In NE outreach via Dwarka, Centre, Gujarat scale up Madhavpur fair amid some discordant notes

The Madhavpur fair is now jointly organised by the Union ministry of culture, Union ministry of development of NE states and the Gujarat government, in which the leaders, including chief ministers, and artistes from the NE region are also invited. Ahead of the fair, this year various exhibitions were held in major cities of Gujarat to showcase handicrafts from the NE states. NE students studying in Gujarat visit the fair, even as young delegates from the region are also brought in for the occasion as part of the “students exchange programme”.

The Madhavpur fair is now jointly organised by the Union ministry of culture, Union ministry of development of NE states and the Gujarat government (Express)

Significantly, this year also saw a major expansion of the Madhavpur fair to involve the neighbouring district, Devbhumi Dwarka, which is being promoted as a major tourist hub by Gujarat as well as the Centre.

The “wedding reception of Krishna and Rukmini”, held near the Dwarka circuit house on the evening of April 3, the last day of the fair, saw thousands assemble on the sea coast. Organised by the Gujarat Pavitra Yatradham Vikas Board (GPYVB), an autonomous body of the Gujarat government, this event was attended by Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat and a slew of BJP leaders, including Pema Khandu and Himanta Biswa Sarma, Chief Ministers of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam respectively, Union minister of state for culture, Meenakshi Lekhi, Manipur power minister Thongam Biswajit Singh, Gujarat tourism minister Mulu Bera and others.

While the celebrations in Madhavpur, which had begun with Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel inaugurating the fair in the presence of Union law minister and Arunachal Pradesh MP Kiren Rijiju on March 30, ended in the evening on April 3, “Krishna-Rukmani’s wedding reception event” in Dwarka continued late into the night that also featured an opera depicting their marriage.

Sarma, who had campaigned aggressively in the Gujarat Assembly polls in December last year, chose the sidelines of the Madhavpur fair to join issue with Delhi CM and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal.

“When Lord Krishna returns to the capital of his kingdom of Dwarka with a queen after marrying her in Madhavpur, he has to be accorded a befitting reception,” R R Raval, the GPYVB secretary, said adding, “While this is for the first time that the reception in Dwarka has been attempted as an extension of the Madhavpur Mela, the idea is to invite people to make this their own event in Dwarka also and do it every year.”

According to the mythology, Lord Krishna had migrated from Mathura to Dwarka and established his kingdom there. After receiving a letter from Rukmini, the daughter of King Bhishmak or Bhimak of Vidarbha in present-day central India, Krishna brought her from there to Dwarka. En route to his kingdom, he tied the knot with her in Madhavpur. The annual Madhavpur fair, organised near the Madhavraiji (another name of Lord Krishna) temple in the village, centres around their marriage.

The folk literature in Arunachal Pradesh has references that Rukmini belonged to Idu Mishmi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh. To highlight this “cultural connect between Northeast and west,” the Centre and the Gujarat governments took charge of organising the Madhavpur fair from Madhavraiji Mandir Trust (MMT) and the Madhavpur village panchayat since 2018. While the fair remained a subdued affair in 2019 due to the Lok Sabha elections, it was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“But this year, the participation of people was the biggest I have ever seen in my life,” says Janak Purohit, an MMT trustee, who conducts the Krishna-Rukmini marriage rituals during the fair.

Between March 30 and April 2, almost all senior ministers of the Gujarat government addressed the fair participants in Madhavpur in the evenings. So did Union ministers like Pratima Bhoumik and Arjun Ram Meghwal as well as Sikkim CM Prem Singh Tamang before the artistes from Gujarat and NE states gave their performances.

While the BJP-led Gujarat government mobilises thousands during the Madhavpur fair and runs free bus services, it lost its only Assembly seat in the district when its incumbent MLA Babu Bokhiria lost to the Congress’s Arjun Modhwadia from Porbandar in the December polls. Kutiyana, the other Assembly seat in the district, has been with Kandhal Jadeja, who had won the seat twice as the NCP candidate before retaining it in December polls on the Samajwadi Party’s ticket.

While the management of the fair is now done by the Gujarat government’s Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited (TCGL) and the youth sports and cultural activities department besides the Porbandar district administration, the GPYVB, which works for development of major places of worship in the state, was given the responsibility of organising “Krishna-Rukmini’s wedding reception”.

Raval, the GPYVB secretary, said there was nothing unusual in it. “GPYVB organises cultural events during the annual Poornima fair in Ambaji. We have also been organising Shabari Mahotsava in Dang district in south Gujarat for the past two years,” he said.

The GPYVB has already started work on Rs 48 crore worth of projects in Madhavpur. “As part of phase-I development of Madhavpur, work has already started for developing the Chori (a mandap) in Madhuvan where the marriage ceremony of Lord Krishna and Rukmini takes place. We will also renovate the existing Madhavraiji temple, Brahmakund etc and build a new access road leading to the temple. In phase-II, we shall restore the old Madhavraiji temple,” Raval said. The Madhavpur beach is also known for its green sea turtle hatchery.

These are all “welcome initiatives”, said Bhanu Bhuva, the sarpanch of the Madhavpur village. “But the upscaling of the fair has increased the price of plots the vendors and traders need for setting up stalls on the fairground. VVIP movements often force shops in the villages to remain closed. On top of all this, I am afraid, village panchayat will lose a big source of revenue as this year, neither the panchayat was kept in the loop for auction of plots nor has the government shared any proceeds of the auction with the panchayat,” he said, adding, “We have no problem with the government taking over the task of organising the fair. But historically, this has been a religio-cultural fair for people of Madhavpur and surrounding villages and it must not be transformed into a political fair.”

However, connecting the fair in Madhavpur village with Dwarka town provides an overarching backdrop for a grand finale of an event associated with Krishna.

In recent years, the BJP-ruled Centre has spent crores in developing infrastructure in Dwarka under its Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), with the GPYVB currently being in the process of getting a survey done of places around Dwarka which can be developed.

The state government had demolished scores of houses in Bet Dwarka island near Dwarka, on which another major shrine of Lord Krishna is located, in October last year, calling them “encroachment on government land”. It also did the same in Gandhvi, a coastal village near goddess Harsiddhi temple on the border of Devbhumi Dwarka and Porbandar last month. The majority of these structures razed belonged to the minority community. “You know what signal Lord Krishna is giving by these developments,” Purohit said.

Many are enthused in Dwarka over the prospect of the Krishna-Rukmini wedding reception becoming a regular feature in their town. “When the vehicle representing chariot arrived in Dwarka, people were overjoyed and started wondering why such an event was not organised so far and if they had remained in a slumber all these years despite Madhavpur Mela having been a regular calendar event,” said Jyoti Samani, who completed her term as the Dwarka municipality president in February. “After the two big religious events, the Fuldol (Holi celebrations) and Krishna Janmashtami, this wedding reception will become a huge annual event which will not merely be a religious but also a cultural event. People from outside Gujarat who come to Madhavpur will now also come to Dwarka. This will support the local economy while also spreading the word about the grandeur of Dwarka to faraway places.”