A rethink on public celebration of Ganesh festival required

By abhay mokashi

The ten-day Ganesh festival, celebrated largely in Maharashtra initially and now having spread across the world, has come to an end. There were restrictions on public celebration of the festival during the last two years, due to the COVID 19 pandemic.

The public celebration of Ganesh festival is 140 years old and there is a need to take a fresh look at the way the festival is celebrated currently.

Historically, there are references to the public celebration of Ganesh festival during the time of rule of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, who used the festival to unite Hindus, by instilling nationalist feeling among them, against the Mughals.

Later, for various reasons, the public celebration took a back seat, though people continued to install Ganesh idols at home, during the festival. The festival was, and is still more popular in the Konkan region. In modern times, the public celebration of the festival started, thanks to the initiative of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Records show that Tilak had watched rallies to mark the observation of Muharram by a section of the Muslims. The observation of Muharram showed the unity of the Muslims and even a large number of Hindus participated in the Muharram rallies. There are references to Hindus taking out Muharram rallies, even where there were very few Muslims or no Muslims at all.

(It is a matter of pride for the state today that several Muslims participate in Ganesh festivals and some of them even install the idol in their homes.)

Tilak did not like the participation of Hindus in the Muharram rallies and he decided to launch public celebration of the ten-day Ganesh festival, which was tell then confined to homes of the devout Hindus. The starting of the public celebration of the festival was also due to a riot between the Hindus and the Muslims, the previous year.

Later writings, say that Tilak started the festival to instill nationalist feelings among the Hindus, but that does not seem to be the case at the start of the public celebration in 1892.

There is no doubt that in the succeeding years, several groups (mandals) used the celebration as a platform to arouse nationalism to make the Freedom Movement stronger. The Ganesh festival celebration soon saw the staging of Marathi sangeet natak, classical music programmes by renowned musicians, lectures on social issues, history and Freedom Fighting by scholars and eminent people. After India became free, these programmes continued, but a new form of entertainment took an entry and that was screen of Hindi feature films on the road side. Ganesh Mandals would hire 16 mm films and projectors to screen the films on the roadside. This continued till the late seventies or so, but gradually the organisation of the festival took a different turn. Lectures and talks by intellectuals or staging of dramas and musical performances stopped and emphasis was laid on the decoration and in popularising the Ganesh idol, by attracting more people. Mandals spent huge amounts of money on decoration and claimed that their Ganesh idol fulfills the desires of the devotees.

Today crores of rupees are spent collectively on the public celebration and equal or more amount of money is collected by the mandals by way of donations and offerings by devotees. There are still numerous groups of people, who collect donations for the festival, without having a registered mandal. This means there is no audit of their accounts and they are not accountable to anybody. In many places the pandals occupy half the roads and in some places in Mumbai public transport bus stops are either covered by the pandal or are shifted to make way for the pandals. All this is allowed by the local police and civic authorities.

The religious sentiments of the organisers are questionable due to the acts of violence seen every year, with mandal volunteers beating up devotees or when the volunteers involve themselves in non-religious acts.

Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) has been running campaigns on environmental issues and telling people to make the festival eco-friendly, over the last few years. This year, the campaign is against the use of single-use plastic. In previous years, the MPCB campaigned for eco-friendly Ganesh idols.

Environmentalists have been expressing concern over air and noise pollution during the festival, due to the liberal use of gullal and the beating of the dhol-taasha. Gullal is known to affect the lungs and for causing discomfort to those already suffering from lung infections. The sound of the dhol-taasha is beyond tolerable limits for the ears. There is no doubt, that these are traditions, but some traditions have to change according to time, the way the tradition of child marriage was abandoned. Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis, who appear in the MPCB ad against single-use plastic, are silent on the issue of gullal and dhol-tasha, fearing they would hurt Hindu sentiments.

The two leaders have also relaxed the restrictions on the size of the idols and there is no stay on idols made of Plater of Paris and chemical based colours, which pollute the water, in which they are immersed, be it a river, lake or the sea.

Traditionally, the aartis are sung after fixed religious rituals, now that has changed; they are sung as rituals when politicians visit. This is seen at public celebrations as well as at the Ganesh idols installed at media houses.

The magnanimity of the celebration should be gauged by the service to society and not by the size of the idol or the decoration. The devout pray to this god to give them Buddhi (to awake). Many need to be awakened to protect the environment during the festival.