Bal Thackeray Wiki, Age, Death, Controversy, Family, Biography & More

Bal Thackeray

Bal Keshav Thackeray is a famous Indian cartoonist and politician. In 1966, he laid the foundation of the right-wing party ‘Shiv Sena’. Thackeray began his career as a cartoonist in the 1950s and soon became an important politician in the late 1960s. After entering politics, he became a symbol of Maratha pride and Hinduism. This pioneer of Shiv Sena is worshiped like a god. Thackeray changed the political direction of Maharashtra in every sense, with the ability to turn grandiosity into silence with a single movement of his finger. Thackeray, who roared like a lion, passed away in 2012.

Biography/Wiki

Balasaheb Thackeray was born on January 23, 1926 in the Marathi Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu community of Pune, Bombay District, British India (age at time of death: 86 years). He did not do well in school and soon dropped out of school. He has loved writing and activities since childhood. In the 1950s, he participated in the Maharashtra Movement, which supported the creation of a unified state for the Marathi-speaking region called Maharashtra, with Bombay as its capital.

Early images of Bal Thackeray

family

He was born to Keshav Sitaram Thackeray and Ramabai. His father was a writer and prominent social activist who campaigned against superstition and social evils such as dowry, untouchability and child marriage. Bar Thackeray was the eldest son of eight brothers and sisters. Ramesh Thackeray and Shrikant Prabodhankar Thackery are his brothers and Pama Tipnis, Sudha Sule, Sarla Gadkari, Susheela Gupte and Sanjeevani Karandikar are his sisters.

Bal Thackeray family tree

Photos of Bal Thackeray and his brother Ramesh Thackeray

Thackeray married Meena Thackeray on June 13, 1948.

Bal Thackeray with his wife and father

The couple has three sons: Bindumadhav Thackeray, Jaidev Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray. His wife died in 1995 and the following year, his son Bindumadhav Thackeray died in a car accident. He has no daughter.

Uddhav and Jadev Thackeray

Raj Thackeray is the son of his brother Shrikant Prabodhankar Thackery. Raj Thackeray was supposed to take over as Shiv Sena leader, but he broke away from the Shiv Sena in 2006 and formed his own party, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena ).

Bal Thackeray with Raj Thackeray (left) and Uddhav Thackeray (right)

Aditya Thackeray, Tejas Thackeray, Aishwarya Thackeray and Rahul Thackeray are his grandchildren.

Bal Thackeray with Tejas and Aditya Thackeray

Aditya Thackeray is also an active politician and currently, he is the president of Yuva Sena, the youth wing of Shiv Sena.

Rahul Thackeray and his wife

Profession

Thackeray began his career as a cartoonist in Bombay in the 1950s. He works for the Free Press Magazine and his cartoons are also published in the Sunday edition of The Times of India.

Bal Thackeray’s comics

In 1960, Thackeray founded the comics weekly “Marmik” along with his brother Srikant. His cartoons have also appeared in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun.

Mamik cover page

The success of the comic weekly “Marmik” encouraged him to lay the foundation for the political party “Shiv Sena”. On June 19, 1966, he founded the Shiv Sena. Shiv Sena means “Army of Shivaji”, a great Maratha warrior.

Thackeray initially said it was not a political party but Shivaji’s army working for the Maratha Manoos. His party became one of the important parties in the state over the next decade and appointed two chief ministers to the state. In 1989, Thackeray founded the party newspaper Saamna. However, in the early 2000s, the party’s reputation declined due to its aggressive and violent nature.

dispute

Bal Thackeray has been the center of controversy throughout his life. Some of the major controversies are as follows:

He first came to media attention in 1966 by campaigning against South Indians taking away Maratha jobs in Bombay.

During the Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute in 1969, he was arrested and sent to Yerawada Central Jail in Pune, Maharashtra.

He is a strong critic of Pakistan. In 1998, during the famous Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali’s concert in Mumbai, hundreds of Shiv Sainiks disrupted the concert at the behest of Bal Thackeray.

In 1975, he shocked the political world by supporting Indira Gandhi’s National Emergency.

He was booked on several charges for inciting the public during the 1984 communal riots in Bhiwandi, Maharashtra. In that riot, 17 people died and more than 100 were injured.

He was accused along with other hardliners of causing the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992.

Bal Thackeray was considered one of those who incited communal violence shortly after the 1993 Mumbai blasts. The Srikrishna Commission report accused Thackeray and the Shiv Sena of fomenting the riots.

Shiv Sainiks during the 1993 Mumbai riots

In 1995, he opposed the release of the Bollywood film Bombay, based on the 1993 Mumbai bombings.

Once, he commented on the Biharis through the party newspaper Saamna, “Ek Bihari, Sau Bimari. Do Bihari Ladai ki taiyari, Teen Bihari train hamari, and paanch Bihari to sarkar hamaari” (meaning – one Bihari equals A hundred diseases, two Biharis are preparing to fight, three Biharis, it’s a train hijacking, five Biharis will try to form the ruling government). As soon as this statement came out, it caused a huge uproar in the country. Nitish Kumar, then chief minister of Bihar, filed a written complaint against him and North India Shiv Sena chief Jay Bhagwan Goyal and resigned from the party and compared the Shiv Sena with Khalistan and militant groups.

He had lashed out at the then President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, for not pronouncing the death penalty on Afzal Guru.

In 2007, he was criticized for praising Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in a newspaper. The same year, he called Muslims green poison during a Shiv Sena rally.

Thackeray was heavily criticized for supporting the Tamil militant group the LTTE.

Social activist Anna Hazare and Bal Thackeray’s brother Ramesh Thackeray accused him of having unfair assets and demanded a CBI probe.

favorite thing

Politician: Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Singer: Kishor Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar

Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Nana Patekar

Cricketers: Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar

Assets/Net Worth

According to reports, his total assets at the time of his death were over Rs 100 crore, which included his famous bungalow Matoshree.

die

He died of cardiac arrest in Mumbai, Maharashtra, on November 17, 2012, at the age of 86. Thackeray was given a state funeral, the first public funeral in the city since the funeral of Bal Gangadhar Tilak in 1920. Although he held no official position, a 21-gun salute was fired.

fact

He enjoys beer, wine and cigars.

Bal Thackeray smoking

His nickname is “Hindu Festival Samrat”.

His mother died when he was a child.

His father, Keshav Thackeray, advocated the creation of a Marathi-speaking state called Maharashtra, with Bombay as its capital.

When he left the Free Press Daily, he founded another daily newspaper, the Press Day, with another journalist, George Fernandez. However, the paper survived only a few months.

He writes for Marathi publications under the pen name “Mavla”.

In 1967, the Shiv Sena achieved its first victory in the Thane Municipal Council elections.

Bal Thackeray during municipal elections

Thackeray initially supported the Indian National Congress, but in the late 1980s it posed a threat to the ruling Congress party.

In 1989, the Shiv Sena was recognized as a political party and used the bow and arrow as its electoral symbol.

He was a great follower and admirer of Maratha leader Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

Bal Thackeray opposed the recommendations of the Mandal Commission and therefore his close aide Chagan Bhujbal left the Shiv Sena in 1991.

In the 1995 Maharashtra Assembly elections, the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance won and Manohar Joshi became the chief minister of the state.

Manohar Joshi

In 1996, American pop star Michael Jackson visited Maharashtra, met Bal Thackeray and signed the toilet used by Thackeray.

On July 28, 1999, Thackeray was banned by the Election Commission from voting and participating in any elections for six years, till December 2005, for indulging in vote-seeking corrupt practices.

In 2004, he handed over the reins of the Shiv Sena to his son Uddhav Thackeray. However, Raj Thackeray was supposed to be Bal Thackeray’s political heir.

The estranged Raj Thackeray founded his own political party, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, in 2006.

In 2007, Thackeray contested the Brihanmumbai municipal elections for the first time after being lifted from a six-year ban in 2005.

Bal Thackeray after the 2007 polls