Raj Thackeray’s Arrest - Mumbai's Unrest

So the cops finally got to Raj Thackeray, who has allegedly been inciting his MNS (Maharashtra Navnirman (!) Sena) workers to go on rampages beating up non-marathis around town.

I remember the day when the Elder Thackeray (Bal) was arrested by the then Deputy CM Chhagan Bhujbal some time around 2000. I was eating pizza in Bandra in Mumbai when all of a sudden, shops started downing their shutters and a riotous noise came from not too far. As the pizzeria I was at downed its own shutter – trapping people still eating inside – I was wondering what the whole fuss was about. Later somebody told me that Bhuj had dared to arrest Bal – but it would be a matter of minutes before the roaring lion would be out.

In the meantime, however, lakhs of people on the street going about their work or eating pizza must suffer anxiety and risk injury at the hands of the marauding Shiv Sainiks who were livid at the incarceration of their beloved deity.

Like that time, I think this Thackeray, too, would get out sooner rather than later.

But it amuses me how the media is going rapturous with malicious delight as to how the whole arm-twisting drama between Raj and those in the raj will play out.

As Raj allegedly unleashed his goons on the city, so have the TV crews (read ‘crudes’) descended on unsuspecting viewers – giving ball by ball account of the arrest, the unrest, and the rest.

We have seen this recently before. But I can’t help thinking that Raj is able to do all his rabble-rousing because there are so many unemployed able-bodied youths in the state who, having nothing better to do, are only too happy to flex those muscles.

Rather than a Raj Thackeray, we need a Kaj Thackeray who can give lakhs of jobless people some constructive kaam-kaj (work).