As political power shifted and the presence of an aggressive exclusion-driven right-wing party emerged, these ideas of inclusion slowly vanished also from the community-driven Ganesh Chaturthi.  Nowhere is this more evident than this year, 2025. Turning turtle on the tradition of social commentary which was essentially progressive, the 10-day long festivities were exploited by Hindutva groups in various municipalities to manufacture a sense of othering, even hate. Political power has always dominated these community expressions, with the dominant political force, “capturing” the dozens of “Ganpati mandals.” This year, Hindutva groups engaged in furthering their central political agenda by promoting conspiracy theories about “love jihad,” conversions, and fears of demographic change. All this under the garb of cultural and religious devotion.

Some key incidents from the Ganesh Chaturthi 2025 celebrations:

Bangalore, Karnataka

On August 3, in Bangalore, a Hindutva leader by the name of Mohan Gouda uttered remarks at a gathering, under the pretext of encouraging people to celebrate participation in the Ganesh festival, but his comments soon took a turn towards the communal. Gouda said people should attend this festival, but also advocated for a supposed “Hindu Rashtra” merging the religious celebration into a political-religious ideology. He argued that English medium education was a tool to segregate Hindus from their culture, claiming it intended to “make Hindus mentally Christian.” He evoked the theme of “love jihad” again, as well as conversions happening systematically, arguing that these conspiracies were detrimental to Hindus and Hindu society.

Through video and social clips being distributed on HindutvaWatch’s Telegram channel- and reproduced on both Facebook and Instagram- you can hear his comments and witness his ridiculous claims first-hand.  He states: “English medium education was introduced to separate Hindus from their culture and make them mentally Christian.”

His remarks are more than mere political rhetoric at a festival; they turn a moment of religious observance into a statement of political exclusion. Gouda’s comments convey to worshippers that it is a particular religious identity that delineates loyalty, and that any existence/involvement of minorities in that moment is a form of “internal threat.”

Kota, Rajasthan

On August 27, a flashpoint erupted in Kota’s Vigyan Nagar over a local non-vegetarian restaurant that posted wishes for Ganesh Chaturthi along with pictures of its menu. Activists from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) – Bajrang Dal saw the post and descended on the location, accused the place of promoting religious enmity, and claimed that by associating images of Ganesh with its non-vegetarian food, they were hurting the sentiments of Hindus. The municipal authorities, clearly under duress, arrived on-site and soon sealed off the restaurant!

Clarion India reported the incident via HindutvaWatch, which added further details to what had unfolded. According to Clarion, a restaurant owner and two others were arrested and police confirmed that the person responsible for preparing the poster, the restaurant, and the person preparing the posters for printing had all been detained. A minor was also detained for allegedly posting the content but was later let go. Regarding the arrest, Kota City Superintendent of Police, Tejaswini Gautam, stated the case is being handled with seriousness and assured that compliance with the law would occur and that everyone accused except the minor would be charged in accordance with the appropriate legal statues. Clarion also reported that during the protest, workers prayed the Hanuman Chalisa in front of the restaurant site and requested justice until police intervened.

None from the media have queried the police authorities about which law has been violated in posting or conceiving an image with Ganesh Chaturthi with a non-vegetarian menu. On the contrary, the right to life and right to do business freely (Article 21 and Article 19) of the restaurant owner stand violated.

Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh

On August 31, 2025, in Ashok Nagar, Bilaspur, observances around Ganesh Chaturthi took a distinctly communal turn. At the local function, Hindu nationalist figure Thakur Ram Singh grabbed the mic to insult Christians and Muslims, claiming they were causing conversions. He referred to them as “illegitimate children of Chadar-Father” in an overtly inflammatory way, attempting to ‘de-legitimize’ them as an identity group, in public. The implication of conversion, especially at a religious function, no doubt heightened fears of encroachment on Hindu faith, resulting in minorities becoming enemies within.

At the time of writing, mainstream/legacy media have not detailed the police or administrative responses to that particular speech. Bilaspur has begun to be a recurring place of communal tension and mobilisation: just months prior, it was reported that Thakur Ram Singh and others had led police to raid Christian prayer meetings as part of a “conversion campaign,” as well.  The Bilaspur event can be viewed as part of a pattern, for religious festivals in our context have evolved into not just sites for communal signalling, but actually exclusion; prejudice cloaked as religious rhetoric towards political mobilization.

Dehradun, Uttarakhand

On August 31, 2025, in Dehradun, a rally celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi hosted by the Hindu Raksha Dal included Swami Darshan Bharti, who delivered a speech that condemned Muslims. He reportedly insisted that Islam needed to be “crushed” in Uttarakhand and that “Allahu Akbar” could not be shouted in a territory of Hindus and Hindu gods. Accompanying Bharti was Bhupendra ‘Pinki’ Chaudhury, the President of Hindu Raksha Dal, who used derogatory language and communal identifiers to label Muslims “topi-dariwale,” “burkhewale,” “kuthmulle,” and “jihadi.” Apart from the slur and denigration of Muslims, such a speech also engendered a sense of fear (at witnessing assertions of religion, chanting of prayers etc) and demographic anxiety. Hence, a public religious event, marked traditionally with community celebration, saw –through the presence and hate speech delivered by hate offenders— the assembly transformed into a site of communal exclusion.

So far, no information is available from mainstream newspapers (in English or regional) about any action, arrest or filing of FIRs pertaining to this speech. The absence of any visible response from authorities together with the public nature of the event and speech contribute to ongoing contexts of impunity and normalization of this kind of hate discourse under the guise of religious ceremonies.

Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

On September 4, 2025, at a Ganesh Chaturthi celebration in Purushottam Nagar, Bhopal, an event organized by VHP-Bajrang Dal leader Manish Saini delivered incendiary diatribes against non-Hindus. He claimed that non-Hindus have ‘a deliberate agenda to attack Hindu women’, mentioned cow slaughter, and cited the popular conspiracy theory of “love jihad.” He framed religious minorities as predatory agents who are actively destroying the social fabric of Hindu community from within and implied that Hindu women were perpetually at risk of either forced conversion to Islam or being ‘snared’.

A video of the event can be accessed on social media and has been shared on HindutvaWatch’s Telegram and Facebook broadcasting platforms.

In addition to the contents of the speech, little media or local official coverage has reported on subsequent activity — such as FIR lodging, arrests, or administrative censure. There has not been a public response from municipal authorities or police in Bhopal that indicates whether they would hold Saini accountable for this incitement in a public setting. This absence of public condemnation or visible follow-up action, to an explicit example of hate speech throws up the question of impunity around such crimes that result in the normalisation of hate and exclusion.

From Devotion to Division

Ganesh Chaturthi, a festival that was in previous decades, an occasion for collective bonding, is seeing signs of being turned into a platform for hate and violence in its entirety. From Bangalore to Bhopal, the festival was utilized to, amongst other things, legitimate conspiracy theories, justify the vilification of minorities, and monitor the social and economic lives of vulnerable communities. These instances signal how quickly a space intended for devotion can be co-opted for exclusionary politics when law enforcement abandons its duties and the government remains silent. The commissioning of such incendiary speech during religious observances poses a distinct threat not only to minorities, but to the democratic and secular fabric of the country. If immediate steps are not taken to reign in the instigators, and return festivals to their inclusive or so-called “original” form, hate will only continue to grow.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this resource has been worked on by Preksha Bothara)

Image: Representational Image

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We seemed to know how much each uncle/aunty would give, which Anna (Bhaiyya) or Akka (Didi) needed a bit of pestering, which house had the most generous adult, and who was the kanjoos. And the cardinal rule: Never ask from your own house. Send your best friend. Your parents will want to make a good impression.

And then the drive would begin. Each day we would take stock to see if we had collected enough money for our very own bit of divinity. And soon a day would arrive when we had enough money.

This is where the adults would come in. Some indulgent uncle from the locality would offer to take one of us to buy the idol, while he was buying one for his own house. And off we would go -a whole bunch of us – one fine morning, all bathed and clean, giggling with excitement to get our very own Ganesha idol, which would be consecrated at the corner of the street for the next ten days or so.

Once the idol was bought (there was never enough money — what with us changing our minds so many times over which idol we wanted — that some parent or the other would chip in with the last few rupees) and properly consecrated at the street corner on a dais that some of the older kids had spent the previous night building out of benches, planks of wood, a study table borrowed on the sly from someone’s house (much to the chagrin of the parents in that house, who knew that their child had bid goodbye to schoolwork for the next 10 days or so), we would all bring out chairs from our own houses, place it before the dais and stare at the idol in a happy trance at a task well accomplished.

Soon, it would be evening and time for the evening pooja. An uncle mostly someone from the locality who was familiar with the rituals would perform the pooja, after which the goodies would be distributed. Often, some family or the other observing the festival would make a “little extra” for the “two-legged monkeys” or “baala illada kothigalu” (monkeys without a tail) (as children were referred to in those politically incorrect days) and somehow this ‘little extra’ was always enough for many of us to go to bed without eating dinner because we were just too full.

Between the evening pooja and bedtime came some of the most exciting evenings of my/our childhood where all rules were broken and curfew time was ignored because evening after evening was spent putting up cultural programmes before indulgent parents who also ignored their regular chores and sat there to watch their kids do mono-acting, mimicry and belt out songs from films.

The high point of each evening was a short play put up by different groups of kids.

Now, what did a bunch of convent-educated, English-speaking, random children know about religion? We just dug deep into the resources we had. The plays would come from fairy tales and comic books. Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel rubbed shoulders with Jataka tales and stories from the Panchatantra, night after night after night for 10 nights. We used our own clothes, borrowed stuff from our parents, neighbours, ransacked wardrobes belonging to friends’ parents, and made pretty clothes to fit princesses, children lost in the woods, evil witches, wise kings, lions, bears, and trees.

And then came the day of the festival. And along with it the most-believed, the dearly held, non-negotiable superstition in the Kingdom of Children. “You see 100 Ganesha idols on Ganesh Chaturthi, you will score 100 marks in Mathematics.” No one knew when and where this belief emerged, but we held on to it for dear life. Who wanted to study when seeing 100 Ganeshas would do the trick?

Early bath, early breakfast, all ready by 9 am, a bunch of kids (again no less than 50) would gather on the street corner and plan out the routes to our 100 marks in Mathematics. The plan would involve dividing ourselves into smaller groups and knocking on random doors to find out if they had a Ganesha idol at home. If the answer was yes, we would barge into the house invited or not and go and take a good look at the idol before bidding goodbye and going to the next house.

That was all. As simple as that. Knock on a door. Ask: Ganesha Koodusiddhiraa? (Have you consecrated the Ganesha at home). And walk in, spend 30 seconds looking at the Elephant God and walk out, with the complete belief that you are one step closer to that elusive 100 percent in maths. If some rare family observing the festival found this either amusing or cute, we would given some sundal or laddoo or modak which we would happily munch as we went to the next house.

We would periodically assemble every two-three hours to take stock of how many Ganeshas we had seen and who was closest to acing the maths exam in the next term.

And then there was the day of the immersion. This was again where adult assistance and supervision was required. An adult would perform the necessary pooja and take the idol to the nearby lake (we had a little lake in the neighbourhood park) for immersion. The less than 10-minute walk would take close to an hour with an adult carrying the idol in his arms and a bunch of kids dancing on the streets like there was no tomorrow. No one would want the festivities to end and one child or the other would request the adult to take a detour and walk through this street or that, until a point when everyone would be tired enough to want to get to the lake. Once at the park, a quick ritual would be performed and the adult would walk into the knee-deep water to immerse the idol while the children stood on the edge a wee bit sad, a wee bit tired, a wee bit happy, and already making plans for the next year.

This was how it was, as far back as I can remember right up to the time I went to college.

And then there was a rath.

And a ride that slashed its way through the heart of India dividing us into religions we did not know, showing us differences we did not feel, breaking us into groups that we never understood, showing us fault lines, we never knew existed – And thereby replacing the India we knew with the India we would have rather not known.

An India we lost, so easily, so casually, so simply that we did not even realize it was gone before it was gone.

(Asma is a sometimes writer, a constant fighter, a disobedient dreamer)

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The post Once Upon an India — reminiscence at Ganesh Chaturthi appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On August 30, 2022, a Supreme Court bench heard the petitions filed by Karnataka Board of Auqaf and Central Muslim Association of Karnataka challenging Karnataka High Court’s verdict permitting the use of Idgah Maidan in Bengaluru’s Chamarajpet for Ganesh Chaturthi. The High Court’s verdict allowed the use of Idgah maidan for religious and cultural activities for limited period, following which the State government passed an order permitting Ganesh Chaturthi rituals on the said land.

The bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee, AS OKA and MM Sundresh ordered a status quo with respect to use of Idgah Maidan reportedly stating, “For 200 years it was not done, you also admit, so why not status quo, for 200 years whatever was not held, let it be.”

The order read as, “The writ petition is pending before the Single Bench of High Court and has been fixed for hearing on 23.09.2022. All questions/issues may be agitated in the High Court.”

Proceedings before the Court

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appearing for the Idgah informed the Court that no other community has been allowed to perform rituals at Idgah Maidan in 200 years. To which Justice Sundresh asked if there was any objection to any particular religious festival. However, Sibal informed the Court that it is acceptable to use the land for any other purpose such as children playing on the land as this case would not affect the possession of the land and the corporation cannot take any advantage of that.

Sibal informed the court that once a property has been declared a Waqf property by the Mysore State Waqf Board under Sect 5(2) of the Waqk Act, its character cannot be changed. He argued that the status can only be challenged within 6 months of the declaration and nobody did that.

He even pointed out how the Board had filed a suit against the Corporation to seek permanent injunction but it was decreed. The decree permanently restrained the corporation from entering the property. He then referred to Karnataka High Court’s single-judge bench order dated August 25, 2022, which held that till the notification as waqf is set aside, it is binding on the State, reported LiveLaw.

The court then asked Senior Advocate Mukul Rohtagi, who was appearing for the State, why they preferred an appeal when the single judge has granted liberty to apply for modification.

Rohtagi reportedly argued, “15 years ago when similar issues arose, an informal committee was formed, including the minister of Waqf, and kindly see, members agreed to allow use of ground for Dussera, Kannada Rajyotsava, Shivratri… so this was the decision taken 15 years ago… One of the petitioners before this court was part of the meeting.”

Speaking about the permanent restrain imposed on BBMP from entering the property, Justice Oka asked if they BBMP can give permission to celebrate festival if they can’t even enter the property. Rohtagi reportedly responded, “It is not the BBMP but the State which allowed (Ganesh Chaturthi celebration). Joint Commissioner makes a finding it belongs to the Govt. Unless this order is set aside, the finding of the quasi judicial authority binds. Why the single judge only granted use for only 2 days? Single Judge allowed State to celebrate Independence Day and Republic Day. Why is this allowed? If I am the owner, why would I allow. This is not consistent with exclusive ownership title.”

He further contended that the Waqf Board is not in exclusive possession of the subject land since it is an open ground with a municipal tank and footpaths where children play all year round and the Waqf Board members pray twice a day. He reportedly argued, “What has the High court done? Every part of this country you have festivals. In Bengal, you have Durga Puja, in Maharashtra, roads are closed… one should be broad minded… what is going to happen if Ganesh Chaturthi is allowed for two days. Can somebody say no because it is a Hindu festival?”

To this, Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave appearing for the Idgah retorted, “I wonder if in any temple in this country, minority community will be allowed to enter for prayers?”

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the State submitted that the Municipal Corporation was party to the suit whereas the State is not a party to any proceedings and therefore it is not bound. He further argued that the entire premise of the petitioner was based on the entry to the Waqf register and not a title suit. He reportedly stated, “If a person who is non-muslim and if he is in possession of certain property, his right title and ownership cannot be put in jeopardy because it’s under waqf list.” In the end he asked for a two-day permission to celebrate the festival without putting put any permanent structure.

Dave reportedly remarked that the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh had given an undertaking and Babri Masjid was demolished. Sibal added, “Single judge has admitted, it means prima facie case. And for 200 years they never held it. So what is the irreparable injury if it is not held. Let us go by first principles.”

On confirming that no preparations had been undertaken at the land for the celebrations, the Court ordered interim status quo for two days as Justice Banerjee reportedly said, “You have the pooja somewhere else. And go back to High Court.”

A copy of the Supreme Court’s order may be read here:

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