After joining the Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition in Maharashtra, the Uddhav Thackeray led Shiv Sena has deserted all its core beliefs, including Hindutva, party founder Bal Thackeray’s legacy and even Shivaji’s legacy, but if there is one thing that has remained intact about the Shiv Sena it has to be political hooliganism and violence. Shiv Sena has stuck firmly to its culture of hooliganism and violence.

As a part of this tradition, the Uddhav Thackeray led party has stooped to a new low this time around by insulting the 12 year old National Bravery Award winner, Zen Sadavarte.

The 12 year old faced the ire of Shiv Sena BMC workers for not speaking in Marathi during a speech at an event organised on Women’s Day on Sunday.

The visuals of the event reveal how Zen started speaking in English, but the mike was snatched from her hand as the National Bravery Award winner was not speaking in Marathi.

The Sena leader who snatched the mike from the 12 year old went on to say, “The country in which we live in, it is important to speak Marathi. Speaking in Marathi has been made compulsory and this is a Marathi crowd. In Maharashtra, we will always support you. But the most important thing, we should decide what to say in front of which people.”

As per reports, the Shiv Sena leader actually said that it is important to speak Marathi given the “country” we live in. Even Zen Sadavarte has revealed that Shiv Sena leaders warned her saying, “If you want to live in India, you need to learn Marathi”.

It is bizarre how Shiv Sena’s Marathi chauvinism has taken a turn for the worst. The party was till now restricted to demanding that those within Maharashtra should speak Marathi, but now for some strange reason the Sena goons say that you need to learn Marathi if you want to live in India.

In fact, this is not a standalone show of hooliganism. Ever since the Sena supremo, Uddhav Thackeray betrayed the BJP and joined hands with the NCP and the Congress, it has time and again resorted to such hooliganism.

Last year, in a blatant display of hooliganism, Shiv Sena activists burnt Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa’s effigy and stopped the screening of a Kannada film in Kolhapur. The flare ups had taken place over the long-standing Belgaum issue.

Uddhav Thackeray himself resorted to sensationalisation as he referred to Belgaum as Karnataka occupied Maharashtra. This had marked the return of violence and language chauvinism in the state.

Not just this, some videos had also done the rounds in which Shiv Sainiks could be seen slapping and thrashing one Tiwari brutally, to the extent that the man’s medical report states that there is severe damage to his eardrum.

The reason for the thrashing he got was that he criticised Uddhav Thackeray over his outrageous comments drawing an analogy between Jamia violence in December last year and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Loyal Shiv Sainiks who look towards Uddhav Thackeray as their “God” decided to teach Tiwari a “lesson”. He was also berated for being a person from North India and Delhi.

Mumbai: A resident of Wadala allegedly thrashed by Shiv Sena workers for 'objectionable' social media post against CM. He says, "I posted that CM's comparison of Jamia Millia incident with Jallianwala Bagh was wrong. After that 25-30 people thrashed me & tonsured my head" (23.12) pic.twitter.com/Mc71LQMu4l — Azaad Bharat (@AzaadBharat4) December 24, 2019

Shiv Sena’s very roots lie in Marathi chauvinism and violence against non-Marathis. The party never really got out of this chauvinistic idoelogy. In 2013 only, Shiv Sena workers had publicly thrashed shopkeepers and migrant workers coming from North India in Maharashtra’s Kohlapur.

As recently as 2018, Shiv Sena workers were caught on camera brutually thrashing a North Indian family for running a ‘foodstall’. Therefore, the Uddhav Thackeray led Sena never really got rid of its Marathi chauvinism and hooliganism.

Now, having parted ways with the BJP and having also lost the Hindutva political space, the Shiv Sena is stepping up its hate campaign against the North Indian migrants in the state. It is pressing even more forcefully on Marathi chauvinism.

The recent incident of heckling a 12-year old and insulting the National Bravery Award winner is however a new low even by the Udhhav Thackeray led party’s standards.

Zen Sadavarte had won the National Bravery Award when she was just 10 years old and had saved multiple lives when a fire broke out in her building in Mumbai in 2018. But the Shiv Sena did not spare even her from its hate campaign and Marathi chauvinism. As Shiv Sena harasses innocent and brave kids, it seems that violence and Marathi chauvinism have come back to haunt the state of Maharashtra.