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had an author, Moroba Kanhoba, not written force against the masses. Then came Krishna
a story about him, which became the starting Menon and his election campaign when the
point of the play by Tendulkar. The parallels Shiv Sena was pitted against the communists.
https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/ Courtsey: Play Image: Umakant and Shriram Shirodkar; the rise of the Shiv Sena were not hard to see. Ghashiram incident and this event to which
You can see the similarity between the
between the events portrayed in the play and
we were witnesses. The hunting dogs got
Inevitably, there were protests (led by Shiv
transformed into ferocious tigers and the
Sena leader Manohar Joshi), calls for a ban,
Government began to fear them. When I
court cases, attempts to stop the production
from travelling abroad. (The cast and crew
had to be smuggled into the Berlin-bound
play and as I traversed backwards in history,
I noticed that this was a repetitive pattern
flight; with clouds of the Emergency hovering saw this, I felt the urge to use this theme in a
over the country, they were allowed by then – such individuals and parties had been
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to go abroad created through history. Hitler was one such
reportedly after the intervention of Satyajit example.”
Ray). The uproar against the play was also because
it was perceived to be anti-Brahmin and
derogatory towards Nana Phadnavis, who is
considered a hero in Maharashtra because of
his astute statesmanship and standing up to
the British spreading their tentacles in India.
Using Marathi folk music and dance, and
a robust ‘multi-purpose’ chorus, Tendulkar
brought alive the story of a man who wormed
his way into power and then misused it.
The music by Bhaskar Chandavarkar and
Tendulkar has been quoted in a piece by choreography by Krishnadev Mulgund
Ananya in feminisminindia.com as having greatly enhanced the production that was
said, “The inspiration for the play was a as entertaining as it was provocative, even
topical situation. I was working for Loksatta though its historical veracity has been
when the first major riots were launched in questioned.
Bombay by the Shiv Sena. Bal Thackeray
seemed an ordinary man, not at all the sort of
person who would indulge in dare-devilry.
The middle-class boys who followed him were
not demons. In that particular situation, they
acquired power, abused it and spread terror. I
sensed that terror in my newspaper office. We
were not free to write anything about the Shiv
Sena. If the title “Senapati” was not prefixed
to Thackeray’s name in a report, a morcha
would be taken out with burning and looting.
Actually, the Shiv Sena was deliberately Ghashiram Savaldas came from Kannauj
fuelled by the ruling party to establish a to Pune, which is portrayed as Babylonian
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #42 | DECEMBER 2022 39
