Shiv Sena

Shiv Sena is depicted as a dominant political force in Mumbai whose control of the city shapes the risks of public protest. In the novel, its presence is felt through the organizers’ expectation that a human chain supporting national integration will encounter obstruction and possible violence as it passes through areas identified with the party.

Political position

During a meeting attended by Salahuddin Chamchawala, George Miranda contrasts Mumbai with Kerala, where the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had recently organized a successful human chain. In Mumbai, he argues, Shiv Sena is in control, making a similar demonstration a very different undertaking. The passage establishes the organization’s local political influence without detailing its structure or internal activities.

Anticipated opposition

The planned chain is to stretch from the Gateway of India to the city’s northern suburbs. Its organizers expect police obstruction and attacks by mobs, particularly where the route crosses Shiv Sena strongholds such as Mazagaon. The account presents these as anticipated dangers of holding the demonstration under the party’s political dominance; it does not establish that Shiv Sena itself directly carries out the threatened attacks.

Role in the demonstration

Zeeny Vakil explains that a public demonstration is necessary as communal violence escalates: the forces of disintegration must not be allowed to act without opposition. Shiv Sena consequently forms part of the immediate political context that makes the human chain both hazardous and urgent. The organization is not developed through an individual member or a separate account of its policies; its narrative significance lies in how its control of the city raises the stakes of a collective appeal for national integration.