Viewing Maharashtra crisis via a movie!

When Bollywood superstar Ranveer Singhrsquos film Jayeshbhai Jordaar opened in theatresmdashsince not many people showed up for the first day first showmdashfew noticed huge crowds across Mumbairsquos multiplexes lining up instead for a picture nextdoor called Dharmaveer Looking in that direction I was quite surprised tooWhatrsquos Dharmaveer about Late Shiv Sena politician Anand Dighe Not having heard of Dighe in Thane is a lot like being clueless about who Bal Thackeray wasis in the neighbouring city Mumbai Yet you can be excused for the ignoranceFor whatrsquos an Indian regional political party if not centred entirely on the personality cult plus life and times of its foundermdashNitish Naveen Lalu Pawar Mamata Maya MulayalamhellipIf not yoursquoll foremost know their children who take over This kinda dynastic politics is actually quite different from even the Congress party where the Gandhis are merely custodians of a legacy Itrsquos not like the Congress in its original form has ceased to exist without the GandhisItrsquos hard to generally imagine the Shiv Sena without the Thackerays Dighe was Balasahebrsquos sworn bhakt in Thane which is where I watched the film on his lifemdashyou can catch it now on Zee5 Under the Shiv Sena Dighe ran a parallel court in Thane dispensing instant justice for those without patience for lsquolaw to take its own coursersquoThat Dighe a single man never took up a formal position in power himself mustrsquove made him all the more an attractive godfather figure The way to approach him with a grievance as I could understand from his biopic is you went to his informal courtroom Tembhi Naka Math with an application of sortsThat piece of paper got passed around among Dighersquos five deputies If each assistant marked a tick five ticks in all then lsquoSahebrsquo would pursue the individualrsquos causecaseWho were these five deputies Rajan Shishir Ramesh Ravi and Eknath as in Eknath Shinde Once some residents complained to Saheb about disturbing knocks on their doors over ldquocacklinggigglingrdquo dancing women in their neighbourhood Saheb employed ldquomaniacsrdquo to curb this menaceA young man leads a group of lsquoSainiksrsquo to altogether ransackdestroy a legally operating dance bar This is how Shinde enters the political scene At a thana in Thane Dighe warns the top cop that one day hersquoll ldquosaluterdquo the ldquogoonsrdquo hersquos nabbed This turns true Dighe grants Shinde chairmanship of Thanersquos municipal corporationmdashmainly to distract him from the grief of having lost his two children to drowning near a dam in Tapola Dighe himself passed on early at 50 in 2001 from a heartattack while he was in hospital post a car crash What must follow such a popular leaderrsquos untimely demise As everyone knows in Thane Shiv Sena ran amok and completely destroyed the Smt Sunitidevi Singhania Hospital where Dighe was being treatedThis incident as per the film starts with a Sena volunteer falling off the hospital building Nobody cares for this guy They torch the building instead when they hear Dighe is no more Shinde is also part of this mob but seen inside the hospital protecting the dead bodyI guess people willing to go to such lengthsmdasheven arson rioting risking arrests and injuriesmdashfor a leaderparty is what politicians call the lsquocadrersquo Sena is a cadrebased party Those in the know tell me that over timegenerations often through access to power money better neighbourhoods etc Senarsquos cadre had sufficiently gentrified itself to be as eager towards random acts of extreme violenceDighe in Dharmaveer isnrsquot much into mutual dialogue and lengthy speeches He has no qualms about sending his lsquotroopsrsquo to settle issues with an iron hand In fact during the 1992 communal riots he emerges as a superhero with a massive mob backing off only by his sightglareHe doesnrsquot just protect rioters but actively participates in the riots Only the police canrsquot do shit because he has an alibi There is no needless whitewashing in this propaganda picDighe goes on to become Senarsquos main man in the regionmdashof course after Thackeray who is as good as God but a parallel filmic legend is firmly establishedWhat you observe in Dharmaveer is that Shinde is Dighersquos political heir He wears the same long beard as his mentor And his is the only young Sena character with any screen time at all So much so that I was convinced that Shinde himselfmdashMaharashtrarsquos PWD minister at the timemdashhad something to do with the filmrsquos productionViewed from that lens the picture seems even more interesting The only other Thackeray to get prominence is Balasahebrsquos nephew Raj rather than Uddhav who was actually the Sena boss and head of government that Shinde was a minister in when the film releasedWhile Raj in the film calls Dighe ldquopast present and future of Senardquo Dighe in turn says ldquoBoth Raj and Uddhav are the futurerdquoOnly that Uddhav walks behind Raj in the frame Uddhavrsquos character has absolutely not a line in the movie that I havenrsquot seen such crowds for in the longest In June Shinde walked away with dozens of MLAs to split the Shiv Sena If yoursquod watched Dharmaveer in May you couldrsquove even predicted the revoltMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper