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Thackeray vows to blacken more English signboards

Shounak Nachare in Bombay

Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray today said he would ensure that Marathi signboards came up all over Bombay and Maharashtra.

"Whether it is banks, corporates (Indian or MNCs), restaurants or any other establishment, they will have to put up Marathi signboards. I will see to this," he said in the wake of the Sena's act of spraying English boards with black paint in the heart of Hutatma Chowk, Bombay's commercial centre.

Late on Friday night, nearly 200 Shiv Sainiks went on the rampage in the area, besmirching the signboards of Citibank, HongKong Bank, the plush Bombay Store, New India Co-operative Bank and the government-run Kashmir Arts Emporium, among others.

Restaurants and electronic goods shops were also targeted, and notices were splashed outside the establishments asking them to use Marathi and thus 'follow the law of the land.'

As per Section 20 (A) of the Maharashtra Shops and Establishments Act, it is mandatory for establishments to have Marathi signboards, though these can be accompanied by boards in any other language.

"This time we have only blackened the boards, next time we will cause serious damage to the establishments," Sena leader and former Maharashtra minister of state for home Gajanan Kirtikar, who heads the Sena's Sthaniya Lokadhikar Samiti (committee for protection of locals), warned.

In a desperate bid to rearm itself with a political agenda, an out-of-power Sena has now revived its Marathi plank, which it had abandoned in 1985 for the then more politically beneficial Hindutva.

The recently reborn plank is not confined to Marathi signboards. The Sena has also demanded that 80 per cent of jobs in Maharashtra be reserved for Maharashtrians and threatened to paralyse the banking industry in Bombay if locals are not given preference in employment. "80 per cent is my insistence," said Thackeray.

The Sena recently stormed the headquarters of three banks in Bombay -- State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Dena Bank -- to press this demand. "We won't allow these banks to function if they don't comply," said Kirtikar.

Thackeray referred to a 1973 government notification that states locals should be given precedence over "outsiders" in employment. "It was the Shiv Sena which forced the then Congress government to issue this notification. But it has not been implemented."

As for implementation, it could also have been done when the Sena was in power. Asked why it had not acted then, Kirtikar pinned the blame on "the shackles of power."

Thackeray, on his part, attacked his own men: "I have to ensure Marathi signboards. I have to ensure 80 per cent representation. I also have to solve all the Sena's problems and the problems of its various wings. Then what are the others for? Why don't they just step aside? Let me do everything. I have tested some of my people, and now I wonder if they have any ability at all. You will enjoy ministerial posts and parliamentary, assembly and council seats, and still I have to do all the fighting. You can't even implement existing laws?"

In April, Sainiks had attacked officials of the Tata Memorial Hospital for the "cause of daughters of the soil," alleging that the hospital had not recruited enough Marathi girls as nurses. Last week the Sena targeted the M S Shah and T S Bafna College at Malad in northwest Bombay, accusing it of recruiting non-Maharashtrians to teach Marathi (as a language subject) and of deliberately shutting the college's Marathi commerce faculty.

Kirtikar said such agitations would gain momentum in future. "There is no going back on the Marathi issue now," he declared.

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