Cousins Thackeray

They are first cousins twice over, but have had widely divergent political trajectories. One, an abrasive, fire-breathing demagogue, was seen as his uncle's political heir whose behavioural traits he cultivated. The other, an introvert, is at his best when plotting strategies on the drawing board rather than the rough-and-tumble of street-corner politics that his party is known for in India's financial capital. Starting out as brothers-in-arms, they had a bitter falling out over inheriting the party mantle. The younger cousin branched out on his own, hijacked the populist, ethno-centric plank of his parent party, putting his cousin-turned-political foe on the defensive. A series of miscalculations later, the boot seems to be on the other foot. The elder cousin has managed to keep his flock together and cemented his position as his late father Bal Thackeray's political heir, while the other, one of the most popular crowd-pullers in Maharashtra, is itching for an electoral comeback. The Cousins Thackeray evaluates the political careers of Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray. It also examines questions about identity politics, and the social, cultural and economic matrix that catalysed the formation of the Shiv Sena and the MNS from it. Above all, it is a look at what makes the Thackeray cousins so integral to the politics of India, Maharashtra and Mumbai.

This book, the first of two volumes anticipating the bicentenary of the birth of William Makepeace Thackeray in 1811, details not only the author's life, but also the cosmopolitan and literary worlds inhabited by his two daughters, Minny and Annie. When Thackeray died in 1863, the two sisters were forced to find their own way forward. Minny would marry Leslie Stephen, later father of Virginia Woolf, and die at only thirty-five; Annie, encouraged in early years by her father, would herself emerge as a successful novelist, though one always living, albeit willingly, within her father's shadow. Drawing continuously on the letters, diaries, journals and notebooks of the Thackerays and their circle, Aplin sheds light on this remarkable man's family, and the effect that his life, death and legacy had on those closest to him. The book will appeal not just to those interested in Thackeray and the Victorians, but also to readers of biography, womenis studies and memoirs, and to followers of Viriginia Woolf and Bloomsbury.

Vaibhav Purandare grew up in Mumbai in the 1980s and 90s, the tumultuous decades in which Bal Thackeray and his Shiv Sena went from being regional political players to champions of a militant Hindutva that carried their rhetoric and rage across India. He began his journalistic career with the political newsmagazine Blitz in 1993, in the early part of which Thackeray and his organisation played a key role in the Mumbai riots, and has since worked with India’s leading newspapers such as The Indian Express, The Asian Age, Daily News and Analysis (DNA), Mid Day and Mumbai Mirror, apart from writing for a host of other publications. His first book, The Sena Story was published in 1999, when he was only 23. His second book, Sachin Tendulkar: A Definitive Biography (Roli Books) and is now into its fifth edition. He is currently Senior Associate Editor with the Hindustan Times, Mumbai.

Building, largely, on insights from India, and case studies in Brazil, China, and South Africa, this book provides insights into the contested topic of ‘governance and governed’ from a state–society inter-relationship perspective. It argues that the centrality of an understanding of state-governance today is rooted in concerns regarding diversities and contingencies of concrete political reality to address inequalities, exclusion and vulnerabilities. These countries are part of the BRICSs consortium, and have been recognised for their growth potential in the world economy. But their economic progress alone may not necessarily translate into a better quality of life. The approach here is not to focus on a particular understanding of governance, but to utilise a wider lens to understand the nature and extent of incremental processes in the different case-study contexts in order to offer a broader framework for procedural and substantive understanding of governance, rather than a prescription of a government and its activity of governing. The focus is on deriving practical lessons about governance process that are of interest to the wider development community.