The recent maha aarti conducted by no less than Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at Dadar’s Hanuman Mandir invoked a sense of deja vu. With the entrance to one of Mumbai’s busiest train stations blocked by a sea of Shiv Sainiks, cries of "Jai Sri Ram" and "Jai Bhavani Jai Shivaji" rang out during last week's event at Mumbai's landmark temple. But, even as it brought back a flood of unpleasant echoes from the past, it could not have been more different from what the term "maha aarti" had previously implied.
Maha aartis have been triggers for anti-Muslim violence in Maharashtra during Mumbai’s deadly post-Babri Masjid demolition riots of December 1992-January 1993. Despite intelligence to this effect, and police asking for a ban on them, the then Chief Minister Sudhakar Naik had refused to stop the rituals, calling them religious occasions.
But the Devendra Fadnavis-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is not the weak-kneed Congress government of the riots. That’s why it is surprising that Uddhav Thackeray’s maha aarti was allowed to take place at all. That the BJP would be its target was known beforehand. That’s also the reason the maha aarti announcement evoked no dread among Muslims or any peace-loving Mumbaikars this time.
It is in these two aspects wherein both the strength and the weakness of Uddhav’s "return to Hindutva" campaign lies.