Raj Thackeray slams Bhagwat’s language-as-disease remark
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray on Monday said that if RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is of the opinion that protesting for one’s language is a “disease”, then a majority of the states in the country suffer from it.
In a post on X, Thackeray also claimed that those who attended Bhagwat’s programme here on February 7-8 to mark the RSS centenary did not come out of love for him but due to the fear of Narendra Modi’s Government.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, dismissed the remarks, saying people attend Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) programmes voluntarily and with discipline.
On the issue of the Marathi language and identity, the ruling BJP said Marathi is a matter of pride but stressed that a language should remain a medium of communication rather than conflict. Thackeray noted that the regional sentiment in the southern states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka is fervent. There is a similar sentiment in Punjab, West Bengal and even in Gujarat.
When hordes of people from four or five states in the country go to different states, act arrogantly there, reject the local culture, insult the local language, and create their own vote banks, it leads to resentment among locals, leading to outbursts, he noted. Will Bhagwat call it a disease? The MNS president asked.
During an event in Mumbai over the weekend, Bhagwat interacted with people from different walks of life and responded to a series of questions. On the language row, he had said the “localised disease” should not spread.
Reacting to it, Thackeray said, “If Bhagwat feels love for language and state is a disease, then a majority of the states in the country suffer from it.”
Thackeray said Bhagwat did not give these “sermons” to Gujarat when thousands of people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were driven away from there. Why were such lessons not given to Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Punjab? he asked.
