Sambhaji Brigade
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Sambhaji Brigade is a hard-line pro-Maratha organization in the state of Maharashtra, India. The organization is named after Sambhaji, son of the first Maratha king Shivaji.
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[edit] History
The organization was founded by Purushottam Khedekar, also prominent in the Maratha Seva Sangh, a related organisation. Khedekar, an executive engineer in the state Public Works Department, founded the MSS in 1990 'to work for upliftment of the Maratha community'. Soon, many unemployed youths from the rural areas joined the organization. The organization's network is now spread almost all over Maharashtra and even Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and in farther states like Hariyana.
[edit] Ideology
The outfit distances itself from the Hindutva organisations and considers itself as the ideological descendant of the Maratha Empire. The outfit's members consists of mostly Maratha youths from the rural interiors of Maharashtra. The organisation's ideology is directed against the control of Marathi Brahmins in historiographical institutes. The parent organisation MSS's founder Khedekar is alleged to have close ties with many Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders, although the NCP denies it. Although politically inactive, the organization claims to be a social forum for Maratha revival.
[edit] Controversies
The Sambhaji Brigade attacked Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute of Maharashtra in January 2004, claiming that the Institute had assisted in defaming Shivaji. Later the Sambhaji Brigade issued statements reflecting a stand that criticized the control that Brahmins have over institutions such as Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. The group claims that Brahmin historians have overemphasized the roles of people such as Ramdas Swami and Dadoji Konddev (who were Brahmins) on the life of Shivaji.
This group attacked some portions of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, to protest against the slanderous remarks about Maratha Empire founder Shivaji by American academic James Laine.
In 2006, the organisation's activists ransacked the office of Marathi daily Loksatta, protesting that the newspaper did not publish photograph of Chhatrapati Shivaji on the front page on the occasion of Shivjayanti, the birth anniversary of Shivaji.
