters. These networks would later become central to the Sena’s shakha system, through which the party built a presence in neighbourhoods across Mumbai.
Desai recalled frequent applause and cries of “zindabad”. Chhagan Bhujbal, then a student at the Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, later recalled being struck by the size of the crowd.
Among those who addressed the rally was Thackeray’s father, Keshav Sitaram Thackeray, better known as Prabodhankar. Congress leader Ramrao Adik and other figures also spoke. According to Desai’s recollection, Prabodhankar told the gathering, “I am offering my son to the service of Maharashtra.”
Bal Thackeray was the last speaker. The rally gave him a platform beyond the readership of Marmik and established Shivaji Park as the setting for the Sena’s annual political address.
Allegations after the rally
The first meeting is also remembered for what allegedly happened after the crowd dispersed.
Contemporary newspaper accounts reported that “at the end of the meeting some of the more inflamed members of the crowd stoned Udupi hotels”. The accounts also recorded slogans calling for the expulsion of “Madrasis” and a halt to idli-sambar.
A separate account by CPI(M) leader Ashok Dhawale, The Shiv Sena: Semi-Fascism in Action, alleges that South Indian-owned shops and restaurants were looted and set on fire.
How a rally became a tradition
The success of the first gathering gave the Sena a format it could repeat. Dussehra became the annual occasion for the party’s leadership to address supporters, set out its political position and demonstrate its organisational strength. Shivaji Park, known to Sena supporters as Shivtirth, became closely associated with the event.
Bal Thackeray continued to address the rally until his death in 2012. Uddhav Thackeray began addressing it the following year. The gathering survived changes in venue and format, including during the pandemic, and remained one of the most recognisable fixtures in Maharashtra politics.
Two Senas, two venues, two messages
The tradition is now being marked under very different circumstances. The split in the Shiv Sena in 2022 left Uddhav and Eknath Shinde leading rival factions, each claiming a connection to the party founded by Bal Thackeray. The division has turned the annual rally into a test of political strength as well as a contest over the party’s history.
This year, the Shiv Sena (UBT) has secured permission to hold its rally at Shivaji Park on October 20. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has granted permission for preparations on October 19 and the main event the following day, subject to 24 conditions. The Shinde-led Sena has chosen the Nesco grounds, avoiding another direct contest for Shivaji Park.
The two factions have also set out different messages for their rallies.
On Sunday, the Shiv Sena (UBT) released a teaser urging workers to gather at Shivaji Park as a “blazing torch” for the protection of the Constitution. The party has linked its political mobilisation to ongoing Opposition protests over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Shinde’s rally at Nesco, also scheduled for 5 pm on October 20, has been dedicated to drought-hit farmers and their families. Shinde has said the party will extend assistance to affected households, including sewing machines for women and financial support for the marriages of daughters from farming families. He has also announced that trucks carrying ration kits will be sent to drought-affected areas as part of the rally.
For Uddhav, returning to Shivaji Park preserves the traditional setting of the Sena’s annual gathering at a time when he is fighting to retain the party’s political base and claim to its legacy.
In 1966, a steel tiffin box went around Shivaji Park to collect donations for a party nobody was sure would last. Sixty years on, one of the two parties claiming its name has promised trucks of ration kits for drought-hit farmers as part of its rally.
