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Journalism of Courage
Recently, while addressing a rally in Bhubaneswar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi defended his presence at Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud’s residence for Ganpati Puja by citing the role of Bal Gangadhar Tilak and the Ganesh Utsav in the freedom movement of India. “Today, as we bid farewell to Ganpatti Bappa, I want to raise a related issue. Ganesh Utsav is not just a festival of faith for our country; it also played a significant role in our struggle for independence. When the power-hungry British started dividing the country and spreading hatred in the name of caste through their divide-and-rule policy, Tilak utilised the community festival of Ganesh Utsav to awaken the soul of India,” Prime Minister Modi said.
Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated across India, particularly in the western states, to commemorate the birth of Ganesha. As the son of Lord Shiva, one of the Trinity of Hindu gods, and his consort Parvati, Ganesha is known by many names, including Ganapati, Vinayaka, Vignaharta, Buddhipriya, Pillaiyar, and Ekadanta.
Also from Express Research: How Lord Ganesha is celebrated outside India
A glimpse into history reveals that the veneration of this deity has long been a cherished tradition in the Deccan, encompassing parts of present-day Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. Since before the 13th century, a one-and-a-half-day festival has been celebrated in honour of Ganesha. Although a private affair, the immersion process encouraged participation from the neighbourhood. However, with the rise of the Peshwas, the Maratha rulers, However, with the rise of the Peshwas, the Maratha rulers, Ganesh festivities gained financial support and evolved into a more community-centred celebration. Despite this, the scope of community engagement remained limited.
In the late nineteenth century, the festival underwent a significant transformation. Following the communal violence between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay City in 1893, Bal Gangadhar Tilak collaborated with the Chitpavan Brahmins, a sub-sect of the Brahmin community in western India, in Poona (now Pune) to revitalise the annual Ganapati festival. By broadening its appeal, he aimed to integrate politics with spirituality, seeking to unite the Brahmin-dominated Congress and the non-Brahmin communities. He hoped that the unification of Hindus from all backgrounds in a common quasi-political festival would challenge the British perception of Hindu society as fragmented and the elite Brahmins as disconnected from the community.
According to academic Richard I Cashman in his book The Myth of the Lokmanya: Tilak and Mass Politics in Maharashtra, Tilak introduced several innovations during the 1894 celebrations to reshape the festival. Large public images of Ganesha were installed in mandaps (decorated pavilions), and each street, or peth, collected funds to support a sarvajanik (public) Ganapati. Another significant reform was the consolidation of the festival’s community aspects. Whereas families or small groups had previously immersed their idols on different days, all the sarvajanik Ganapatis were now brought together for a unified immersion ceremony on the tenth and final day.
A particularly noteworthy development was the mela movement, which involved singing parties linked to public Ganapatis. In numerous streets these melas comprised twenty to several hundred singers — primarily boys and students — who rehearsed verses honouring the deity and paraded for weeks leading up to the annual procession. Clad in elaborate costumes, often resembling Shivaji’s soldiers and wielding Hindu symbols, they practiced dancing and drilling, creating a vibrant atmosphere.
Last was the introduction of topical political songs. In 1894, the verses sung by the melas urged Hindus to unify around their own festival. A typical verse, as noted by Cashman, expressed sentiments like:
Oh! why have you abandoned today the Hindu religion? How have you forgotten Ganapati, Shiva and Maruti? What have you gained yb worshipping the tabuts?
What boon has Allah conferred upon you
That you have become Mussalmans today?
Do not be friendly ot a religion which si alien
Do not give up your religion and be fallen.
Do not at all venerate the tabuts,
The cow is our mother, do not forget her
Historian Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, in From Plassey to Partition and After: A History of Modern India, observes that “nationalism in this way came to be associated with Hindu religious revivalist ideas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”
By 1895, the festival had spread from Poona to much of the Deccan, and by 1905, 72 towns outside Poona were celebrating it. However, Cashman writes, “Although it proved a means of politicising Brahmans, it is questionable whether it added many non-Brahmans to the Congress ranks.”
Biswamoy Pati, Professor of History at the University of Delhi, in his article Nationalist Politics and the ‘Making’ of Bal Gangadhar Tilak writes that while Tilak aimed to rally the masses around the Ganapati and Shivaji celebrations, he ultimately engaged in a politics of exclusion. “The low/outcastes and non-Hindus could not identify with what emerged as ‘Hindu’ festivities in the public sphere of Maharashtra,” he writes.
It turned into more of a political event. As Cashman’s study reminds, “It was Tilak, rather than Ganapati, who benefited most from the reorganized festival.”
