In 1956, the Government had just created the bilingual Bombay State, which included most of today's Maharashtra and Gujarat. It was a year of great tumult for Western India. The Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti (SMS) movement advocated the creation of a separate state for speakers of the Marathi language. Keshav Thackeray was one of the leading figures in this movement.

During the SMS agitation in Mumbai, the Gujaratis were the principal targets. After a four-year-long struggle of strikes, violence, and vandalism, in 1960, more than 100 people died in police firing ordered by the CM Morarji Desai, a Gujarati. It finally resulted in SMS winning its demands and the creation of Maharashtra and Gujarat. 

The Bombay of 1960s was a city frustrated with an unimpeded inflow of workers from other states, especially in the South. Marathis lagged in terms of occupational status and education. Keshav Thakrey's son Bal Keshav Thackeray was a cartoonist in Mumbai's Free Press Journal and was known for his acerbic comments and anti-establishmentarian views. Soon he gave up his job and started his cartoon weekly, Marmik, where he gave vent to his anger against migrants in Mumbai representing the sentiments of a large number of Maharashtrians in the city.

Birth of Shiv Sena

Marmik initially had a hostile attitude towards communism. But after 1964, the magazine was growing by leaps and bounds when it invented the Marathi Manus concept and raised the "outsider" issue. The excitement among his readers was palpable, and when he eventually decided to launch the Shiv Sena, his supporters were willing and ready. 

On June 19, 1966, Bal Thackeray, along with Madhav Deshpande (principal architect of Shiv Sena in many ways), founded "Shiv-Sena." Keshav Thackeray gave the name after Shivaji Maharaj, who was not just an image of Maratha pride, but also a national hero. It was decided to push Thackeray to the forefront and declare him the face of the movement as he could enthrall the crowds and hypnotize the audiences. Bal Thackeray could not believe the sight of the inaugural Sena's Vijaya Dashmi rally on October 30, 1966. Even Shivaji Park was not big enough. 

Nativism:

The stated aim of Sena was a movement for Mumbai's native Marathi-Manus, to ensure that the job opportunities that Mumbai's growth was creating would go to the "son of the soil." 

In their first Manifesto, the South Indians were blamed for practically everything. Maharashtrians were advised against employing people from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh. Bal Thackeray, without hesitation, directed first his pen and then his men (Sainiks) against South Indians. He called all South Indians Madrasis – the "Yendugendu wallahs". With a strong anti-south Indian call - "pungi bajaao, lungi bhagao," young Sena recruits from the ranks of the unemployed, beat up South-Indians, and trashed their offices/restaurants. 

In 1967, it made a spectacular electoral debut in Mumbai's Thane by winning 17 out of 40 seats in the civic polls and finally politically arrived in 1968 by winning 42 of the total 121 seats in the Mumbai civic elections in 1968.

The Belgaum issue:

In February 1969, Thackeray had organized a protest in support of Maharashtra's claim to Belgaum, a city with a Marathi-speaking majority which had been transferred to the state of Karnataka. When Deputy PM Morarji Desai visited Mumbai, thousands of Sainiks had assembled along Desai's route, and despite tight police security, a few of them managed to jump in front of the vehicle and got injured.

When Indira-led Congress Government ordered the Army to tackle the rioters, 56 people died in the firing. Along with several others, Thackeray was also arrested and jailed. The arrests only inflamed more violence as Shiv-Sainiks came out on to the roads in an orgy of looting and arson. The situation was such that the authorities had to beg Thackeray to issue an appeal for peace from prison. Thackeray was released a few days later, and from that moment was effectively beyond the reach of the law.

Fight with Communist Forces:

While Congress looked towards the business-minded Bombay primarily to fund its programs, politically, the city was in the grip of the communists who cared neither for Bombay nor for Maharashtra. The communists-led trade unions in these industrial hubs of India had most workers in their grip. Their frequent strikes and demands had tired Bombay's entrepreneurs to the core. Then the communists were the only political challenge to the Congress.

Congress decided to do something about it, without really making it official. So, did the businessmen of Bombay who funded the Congress and shared Congress's paranoia. So, did Bal Thackeray as the anti-South Indians' stance could not sustain anymore. Each went about it in their way, and soon, the streams did meet.

Congress leaders started sending bags of cash to Shiv Sena to take care of their meetings and also to put up candidates against the communist parties to cut into their vote bank. That's how they defeated former Union Defense minister VK Krishna Menon. 

Shiv Sena began infiltrating and then taking over hordes of labor unions of Mumbai, forming a cooperative relationship with the industrialists in the process. Thackeray ordered his men to savage the iconic Girni Kamgar Union office. The structure became rubble. 

Successive Congress governments covertly protected Sena. It was derisively called the "Vasant Sena," as both CMs, namely Vasantrao Naik and Vasantdada Patil, played an instrumental role in its protection. In 1970, Sena's anti-communism sentiment reached new heights as CPI leader Krishna Desai of CPI (M) was stabbed to death. Bal Thackeray openly congratulated his murderers while the Government looked the other way. Later, 16 Shiv-Sainiks were eventually convicted.

With the combination of cash bags and political patronage extended to the Shiv Sena by the Congress, soon, Sena became an irresistible force that met, on its terms, the Communist Party of India, and eventually broke its back.

Growth and fall of the Clout:

The first phase of Sena (1966-1975) was the period of its rise, mainly based on nativism and anti-Communism. However, the surge was restricted to the Mumbai-Thane urban belt only. But by 1973, Sena controlled the city council in alliance with other parties like RPI and most astoundingly also with the Muslim League.

In early 1975, Thackeray's reliable mentor Vasantrao Naik of Congress, was made to step down as chief minister and was replaced by S.B.Chavan. Soon came the Emergency.

Given his virulent anti-Congress stance, one would imagine that Bal Thackeray would have opposed the Emergency. The fact is Thackeray was terrified of indefinite long jail terms. He wrote articles welcoming the imposition of Emergency and sang paeans to Indira's notorious son Sanjay Gandhi. It saved the Shiv Sena from being banned. No. 

His co-founder friend Madhav Deshpande called Thackeray a "Piddi," the character he again displayed after 1993 bomb-blast near the Shiv Sena office. Terrified Thackeray was reconciliatory with the perpetrators.

Sena's support to the Congress continued. In the 1977 LS elections, Sena did not contest; instead, it worked for Congress. The aversion of the people against Congress also rebounded on Sena. The opposition made a clean sweep in Mumbai. The same year, in Bombay mayor election, Sena backtracked on its earlier assurance to support the opposition and supported Congress candidate Murli Deora, who won.  

In the 1978 assembly elections, the Sena contested some seats but drew a zero. Soon after it, in the BMC elections, its strength was cut down by half. Sena's influence, even in its citadel of Mumbai, was on the wane.

In the 1980 LS elections, Congress staged a comeback. Indira Gandhi dismissed several opposition-led state governments, including the PDF regime in Maharashtra. Fresh assembly elections were held. Sena once again did not contest, instead worked for the Congress that swept the polls. 

Sena had been marginalized as a political party. Congress had all but hijacked its Marathi identity issues. Another major blunder of Sena was the opposition to the Great Textile Strike of 1982. Thackeray soon realized that his stand in the textile strike was leading to his political doom, and his credibility was sinking.

On October 27, 1982, he finally declared that the Sena was, once and for all, breaking off with the Congress. The two special guests on the dais who sat on either side of Thackeray to prop him up in his darkest hour –were none other than George Fernandes and Sharad Pawar!

Communal Politics:

In the third round, after the South Indians and then the communists ceased to matter, Bal Thackeray enthusiastically went against the Muslims. 

However, it was only from 1984 that the party started projecting itself vociferously as a Hindu nationalist force. The discourse of Shivaji, the Hindu king, who restricted Muslim expansion, was one that was most commonly propagated by the party. It coincided with the rise of BJP in the country, and the two parties quickly formed a partnership. For the first time, Shiv Sena started growing outside Mumbai. 

In 1992, after the Babri demolition, Sena was prominent in the communal riots that erupted in Bombay. Sena saturated Maharashtra with sectarian rhetoric and openly claimed to have participated in several anti-Muslim riots. As unrest spread, Thackeray sought to fan the flames. He called on the Hindus to "teach Muslims a lesson." The violence lasted for months, leaving 900 dead. The Srikrishna Commission held Bal Thackeray and other Sena leaders responsible for fomenting the unrest of 1992-93, but Thackeray was never prosecuted. 

The events of the early 1990s, the Mumbai bomb blasts (1992), the riots (1993) that followed, and the incumbent Government's mishandling of the riots, helped to catapult the Sena-BJP alliance to power in Maharashtra for the first time in 1995. It was the tenure during which Thackeray referred to himself as a "remote control" Chief Minister while BJP was the junior partner. 

Many commentators blamed Sena's brand of politics for imposing an incalculable cost on Mumbai, and that started losing out to cities like Pune and Aurangabad in the battle for industrial investment. Maharashtra's economy, the agrarian crisis, unprecedented criminalization, and the record-breaking corruption led to Sena's loss of power in 1999. 

Thackeray was planning his next pivot, this time back to "outsiders" targeting Bhaiyyas from UP and Bihar. 

But Sena once again failed to win Maharashtra from Congress-NCP in 2004 and 2009 assembly elections. In fact, after the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, Sena lost its strong foothold in Mumbai and began paving the way for itself in the interior parts of Maharashtra. In November 2012, Bal Thackeray died at 86, and son Uddhav soon became the party president.

The new normal

Despite winning 18 seats in the 2014 LS elections in alliance with BJP and becoming part of the ruling NDA, Sena broke alliance with the BJP and won 63 seats contesting the 2014 assembly elections independently. However, it supported the single largest party BJP and again was part of the ruling alliance. 

With the pre-poll BJP-Sena alliance getting 161 seats out of 288, no one anticipated this kind of drama that unfolded in Maharashtra. 

The reason behind this inevitable rub lies in the rise of hegemonic BJP in Indian politics. However, with Modi-Shah at the helm of affairs, the BJP stresses on sticking to the principle of coalition politics. But it is also the truth that even allies of BJP are wary of BJP's ability to usurp and dominate new political space-eating into the political space of even its allies. The BJP.s unwillingness to relinquish that space has blurred the line between its allies and opposition. 

Shiv Sena is more worried because, in Maharashtra, BJP's expansion is coming at its erosion since the NCP and Congress have their committed voter bases. Sena has calculated that unless it manages to hold on to the levers of power, its status in Maharashtra will soon be further marginalized.

Shiv Sena and Congress have been natural allies. When Sena supported the candidature of Pratibha Patil for the presidency, Bal Thackeray could pass it off as a Marathi Manoos thing. But it also very inexplicably endorsed the candidature of Pranab Mukherjee, even without any obvious appeal from the Congress.

Sena would be more comfortable in alliance with Congress, who have been their natural allies since inception.