The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

“I don’t wish to be labelled in any manner”
Alone in the multitude
by Suresh Kohli

BORN on August 31, 1919, at Gujranwala (now in Pakistan), poet, novelist, short-story writer, biographer, essayist and the editor of the prestigious Nagmani, Amrita Pritam, has been bestowed upon with all kinds of regional, national and international honours and awards: the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1956; Padma Shri, 1969; Jnanpeeth Award, 1982; nominated to Rajya Sabha 1986-92; and the recent Delhi Government’s Writer of the Millennium. Author of over 70 books, including thrice updated autobiography, Rasidi Ticket (Revenue Stamp), Amrita Pritam’s works have been translated and published into various Indian and foreign languages. A near-icon of our age, her life has been gulfed with endless controversies. The author, a long-standing friend, engages the legend, now frail and ailing for some time, in an engrossing confessional. Excerpts:

You’ve used almost all forms of creative communication for your writings. Where do you find yourself most comfortable?

Whenever I am writing, whatever form I am using, seems most natural. I can’t force myself to use any specific form. It is the thought that dictates the form. Sometimes it comes in the form of a poem, and sometimes in the form of a short story. I haven’t written a novel since 1982 but I have been writing a lot of articles, or dwelling on inner experiences. I have also been trying to promote certain Pakistani writers who have been raising their voice for love and peace. I have edited three volumes of these writings. One of these is a lovely woman writer, Tauseef, on whose life I have also written a short book which will be published soon. It is called Doosare Adam ki Beti.

(This is because she firmly believes that when Adam was expelled from heaven he wasn’t alone, and also had a brother who met the same fate. One was gentle and soft-spoken, the other somewhat aggressive. The latter started annexing all the earthly wealth while the former believed in earning an honest living. Tauseef believes she is the daughter of the latter because she has struggled all her life. At the time of Partition, at the time of division of India, she had all her wealth, all her property near Jalandhar. All who lived in the village were massacred. Her daughters committed suicide by drowning themselves in a well to save their honour. And she is still searching for a surviving daughter who had just disappeared. She has poured all her agony and pain in an autobiography.

She has also written some powerful essays. So much so, that whenever a magazine or newspaper starts her column they get a notice demanding its discontinuance. But she does not stop raising her voice. When no one published her during the emergency she wrote a very powerful article that she sent to me for publication. So I have written a book on her life in Hindi and it is titled Doosare Adam ki Beti. She also wrote a beautiful and powerful article when 400 temples in Pakistan and 100 temples in Bangladesh were destroyed in the wake of the demolition of Babri Masjid, including an ancient Jain temple in Lahore. She admonished people saying that while people searched for imprints of history here were some who were wiping them out. And if you go on destroying everything what will you be left with — a royal fort and an old mosque! Look around. People everywhere are excavating past history, proudly showing icons of their glorious past and wearing them on their shoulders. One of her books is called Yeh Ghulam Jambooriyat Hai.)

You have always worn controversies round your neck like a necklace. Can you recollect how it all began?

There wasn’t anything really, but controversies were generated. I have endured a lot of opposition, lived with it, and I continue to do so. You have to pay a very heavy price for being in public life (gaze). I sometimes wonder what have I done. I wanted to live a lonely life, silently, alone. All this din all around, I don’t know why, and what for.

The tone and tenor of your early writing was essentially romantic, both in your poetry and fiction, but in the past two decades it has been assuming a somewhat spiritual connotation!

Not romance, but a transformation of my feelings. It is but natural that the extent and intensity of emotions, feelings, and passions will undergo a transformation in course of time. It can be compared with the first destination of the Sufis that is desire. Heart’s desperate longings. That is the beginning: desire. The second stage is love or romance, and after that, the third point, is realisation. So this is a yatra, a journey. I don’t even call it romance. I call it an inner thirst. And this thirst has taken various forms, and it continues. The partition of the country, what happened, what went wrong with human beings, the limit of intolerance, and whatever happened in the name of religion. So the shattering of values, the breaking up of earth beneath your feet, an element of all that found a manifestation in that poem, Aj Aakhan Waris Shah Nu (I Ask Waris Shah Today).

And after that see how values have changed. How the outlook of society, religion and politics undergoes a change. So this is all a yatra, a journey.

Amrita, how would you want to be recognised, identified, remembered?

How will anybody identify or recognise me, Suresh, from the outside? I don’t even wish to be labelled in any manner. I have to find a placement for myself from my own inner self, and I alone know what it is. Once someone asked me the in course of a television interview, “How will I define who and what is Amrita Pritam?” I laughed and said it is the name of a yatra, a journey, a travelogue of evolution, an odyssey of inner growth. Right now, anyone who has some awareness is undergoing the same process. But once there is some sort of a doubt that many of us are bottled up with right now, and that blocks further thought, and wasting their lives for some very petty things. There are immense possibilities, and various faculties in a human being. And whatever I have written has been an attempt to arouse those submerged feelings.

Your critics have generally spared your poetry but faulted your prose, especially fiction?

It is their wish, their opinion. I don’t want to comment on it. I don’t expect anyone to appreciate and understand me at that level of thinking. If someone understands me, my good luck, if not, no complaints.

What was your reaction, what were the feelings when you received the Writer of the Millennium award?

I think money was important after my son fell prey to a serious ailment, and he had to stop working. He was able to run his kitchen by renting out five additional rooms to girls as paying guests since we have a big house. I was faced with the problem of his children’s’ education. I wanted them to have maximum education, to the extent they want. So that has been secured with this award. Beyond this I don’t want anything. Prudence has been kind and helpful at the right time, and I am grateful for that.

A slim volume of your autobiography, Rasidi Ticket, appeared nearly 25 years ago, and is now an almost forgotten chapter. Why have you not made any attempt to update it?

It was done once, and it was brought up to 1990. It has once again been updated. The new edition that has come out recently brings the narration to the present times. It is not available in English, and despite my repeated requests the publishers are continuing with the old original. But in Hindi and Punjabi it is available with the same title.

Has there been any specific turning point for the change in your poetic sensibility from the romantic to the sufiana, or the spiritual?

The turning point came rather late. There is this Mahatma, a saint from Maharashtra. A real one. He came to the function, and a television team asked him about me, and he said the Amrita people have read and known is the pre-1985 Amrita. The post-1985 Amrita no one knows or understands. I think that’s an apt description. My early poetry mirrored my dreams, and the later and more mature work a reflection of my deep and intense experiences.

You have used almost all forms of creative communication to express yourself, but not drama. Any particular reason?

No particular reason really, except that I never seem to have felt the need. But I have attempted a screenplay which was to be filmed by the late Basu Bhattacharya. It never happened. It was a haunting love story that was to be filmed in and around a palace surrounded by a lake in Madhya Pradesh. I have rewritten it, and included it in my book, Aksharon ke Saaye (‘Shadow of Words’). Then there is the screenplay of the novel Adalat (‘The Court’) which again was to be filmed by Basu. It is the story of a single character who is an individual, a murderer and a judge all rolled into one.

Your life has been one long struggle, full of accusations and aspersions. Why have you not straightened things up?

Listen, Suresh. I had decided from the very beginning that I am going to earn my own livelihood. Only Imroz knows because he was told. No one knows that much before I started broadcasting from radio, and also played at the sitar, I used to knit sweaters for children. The money I used to get by selling them to a shopkeeper gave me immense pleasure. And it was this happiness that helped me sail through immense difficulties. Then after Partition I started working for All India Radio in Delhi. I used to cycle to work from my house in Patel Nagar. It was a difficult phase. I lived through hell. So the money I earned gave me an inner calm. It has no other function for me. It gave me peace. I stopped waywardness. Even this opportunity (the Rs 11 lakh award) has helped me quench a thirst. I thank my stars. It will take care for my grandchildren’s education in the long run. Thank heavens. For the rest, one has to live from within and search the possibilities that are there. Sometimes I feel I shouldn’t have written all the last three books: Lal Dhage da Rishta, Derveshan di Mehndi, and Uth ni Sahiba Sutiye. I have been able to narrate some of my inner experiences in these books. And those poems that I wrote in my dreams and transferred on paper after waking up. This then is my identity. I am not really bothered now whether I am recognised or not. How does it matter? The recognition has to come from within.

The writer is a well-known literary critic and poet.

The aftertaste of Bitter Chocolate
by Tripti Nath

DISGRACED and oppressed, they persuade themselves to keep quiet for fear of what the world might say. Those wronged in their childhood find themselves haunted endlessly by misplaced guilt. Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a hard and bitter reality in several homes today. A reality kept under wraps for fear of social ostracisation. Since most such cases go unreported, available statistics can hardly be relied upon to gauge the rate of the heinous crime.

For the victims, breaking the silence has never been easy but journalist and author Pinki Virani mustered exceptional courage to place on record her nightmarish experience as a child.

Pinki Virani is credited with two other bestsellers, Aruna’s Story and Once Was Bombay. Bitter Chocolate, published by Penguin India, is the first book of its kind in India and the Indian subcontinent.

As the author’s note reads, ‘‘this book is about the rape of an entire childhood.’’

Bitter Chocolate is addressed to the young parent and guardian, principal and teacher, judge and the police, lawyer and public prosecutor, teenager and tomorrow’s citizen. This reporter met the author to discuss various aspects of the book.

The following are excerpts from the interview:

Why this book?

Its a problem that is right here. It is an issue that is so rampant in our country and is so very obvious. If it takes a book to bring the spotlight on it, so be it — its Bitter Chocolate. But, the answer certainly does not lie in not talking about it or indeed not writing about it.

When did you think about writing this book?

Actually, the credit goes to David Davidar of Penguin India because he had commissioned it. My thinking about it till the cows came home would have made absolutely no difference if he had not commissioned it.

Was it easy speaking to the victims?

I first realised that it was very difficult for me to speak about it. I am a victim myself. And, I realised that if I did not have the guts to talk about it myself, I had no business doing a book on it. I also realised that since I had been through the sheer terror as a child, I could understand with even less questioning of another child.

Some of these people had heard about my earlier books. I came with a certain promise that I would neither exploit their stories nor sensationalise them which I hope I have not done. It was a very difficult book to write because some of the cases described in detail could well have read as child pornography. It was very important for me not to attract the wrong kind of reader. So, I have been very careful.

When did you speak up about it — only in the book?

Yes, to the degree that not very many people beyond my family knew.

How did your family react to your decision to talk about it?

It is there in the author’s note. My mother was really my source of strength when this happened rather when it kept happening.

It is a complex problem with unbelievably simple situations. If parents can just hug their children when this happens, if they can just be friends of their children, then children will come forward and tell them. The way it is right now children don’t say it because they are petrified that parents won’t believe them, the parents are petrified that something is happening and should keep their eyes closed because it has social ramifications. And, the child’s future is totally destroyed.

What is the objective of writing this book?

After reading the book or articles around the book, parents can just arm and guard their children towards things as good touch or bad touch, what to learn, what not to allow adults to do, if parents can do all this, then the reasons for writing Bitter Chocolate will have been achieved. Because, you cannot prevent what has already happened to adults who have already been abused in their childhood but you can prevent it from happening to the next generation.

Why do you think most victims go through a process of self-hatred?

Because they think it was their fault, because they think they allowed it to happen, because they think they did not put up enough fight.

What is the extent of child abuse in India?

This book talks about child abuse in middle and high class families. My book deals only with upper and middle class homes because there is this assumption by middle and high class families that it happens only in low class families which is absolute nonsense. In fact, children are sexually abused with a lot more stealth and secrecy in upper and middle class homes. At least in lower class homes there is vocabulary to speak out against some or the other kind of injustice. There is no way to derive an absolute statistic. It is mind boggling.

What is the effect of sexual abuse on a child’s personality?

Child sexual abuse, when not addressed in time leads to a child growing up to be a perpetrator, but not in all cases. It also leads to mothers and girls being ineffective mothers.

Why do these cases go unreported?

Just as cases of rape are not reported. If prosecution is the State’s job, what prosecution is the state able to achieve if a woman goes and complains about rape. If the law of the land stood by you, you will worry less about social ramifications. There is one part in the book which deals exclusively with the law — what it is now and what it should be. I have listed all the laws in the Indian Penal Code under which somebody can be booked for child sexual abuse. However, outraging of modesty is utterly bizarre. It is considered as being applicable for teenage girls and adult women. The law needs to be gender free, it should include children and little boys.

What solutions do you suggest?

There are two things that are very clear in child sexual abuse — protection by the parents and prosecution by the state, neither of which is happening now. The laws that have been formulated now which are the reworked rape laws have been suggested by the National Law Commission as suggestions to Parliament. Now it is sitting until its laws are passed in Parliament. After this pressure will need to be put up for special child protection courts where crimes on children by adults are tried speedily within 90 days.

DELHI DURBAR

NDA faces tough situation

THE Ram Jethmalani issue which rocked both Houses of Parliament for two continuous days, specially putting the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in an embarrassing situation on most occasions, also did not pass without the members exchanging a few remarks.

One such incident in the Rajya Sabha had all the Opposition members smiling while putting the Information and Technology and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Mr Pramod Mahajan a little on the defensive.

While the Opposition members were demanding hard for the government to explain the nature of the documents which the former Law Minister had submitted as annexures with his 17-page statement, Mr Pramod Mahajan sprang to his feet in an attempt to bail out the new Law Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley, who had been cornered on the issue specially by the Congress member and another reputed lawyer Kapil Sibal.

Mr Jaitley had made an attempt to wriggle out of the situation by saying that his Ministry had given a reply to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat on the issue and it was now up to the Chairman, Mr Krishan Kant to decide on it.

But that was not enough for the Opposition and it pressed on forcing Mr Mahajan to be on his feet. As the Minister started to speak, Mr Sibal also sprang to his feet seeking further clarifications.

This apparently irked Mr Mahajan and he pointed towards Mr Sibal saying he was not the only big lawyer who had made it to this House. ‘‘Before you there have been several other greater lawyers, who have been part of the House,’’ he said.

Pat came the reply from Mr Sibal: ‘‘That is exactly what is your big problem at the moment,’’ (the reference was to Mr Ram Jethmalani), which had the Opposition in splits.

Vajpayee’s “Premalaap”

The ignominous exit of Law Minister Ram Jethmalani was preceded by some active effort by the Prime Minister to restrain his senior Cabinet colleague.

Unhappy over the eminent lawyer colleague speaking out of turn on many occasions, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee indulged in some ‘‘premalaap (love talk)’’ with Jethmalani to teach him the art of keeping quiet. Unfortunately, in Mr Vajpayee’s words he failed to persuade Mr Jethmalani. The Prime Minister while describing the premalaap with Jethmalani as a secret between two friends, said he was in real pains when he had to take the harsh decision of asking his Cabinet colleague to put in his papers.

Mamata terror

The Red citadel in West Bengal is a worried lot. Giving them sleepless nights has been the Trinamool Congress leader and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee. Having suffered some electoral reverses in recent times, the Left has had enough of Mamata.

A nine-member delegation of Left MPs called on Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for help last week and urged him to rein in the Central Minister from indulging in ‘‘terror campaign’’ in the administrative machinery of West Bengal. They accused Mamata Banerjee of misusing her position as a Central Minister and described her as another Bal Thackeray.

For the Prime Minister who was in the midst of a crisis in Maharashtra, he had little to say on the complaint by the Left MPs. He was in no mood to open another pandora’s box in West Bengal.

Kargil heroes not forgotten

The appeal from Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee to the people of the country to light candles outside their homes in the memory of those who had laid down their lives in the service of the nation in Kargil last year did not go unheeded.

While a major ceremony was held in the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan to commemorate the Kargil Vijay Divas with the President, Mr K.R. Narayanan lighting 522 candles, one each for the brave soldiers who gave the supreme sacrifice, people of the country were not far behind. Although it was not anything like what it is on a festival we celebrate, but enough homes were illuminated in the memory of the Kargil heroes.

Contrary to the general feeling that none remembered the sacrifice of those who fought in Kargil, people felt that after seeing our heroes fight for us in the icy heights of Kargil it is difficult to forget them.

Phoolan Devi’s shots

Phoolan Devi may have mellowed much from her days of being a bandit queen in the past to a Member of Parliament today. Yet, when it comes to fighting for her rights, she displays some of her old sparks.

During zero hour in the Lok Sabha, when former bandit-queenturned-politician Phoolan Devi was permitted by the Speaker, Mr G.M.C. Balayogi to raise the issue of her maltreatment by the District Magistrate of Mirzapur district, her male colleagues in the Lower House were so loud that she could hardly be heard.

Realising that she was unable to catch the attention of the House from her seat, she came to the front row and admonished her colleagues by asking why they indulge in wrestling during zero hour and not allow others to speak. Her remark not only achieved the desired result but also drew support from both the ruling as well as Opposition benches as the issue of non-cooperation from district officials were affecting them also.

Media squabble

The advent of television journalism in a big way in India has led to heartburning amongst the print media as politicians and bureaucrats ignore them quite often to catch the glare of the strobe lights.

Many a time it has been found that television-crazy politicians and bureaucrats pounce over cameramen to give ‘‘bytes’’. This attitude of theirs has led to some of the print medium journalists developing animosity for their colleagues in the electronic media.

Last week there was a Press briefing in the Ministry of Home Affairs located in North Block. Despite the Information Officer attached to the Ministry advising that no cameramen will be allowed for the briefing, a couple of TV teams managed to sneak in to the conference hall.

This prompted the Home Ministry officials to ask them to shut their cameras and leave the hall.

Even as the annoyed TV crew were leaving the room, a journalist from the print media murmured that he was really feeling proud as it was for the first time that he was seeing a television crew get the raw deal.

But his happiness was short-lived. Within couple of minutes the TV crews managed to seek the permission of the higher bosses and resurfaced into the press briefing. It is no secret that the topmost boss in the Ministry, Home Minister L.K. Advani is himself a television buff and misses no opportunity in talking to them.

(Contributed by Satish Misra, T.V. Lakshminarayan, Girija Shankar Kaura, S. Satyanarayanan and P.N. Andley)

A legend for all times
By Abu Abraham

A RECENT tribute to Greta Garbo on one of the television channel brought back to me nostalgic memories of my youth and made me realise how utterly fresh and undated she is, though her films belong to the twenties and thirties. Garbo died 10 years ago and the programme may have been intended to mark 10th anniversary of her death.

Garbo and our own Devika Rani were my only two heartthrobs in my days at the university. There was something more than beauty in them. What it was I cannot quite put my finger on. It probably has something to do with their inner selves — a certain spiritual quality, a deep humanity — and on a purely professional level, a seriousness, a deep commitment to their art.

Unlike other actresses then or now, here or abroad Garbo never sought publicity. She valued her private life and hated any intrusion by the press or the public. Stories about her battles to guard it from intruders are many, but the one I love best concerns the New York Daily News. This tabloid newspaper went to the trouble of sending one of its reporters on the ship on which Garbo was to sail home (to Sweden) from America. The paper proudly announced: “Miss Grace Robinson, famous reporter and magazine writer, is sailing to Sweden with the enigma of movieland, Greta Garbo. From aboard the steamship Gripsholm she will radio daily stories of Miss Garbo’s voyage to her homeland. Nobody knows Miss Garbo now — but you can if you read Miss Robinson’s daily stories in the News.” As it happened the News didn’t get one line out of her.

Garbo’s desire to escape from the attention of the world became obsessional. She moved house several times in Hollywood because of her fear of being spied upon. She used to get up at five in the morning to have a swim in her pool, and then wait until after dark to take an evening dip. She never entertained. It used to be said that the only person who had been inside her house was a burgler.

The remark most commonly attributed to her was “I want to be alone”. Garbo denied this saying: “I only said I want to be let alone. There’s all the difference.” Her “loneliness” was part of her personal nature (most men, it is said, bored her), but it was more because of her total dedication to her work.

She refused to obey the whims of the movie moghuls of the time. She turned down parts that she felt would typecast her. She told the great Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after her first two films. (The Torrent and The Temptress) that she would no longer play the part of a “stupid temptress.” MGM couldn’t tame her. She was already a legend. Her beauty, her genius, her mystery, her undeniable charm made up the legend.

She could easily have allowed herself to be made into a standardised Hollywood product, sharing her life with the crowd, publicising her innermost feelings but she did none of that. As one of her biographers, John Bainbridge, puts it: “She did nothing that was second-rate. She had dignity and nobility.... She had genius before the camera, because she was guided by a secret, sublime, infallible instinct to do the right thing in the right way.”

For some reason Garbo was more admired in Europe than in the United States. Her films were only moderately popular in the USA but were big box office hits in Europe. Hitler was said to adore her films and saw many of them over and over again. When she was told about this she remarked that she would like to go to Berlin and meet him. Then she could talk to him about the awful things he was doing and try to make him change his mind about continuing the war. She added: “If I couldn’t make him change his mind, I could shoot him.”

No woman since Helen of Troy has received so much adoration for her beauty as Greta Garbo. “The face of this century”, wrote one admirer. “She is as beautiful as the aurora borealis,” wrote another. “Garbo manages to make beauty look like a mark of religion.”

But perhaps the most telling remark about her personality was made by theatre critic Kenneth Tynan who began a essay after meeting Garbo with these words: “What, when drunk, one sees in other women, one sees in Garbo sober.”

The legend of this Swedish actress, born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in 1905, lives on.

From Disciple to foe
by Harihar Swarup

THE final round is yet to be fought between the “Guru” and the “Chela” and the road ahead appears to be long and arduous. In the first round Bal Thackeray has outmanoeuvred his one-time disciple and hot favourite, Chhagan Bhujbal, now the Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister of Maharashtra, but Bhujbal has learnt his lessons well from his “Guru” and he is not the one to give up. The State Government has decided to move the Bombay High Court against the Metropolitan Magistrate’s order dismissing the case against the Shiv Sena supremo.

There was a time when Bhujbal was second only to Thackeray in popularity. In flamboyance and gimmickry, there was no match to him in the party’s rank and file. His histrionic abilities match that of Bala Sahib; both can keep their audience spell-bound. Both have dictatorial streak. What then drew a wedge between the “Guru” and the “Chela” and why did they turn into bitter enemies? History has manifested that when personal interests of two strong willed and dictatorial leaders clash, there is a deafening explosion.

Thackeray was, perhaps, suspicious that his “Chela” might upstage him and, in his bid to clip his wings, the Shiv Sena “dictator” denied him the opportunity of becoming number two in the party. Bala Sahib also scuttled Bhujbal’s chance of becoming the Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly even though he was the only Sena MLA to get elected in 1985. Relations between them further soured when the Sena supremo began propping up Manohar Joshi (now Heavy Industry Minister at the Centre) and sidelining his real protege. The final break came in 1991 with Bhujbal snapped his ties with Bala Sahib and joined the Congress. Was it a real change of heart? Perhaps, no but the hostility between him and the Sena chief became intense day after day. Bhujbal’s exit was a loss to the Sena but Thackeray cared a damn about it.

Bhujbal then claimed that he took the Shiv Sena to the rural areas. “I am a much older Sainik than Manohar Joshi (former Chief Minister and now Union Minister) and many others but my growing popularity was not liked by Bala Sahib. I was gradually marginalised and Manohar Joshi propped up”. Bhujbal has been a bitter critics of the Shiv Sena chief for a decade now, attacking him ferociously in public. He says: “Bala Sahib’s dictatorial behaviour and his bias towards the upper caste completely disenchanted me with the Sena’s ideology”. Bhujbal found it impossible to coexist with Thackeray’s whims and fancies.

He started lampooning his erstwhile mentor at public meetings, calling him names. A powerful orator in Marathi as he is, Bhujbal called his former boss. “T. Balu”. “T” stands for Thackeray and “Balu” in Marathi means “domestic servant”. The audience would roar in amusement. Bala Sahib did not take kindly to such public ridicule by his former “Chela”. Bhujbal’s house in Mumbai was attacked allegedly by “Sainiks” and an attempt was made to assault him. A case is still pending in court.

Some of the recent exchanges between the “Guru” and the “Chela” are worth quoting. When Shiv Sainiks were at the receiving end early this year, Bala Sahib, time and again, lambasted the Deputy Chief Minister. “I never make allegations without evidence. In the present case also I have sufficient proof that the godfather of the killers is camping in Mantralaya (state secretariat)”.

Bhujbal hit back equally louder: “Thackeray himself is mafia don. He is a dada”.

Though an engineer from VTJI, the, irrepressible Bhujbal owned a vegetable stall in Mumba’s Crawford market. The Sena’s belligerence impressed him and he decided to jump into the “hurly-burly” of politics, became a “Shakha Pramukh” in 1970, was elected a Sena corporator in 1978 and rose to the position of Mumbai’s Mayor for two terms in 1985-87. When the Sena decided to launch a campaign on the Karnataka-Maharashtra border, Bhujbal, as Mayor, defied the ban order and entered the border town of Belgaum disguised as a Muslim.

One of his most appalling acts was washing of Mumbai’s martyrs’ memorial in late 1987 to “purify” it. Dalits had held a mammoth rally at the memorial at Flora Fountain in support of a publications of B.R. Ambedkar’s collected works released by the then Maharashtra Government. Bhujbal stormed the memorial with “sainiks”, washed it with “Ganga jal” and performed puja to cleanse it. Earlier, he created panic in the State Assembly by unfurling a banner which said. “Down with the government defaming Hindu gods”. The banner was, evidently, unfurled to protest against the Ambedkar book which contained a chapter entitled “Riddles of Hinduism”.the present leaders of the NPC does not appear of have quite appreciated his abortive attempt to arrest Thackeray because, in their reckoning, this would revive the plummeting stock of the Sena “dictator”.