Sambhaji Brigade

Sambhaji Brigade is an organization with local intentions of preventing growth of bodies promoting Anti-Maratha-Kunbi sentiments. All-caste organized Kunbi Maratha led youth organization situated in Maharashtra, a western state of India. Among the organization's missions is to revive the glory of the Maratha Empire, which at its peak, extended from Attock in present day Pakistan to Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu. This expansion of territory was during the reign of and was the brain child of Shivaji Maharaj as to protect the spread of Islam.The name Sambhaji is of the Maratha ruler who is known as a "Dharamveer" (Religious Hero) as he refused to convert to Islam and became a martyr. He is has prevented the Portuguese Catholics from converting locals and prosecuted many Catholics on the order of religious Brahmins. Catholic Indian - "Enter Sambhaji.

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.It has its share in social activities.

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.There are many Marathi-speaking Muslim youths in the outfit as well. The organisation's ideology is directed against the Brahmins of Marathi society. 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 and Maratha ethnocentrism. The anti-brahmin hate group Sambhaji Brigade attacked Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute of Maharashtra in January 2004, claiming that the Institute had defamed Shivaji. Later the Sambhaji Brigade issued statements reflecting anti-Brahmin sentiments.[6] These groups appear to be jealous of the popular Brahmins in Maharashtrian history and even in present day.They hate Samarth Ramdas swami , a revolutionary Brahmin saint from 17th century calling them as “Randibaj Ramdas” They have also started movement against the statue of Dadoji Kondedv – Kulkarni claiming that he was not early mentor of Shivaji Maharaj and issued a circular to destroy his statue in Lal Mahal of Pune.

Controversies

Destruction of BORI by **Sambhaji Brigade** militia.

This group vandalised and destroyed some portions of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute which is a UNESCO recognised heritage site and ransacked precious artifacts, to protest against the allegedly slanderous remarks about Maratha Empire founder Shivaji and Rajmata Jijaai by American academic James Laine.

The group's activists were also in the news for attacking Hindutva leader K. S. Sudarshan with footwear, when he was in Solapur, to protest against the policies of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

In 2006, the organisation's activists ransacked the office of Marathi daily Loksatta, protesting that the newspaper did not publish photograph of Chhatrapati Shivaji and Dadoji, Ramdas on the front page on Shivjayanti, the birth anniversary of Shivaji.

References

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