24 SOCIAL SCIENTIST survive, a degree offbrmalizationis necessary, bat this, along with decentralization, need not proceed apace with its capacity to increasingly expand its area of activity.11 This point we hope to illustrate in this paper taking the example of the Shiv Sena organization. Certain organizations thrive, as we shall sec , with a loose and amorphous structure. Though the Shiv Sena was more organized in 1974 than in 1966, the increase in organizational complexity did not arise from the internal dynamics of organization so much as the pressing influences that the social milieu exerted on it. It had to take up diverse issues and expand its support base if the Shiv Sena were to survive as a vital organization and also protect the interests of those it purported to. Another issue which needs to be raised before we go into the empirical analysis of the organization of the Shiv Sena is the issue of charisma and institutionalization. According to Weber, as institutionalization and formalization increased, charismatic authority receded. However, we find that this is not borne out in the case of the Shiv Sena. Bal Thackeray, as we shall see, is in many ways a typical charismatic leader which allows him to exercise complete dictatorial authority over the organization. But Thackeray himself encouraged a certain amount of formalization in the organization without losing either his grip over it or his charisma. Secondly, in the process of diversification of the organization, Thackeray's charismatic appeal reached out to wider sections, and a larger number of people were also made aware of Thackeray's "superior abilities" by his lieutenants and supporters. Therefore, instead of chipping away at his charismatic authority, the diversification actually helped to build it up. The concrete case of the Shiv Sena is interesting in this respect. It might also throw some light on the fact that the incidence of charismatic authority or of its fading away, is not so much an individual or organizational phenomena as it is a social one. One needs to examine more thoroughly the peculiar concurrence of social and individual factors which build and break charismatic authority. With this brief theoretical exercise let us proceed to describe the Shiv Sena organization. We shall discuss them in the following sequence: a) the emergence of the organization; b) organizational structure; c) components and their activities; d) mobilization and diversification; c) leadership, decision-making, control and communication; f) recruitment.