Marathi Vs Hindi: Is the 'Marathi Manoos' Sentiment Still Politically Relevant In Maharashtra?

The BJP-led Mahayuti government's decision to bring in the Hindi language in schools as a mandatory subject from first grade became a big political issue last month, just ahead of the beginning of the new academic year in the state.

It was announced in a government resolution in May 2025 that the Hindi language is to be taught as a third language from first grade, and that became a political issue with Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navanirman Sena, or MNS, who announced that they will oppose the decision and take to the streets in various cities of the state.

After a lot of debate in the regional media and many other political parties, apart from the MNS, speaking against the government policy on the issue, the state government announced it would roll back the decision for the time being and take a final decision on the subject after discussing the matter with all the stakeholders.

The regional media and opposition parties may have raised a storm over what they called the "imposition of Hindi in education", but are the voters and the public at large in the state really conscious about preserving the Marathi language and ensuring that it remains the dominant language in the state?

Maharashtra has witnessed a steady stream of migrants into the state ever since it was formed in 1960. Mumbai, as the financial capital of the country, attracted migrants from all parts of the country. In the past few decades, other cities in the state, such as Pune, Thane, Nagpur, Nashik, and Kolhapur, have also witnessed constant migration from north and east India.

The feeling of insecurity among the local Marathi population in Mumbai, coupled with the impression that jobs were being taken away by migrants and the local population was suffering, gave rise to regional parties like Balasaheb Thackeray's Shiv Sena, which was formed in 1966.

The Shiv Sena grew as the party of the "Marathi Manoos", as the locals are known in Marathi, and spread its influence slowly but steadily in the 1970s and 80s. Towards the end of the 1980s, when Shiv Sena got into an alliance with the BJP, the party turned towards Hindutva and focused on issues like Ayodhya and other Hindutva agenda subjects.

This brought many non-Marathi leaders close to Shiv Sena, and the party's base widened among Mumbai's non-Marathi people. However, it also diluted Shiv Sena's original Marathi Manoos-centric agenda majorly. Riding on the Hindutva wave, the party came into power in the state for the first time in 1995, with Manohar Joshi as the chief minister and BJP's Gopinath Munde as the deputy chief minister.

The Shiv Sena realised at that time that it was not the Marathi agenda but the Hindutva agenda that got it power, and Hindutva worked for it as a wider appeal all over Maharashtra. The party has kept focusing on the Hindutva agenda ever since.

The effects of the Congress party's economic policies of making India a free economy and bringing in foreign investment on a large scale changed a lot of things since the mid-1990s. Mumbai embarked on massive infra projects, and the city started looking like any big economic hub anywhere in the world. It was being compared with Dubai or Singapore by the ruling party at that time, and this changed the demography completely.

The city saw lakhs of migrants come every year, making the politicians realise that in the various cities of Maharashtra, the issues of protecting the Marathi Manoos or Marathi culture were slowly becoming irrelevant.

In 2006, Raj Thackeray fell apart with his cousin Uddhav Thackeray and launched his own political outfit, again on the issue of protecting the Marathi language and the rights of Marathi people. He won 13 seats in the state assembly in the 2009 polls, but, over time, Raj Thackeray's party has not been able to retain its numbers either in the assembly or in the municipal corporations.

One of the main reasons for this is that the MNS agenda of "Marathi Manoos" does not seem to be working in the cities of Maharashtra, and in the rural areas the spirit of Marathi culture being endangered does not exist!

Maharashtra has seen rapid industrialisation in the past four or five decades. Especially after the 1990s, the state has witnessed huge foreign direct investment coming into it, and this has transformed many cities in Maharashtra into industrial hubs, creating industrial jobs on a massive scale where English education is considered one of the key requirements.

Since the 1990s, there has been a huge growth in English medium schools in the state, and Marathi schools are seen shutting down. Across the social strata, parents want their children to get educated in English.

The aspiration is to learn English and get a white-collar job in the corporate world. All this has caused the decline of Marathi education and also of the feeling that Marathi needs to be protected or saved.

The spirit of "Marathi Manoos" is only an emotional appeal that politicians use to pitch to the Marathi-speaking population, but nobody is sure whether the voters really vote on the issue of Marathi in Maharashtra anymore. One particular case highlighting this is that of the MNS, whose vote share is constantly going down.

The current Marathi vs Hindi issue being blown up by some political groups is timed only with an eye on the upcoming civic polls in Mumbai, Thane and other cities of Maharashtra, but no political party is sure whether it will give the desired political dividends.

Rohit Chandavarkar is a senior journalist who has worked for 31 years with various leading newspaper brands and television channels in Mumbai and Pune.