Following the ignominy earned when the Maharashtra government led by the BJP was unable to offer security in the face of Shiv Sena threats to renowned Pakistani ghazal singer Ghulam Ali, who was obliged to cancel his Mumbai music engagement recently, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has clearly understood that he could not back out of offering full-scale security — if needed — for the Mumbai launch of former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s book, Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove, on Monday. The volume is said to be optimistic about the eventual success of the peace process between India and Pakistan.
It cannot be entirely ruled out that the CM was encouraged to play his part on this occasion by none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was in Mumbai on Sunday. With former PM Manmohan Singh, former deputy PM L.K. Advani, as well as two former external affairs ministers — Natwar Singh and Yashwant Sinha — associated with the book release, it may have been thoroughly impolitic if the Mumbai book event had been derailed on account of the state government’s lack of alacrity, and that may have sent just the wrong signal regionally and internationally about India’s willingness to talk peace in the Pakistan context. Scuttling events associated with prominent Pakistanis is, of course, old Shiv Sena agenda.
But there appears to be little doubt that relations between Shiv Sena and BJP, which are in an alliance to run the Maharashtra government, have been at best cool from the time the Fadnavis government was formed last year, and have only got worse over time. In light of this, the Sena needles the BJP even when it need not. For instance, party leader Uddhav Thackeray skipped all the functions in Mumbai on Sunday with which the PM was associated. Torpedoing Mr Kasuri’s book launch — with a BJP CM in office — would have been a furthering of that cause.
Partially, however, the Sena did succeed in making its point and earned its quota of infamy for the day. Its activists pounced on Sudheendra Kulkarni, who was anchoring the book release at the Nehru Centre in Mumbai, as he stepped out of his home on Monday morning and blackened his face with ink, creating a television sensation for the rest of the day. However, Mr Kulkarni did not flinch from performing his duty in the evening and gave back as good as he got when he sang paeans in praise of “tolerance”, especially quoting from President Pranab Mukherjee’s remarks on the subject last week, and even Pandit Nehru, who is anathema to BJP. Mr Advani and Union minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju also hit the Sena for its “intolerance”.
