History of Bombay in Independent India - Rise of Regionalism

Rise of Regionalism

When large number of Marathi speakers arrived in Bombay after the creation of Maharashtra, they found themselves at the lower rungs of the labour market and in competition with skilled communities from other parts of India. The Marathi-speaking middle-class in Bombay, who had been the most consistent supporters of the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, also experienced similar discrepancies. The Gujarati and Marwari communities owned majority of the industry and trade enterprises in the city, while the white-collar jobs were mainly sought by the South Indian migrants to the city.

This was the line taken by Bombay cartoonist and journalist Bal Thackeray in his weekly magazine Marmik (Satire), launched in 1963, which soon became one of the most popular magazines among Marathi speakers in Bombay. Backed by his father Prabodhankar Thackeray and a circle of friends, he established the Shiv Sena party on 19 June 1966, out of a feeling of resentment about the relative marginalization of Maharashtrians in Bombay. The Shiv Sena rallied against the South Indians, the Communists, the Gujarati city elite, and the Muslims in India. In the 1960s and 1970s, Shiv Sena cadres became involved in various attacks against the South Indian communities, vandalising South Indian restaurants and pressuring employers to hire Marathis.