The Shiv Sena’s mobilisation strategy was based on listening to the Charmakars, but also on making their means of expression available. It is not easy to describe the Shiv Sena. This party was originally based on regionalist demands. Founded in Bombay in 1966 in a context marked by the rise of ethnic assertion, it proposed to defend the rights of the ‘sons of the soil’, that is, Marathi-speaking Maharashtrians, and claimed preferential politics. These regional organisations mixed Hindutva issues with local, nativist demands, in a context of economic crisis and high immigration rates. The amalgam of these political ingredients met with a favourable response in Dharavi since the 1970s, particularly among leather workers. In fact, the presence of a significant proportion of Muslims in Dharavi, which was estimated at over 20 per cent, did not necessarily promote communal tensions, because the two communities had been living together for a century.