“If we fail to reunite, future generations will not forgive us,” went a line in the editorial of Saamna, the official newspaper of the Shiv Sena for decades now with Uddhav Thackeray. The line was capping a lengthy lament for Maharashtra, Maharashtrians and Marathi but embedded in it was the signal for us to make sense of the noise around the Thackeray cousins, Uddhav and Raj, reuniting personally and politically. Given the long decades of acrimony between them, nearly 20 years after Raj left the party that he assumed he would lead one day, the rapprochement is easier in thought than in realpolitik.

It will be difficult for both the Thackerays to let bygones be bygones, for one to accept the leadership and idiosyncrasies of the other, for both to convince their second-rung leadership and cadre to reunite, and for their camaraderie of the 1980-90s to return, but if they manage to reach that level of sanguinity, it is unlikely to be for Maharashtra or the Marathi manoos alone. They would be driven by the love of their sons too—Aaditya, now a two-time MLA and a former minister in his father Uddhav’s cabinet, and Amit, who lost the 2024 Assembly election from Mahim, one of the old Sena strongholds in Mumbai.

Raj’s olive branch came in a podcast with his friend and filmmaker Mahesh Manjrekar last week, to which Uddhav responded with alacrity and positivity, but second-rung leaders did not........

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