Bal Thackeray also known as Balasaheb Thackeray is the founder of Shiv Sena party, died on November 17th 2012. He started working as a cartoonist with English Daily newspaper, the Free press jounernal and then slighlty turned his career to politics. He began to be known as Hindu Hruday Samrat (Emperor of the Hindu hearts) and was given a public funeral which was the first in Mumbai after Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s funeral in 1920.
Here are some facts about Balasaheb Thackeray :
1. Balasaheb Thackeray was born in the city of Pune on 23 January 1926 to Ramabai and Keshav Sitaram Thackeray (also known as ‘Prabodhankar’ Thackeray He was the eldest of nine siblings
2. He lost his wife Meenatai Thackeray in 1995. Thackeray was survived by two sons Uddhav and Jaidev Thackeray. Third son Bindumadhav was died in a road accident on April 20, 1996. The fatal accident took place when the Tata Sumo that Binda Thackeray was travelling in crashed into a tempo near Waksai Phata on the Mumbai-Pune highway.
3. It is said that Bal Thackeray’s father Keshav Thackeray spelled his last name as ‘Thakre’ which was later changed by Bal Thackeray to ‘Thackeray’ because he was a great fan of the British author, William Makepeace Thackeray.
4. He formed the Shiv Sena on 19 June 1966 with the intent of fighting for the rights of the natives of the state of Maharashtra and then the Party grew in power in the early 1970s and also joined hands by senior leaders.
5. Balasaheb Thackeray was the founder of Saamana Marathi newspaper where he generally likes to write and edit his views. The paper was launched in 1989.
6. Balasaheb Thackeray used this cartoons against the growing number of non – marathi families in Maharasthra targeting Gujarati’s and South Indian’s.
7. Balashaeb has good equation with Bollywood stars. Dilip Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna were some of his good friends and shared great rapport.
8. When Amitabh Bachchan was recovering from his Coolie injury, Balasaheb presented him with a cartoon entitled ‘Defeating Yamraj’.
9. Bal Thackeray openly admired Adolf Hitler and was an anti-communist. However, he was then criticized for his choice to love Adolf.
“Hitler did very cruel and ugly things. But he was an artist, I love him (for that). He had the power to carry the whole nation, the mob with him. You have to think what magic he had. He was a miracle…. The killing of Jews was wrong. But the good part about Hitler was that he was an artist. He was a daredevil. He had good qualities and bad. I may also have good qualities and bad ones”
10. The BJP-Shiv Sena combine won the 1995 Maharashtra State Assembly elections and came to power and Balasaheb controlled the government indirectly he was called as remote control. The government was formed with Manohar Joshi as chief minister and the BJP’s Gopinath Munde as his deputy.
11. On July 28, 1999 Thackeray was banned from voting and contesting in any election for six years from December 11, 1999 till December 10, 2005 on the recommendations of the Election Commission.
12. After the six-year voting ban on Bal Thackeray was lifted in 2005, he voted for the first time in the 2006 BMC elections.
13. He has declared that he is ‘not against every Muslim, but only those who reside in this country but do not obey the laws of the land…. I consider such people traitors.
14. In the 1980s, he had stated that : “They (Muslims) are spreading like a cancer and should be operated on like a cancer. The… country should be saved from the Muslims and the police should support them (Hindu Maha Sangh) in their struggle just like the police in Punjab were sympathetic to the Khalistanis.”
15. On March 6, 2008, Bal Thackeray issued an editorial titled Ek Bihari, Sau Bimari (One Bihari, Hundred maladies) in Saamna, saying Biharis were ‘an unwanted lot’ in the Maharashtra.
16. Shiv Sena meaning Army of Shiv, referring to Shivaji. It is currently headed by Thackeray’s son, Uddhav Thackeray.
17. Shiv Sena Created fear among the Population in initial days and no one ever dared to go against them including ruling party and politicians. But later Shiv Sena started losing its power and today also citizens fear Shiv Sena but fear is less. His nephew Raj started his own political party Mansay (MNS).
18. Thackeray died on 17 November 2012 as a consequence of a cardiac arrest where Mumbai came to a virtual halt immediately as the news broke out.The entire state of Maharashtra was put on high alert. The police appealed for calm and 20,000 Mumbai police officers, 15 units of the State Reserve Police Force and three contingents of the Rapid Action Force were deployed.
19. Balasaheb Thackeray was reportedly criticized by Salman Rushdie in his book ‘The Moor’s Last Sigh’. He was portrayed as Raman Fieldin and there was his caricature too. The book was banned in Maharashtra for fears of violent protests.
20. Once in 1995 at a rally before state elections he said, “If the Congress has Dawood Ibrahim, we have Arun Gawli”. Both are underworld dons then based out of mumbai just that they’re of different religions. Things changed quickly when Arun Gawli who was till then supported by Shiv Sena formed his own party and was routed in Mumbai municipal elections.
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20 Interesting Facts About Balasaheb Thackeray
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