ISAS Working Papers

Summary

In the inner-city networks of Mumbai, the Women’s Wing of the Shiv Sena, the Mahila Aghadi, enjoys prominence and visibility. It methods of direct action have brought it renown and respect, but also a certain level of notoriety. This paper examines the creation, efficacy and political activities of the organisation.

Introduction 

Female positioning within politically right-wing male dominated spaces has always proved to be an area of both fascination and avoidance for feminist scholars. Feminist thinkers and participants in the male dominated political spaces often struggle to reconcile the patriarchal norms that most right-wing parties propagate with the visible forms of liberation and relative enfranchisement they see for themselves.¹ To this end, the women’s wing of the Shiv Sena (SS), the Mahila Aghadi (MA), ‘Women Ahead in Marathi, but more colloquially translated to ‘Women First’, is no different. While prominent the SS members are predominantly male, there exists an effective women’s wing that has gained a modicum of renown. 

There is some significant literature available on the politics of the MA. Sikata Banerjee’s (1996) work on the feminisation of violence and the role of women in the SS provides insights into the use of violence by women, the ends to which they use it for and the differences between the way men and women wield force.² Tarini Bedi’s (2006) work attempts to reconcile mainstream feminist theory with the actions of the women in the MA and discovers that organisations like the MA “redefine notions of masculinity and femininity”.³ Atreyee Sen’s (2007) ethnography on the MA points out how it “became a platform for chalking out strategies that allowed women to gain considerable control”⁴ over their lives and reconcile the conflicting aspects of their lives with each other. Similarly, another work by Bedi (2016) examines the MA’s methods of political brokerage.⁵  

This paper examines the role of MA within the male dominated SS in Mumbai. It discusses the formation of the MA’s network, how the SS’s reputation in Mumbai for using violent means to achieve their ends is bolstered in no small part by the direct action of its female members, and the political visibility of the MA. 

Formation of the Mahila Aghadi 

Before looking at the foundation of the MA, it is essential to discuss the birth of the SS and its politics. The SS, a martial party conceptualised in the image of the warrior Maratha king Shivaji Maharaj, was started as a movement to protect the interests of the “sons of the soil”.⁶ Bal Thackeray, a cartoonist turned politician, founded the party in 1966. The core ideology of the SS, as Eckert (2003) posits, revolves around the creation of an “existential conflict”, which warrants resorting to violence and militancy. The first ethnic group that Thackeray chose to vilify was the South Indians, advising against employing them in jobs that could otherwise be done by Maharashtrians, and even mocking their accents on occasion.⁷ The SS appealed to the Marathi manoos (Maharashtrian man) most doggedly, and it almost immediately drew strong support from lower middle-class Maharashtrians who perceived an unfair takeover of their city by whom they considered “outsiders”. The SS has largely avoided alienating members of the basis of caste – rather it has chosen to focus on a united Marathi identity and an existentialist threat to Marathi survival, over a stratified caste one.⁸ Over the years, although it has been noted that the bulk of the top leaders within the SS have been upper caste Marathis, with Bal Thackeray himself coming from the upper caste Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu community, while others belonged to the Brahmin and Pathare Prabhu castes. Interestingly, the SS draws its main support from the Maratha caste.⁹ Furthermore, the party also enjoys substantial support from Dalit voters.¹⁰ Popular support for the SS can be perceived by the 227 shakhas (branch offices) that are spread out all over the city.¹¹ By 1984, however, the SS had pivoted towards the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), another right-wing party, but one that focused squarely on the notion of political Hinduism or the Hindutva ideology. This was an alliance that would last for about 35 years, before crumbling in 2019.  

It was around 1984 that a specific Women’s Wing of the SS was created. The origins of the MA are hazy, but the Women’s Wing seemed to have got its official endorsement in 1985, when Bal Thackeray formally acknowledged its efforts.¹² The MA has a decentralised structure, and there appears to be no singular leader after Sudha Churi, who was the first appointed leader (pramukh) of the organisation. Churi stepped down from her position after she was elected to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in the mid-1990s.¹³ 

The MA has relied on grassroots recruiting strategies. It organises meetings, invites one another to shakhas and take part in intimate haldi-kumkum14 ceremonies to solidify friendships and draw uninitiated women into the folds of the Aghadi. Furthermore, the SS’ presence in the slums, visibly creating necessities – right from supplying water tankers and ambulances to large swathes of the inner city, to fixing infrastructural issues and preventing local businesses from being exploited by local small-time goons – has served it to attain popularity and garner further support for the MA’s activities.¹⁵ Particularly, most of the MA women begin their careers as balwadi (childcare) teachers, existing as a nexus between gendered work and political work which integrates them further into the female community. As Sen elucidates, “at each turning point in the women’s experiences…the SS appear to have intervened to comfort and console them.”¹⁶ 

Critical work on violence, and specifically political violence, has long ignored the standalone importance of the feminine body as exactors of violence. An implicit veil of domesticity that Indian women don necessarily prevents them from being recognised as creatures capable of causing violence, specifically physical violence, and are often overlooked in this regard.¹⁷ Sarkar (1999) finds that when women take on political work, they gain a “sense of physical well-being, strength and empowerment”, ¹⁸ a form of control and agency over their own bodies, which helps them to “release frustrations built up through being girls in orthodox families.”¹⁹ Bhatia (2009) suggests that groups such as the SS “make available a religious and patriotic platform where women can assert and feel empowered.”²⁰ Crucially, operating within the realm of this right-wing ideology is “convenient for women in a patriarchal setting since it creates no dichotomy for them between their gender expectations and political orientation.”²¹  

By joining groups such as the MA, women members feel that they can acquire positions of power. Since most women in the MA, particularly slum women, were recruited either through male members of their family or through female networks within the slums, this form of political involvement did not require any radical acts of emancipation.²² The MA provides its members with a sense of recognition, as well as the implicit power that comes with it, thereby giving them the ability to reject Western notions of feminism and female emancipation because of an alternative possibility presented to them.²³ This ensures that they are able to reconcile their right-wing ideals, societal norms and expectations as well as their own desire for power, implicit or otherwise. The parochial nature of the SS faces little to no direct challenge from the scores of women who count themselves within its ranks. Banerjee (1996) further proceeds to argue that the mobilisation of women by the SS through the MA must not and cannot be dismissed as a case of “‘false’ liberation” simply because it does not play by the rules of postmodern, Western feminism that “views empowered women as secular citizens.”²⁴  

Most of the MA members are no strangers to violence, gendered or otherwise. From accounts of domestic violence to sexual harassment over jobs and pay, the MA women’s experience with gender-based violence has been almost the same or even worse, given their living conditions and economic profiles. It is interesting then that their response to this adversity is to choose direct action and even violence, in response to the years of disempowerment faced. As Sen (2007) posits, these women found a reason to resort to collective direct action because of the ethos of the SS itself — no other organisation blatantly endorsed violence like the SS did, and for many, this use of “[v]iolence in the name of social and historical justice was the most ‘comfortable’ route to power, autonomy and public visibility.”²⁵ Indeed, as Eckert (2003) posits, the “specific interpretation of situations and of change offered in the practices of violent actionism” allow for the simultaneous “creation of community”, as well as the fulfilment of “the promise of ‘liberation’ and participation.”²⁶ This “violent actionism” creates a space for both individual ambitions and aspirations as well as communal solidarity to coexist, while also providing opportunities for direct action to be carried out.²⁷  

If the MA women find themselves unable to take up arms themselves, they resort to taking emasculating actions against their men who could engage in the use of force but do not. For example, actions such as forcing a gajra (a garland of jasmine flowers worn by women in their hair) onto a man’s head, offering him symbols of feminine adornment such as bindis (a coloured dot worn on the forehead mainly by Hindu women in India, Nepal and various other regions of South Asia) or bangles. Sometimes, they forcibly crossdress men by wrapping them in sarees publicly, shaming their lack of will to carry out direct action despite being in a position where they are able to.²⁸ As Sen describes, this “[prompts] the various patriarchal discourses” that the MA women had tolerated at great damage to their own sense of agency “to compensate for women’s assumed powerlessness during conflict situations.”²⁹ This creates what Sangari (1996) describes as a “structure of incitement”³⁰ which “challenges the non-negotiability of patriarchy.”³¹ 

During the Hindu-Muslim riots of 1992-1993, set into motion after the demolition of the Babri Masjid (Mosque) in Ayodhya by Hindu nationalist kar sevaks (religious volunteers) because it was believed to be the birthplace of the Hindu Lord Rama, the militant streak of the MA women came to the fore in an undeniable way. The MA’s role in that violence is intriguing because of the starkly gendered image it cast. The MA members not only succeeded in wreaking havoc during the riots but also displayed exactly what they were capable of, and the lengths to which they would go to achieve a goal.³² For example, while some women engaged in attacks, others spread  rumours of Muslim assaults on Hindu communities and even cast doubt on the masculinity of their own men who refused to take up arms or engage in direct confrontation.³³  In violence-torn localities of Mumbai such as Mahim, Dongri and Ghatkopar, as well as hundreds of other locations around the city, the MA women joined hands and formed barriers, physically putting themselves between the police who wanted to arrest male rioters or rescuers intending to aid Muslims in danger.³⁴ In doing so, even though they may not have carried out explicitly “physical violence”, their actions directly ensured that tensions remain high between the two communities, and thereby blur the boundaries of what is considered violence and what is not.³⁵ Sen (2007) locates the desire to carry out violence as stemming from “the normalisation of various forms of violent behaviour in the daily lives of poor women”, and that they “felt empowered”³⁶ to use force both freely and disproportionately against Muslim women to emphasise both the asymmetry of power between the two groups and in order to sustain the collective identity of militancy and direct violence that they had built up over the years.³⁷ In areas such as Nirmal Nagar in Bandra East, Sen’s (2007) work gives account of various MA members, including Kamla, a SS leader, who described her role in making petrol bombs and agitating the entire neighbourhood against its Muslim neighbours, as well as other unnamed female cadres who spread rumours about Muslims rejoicing in the face of Hindu suffering.³⁸  

For the MA women, the performativity of any action is very important – actions must be seen, heard, recorded and, as far as possible, retold in order to further bolster the strength of the image that the MA has built up over the years. Through displays like these, the MA women subliminally expressed their desire, and indeed their ability, to be on par with the violence that men could exact, thereby renegotiating their gendered lived experience without appearing too radical or unpalatable within the larger societal context.³⁹ 

Mahila Aghadi and Electoral Politics 

Given that “men’s agenda of public work tends to neglect women’s issues and is detrimental towards women’s advancement and progress in the larger interest of the society”,⁴⁰ it leaves a space for female corporators to intervene and cause substantial change for their constituents, which in turn boosts not just the popularity but also the long-term survivability of the SS, especially given the 33 per cent reservation of seats for women in local ruling bodies.⁴¹ Regardless of the affirmative action in place, many members of the MA who carry out important management and pastoral care duties find it hard to get tickets to run for seats in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly on a SS ticket. As Bedi (2016) points out, the MA women with “formal” political ambition find it hard to “count on formal political opportunities.”⁴² Currently, there is only one SS woman who has a seat in the Lok Sabha, Bhavana Gawali, as compared to the BJP, which has 42 women and the Indian National Congress (INC), which has six.⁴³ Nevertheless, there have been some female leaders in the SS and MA corporators, who wield significant power. Sudha Churi and Kalpana Sate (who was a municipal councillor in the Goregaon East ward) are examples of this.  

However, a worrying trend has emerged where members of the MA do not receive the level of political representation that other SS women do. One example of this is Priyanka Chaturvedi, a prominent politician who famously defected from the INC and now serves as the deputy leader of the SS, as well as holds a seat in the Rajya Sabha.⁴⁴ At only 41, Chaturvedi is not just one of the youngest, but also one of the only women to have attained such a high post within the party. More surprisingly, Chaturvedi is non-Maharashtrian, hailing from the Northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, actor Urmila Matondkar, who also previously contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election from the Mumbai North Constituency⁴⁵ as an INC candidate, joined the SS and was immediately nominated to the Maharashtra Legislative Council⁴⁶ – a distant dream for most women of the MA. By elevating these women to such high posts within an organisation that does not appoint many women to their highest ranks, it is largely believed that the SS risks alienating many of its most dedicated MA workers on the ground who may harbour political ambitions, especially due to the overt snubbing of the “sons of the soil” rhetoric that they have relied on to rise to prominence. 

For most members of the MA, their visibility comes instead from the actions that they take on the ground. For example, during the 2019 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections, when the Thackeray clan scion Aaditya Thackeray went to file his nomination from the Worli constituency in South Mumbai, members of the MA not only received him but also escorted him. Several MA members, as seen in videos of those processions, were garbed in saffron sarees, dancing, cheering and playing traditional instruments in front of Aaditya Thackeray’s jeep.⁴⁷ Since the young politician represents the future of the SS and the family, the presence of members of the MA shows the importance that this women’s wing holds within the SS structure. 

After its split with the BJP in 2019, the SS entered into coalition with the INC and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), which then formed the government of Maharashtra. While the SS brought its nativist policies to the table, the INC and the NCP are a lot less hardline and right-wing than the BJP. As a result, the SS and Uddhav Thackeray’s image by association has become a lot more moderate. 

The question that now remains is will the MA women still continue taking decisive, often violent actions? Essentially, yes. Regardless of the SS macro politicking, of the coalitions they enter into and may leave in the years to come, the women of the MA will continue doing things their way. This is especially true if they do not receive electoral representation, and the increased scrutiny that comes with that. Furthermore, the SS’ diffused grassroots structure means that actions taken on a larger, political scale have diffused effects by the time they trickle through to the different smaller communities. The breakdown of the SS-BJP coalition has affected the overall outlook and political strategies of the SS more than it has affected the MA women who mainly work at grassroots levels.⁴⁸ Additionally, even sans coalition, the SS’ political ways have shown no signs of stopping. In 2020, several Sainiks thrashed a retired Indian Navy officer for allegedly sharing a cartoon on WhatsApp that maligned Maharashtra Chief Minister and SS chair Uddhav Thackeray.⁴⁹ Similarly, in Beed district of Maharashtra, a member of the MA poured black ink, a common way of publicly defacing those who dare to speak ill of the SS, over a man who committed a similar act,⁵⁰ displaying once again the role that the MA played and continues to still play in curating the image of violence and vigilantism that surrounds the SS. Then, in September 2020, after actor Kangana Ranaut compared living in Mumbai under the governance of the MVA to living in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the MA protested against her comments.⁵¹ In videos circulating online, the MA members were seen throwing shoes on her effigies and shouting slogans opposing her words.⁵² 

However, their method of dadagiri (hooliganism) has also drawn flak on occasion. For example, Sandhya Doshi, a female SS corporator who was filmed yelling at doctors in a hospital during the height of the COVID-19 crisis in April 2021 and threatening their jobs, drew ire from many directions, and she was later forced to apologise for her actions.⁵³ This might be a harbinger of emerging attitudes towards the MA’s historically tough methods when the SS is in power with different coalition partners.  

Conclusion 

While this paper focused mainly on the female capacity to be violent and grounded it specifically within the MA, it is important to note that the MA does serve many other purposes beyond that, including pastoral care and helping with food and housing insecurity. Although the MA’s methods are, strictly speaking, unconventional, they are undeniably effective. It is perhaps the MA’s diffused nature that remains its biggest strength. While local leaders in various cities are easy to locate, Anita Mantri in Aurangabad, Meenakshi Chibber in Jammu and Kashmir and Sayali Botre in Maval, the overarching banner of the MA seems to have no singular supremo. This means that the MA is free to redefine the type of actions it will take in the specific places it operates in, while still remaining true to the SS core values of nativism and direct action. Whether in the years to come, the MA will continue to rely on direct action and the use of force remains to be seen. But for now, it simultaneously emancipates slum women and imbues the women of the SS with an almost fearsome quality that sets it apart from women’s organisations in other right-wing groups.  

. . . . .

Ms Stacy Fernandes is a former Research Intern at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She can be contacted at stacy.fernandes@u.nus.edu. Dr Amit Ranjan is a Research Fellow at the same institute. He can be contacted at isasar@nus.edu.sg. The authors bear full responsibility for the facts cited and opinions expressed in this paper.

Photo credit: Twitter/ShivSena

1 Atreyee Sen, Shiv Sena Women: Violence and Communalism in a Bombay Slum (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), p.7.
2 Sikata Banerjee, ‘The Feminization of Violence in Bombay: Women in the Politics of the Shiv Sena’, Asian Survey, 36(12) (December 1996), pp. 1213-1225. Accessed on 10 June 2021.
3 Tarini Bedi, ‘Feminist theory and the right-wing: Shiv sena women mobilize Mumbai’, Journal of International Women’s Studies, 7(4) 51 (May 2006), p. 57.
4 Atreyee Sen, op cit., p. 23.5  Tarini Bedi, Dashing Ladies of Shiv Sena: Political Matronage in Urbanizing India. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2016). 

5  Tarini Bedi, Dashing Ladies of Shiv Sena: Political Matronage in Urbanizing India. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2016). 

6  Mary Katzenstein, ‘Origins of Nativism: The Emergence of Shiv Sena in Bombay’, Asian Survey, 13(4), (April 1975), pp. 386-99. doi:10.2307/2642928. Accessed on 28 June 2021. 

7  Dipankar Gupta, ‘Why no one dared to mess with Shiv Sena?’ India Today, 1 December 2012, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/special-report/story/20121203-bal-thackeray-death-shiv-sena-harvester-of-fear-760815-1999-11-30. Accessed on 26 June 2021. 

8  Vaibhav Purandare, Bal Thackeray & the Rise of the Shiv Sena (New Delhi: Roli Books Private, 2013). 

9  Ibid. The Maratha caste is an intermediary caste formed out of the amalgamation of various occupation- centred castes in the Maharashtra region, and the majority of Shiv Sena’s Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs), or grassroots leaders, have come from this caste.  

10  Vaibhav Purandare, op. cit. 

11  Sujit Mahamulkar, ‘Shiv Sena to Convert Its Mumbai Shakhas into Clinics’, The Times of India, 2 June 2020, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/shiv-sena-to-convert-its-mumbai-shakhas-into- clinics/articleshow/76149791.cms. Accessed on 3 July 2021. 

12  Sayli Udas Mankikar, ‘Mahila Aghadi, Sena’s women’s army that even scared the government.’ Hindustan Times, 19 November 2012, https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai/mahila-aghadi-sena-s-women-s-army-that-even-scared-the-govt/story-872FX5i4QLU6rPCl45L8nJ.html. Accessed on 7 July 2021. 

13  Tarini Bedi (2016), op. cit, p. 82. 

14  Haldi-Kumkum ceremonies are Maharashtrian practices where women come together to adorn each other with tinctures of turmeric and colour as marks of respect as well as to pray for the well-being of their husbands.  

15  Atreyee Sen, op. cit., p. 27. 

16  Ibid. 

17  Amrita Basu, ‘Feminism Inverted: The Gendered Imagery and Real Women of Hindu Nationalism’, in Tanika Sarkar & Urvashi Butalia, (eds.) Women and right-wing movements: Indian experiences (London and New Jersey: Zed Books, 1995), p. 160. 

18  Tanika Sarkar, ‘Pragmatics of the Hindu Right: Politics of Women’s Organisations’, Economic and Political Weekly, 34(31), July 1999, pp. 2164, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4408263. Accessed on 6 July 2021.  

19  Ibid. 

20  Mohita Bhatia, ‘Women’s mobilisation in the Jammu agitation: religion, caste, community and gender’, Economic and Political Weekly, 44(26-27), June 2009, pp. 447-453, https://www.epw.in/journal/2009/26-27/special-articles/womens-mobilisation-jammu-agitation-religion-caste-community-and. Accessed on 7 July 2021. 

21  Ibid. 

22  Tarini Bedi (2016), op. cit., p. 91. 

23  Paola Bacchetta, ‘Militant Hindu Nationalist Women Reimagine Themselves: Notes on Mechanisms of Expansion/Adjustment.’ Journal of Women’s History, 10(4), (1999), pp. 132-34, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/363923/pdf. Accessed on 22 July 2021. 

24  Sikata Banerjee, op. cit. 

25  Atreyee Sen, op. cit., p. 42. 

26  Julia Eckert, The Charisma of Direct Action: Power, Politics, and the Shiv Sena (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 267. 

27  Ibid., p. 268. 

28  Atreyee Sen, op. cit., p. 49.  

29  Ibid., p. 50. 

30  Kumkum Sangari, ‘Consent, Agency and Rhetorics of Incitement.’ Economic and Political Weekly, 28(18), May 1993, pp. 867-882. 

31  Atreyee Sen, op. cit. , p. 50. 

32  Ibid., p. 74. 

33  Ibid., p. 47. 

34  Ibid., p. 59. 

35  Ibid.,  

36  Ibid., p. 48. 

37  Ibid., p. 54. 

38  Ibid., p. 53. 

39  Ibid. p. 65. 

40  Sanjay Kumar and Praveen Rai, ‘Gendered Political Exclusion: Crucial Implications for Indian Democracy,’ in Ghazala Jamil, (ed.) Women in social change: Visions, struggles and persisting concerns (New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2021), p. 129. 

41  Sujata Anandan, ‘Neelam Gorhe, Shiv Sena’s woman trailblazer’, Hindustan Times, 25 June 2019, https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/neelam-gorhe-shiv-sena-s-woman-trailblazer/story-1WvEDIrlDB4ct7SMvBrqUK.html. Accessed on 17 July 2021. 

42  Tarini Bedi, (2016), op. cit, p.98. 

43  Parliament of India, Female Members of the Lok Sabha, http://164.100.47.194/loksabha/Members/ women.aspx. Accessed on 19 July 2021. 

44  ‘Shiv Sena Nominates Priyanka Chaturvedi for Rajya Sabha Polls’, The Indian Express, 13 March 2020, indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/shiv-sena-nominates-priyanka-chaturvedi-for-rajya-sabha-polls-6311879/. Accessed on 28 July 2021. 

45  The Mumbai North Lok Sabha Constituency comprises six sub-constituencies. They are the areas of Borivali, Dahisar, Magathane, Kandivali East, Charkop and Malad West. 

46   Alok Deshpande, ‘Actor Urmila Matondkar joins Shiv Sena’, The Hindu, 1 December 2020, https://www. thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/urmila-matondkar-joins-shiv-sena/article33220906.ece. Accessed on 20 July 2021. 

 47  ‘Breaking the Age-old Tradition, Aditya Thackeray Files Nomination from Worli’, ABP News Live, 3 October 2019, news.abplive.com/videos/breaking-the-age-old-tradition-aditya-thackeray-files-nomination-from-worli-kbm-full-episode-1085652. Accessed 28 July 2021. 

48  Tarini Bedi, (2016), op. cit., p. 95. 

49  Munish Chandra Pandey, ‘Sena workers beat up ex-navy officer for sharing cartoon mocking CM Thackeray, says BJP MLA’, India Today, 11 September 2020, https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/sena-workers-beat-up-ex-navy-officer-for-sharing-cartoon-mocking-cm-thackeray-says-bjp-mla-1721002-2020-09-11. Accessed on 10 July 2021. 

50  ‘Maharashtra: Shiv Sena worker pours ink on man for criticising Uddhav Thackeray’, India Today, 1 January 2020, https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/maharashtra-shiv-sena-worker-pours-ink-man-criticising-uddhav-thackeray-1633019-2020-01-01. Accessed on 10 July 2021. 

51  Saurabh Gupta, and Divyanshu Dutta Roy, ‘Kangana Ranaut Vs Maharashtra Government Over “Mumbai-PoK” Remark’, NDTV.com, 4 September 2020, www.ndtv.com/india-news/kangana-ranaut-has-no-right-to-live-in-mumbai-if-she-feels-unsafe-maharashtra-minister-amid-row-over-her-remarks-2290453. Accessed 29 July 2021. 

52  ‘Women wing of Shiv Sena in Thane protest against remarks by actress Kangana Ranaut who likened Mumbai to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and criticised its police’, The Indian Express, 4 September 2020, https://twitter.com/IndianExpress/status/1301890084048789505. Accessed 29 July 2021. 

53  ‘“Dear politicians…”: Twitter furious as viral video of Shiv Sena corporator shouting at doctors prompts resignation threats’, Free Press Journal, 21 April 2021. https://www.freepressjournal.in/viral/dear-politicians-twitter-furious-as-viral-video-of-shiv-sena-corporator-shouting-at-doctors-prompts-resignation-threats. Accessed 10 July 2021.