Bal Thackeray was a newspaper cartoonist who founded Shiv Sena, an extreme Hindu nationalist party which enjoys a large following in Mumbai. Thousands acclaimed Thackeray as a champion of the local Marathi-speaking peoples of Maharastra State, but his party became notorious for inflaming tensions between local Hindus and Muslims.
In 2007 Thackeray urged his followers to form Hindu “suicide squads” to attack Muslims. He was charged with inciting hatred, but never convicted.
And in 1992, Shiv Sena leaders and members were held responsible by an official inquiry for fomenting the unrest which sparked the worst riots in Mumbai’s history. Nine hundred people, including 575 Muslims and 275 Hindus, died in the violence, a response to the burning of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, North India,