The history of “Hatao lungi, bajao pungi”

Raj Thackeray revives the controversial ‘Hatao Lungi, Bajao Pungi’ slogan — a nativist cry from Shiv Sena’s 1960s ‘sons of the soil’ era.

Transcript

00:00When you cannot win elections, you can't expand your base, you weaponize language and nostalgia.

00:10Raj Thakri's politics has become a stuck record from the 1960s, playing the same old anti-South Indian track because he has no new hits.

00:24At the joint rally with Shiv Sena UBT in Mumbai's Taadar, Raj Thakri revived the controversial

00:28Hatao Lungi Bajao Pungi slogan from the 1960s. He also called BJP's Annamalai, Ras Malai.

00:34Historically, this derogatory Lungi Pungi concoction was manufactured by the late Marathi Manos Patriarch, Bal Thakri's Shiv Sena Party.

00:45The story sort of begins in June 1966. On June 19th that year, Bal Keshav Thakri formally launched the Shiv Sena,

00:51a party born from urban unemployment and anger among working class Maharashtrians.

00:55In those years, in Bombay, as it was called back then, if you spoke anything other than Marathi,

00:59or if your tongue carried even a faint accent, you were quickly labelled a Lungiwala or a Madrasi.

01:04People noticed everything. Malayalis were often seen selling coconuts, working as tenographers,

01:09or serving as office boys. The shaktis and other canal diggers ran hotels and eateries.

01:14The millions found work in banks and clerical offices. Those from Andhra Pradesh were pushed into

01:18heavier labour-intensive jobs, especially construction. Things took a darker turn in early 1968.

01:24After the 1965 anti-Hindi riots in Tamil Nadu, cinema halls in Madras had stopped screening

01:29Hindi films. In Bombay, Bal Thakri seized on this moment. He appealed to theatre owners in

01:34Bombay to stop showing South Indian films, arguing that southern filmmakers earned their money in

01:39Bombay and carried it back home. When persuasion failed, force followed.

01:43In February 1968, Shiv Sena workers attacked Ganesh Toki's Lal Baag and halted the screening of

01:47this movie called Admi. By March 16th, 1968, a total ban on South Indian films was enforced

01:54in Bombay. Under the shadow of slogans like Bajao Pungi Hatao Lungi, South Indians lived with fear

01:59of being mocked, cornered or beaten in public, or being called outsiders in their own country.

02:04Some parents stopped sending children to school. Men moved in groups. Families clustered in safe

02:09neighbourhoods with people who spoke the same language and shared the same dread. Telugu speakers gravitated to

02:14Kamathipura and Worli's BDD Chawls. The millions settled in Matunga, Sion and parts of Worli, avoiding

02:19Marathi-dominated areas like Parel, Dadar and Girgaon. Now, let's land this in the present, right?

02:24So, the BMC election is not one big national election. Parties have to do ward by ward mathematics

02:29to win. That's why community pockets matter. Which is why Annamalai would have campaigned in

02:33those few wards in Mumbai where Tamil voters matter. Raj Thakre may have an issue with the BJP.

02:38It's a party he has allied with in the past, but to revive the communal slogan that truly belongs

02:42in the dustbin, that's not done or at least that's how I feel about it. But tell me what

02:46you think. Leave a comment. Share the video. I'm Anish Adhikari. Thank you for watching

02:50The Culture Project on Mo.