AA Edit | Gandhi or Savarkar? Choose, Sena

The beleaguered, out-of-power, Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena, which ran a state government with the Congress and the NCP, are now pushed to walk on a tightrope over the irreconcilable binary of the values of Mahatma Gandhi and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.

While politics is and, even should be, the art of the possible; where pragmatic calls overpower ideologies, there still exist contradictions which cannot be wished away; and the idea of India as espoused, envisioned and lived for by Mahatma Gandhi and that of Veer Savarkar are too divergent, too diametrically opposite for anyone, party or leader, to try to reconcile and fuse.

The Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena must choose either the Gandhian values, or Savarkar’s worldview and definition of India and Indianness; and their course of action after making such a choice clear would be equally different; but trying to continue to be an ally of the Congress Party, whose leader Rahul Gandhi is in no mood to compromise with the RSS and BJP ideology, is not kosher or acceptable.

Any state-level or regional party may have to accept and live under the weight of regional pride, including their icons, but Maharashtrian pride is not a cloak for justifying the affinity to Savarkar while being in partnership with Gandhi, or the Congress.

The Shiv Sena must either stand by Savarkar and break free of any political understanding with Rahul Gandhi’s party, or shun Savarkar; oblivious to political or electoral damage.

Speaking in different voices will not give the Uddhav faction of Sena the moral sheen or political edge it now needs, and it must side with one of the two icons based purely on long-term commitment to values and ideologies and decide beyond exigencies and short-term calculations.

Choose and declare one idol, Shiv Sena, because you can’t have both.