(This is the latest edition of the Political Line newsletter curated by Varghese K. George. The Political Line newsletter is India’s political landscape explained every week. You can subscribe here to get the newsletter in your inbox every Friday.)
Several videos of events related to Ganesh Utsav from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh surfacing online this year prompted me to make some inquiries. Ganesh Utsav, which used to be largely confined to Maharashtra, has travelled east to the Hindi heartland. The increasing popularity of Ganesh Utsav in the Hindi heartland is a marker of the social remittance of the migrants who travel between these States. It also suggests an increasing nationalisation of culture aided by social media consumption, alongside the movement of people.
I spoke to friends in Gorakhpur, U.P.; and Madhubani, Bihar, who said that in recent years Ganesh Utsav events are increasingly part of the local calendar. In Krishnipatti village in Madhubani, there were two events in recent days: the first, a one-day programme organised by a Dalit man; the second, a five-day affair organised by a member of the Yadav community.
Both have ties to Maharashtra, where they remain connected. The Dalit man, Mohan Ram, is linked to the Congress party locally, while Ranjan Raj Yadav is associated with the RJD. Mr. Ram’s event might cost several thousands, while Mr. Yadav’s had a budget of several lakhs. The second one also involved a performance by Annapurna Yadav, an emerging Bhojpuri singer. “Ganesh Utsav events started in our village in the last five to seven years,” a resident told me.
It is not that the Ganesh Utsav celebration is unknown in the heartland. In 1893, Bal Gangadhar Tilak turned what used to be a private affair of Ganesh puja around Chaturthi into a public celebration, in Marathi regions. It was a tool to overcome the restrictions on political assembly by the British. Within four years, in 1897, Varanasi had a public Ganesh Utsav, but that was largely by the Marathis who lived there. The public processions and pandals gained quick popularity in the western part of India, serving as part politics and part religion. Marathi families that moved to other parts of the country carried the custom through the 20th century. Kanpur, Lucknow, and Varanasi began to have Ganesh Utsav pandals.
What seems different now is that people of the heartland who travel to the west coast of India return to their native places with new cultural learnings. The Ganesh Utsav, due to its hugely public character, becomes a marker of this social and cultural remittance. In Maharashtra itself, the Utsav pandals have grown into massive cultural enterprises. “Many pandals now have budgets of several crores of rupees. Small players can no longer think of setting one up any longer,” a politician from Maharashtra told me.
As we can see, there is a transformation of the festival itself as it travels to new territories, and what passes off as cultural performances along with worship and piety. The same issue is relevant in the context of the controversy around the visit of the spiritual head of the Swaminarayan sect to Paris this month. He was there to preside over a 13-day Festival of Culture and inauguration of a temple. The visit became controversial as the organisation reportedly requested limited visibility of women at the Eiffel Tower, when the head of the sect was around.
It is unlikely that the BAPS leader could have travelled all the way from Gujarat to Paris, avoiding the presence of women in his proximity. The point is that however rigid a practice or a doctrine may have been at one point, everything changes over time. The Paris brouhaha will, without doubt, force the sect to revise its approach towards women. If the choice is between being a global organisation with relaxed norms and being confined to a Gujarat village with all its puritan norms, I think the sect will go with the first. M.K. Gandhi faced this dilemma when he was planning to travel to study in England in 1888. His community threatened him over breaching the law of not crossing the ocean. He defied them, and as they say, the rest is history.
FEDERALISM TRACT – NOTES ON DIVERSITY
Code of Conduct
Union Home Minister Amit Shah promises that the Uniform Civil Code will be implemented in all 21 States where the BJP and the NDA are in power by 2029. The UCC bill has passed the State Assemblies of the BJP-ruled Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Assam, and Madhya Pradesh. Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and West Bengal have constituted committees for it.
Religious instruction and children
The Supreme Court is hearing a petition seeking the mandatory state registration and supervision of all educational institutions attended by children up to 14 years of age. The petition says “thousands of unregistered and unregulated institutions are radicalising the children under the garb of imparting religious instruction…”
People and Territory
Integrating territories is one thing, but integrating people is quite another, said Vice-President C.P. Radhakrishnan. He was speaking on the occasion of the celebration of Hyderabad Liberation Day, i.e., the integration of Hyderabad state into the Indian Union following Operation Polo.
State of the country
The Supreme Court remarked that Tamil Nadu has to change its anti-Hindi mindset, and “individual States cannot act like individual countries”. The bench urged collaboration between the Central and State governments. The oral observation came while it was hearing a petition concerning the implementation of the Navodaya Vidyalaya Scheme in Tamil Nadu.