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| Bal Thackeray
(23 January 1926 – 17 November 2012)
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Mumbai: Maharashtra's most iconic figure and Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray passed
away on Saturday afternoon following a cardiac arrest.
The 86-year-old right-wing Hindu leader breathed his
last at ‘Matoshree’, his Mumbai residence.
India’s commercial capital - Mumbai, came to a standstill soon
after the news of Thackeray’s death spread across the city. Shops were shutdown
voluntarily, citing the risk of untoward incidents. Film screenings were called
off for the day.
Earlier in July, Thackeray was admitted to Lilavati
hospital's intensive care unit after he complained of breathlessness.
Thackeray began his professional career as a cartoonist with
the English language daily The Free Press Journal in Mumbai, but left it in
1960 to form his own political weekly Marmik. His political philosophy was largely
shaped by his father Keshav Sitaram Thackeray, a leading figure in the Samyukta
Maharashtra movement (United Maharashtra movement), which advocated the
creation of a separate linguistic state of Maharashtra. Through Marmik, he actively
campaigned against the growing influence of Gujaratis, Marwaris, and south
Indians in Mumbai.
In 1966, Thackeray formed the Shiv Sena party to advocate
more strongly the place of Maharashtrians in Mumbai's political and
professional landscape. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Thackeray built the
party by forming temporary alliances with nearly all of Maharashtra's political
parties.
He has left behind a 'questioned' legacy.