Abstract
The leading industrial state in India, Maharashtra, is widely seen as a region with a cohesive political identity. My article focuses on the complex, shifting collective memories of Maratha history centered on the heroic figure of the seventeenth-century warrior-king Shivaji Bhosale, and the role they have played in the fabrication/fragmentation of regional identity. The first section charts the historical discourses anchored in various perceptions of caste, class, religion, and nation, which contributed to the emergence of a seemingly consensual construct of Shivaji as a key axis of regional identity. The second delves into the state’s cultural politics during the last five decades and highlights certain dramatic episodes that were triggered by supposed slights to the hallowed memory of the Maratha king. The third section provides an analysis of these episodes and reveals the contested character of regional identity in contemporary Maharashtra, which is driven by deep-seated antagonism between different communities.
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