Won’t betray you, says Sena (UBT) to Marathi Muslims

A delegation of the Sangh had met Uddhav Thackeray about a month ago and told him its members were pained by the way his government had been dislodged. They also offered their support

Mumbai: For the better part of Maharashtra’s history, the two sides have been sworn enemies. But on Wednesday evening, at a meeting held at the Islam Gymkhana, both swore to support each other.

Won’t betray you, says Sena (UBT) to Marathi Muslims

Anant Geete, six-time MP and former union minister from the Shiv Sena, was the special invitee at a meeting held by the Marathi Muslim Seva Sangh, an umbrella organisation of NGOs run by Marathi-speaking Muslims. A delegation of the Sangh had met Uddhav Thackeray about a month ago and told him its members were pained by the way his government had been dislodged. They also offered their support.

Citing this initiative, Islam Gymkhana president Yusuf Abrahani pointed out that the Sangh had come to Uddhav Thackeray’s party not when it was in power but out of it. Geete acknowledged this. “You came to offer support at a time when many felt the Shiv Sena was finished,” he said.

Geete recounted that Thackeray had asked the Sangh if it had thought its gesture through. Faqir Thakur, founder of the Sangh, had then replied that they were Marathi Muslims, and Bal Thackeray had formed the Shiv Sena to fight for the rights of the Marathi manoos. “We are also bhumiputra, sons of the soil,” Thakur had told Uddhav Thackeray.

“Now that you have put it this way and shown faith in us when we are down and out, it becomes our responsibility to stand by you,” said Geete. “I’m not making any grand promises, but I can say that when this bad patch is over, whenever we get the opportunity, we will see to it that you get your due. We will not betray you.”

This assurance came in response to Thakur’s opening remarks in which he reiterated the long-standing grievance of his outfit: that previous governments had not wanted local Muslim leadership to develop, and had hence cultivated “outsiders” ie Urdu-speaking Muslims from the North who had settled in Mumbai. These outsiders were told to focus on Mumbai’s Muslims and ignore the concerns of Marathi-speaking Muslims in the rest of the state. Thus, despite their numbers and their problems being the same as the rest of Maharashtra’s citizens, Marathi-speaking Muslims were sidelined, said Thakur.

The Sangh founder added their NGO was a socio-political outfit but without being part of the state’s politics, it was difficult to achieve its social goals. At this, pointing to his own background, Geete said that his family had had nothing to do with politics. “If someone like me, an ordinary Shiv Sainik, could become a union minister without ever dreaming of it, surely you, who rightfully dream of a share in politics, will see your dream fulfilled,” he said.

Ali Ahmed Shamsi, an 87-year-old veteran leader of the community, traced the closeness between Shivaji and the Muslim community to assert that this new coming together of Marathi Muslims and the Shiv Sena was nothing out of the ordinary. Recalling that Bal Thackeray’s magazine ‘Marmik’ had an Urdu couplet on its masthead, and it was in Bal Thackeray’s reign that a 12-lakh strong meet of the Tableeghi Jamaat had been held, he said that those who had projected the Shiv Sena founder as an enemy of Muslims were themselves enemies of Muslims.

Geete warned those present that now that they had decided to work with Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena, they too would face a hard time. “It’s a time of struggle for us, and it will be for you too,” he averred. “Let’s face it hand in hand.”