Bal Keshav Thackeray was an Indian politician who founded the Shiv Sena, a right-wing Marathi ethnocentric party active mainly in the western India's Maharashtra.
Background
Thackeray was born in Pune on 23 January 1926 and was the son of Keshav Sitaram Thackeray (also known as 'Prabodhankar' Thackeray). His family were Marathi Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhus. Keshav Thackeray was a progressive social activist and writer who was against caste biases and was involved with the Samyukta Maharashtra Chalwal (literally, United Maharashtra Movement) in the 1950s, arguing for the Maharashtra to become an independent Marathi-speaking state with Mumbai as its capital.
Career
Thackeray started his career as a cartoonist in the Free Press Journal in Bombay. His cartoons were also published in the Sunday edition of The Times of India. In 1960, he launched a cartoon weekly Marmik with his brother. He used it to campaign against the growing numbers and influence of non-Marathi people in Mumbai, targeting Gujaratis and South Indians. After Thackeray's differences with the Free Press Journal, he and four or five people, including George Fernandes, left the paper and started their own daily News Day. The paper survived for one or two months.
He formed the Shiv Sena on 19 June 1966 with the intent of fighting for the rights of the natives of the state of Maharashtra. The early objective of the Shiv Sena was to ensure job security for Maharashtrians competing against immigrants from southern India, Gujaratis and Marwaris. In 1989, the Sena's newspaper Saamna was launched.
Politics
Politically, Thackeray was anti-communist.