Apropos the editorial “Bal Thackeray’s true legacy” (November 19), there is a need to know the reason for Thackeray’s huge popularity among unemployed Maharashtrian youth. An impartial examination would perhaps reveal that the cosmopolitan Bombay of the 1960s and 1970s was arrogantly and rabidly anti-Marathi speakers. Second, opportunities in the job market then were denied to Marathi-speaking youth in an unfair manner. That led to Thackeray’s early successes. Moreover, it is noteworthy that a national party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, gave respectability to Shiv Sena’s politics by forming an alliance.
Narendra M Apte Pune
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