Country has awakened, no one can take away its freedom: Uddhav Thackeray

Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday said the country had “awakened” and would resist any attempt to undermine the Constitution or curtail citizens’ freedoms.

“The country has awakened, and no one will now dare to touch our Constitution or our freedom,” Thackeray said, in remarks seen as an expression of support for young people participating in protests in Delhi and Mumbai.

Despite repeated efforts, he said, the rights of citizens could not be taken away because Indians would refuse to become “slaves to insiders or outsiders”.

“We are delivering this message to those for whom it is intended,” Thackeray added.

His remarks came as the Shiv Sena (UBT), through an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana, accused the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh of politicising Independence Day celebrations.

The editorial said that while the national festival continued to be observed across the country, it had increasingly been presented over the past decade as an event associated with the ruling BJP or the RSS.

It claimed that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s traditional attire and turban during his address from the Red Fort appeared to be selected with forthcoming state elections in mind. The party alleged that electoral calculations had come to influence the government’s Independence Day programmes.

Referring to campaigns such as the “Tiranga Yatra” and “Har Ghar Tiranga”, the editorial accused the BJP of attempting to project itself as the principal guardian of the national flag.

The extensive publicity surrounding these programmes, it said, created the impression that the tricolour was being introduced or celebrated in the country for the first time.

Saamana sought to contrast the BJP’s current nationalist campaigns with the historical role of its ideological predecessors. It claimed that the organisations from which the ruling party emerged had remained distant from the freedom struggle and had previously displayed little attachment to the national flag.

The editorial alleged that the BJP was using the emotion associated with Independence Day, the tricolour and “Vande Mataram” to expand its political outreach and reinforce its patriotic credentials.

It said those leading such events today had neither participated in the freedom movement nor faced imprisonment, police action or other sacrifices associated with the struggle against British rule.

Thousands of freedom fighters had carried the tricolour and marched to their deaths while singing “Vande Mataram”, the editorial said, while those now organising large nationalist campaigns had remained silent during that period.

The party argued that the BJP’s intensified focus on patriotic events had coincided with growing political pressure and public protests, including demonstrations at Jantar Mantar.

It also recalled that some of Modi’s supporters had described the formation of his government in 2014 as the “real dawn” of Indian independence.

With public sentiment now changing, the editorial claimed, those who had once treated the national flag as little more than an official formality were spending heavily on rallies, cut-outs and nationwide campaigns to strengthen their political image.