‘You said it’that famous cartoon of common man in daily news paper’The Times Of India’ by R.K.Laxman which has made him a living legend,i had been seeing from more than 40 years,is the work of a genius.Recently i saw a play also titled ‘The Common Man’which was based on cartoons of common man by R.K.laxman and common man was the hero of that play,which i thoroughly enjoyed.

I have read that late Bal Thackeray also had started his career as a cartoonist in a newspaper Free Press Journal in 1947 alongwith R.k.Laxman and both of them were inspired by a british cartoonist David Low and used to follow his style of drawing.Later on Thackeray started his own marathi weekly cartoon’Marmik’which could be popular only among marathi manoos.Bal Thackeray called himself a political cartoonist but actually started politicising regional centiments of local marathi people against Dangey and other communist leaders of mumbai that time.He instigated them against the trade unions which suited the industrialists,corporate houses that time and so thackeray got favour from them.Indian national congress that time faced challenges from communists in mumbai so Bal thackeray got soft corner from congress party also.Politics that time was divided between left and right,so in a way thackeray aligned himself to the right wing politics.Left parties were completely marginalised with the help of Bal Thackeray who openly became pro-rich and anti-poor in mumbai.

Bal Thackeray formed his own political party ‘Shiv Sena’ in 1966 and till 2012 he maintained that he was not a politician but a political cartoonist which proves his authoritarian nature.Nobody in India knows Bal thackeray as a cartoonist,and everybody knows him as a militant hindu politician.He openly admired Indira Gandhi when she declared emergency in 1975,against the wishes of all indians who were opposing her and her draconian emergency.He openly praised Hitler and his politics.It was part of his politics to beat muslims as anti-nationals,south indians and north indians as out siders.With this kind of divisive politics he found a natural ally in the form of Bhartiya Janta Party and together they played havoc with the nation which is now a history.After aligning with BJP he openly played politics with the public,like making all sorts of promises which could never be fulfilled.He promised all slum dwellers of mumbai to shift them in to high rise buildings once given the power.In a sindhi hindu township named Ulhasnagar,a nearby suburb of mumbai,he promised to rename it as ‘Sindhu nagar’.Lately all of them realised after giving SS-Bjp the power that his all promises were false and empty and he is not going to do anything for them.It was heard during their tenure that shiv sena goons were extorting large sums of money from buisiness people of mumbai and this was all going in to the coffins of shiv sena.Finally this fanatic combo has lost power and mumbaikars took a sigh of relief.Slowly his party members realised that his kind of divisive politics will get them nowhere,so one by one they started leaving him.Chhagan Bhujbal,Narayan rane,Sanjay nirupam and finally his nephew Raj Thackeray.It seems he did not trust anybody also otherwise how could he make his son Uddhav thackeray a political novice,heir to his throne,ignoring all those senior colleagues.So a divisive politician ended up himself as brutally divided.

RIP…Bal Thackeray saheb,my heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family members and duped shiv sainiks,may god give them courage and peace to the departed soul….