The current generation is being called "cockroaches", just as Mughals had referred to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj as "chuha (rat), underscored Uddhav Thackeray, barely days after student protesters forced BJP's Dharmendra Pradhan to resign as Union Education Minister.
Thackeray praised the heroic efforts of the Maratha warrior who captured Torna Fort at 17, while still in his Gen Z phase, drawing a parallel with the Gen Z student protesters, led by the satirical Cockroach Janta Party, who forced the BJP Minister to resign. The Cockroach Janta Party, which takes its name form an insult, is founded by 30-year-old Abhijeet Dipke.
"Those who were insulted as "cockroaches' belong to what we now call Gen Z, roughly from the ages of 13 or 14 to 27 or 28. Wasn't Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj just about that age when he captured Torna Fort at 17. Even Shivaji Maharaj was called a 'chuha' by the Mughals. Wasn't Sant Dnyaneshwar also very young when he wrote the Dnyaneshwari? Both faced tremendous opposition in their own time," Thackeray said while speaking at the launch of a book in Mumbai.
He asserted that if his father, Balasaheb Thackeray, were alive today, the current administration would similarly brand him as "anti-Hindu."
"It takes courage to publish a book on the Thackeray family. If Balasaheb Thackeray were there today, he too would have been called anti-Hindu. Religion does not make a man. I can show the words of Balasaheb Thackeray in many speeches that 'humanity is religion'."
The Shiv Sena (UBT) leader further questioned the moral authority of those who weaponise religion for political dominance, "Don't you feel ashamed to loot the temple of that very Rama in whose name you gained power?"
