The party was trounced by the electorate in cosmopolitan Mumbai and other cities in Maharashtra in last year’s general elections. Its miserable run continued a few months later in elections to the state assembly. A vicious fight between two estranged cousins — Uddhav, son of Bal Thackeray, the founder of the party, who has been anointed the successor, and his cousin, Raj — led to the formation by the latter of a breakaway unit, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, resulting in a division of the votes for the parochial parties. Raj Thackeray launched an anti-migrant campaign last year, targetting north Indians in Mumbai and the neighbouring cities. The ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine in Maharashtra encouraged him, confident that it would result in the division of the Shiv Sena vote bank.

Battered by the electorate in 2009, the Shiv Sena is now fearful of being kicked out of elected local bodies in Mumbai and the neighbouring cities of Thane and Kalyan, in civic elections due to be held over the next two years. So in a bid to project itself as a defender of the rights of Marathi-speaking people in Mumbai and other neighbouring cities, the Shiv Sena recently launched a campaign against ‘outsiders.’ And when celebrities such as cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, industrialist Mukesh Ambani and Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, icons in their respective fields, spoke up against the ‘Mumbai-for-Marathis’ campaign, it hit back, projecting their remarks as ‘insults’ to Maharashtrians, and demanding apologies. For a party that does not even enjoy the support of Marathi-speaking people in the state and in Mumbai — as evident from the fact that it suffered humiliating defeats in two major elections in 2009 — the Shiv Sena is audacious enough to claim that it is the sole arbiter on issues relating to Maharashtrians.

But the Sena has never believed in the niceties of electoral politics; despite contesting elections over the last 40 years, the party still abhors democracy. Its leaders believe in issuing diktats to artists, writers, journalists, actors and other television and film personalities and even businessmen.  The Sena’s anti-Muslim credentials are well-known, as is its role in the 1993 communal riots in Mumbai.

So it is not surprising that the party has picked up on Shah Rukh Khan — whose film, My Name is Khan — is due to be released on February 12. The Sena has warned the film will not be allowed to be screened in Maharashtra unless the actor, who owns a team in the Indian Premier League, apologises for his remarks supporting Pakistani cricketers, who have been left out of the league. Shah Rukh rightly claims that there is no reason for him to apologise. The Maharashtra government should at least now wake up to the threat of such chauvinistic parties and ensure that his film is released without hooligans attacking theatres screening it. Indian democracy needs to be saved from parties such as the Shiv Sena.