Political yatris: About festivals celebrated on roads

Earlier this week thousands of Indians across several cities and towns were greatly inconvenienced as another set of Indians — boisterous, and at times bordering on delirious — held up traffic for hours on their way to the annual immersion, or Visarjan, ceremony of Lord Ganesha. In several cities like Mumbai, select corporates gave employees the option of breaking work earlier than usual. Till a couple of decades ago, participation in the Ganesh festival was restricted to western India, mainly Maharashtra where the festival had its roots as the elephant-headed god was the family deity of the Peshwas. The 10-day festival culminated on the occasion of Anant Chaturdashi, but the tradition died in the early decades of the 19th century, after the British took over the Peshwa empire.

The festival was not only revived by Bal Gangadhar Tilak in the 1890s, but was taken out of family houses and given a sarvajanik character. The 10-day-long Ganesh Chaturthi became a powerful occasion for creating political and social awareness, with skits, plays and musical drama being mounted on issues ranging from the freedom movement to the need for quality education. The festival had a cascading effect in other regions of the country and the tradition of Sarbojanin Durga Puja can be traced to this innovation of Tilak. Despite its origins in the Hindu revivalist idea, the Ganesh festival became an important component of the anti-colonial struggle.

After Independence, as communities and sub-nationalities migrated within India, they took their culture along and established little pockets of regional hubs. There are few towns and cities where Durga Puja is not held. Similarly, the Ganesh festival became part of the calendar in urban India wherever people from Maharashtra were present in sizeable numbers. Ganesh festivals, Durga Pujas and other festivals with mass character started having a pan-India presence — with an increased streak of lumpenisation — a couple of decades ago, around the same time when the Ram Janmabhoomi movement’s success popularised the idea of cultural nationalism in a vulgar manner. Religious festivals became an occasion to stamp their identity and “challenge” the other.

Immersion processions at the conclusion of the Ganesh festival or, for that matter, all such processions have become major occasions of worry for police and other security agencies because participants get increasingly drunk and display rowdy behaviour. There is a direct connect between the extent of participation in these festivals and the current political disposition. In North India, the annual Kanwar Yatras — the annual pilgrimage of the devotees of Shiva  from Hardwar to their towns and villages during the Hindu month of Shrawan, which coincides with the monsoons — has seen turnout that is directly linked to which party is in power at the Centre.

Till the mid-1980s, Kanwar Yatras used to be relatively low-key. However, the annual sojourn became more participative as they became occasions to assert identity in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The first sign of what was to come was clear when Kalyan Singh was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. A simple religious pilgrimage became a political tool for the Bharatiya Janata Party and its larger political fraternity in the Sangh Parivar. For people who joined the festival, it was a beneficial break from the daily, often dehumanising, rigmarole. Most who became “kanwariyas” were those who lived on the margins of society or were part of its underbelly.

Throughout the year they would struggle trying to make ends meet but be treated like the scum of the earth, but for these few days they would be received at garishly lit tents with assorted sherbets and choicest savouries. The annual Kanwar Yatra had political support in the years that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was in power in Delhi. Its local leaders sponsored tents for the yatris to rest and recharge. When the NDA was voted out, the number of Kanwar yatris dwindled because there was little sponsorship.

This year the story was different and abundance was the key word. Naturally, the number of Kanwar yatris was much higher than last year. In Delhi, Ganesh immersion processions were more boisterous and had greater financial resources at their command than pervious years. It is not that all this is planned in Soviet style, with decisions being taken by the executive committee of the CPSU. The acquisition of political power sparks latent aggression and the tendency to overrun the “other” who is the perpetual enemy. In such a situation, religion is neither the soul of the soulless world nor the opium of the people.

It just provides yet another outing to browbeat the perceived “other”. Occasions like these are overtly aggressive towards religious minorities. Culture is the first target whenever major changes in social discourse are attempted. Since religion is the core element in the framework of cultural nationalism, the foot soldiers are the first ones who have to be duly assuaged and this is done by lavishing sponsorship on yatras, immersion processions and other such events. There has also been a call to insulate Hindu religion and festivals from non-Hindus, Muslims specifically. Calls have been given to ensure that Muslim boys are not allowed entry to grounds where garba dances are held this Navratras — the nine-day period before Dussehra.

“Love jihad” is the new Ram Janmabhoomi movement because the Ayodhya card no longer acts as the trump card. The ban on Muslims in garba festivals goes against the idea of assimilation that has been the cornerstone of Hindutva ideologues. So far, geographical ghettoisation has witnessed minorities moving into conclaves. But for the first time, the majority is ostracising the “other” from their space.

The campaign that Muslims are waging a “love jihad” against Hindus reeks of double standards. You’ll recall that a popular slogan during the heydays of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement had a crude sexual overtone: “Main Babur ka damad hoon” (I am the son-in-law of Babur, the Emperor). One of the principal necessities to keep social temperature in check is to restrict religion to private spaces.

The wheel has to be turned back and Ganesh festivals, Durga Pujas and other such events should be returned to altars and prayer rooms in homes so that roads and highways now cramped with political yatris and cultural immersionists can be reclaimed for civic purposes.

The writer is the author of Narendra Modi: The Man, the Times