This. So much this. And I think it's less to do with the alliance and more to do with who Uddhav is and wants to do, now that he suddenly has no elections to win or elders to obey or cousins to keep at bay.
It is not a grassroots change. It is a rare positive top-down one.
It is not a grassroots change. It is a rare positive top-down one.
https://twitter.com/touche_always/status/1453807442911977472
However, it is also, in a strange sense, a return to the Sena's early roots. Before Bal T went full saffron in the late 80s. In the 60s & 70s, Sena was like any other son-of-soil regionalist movement common all over the modern world, not really connected to Hindutva.
There were these two uncles near my place growing up. Brothers, one a proud sainik, the other a proud sanghi. People would be like, oh, bjp-sena, same diff. But no, both had distinctly different world views, even if temporarily aligned cos of Bal T's whims.
Take Valentine's Day. It came only out of Bal's wishes randomly in his old age. It made no organic sense if you knew the general Sena cadre demographic from the 70s & early 80s. Which is why the opposition to it died with him. Now it's a VHP thing. Sena don't give a shit.
But this current shift is very much Uddhav-driven. Wherever it comes from, who cares? As long as it is in the correct direction, I'm not complaining.
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