Bal Thackeray, the veteran chief of Mumbai’s fanatically Hindu Shiv Sena party, has lost the last shreds of any humanity he might have had. He stands finally exposed as the fascist and fiend in political clothing that so many have, for so long, known him to be. The call in latest edition of the Sena publication Saamna, of which he is editor, for Hindu suicide bombers in response to Muslim ones and for them to go and kill Bangladeshi immigrants in the Mumbai areas is both chilling and astounding for being so brazenly open. The only civilized reaction to a man who can espouse such views, who can condemn the Hindu fundamentalists involved in last year’s bomb attack in Thane as fools — not for carrying out their barbaric crime, but for botching it — is horror and a most sincere hope that he will be punished. He deserves to be locked away for the rest of his life. This is a seriously sick politician talking, even if he is being deliberately provocative. There is no other way to read this other than as a deliberate challenge. He has thrown down the gauntlet to the authorities in India, defying them to arrest him, convinced that they will not and expecting to gain prestige as a result. They must arrest. What he has done is an unashamed incitement to murder and genocide.
In Europe or America, this would be enough not only to have him arrested but the party probably banned as well. There is no difference between what he has done and the calls on Rwandan radio in 1994 for Hutus to murder Tutsis — calls that the UN’s International Tribunal for Rwanda recognized as a major factor in the Rwandan genocide. Those responsible were rightly later caught and given life sentences. What Thackeray has done is no different. It is a crime against humanity. India refused to ratify the International Criminal Court set up in 2002 to prosecute people for genocide and crime against humanity on the grounds that it can deal with such matters itself. It now has to prove it can — if only in the interests of its own political stability. If the authorities do not take action then they send a message that Thackeray is above the law and immune from prosecution. That message will totally alienate India’s Muslims. It will be final proof that the state is not willing to protect them, that they do not count. The consequences will be explosive — literally so.
Thackeray’s bigotry, his embrace of militant Hinduism and his hatred of anyone who is not a Hindu (he targets Christians as well as Muslims) has enabled him to build a political career. Such fascist foundations bring shame to India. The authorities in Maharashtra should have charged him with hate crimes years ago. They had the grounds. The Justice B.N. Srikrishna Commission, set up by the authorities to investigate the 1992-93 riots in Mumbai after the demolition of Babri Mosque at Ayodhya and the subsequent bomb blasts in the city specifically pointed the finger at Shiv Sena and Bal Thackeray for responsibility for the bloodshed in the second wave of riots: “From 8th January 1993 at least,” concluded the judge, “there is no doubt that the Shiv Sena and Shiv Sainiks took the lead in organizing attacks on Muslims and their properties under the guidance of several leaders of the Shiv Sena from the level of Shakha Pramukh to the Shiv Sena Pramukh Bal Thackeray who, like a veteran general, commanded his loyal Shiv Sainiks to retaliate by organized attacks against Muslims.” Anywhere else, that would have been enough to put him on trial. But the authorities have been frightened or unwilling to take action against him.
It is now too dangerous not to do so. The ball for the moment is in the Maharashtra state government’s court. If it fails to act, as Thackeray imagines it will, the center in New Delhi must do so. To ignore such evil will otherwise reap a whirlwind of communal violence.
