Gujarat

Muslims joins Ganpati Visarjan Yatra in Tapi

In a heart-warming display of unity, Muslims joined Hindus for Ganpati Visarjan celebration in Gujrat’s Vyara City in Tapi district. Defying communal boundaries, people from both communities wore the tricolour attire, symbolizing India’s harmony. Together, they immersed Ganesh idols, exchanged greetings while chanting ‘Ganpati Bappa Morya’. This poignant gesture underscored the spirit of brotherhood and religious harmony.

Tapi, Gujarat: People from the Muslim community joined in the Ganpati Visarjan celebrations in Vyara city. People from both community wore clothing in the colors of the tricolor to demonstrate unity to showcase the Unity. pic.twitter.com/B24WSe5lLb

— IANS (@ians_india) September 14, 2024

Hindu-Muslims join hands to offer prayers to lord Ganesh in Rajkot

At Trikon Baug Ka Raja, devotees from diverse backgrounds came together to perform aarti to Lord Ganesh, showcasing the city’s timeless spirit of communal harmony. Hindus and Muslims united in prayer, reaffirming Rajkot’s legacy of unity and inclusivity.

A local Muslim while condemning the stone pelting incident in Surat added that “In India, Rajkot is known for communal unity, if it comes from other cities that stones pelted in the Ganesh Utsav, then stone pelter can’t be a Muslim because the month that is going on, is month of Prophet’s Barvi Sharif and prophet’s birth anniversary is also coming on 16^th September then no Muslim can do this work. If any Muslim has done this, then I believe that the devil woke up inside his heart and that devil did this work”

A Hindu woman said that “today we and the Muslim community performed prayers together and we should convey this message of brotherhood to everyone that the Muslim community and the Hindu Community are all equal”

Maharashtra

Mosque in Sangli hosts Ganesh idol for 44 years

In Sangli district’s Gotkhindi village, a mosque has been hosting Lord Ganesh’s idol for 44 years during the annual festival.

As reported by the Deccan Herald, members of the New Ganesh Mandal have celebrated the festival inside the mosque, highlighting the harmonious example between two communities. Ilahi Pathan, president of the mandal said that Hindu and Muslim celebrate the Ganesh festival with great zeal and devotion every year.

Another member of the mandal highlighted those festivals such as Moharram, Diwali, and Eid are also celebrated together in Gothkhindi, located 32 KM away from Sangli city in western Maharashtra.

3 friends mesmerized the beauty of Ganesh Chaturthi, celebrates Ganesh Chaturthi 

Mumbai’s Raut Galli neighbourhood in Dahisar, where three friends celebrated Ganesh Chaturthi with a unique display of interfaith unity. Three friends – Sohel Malik (Muslim), Oswald Gonsalves (Catholic), and Jignesh Patel (Hindu) – came together to set up a Ganesh idol, breaking cultural and religious barriers. Previously hindered by financial constraints, they collectively decided to host the festival this year, spreading love and harmony.

“I took care of the idol. Mr Patel took care of logistics and vargani (donations). The mandap (pandal) and decoration was all taken care of by Mr Gonsalves,” said Sohel.

Jignesh also added that “People here are together in happiness and sadness. If anything good is happening, you may see a few people showing up, but if something bad happens, everyone will turn up for you,”  as reported by NDTV.

Telangana

Hindus-Muslims dance together during Ganpati procession in Hyderabad

In a vibrant display of unity in Hyderabad, Hindus and Muslims danced together during Ganpati processions. This joyful celebration showcased the city’s harmonious spirit, reinforcing the bond between communities and underscoring India’s diversity as its greatest strength.

Karnataka

Muslim youth install Ganesh Idol in Dargah, celebrate with Hindus

In Karnataka, the village of Ugar Budrak in Kagwad taluk of Chikkodi, Belagavi celebrating the Ganesh Chaturthi as a festival of Hindu-Muslim unity. For the past six years, Hindu and Muslim youth have come together to install a Ganesh idol at the Myausbani Dargah in the village.

For six consecutive years, the Ganpati festival has become a symbol of communal harmony in Ugar Budruk, where Muslims and Hindus unite to celebrate the iconic event. Muslim youth actively participate in every aspect, from funding to idol immersion. This shared celebration has transformed the village into a beacon of interfaith unity, transcending religious differences.

A local villager explained, “In our town, we don’t just celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi as a Hindu festival. Muslims here see it as their own as well. Likewise, we Hindus celebrate Muslim festivals like Urus and Eid Milad with equal enthusiasm. There’s a sense of unity here that binds us all.”

A Muslim resident echoed this sentiment, saying, “We all celebrate each other’s festivals like brothers and sisters. Whether it’s Ganesh Chaturthi or Eid, it’s about coming together as one community.”

Friendship has no religion, harmony matters

In Karnataka’s Yadgiri district in a heart-warming demonstration of religious harmony during the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi, Hindu-Muslim friends in Hunsagi town in Yadgiri district united to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi.

Saddamhusena and Arun Dori, key members of the organizing group, shared that the initiate was driven by a desire to promote communal harmony.

The successful celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi by members of both communities demonstrated the enduring spirit of harmony and shared cultural values in Hunsagi. It stands as a testament to the affirmative impact in interfaith understanding of unity in diversity.

Despite the recent communal violence and stone pelting incident in Surat that highlights the need for peace and unity in our communities. However, amidst this chaos, there are heart-warming stories of Hindus and Muslims coming together to celebrate each other’s festivals, promoting interfaith unity and harmony.

Related:

Everyday Harmony: Members of Ganpati Visarjan procession pay respect to mosque

Karnataka celebrates Ganesh Chaturthi with gaiety, Muslims postpone Eid procession in Belagavi

Love & Harmony over Hate: Int’l Day to Counter Hate speech, CJP’s unique efforts

The post Ganesh Chaturthi: where unity triumphs over communal divides appeared first on SabrangIndia.

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)

Related:

Give & take, Muslims offer cooperation and understanding: Ganesh Chaturthi & Eid-e-Milad: 2023

My First Lessons in Diversity, the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations at Mangalore college

O GANESHA! – Part 1

O GANESHA! – Part 2

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

These groups include the Khilafat Committee in Mumbai, which organises one of the largest Eid-e-Milad processions in the country. The Khilafat Committee procession is always led by a prominent Hindu leader and this tradition has been followed since the time of Khilafat agitation and civil disobedience movement from 1919 to 1923 aimed to achieve freedom from colonial rule. This time the Muslim community leadership demonstrated maturity in modifying their tradition. They might have been nudged by the police to decide, but they did it with grace and in the spirit of accommodation. The leaders also decided to avoid playing loud music in the presence of DJs (often the start of provocations to localities where the processions move through).

Amidst a series of cataclysmic incidents, some prolonged including the violent communally targeted violence as in Manipur, Haryana and the shooting of three Muslims by a RPF Jawan Chetan Singh on train – Chetan Singh, films like “The Kerala Story” and The Kashmir Files”, the Sakal Hindu Samaj rallies calling for social boycott of Muslims, there is also always the everyday, reassuring reality of everyday humanity and compassion. News about humanity and people helping those from other communities, and even saving their lives at the risk to their own lives.

A 32-year-old UP State Road Transport Corporation bus conductor – Mohit Yadav asked the driver of the bus to stop for about two minutes to allow two of his Muslim passengers to offer their namaaz (prayers) on Bareilly-Delhi National Highway on June 3, 2023.  Unfortunately, he was sacked by the Corporation. Burdened with responsibility of his family, he saw no other alternative but to end his life and his body was found on railway tracks on August 28.

((The story does not end there. The family of Mohit Yadav, who took his life as a victim of hatred, has been showered with goodwill from all over the country. A total of 1852 strangers came forward to help the family from many corners of the country who were heartbroken to know about Mohit’s demise. A not insignificant, Rs 26.02 lakhs was collected in three days for the family of Mohit, a contract conductor in Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC), who committed suicide in UP. This young man committed suicide after losing his job due to a cyber attack by supporters of the Sangh Parivar in Uttar Pradesh where religious animosity had taken hold. And it was, Mohammad Zubair, co-founder of Alt News, who launched the crowd-funding drive and announced on Twitter that the amount will be transferred immediately to the family who lost their bread winner—Editors))

In Bakhatgarh village with all of 15 Muslim families in Bathinda District, Punjab, Amandeep Singh, a farmer donated 250 sq. yards of his land for construction of a mosque. Fellow villagers contributed Rs. 2 lakhs and the neighbouring villages contributed cement and bricks. The 15 Muslim families were not allowed to leave their mother land by the villagers at the time of partition.

Likewise, in Jitwal Kalan village in Malerkotla, Jagmel Singh donated 1,200 sq. yards of his land and Rs. 51,000 for a mosque in August 2021. Other villagers collected another Rs. 5 lakhs. Rakhi Jagga’s (2023) article gives several more instances of villagers restoring abandoned mosques in Punjab as the state’s population declined from 40% before partition to 1.9%. In Kashmir valley, there are instances of Muslim villagers helping Pandits to organise their festivals and continue their religious traditions even as they were forced to migrate out of the village during the militancy period.

A Hindu couple solemnised their marriage in a mosque in Alappuzha (Kerala) when the bride’s mother approached the mosque committee for help with the wedding on account of lack of financial resources.

There are numerous other such instances wherein an individual or followers of one religion help followers or another community to fulfil their religious obligations and rituals in spirit of cooperation. There are numerous examples of reaching out and serving those in need but belonging to other religious organisations.

The Sikh langars are open to all irrespective of religion, as are the meals served by the Sufi dargahs. In India with such mind-boggling religious diversity, people routinely participate in each other’s religious festivals. Many religious processions and festivities are jointly organised, including the Sufi urs, sandals and palkhis.

Cooperation is the norm, though increasingly coming under strain in recent times, in spite of the Indian state overzealously guarding sentiments of the majority community and demonstrating extreme tolerance towards hate speeches and crimes targeting other religious communities.

Peaceful co-existence

Why and when do people belonging to different religions or communities cooperate with each other and when they can be led to hate the other?

In any community, there are tendencies to practice one’s religion with orthodox zeal, exclusively, and degrees of exceptionalism. Such tendency partly comes from the notion of purity and pollution, emphasising accuracy in practices, rituals, worship, food and dress prescriptions, appearance and relating to other human beings. They aspire to gain religious merits by adhering to rituals and way of life as practiced by the previous generations and prescribed by their religious priesthood and cultural gate-keepers.

Such tendencies that exist in all religious communities resist any change or adoption of newer approaches and are at times deeply insecure about external influences, preferring to isolate themselves from others. They desire to live within their own sects to be able to live their orthodox practices. Such tendencies may peacefully co-exist with other communities and all they want is to be left alone. However, the younger generation of the community that has been through the educational process may not share the same desires and that may create dynamics for change from within. This is not our subject in this article.

Helping a human being in need, especially when they are in dire conditions, or victims of unfortunate circumstances and devoid of ability to come out of those circumstances comes almost naturally and spontaneously. The religion of the person who needs help does not matter. The needy person may even belong to the community one distrusts and dislikes. What matters more is the cry or appeal – explicit or implicit – of the person who needs help. It invokes empathy in us. We want to be helped when in similar circumstances.

Take e.g., when there was a cloudburst on July 26, 2005 in Mumbai and thousands of people were stranded in offices or on roads without mobile connectivity, electricity, food and means of transport to reach home or let their loved ones know that they are safe and on their way. Many of those who in normal circumstances were attitudinally at war with a certain community, were helping the stranded members of that community offering them food, water, transport, and even overnight shelter wherever necessary and possible. Communal organisations are often first to reach natural disaster sites and offer their services to stranded people.

During the earthquake on January 26, 2001 in Kutch, the RSS as well as Jamaat-e-Islami were extending their immediate relief services also to members of other communities, especially in saving lives and pulling out stranded victims from under the rubble. Likewise, when there is an accident on the road, people who witnessed the accident rush immediately to help the victim without his/her religion mattering. The iconic picture of Qutubuddin Ansari appealing with folded hands and fear on his face to be spared during communal riots in Gujarat in February 2002 was after all spared by the rioters who were killing and raping other Muslims.

Normally a person would help any needy without regards to that person’s religion, culture, or other personal beliefs. That is why Muslim beggars beg invoking the name of Allah and do not experience discrimination in receiving alms, in spite of growing communal polarisation.

People who have internalised communal attitudes see evil, or a potential challenger to their religion or culture if the needy person belongs to their rival community. Such a conscious or subconscious perception may hold back their helping hand. Some people may have more than a natural tendency to help the needy. They may have an ideological commitment to help those who are discriminated against, or marginalised.

A committed secular person who is convinced that a certain minority community is targeted for political and ideological reasons, may go out of the way to express solidarity with them. Such a commitment is more than only help, but sort of a resistance to the communal ideology they disagree with. That solidarity is resistance to the ideological “othering” of the community.

We also have communities that are more prone to helping and serving others. Service to the needy as a religious mission and religious duty. Swami Vivekanand gave the axiom of “Daridra Narayan” – piety in service to the needy. To Mother Teresa, bringing and serving the discarded leprosy patients to her ashram was part of her religious life, which was carried on by the Missionaries of Charity order even today.

Many Sufi orders also serve the needy in various ways. Sikh community has langars as part of their religious practice, where persons belonging to all religions can eat. During Covid-19 pandemic, when the Covid patients were dying from a shortage of oxygen cylinders, Sikh community reinvented their concept of langar and were extending it to “oxygen langars”, providing oxygen cylinders to the patients.

Mahatma Gandhi wanted people of India to be based on empathy for all, particularly the most marginalised and indeed, all oppressed and colonised people in the world. The concept of karuna or compassion in Jainism and Buddhism crosses religious and all cultural boundaries and sees only sufferings to be redressed. Such religious practices build communities based on inclusion, compassion, and empathy. There is a vision of common future for all rather than fragmenting humanity into sectarian communities based on religious doctrines and emphasising and making essential cultural differences and constructing unsurmountable boundaries.

Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman was “antyoday” – upliftment of the last person and the most marginalised in the society – irrespective of her community. Helping the needy as a collective mission and raison d’etre comes more naturally to those who are inspired by and follow the service mission associated with religions. Such a nation would be welcoming refugees from other countries who have escaped intolerable oppression and managed to save their lives. They see no evil in any person just because they are following other religions or are from other countries. Propaganda of hatred against any community does not touch them.

One of the reasons why people who internalise hatred against another community and have violent attitudes, is because they feel their religion or culture is superior and draw immense pride in their superiority. There is a whole army of cultural entrepreneurs who fill them up with pride and make them feel superior, inventing an imagined golden and glorious past, and draw their claims from religious scriptures, and beliefs. Videos, electronic media, social and print media are used to build brand value for their “superior” culture or religion. In an otherwise miserable life, feeling of superiority acts like an elixir giving one a high and a good feel.

However, in a democracy, given a multi-religious and multicultural society, others too have a right to claim their superiority rejecting those of yours. The claim and feeling of superiority therefore needs coercive power of the state, media and institutional network to continuously sustain one’s claim over others.

Superiority may be claimed on merits of one’s religion or on invented/exaggerated demerits of “rival” religions. While the conflict entrepreneurs, like those who get elected to the positions of authority, or those who control print and electronic media and institutional networks laugh all their way to the banks, the consumer of elixir of superiority and those who internalise hatred get a high of belonging to a superior and nurture a commitment to a strong community. The only way to sustain the feeling of superiority is by being hegemonic and/or expansionist, claiming privileges on one ground or the other, including a certain territory being the natural and only home of the community.

With a constant threat to the hegemonic / expansionist project emanating from the “rivals”, they are perceived as demons or enemies who need not exist or must be expelled out of one’s legitimate territory. They are perceived as intruders and disrupters to one’s communal / religious life. It is from this that hatred emanates. The conflict entrepreneurs create fear and paranoia of being overwhelmed by the rival. In this state, any propaganda against the “rival” community is easily internalised and forwarded to others. The propaganda may be in the nature of provoking the rivals, chastising them, dehumanising them, and even using the worst form of violence. In this “war” with the “rivals”, strong unity and total and blind commitment towards one’s community becomes an ardent need. Those who have very violent attitudes towards rival community members may be very selflessly serving and humane towards members of their own community.

No amount of debunking the propaganda of cultural entrepreneurs by producing facts succeeds in convincing those who need the elixir of pride and superiority. Those facts are not believed and will not be believed.

The Peace Project needs to find out ways to evoke empathy and to build communities based on empathy. If those who have been inflicted with the elixir of pride and superiority can be made to see that those whom they consider their rivals and fear being overwhelmed by them are actually victims and humans with all the strengths and weaknesses just like other human beings.

“Mere Ghar Aake Toh Dekho” is one such campaign that has the potential wherein people are encouraged to visit each other’s home and see for themselves how the “others” live and what problems and challenges they face.

Centre for Study of Society and Secularism organises diversity walks to familiarise the participants to explore how culturally diverse all religious communities are. Both these campaigns are efforts to build inclusive communities based on empathy and karuna.

Citizens for Justice and Peace (cjp.org.in), apart from its consistent ‘Education for a Plural India Programme-KHOJ’ also organises regular workshops on dialogue and listening between castes, genders an communities as part of our Peace-Building Programme.

Related:

All religions gather for peace march in Malad-Malwani in Mumbai

PEACE organises a movement for “saving the nation” in Nagpur

The post Give & take, Muslims offer cooperation and understanding: Ganesh Chaturthi & Eid-e-Milad: 2023 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On Sunday, members of a Ganpati visarjan (idol immersion) procession, set a beautiful example of communal harmony when they passed by a mosque in Malad. This happened on the fifth day of immersion.

According to a report in the Times of India, they switched the music that was hitherto playing bhajans (Hindu devotional songs) to play, “Bhar de jholi meri ya mohammed,” a popular Islamic devotional song.

And while the actions of the participants at the procession in Malad were truly commendable, this is not the first such instance in Maharashtra. During Ram Navami, the DJ of a procession had also paused music while they walked past a mosque in Aurangabad.

This is far cry from many previous instances of communal clashes during similar religious processions, particularly those that took place during Hanuman Jayanti and Ram Navami earlier this year in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa and Rajasthan. In many instances, videos of the clashes circulated on social media showed people swinging swords and waving religious flags aggressively as the DJ played songs with lyrics demeaning followers of other faiths.

Hopefully, we will see more examples of communal harmony and respect, instead of violence, in the years to come.

Related:

Aurangabad: Ram Navami procession shows respect to mosque

Gujarat: Locals blame election politics for Ram Navami violence

Communal confrontations mar Ram Navami celebrations in five states

Rajasthan: All you need to know about the Karauli violence

The post Members of Ganpati Visarjan procession pay respect to mosque appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Police personnel conduct a flag march at Eidgah Maidan on the eve of the 11-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival, at Chamarajpet, in Bengaluru on Tuesday. (ANI Photo)

Hubballi: Ganesh Chathurthi was celebrated at the Idgah grounds here on Wednesday amid tight security arrangements, hours after the Karnataka High Court gave the go ahead for it.

Amid chants of vedic hymns, Sriram Sena chief Pramod Muthalik  along with his supporters installed the idol of Lord Ganesha and offered prayers on the occasion.

“We performed the prayers within the legal framework. Some miscreants had attempted to stop us but we performed our Pooja, which is not only a matter of joy for the people of Hubballi but also across north Karnataka,” Muthalik told reporters at the Pooja Pandal.

Muthalik termed the day as ‘historic’ as the long-cherished dreams of the Hindu community was fulfilled.

According to him, the district administration has granted permission to conduct pooja for three days at the site. 

Elaborate security arrangements were made at the Idgah ground to avert any untoward incident.

In a late-night hearing on Tuesday, the High Court upheld an order of the Dharwad municipal commissioner allowing the Ganesh Chaturthi festival to be held at the Idgah maidan in the city.

Justice Ashok S Kinagi held that the property belonged to the Dharwad municipality and Anjuman-e-Islam was only a lease holder for a period of 999 years at a fee of RS 1 per year.

Anjuman-e-Islam had claimed that the property in question was protected under the Places of Worship Act, 1991, which says no religious place of worship can be converted.

The high court said in the case of the property in question, it was not a religious place of worship and was allowed for prayers only during Bakrid and Ramzan. During other times, it was used for purposes like a marketplace and a parking lot.

Courtesy: Newsclick

The post Karnataka: Ganesha Festival Celebrated at Hubballi Idgah Ground Amid Tight Security appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Ganesha is one of the most revered Hindu gods. Known for his elephant head, Ganesha’s festival falls this month. It is an auspicious occasion for Hindus who often build big idols of him and immerse them into the water. The practice has raised concerns over the years as the paint and material used for making such statues is not good for the environment.

Kukreja came up with an idea of chocolate Ganesha to not only save water from pollutants, but also to bring smiles on the faces of poor and underprivileged kids. His Ganesha is immersed into milk and the kids are given free chocolate milk as a Prasad.  

The most inspiring part of the story is that Kukreja involved a Muslim artist to craft Ganesha idol with 106 kg Belgian chocolate this time. Thus he has set a great example of making cross cultural bridges when minorities, especially Muslims continue to be targeted by Hindu extremists under a right wing Hindu nationalist government in New Delhi.  

Both Kukreja and the Muslim artist involved in the project belong to the minority communities which do not believe in idol worshipping and yet they came together to give their respect to a Hindu god in an unusual manner that goes long way in saving the environment and embracing the poor, besides sending a strong message to those who are trying to divide people on religious lines to stay in power.

The post Sikh businessman’s eco-friendly Initiative involving Hindu God gives Hope appeared first on SabrangIndia.

My first memory of Ganesh Chaturthi is from my first year of college in Mangalore. I studied dentistry in Manipal College of Dental Sciences (MCODS), Mangalore from 2007-2012. The academic year begins in August every year and the first and biggest celebration comes soon after, in the form of Ganesh Chaturthi festival that the college celebrates in conjunction with the medical college, KMC(Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University). Every year since 1954 (KMC was established in 1953) 3-600 college students under the Mangalore branch of Manipal University come together in a grandVisarjan procession spanning 3 kilometres from the Main Campus to the Lake atKudtheri Shree Mahamaya Temple in Carstreet, Mangalore.

Since the first-year students have a separate campus, it is their first interaction with their seniors and teachers in an informal setting. I remember being apprehensive and excited at the same time, boarding the bus to attend the Ganpati Aarti and Visarjan. As a Sikh girl from Punjab, this was the first time I had heard of Ganesh Chaturthi. I arrived at the opulent pandal set up in the main KMC campus on LightHouse Hill road to witness the grandeur of the Rangoli art, the spiritually uplifting Aarti ceremony, and then the laughter and cheers that erupted as the dhol started playing.

It was amazing to me that students from different religions, from different parts of India- Hindu, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs- as well as NRI’s and Foreign Nationals, were dancing and singing together as we followed the Ganpati idol down the streets of Mangalore. Local residents and college volunteers offered us water and Prasad at regular intervals. Meanwhile, as opposed to what I had heard about ragging in colleges, senior students at Mangalore were doing their best to make us juniors feel safe and included. They came and danced with us, asked us repeatedly if we were all okay, offered refreshments, and even took time to explain the significance of the festival to foreign students and students who belonged to other religions like me. I remember a post graduate student taking the time to tell me, “Ganesh Chaturthi is the great unifier. Here you are not bound by caste, economic status, or religion. You are here to celebrate with everyone as equals.”

It was Lokmanya Tilak who had popularized the celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi as a grand public celebration “to bridge the gap between Brahmins and non-Brahmins, and find an appropriate context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them.”

Mangalore taught me my first lessons in diversity. My fellow students spoke languages I didn’t understand, had cultural and religious practices that were completely unknown to me, and yet, all of us found common ground. Whether we were pulling all-nighters for exams in the TV Room, or putting together dance performances for the cultural week, our differences were what made us grow as people. We learnt not just tolerance, but acceptance.

From what the current student coordinators Ojasvi Praveen (Cultural Secretary, KMC) and Gulmehak Kalsi (Fine Arts Secretary, MCODS) told me, the tradition has continued in the same spirit, “We are expecting more than 400 students and teachers to walk in the Visarjan procession this year. Students from all religions and nationalities are not only attending but also part of the organization process.”

Gulmehak, who is herself a Sikh, further added, “Ganesh Chaturthi celebration is not seen as a religious event, but rather a celebration of unity and people from all religions and cultures are welcome. Everyone takes part in the celebrations with great fervour each year.”

As I ponder on my own memories of the celebration from my 5 years in Mangalore, what I cherish most is the part when after the Visarjan, we would sit on the Temple steps tired out yet full of energy. We would listen carefully while the Dean made a speech and await with much suspense whether a holiday would be announced for the next day (it always was). Then we would pile into our college buses late at night and sing all the way back to the hostels, clapping and chanting “Ganpati Bappa Morya!”.

To have that experience of being part of a community, being close to people you would have never met in your hometowns, sharing happiness and joy, that was what made Mangalore special to me. I will always think of the city as home, because it embraces everyone regardless of who you are or where you come from. I hope this tradition that completes 65 years this year in KMC and MCODS Mangalore, will continue for many more years to come, and give lakhs of young people hope that there is always a place they are accepted.

The post My First Lessons in Diversity, the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations at Mangalore college appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In Kafka’s frightening masterpiece, Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning and finds himself transformed into a gigantic insect. What was otherwise normal suddenly turns malevolent.
 
In a somewhat similar and dramatic vein, though over the last twenty years, the beloved, benign Ganapatibappa too seems to have transformed before our eyes – from a symbol of all that is auspicious to a symbol that is potentially threatening. The alchemy is alarming. It is like the loss of childhood innocence. Ganapatibappa hardly inspires any more the certain laughter and ambience of playfulness of old, with a promise of modakam or laddoo or mewa. He comes now increasingly accompanied with a faint whiff of teargas and the heavy body-stench of the policemen guarding him.
 
I still remember with genuine nostalgia my teenage years spent in the refugee rehabilitation mohalla of Lajpat Nagar’s double storey flats in Delhi.
 
It was cosmopolitan middle class community. Our Maharashtrian neighbour was a sculptor, working at the newly instituted Lalit Kala Akademi. Every year, come Ganesh Utsav, he and his family would invest in a shamiana in our mohalla, put up a modest platform of low-slung tables and treat the entire community to seven days of classical music from an impressive list of artists who he specially invited.
 
Those were the ‘pre-market’ days for the arts. Artists were yet human beings; not celebrities. From Bade Ghulam Ali Khan to pandit Ravi Shankar; from Vilayat Khan to Ali Akbar; from Bismillah Khan to Siddheshwari Devi; from Ram Narain to Pandit Kishen Maharaj to Ustad Ahmed Jaan Thirakwa: it was evening after evening of unadulterated adoration.
 
There were no 30 or 40 or 50 feet tall Ganesha icons; there were no mangal artis through the night; there were no tilak marks resembling blood ritual; this was devotion and worship at its purest, where one own moment of beatitude simultaneously became a moment of social participation and collective joy; where the cultural expression of a community manifested as a complex mesh of diverse strands reconciling the many conflicting ‘selves’ within us, thus disabling narrow sectarianism to worm in.
 
It still amazes me how that locality, notorious these days for its incipient violence and organized gangs inherited from the devastations of the Punjabi diaspora, would subside into a week of conviviality, and it would not surprise you at all if you found yourself rubbing shoulders under the shamiana with the local don, swaying in appreciation of an Amir Khan alaap. Ganesh Utsavs sure were different those days.
 
It couldn’t last. Like everything else, both Ganesh and the Utsav changed. Ironically, I returned to that very mohalla after a gap of 22 years, in November 1984. It was the scene of some of the worst anti-Sikh pogroms and the mobs here were at their frothing worst. I was hidden this time behind Swami Agnivesh, but for whose saffron robes possibly all of us ‘secularists’ of the Nagrik Ekta Manch would have been lynched right there.
 
And as I stood there and stared into the ‘eye of hatred’, I knew there must have been many in that mob who would have sat with me under the shamiana two decades ago, allowing our collective consciousness to be transformed by those extraordinary musical evenings. And I thought of my truly visionary Maharashtrian neighbour and how all his efforts at promoting Ganesh Utsavs as a ‘cultural-been wasted at the altar of fundamentalism.
 
These are not idle reflections. Ganesha is relentlessly acquiring the distinction of being the most contentious icon of this self-torturing sub-continent. This season, in Madras, the ruling DMK government rightly took a firm decision to restrict the route along which the Ganesh procession would be allowed. Despite protests, dharnas, fasts, stone-throwing and threats of self-immolation, the government stood firm and, to its credit, made it the most incident-free Ganesh festival in the city in the past ten years. It only exposes the real role of local civic and administrative bodies in these situations. They hold the key to organized peace or its opposite, organized violence. All it takes is a demonstration of political will to foil mischievous intent.
 
The Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi even went to the extent of stating that Ganesh “is not a tamil god”. This was, of course, treading on thin ground for it invited the retort that neither are Rama or Krishna or, for that matter, Allah and Christ, Tamil gods. It took the Madras High Court to diffuse the heat when chief justice K. A. Swami and justice A. R. Lakshmanan wanted to know “when Vinayaka had entered Tamil Nadu?” during the course of the Vinayaka idols procession case.
 
Though everyone knows that the “procession” with idols is just 13 years old, there is now a concerted plan to make it appear to be some ancient custom. More tellingly, the attempt is to foist a notion of antiquity and sanctity to the route the procession would take. With a sense of finality, the Madras High Court ruled on October 1 1996 that while there is a right to take out a procession per se as part of “religious belief, there is no absolute right as part of that belief on any fixed route, which is subject to prevailing conditions of convenience, traffic and logistics of the metropolis.”
 
The Vinayaka Chaturthi Central Committee, Madras, has decided to move the Supreme Court against this ruling and has resolved to continue performing poojas and not take idols for immersion till a ruling from the Apex Court. It only means more days of continuing attrition and the slow spread of communal poison in the  name of religious practice.
 
Interestingly, contention is not new to Ganesha. The history of Ganesha is the history of a tribal totem becoming a mainstream go. However, the multiple names of this deity – Ganesha, Ganapati, Vinayaka, Ganadhipa, Gajanana, Lambodara, Ekadanta Vighneshwar, Vakratunda – also betoken the multiple stories of his origin, each one a saga of social conflict. For long centuries, this half-animal, half-persons deity who constitutes a socio-religious device through which primitive animism was absorbed by mainstream Vedic religion has been in the eye of a storm.
 
In fact scholar historians like D.D. Kosambi have much to say about the origin of this god of initiations and mysteries. A product of what seems like some ancient genetic cloning – the transplanting of lravata’s head on the body of Parvati’s child – is really the signal of a much larger social cloning, the integration of tribalism within brahminism. Kosambi even hints at Ganesha being a victim of Hindu syncretism, the deity as a mechanism created for the acculturation of newly absorbed deities and practices into the mainstream. It marks an epoch of replacement of group exclusivities with group unity.
 
Another interpretation (D e b I p r a s a d Chattopadhyaya) sees the Ganesh festival as essentially a female ritual appropriated by the male. Conventionally, Ganesh Chaturthi begins from the fourth day of the month of Bhadra. In many peasant communities, Ganesha simply stood for the New Moon of the sowing season. Once installed, he is quietly sidelined, leaving the ritual to take a feminine character – Gauri, a bundle of plants, with her representative, a virgin. Plants collected by women are placed on a diagram strewn with turmeric powder. Married women are served vermillion – ‘ mangala Gauri. It is a fertility rite, Gauri being the goddest of harvest, and the entire process of drawing and invoking images symbolizes the death and resurrection seasons.
 
At another level, Ganapati represents some of the early contradictions between Shaivites and Vaishnavites within the Hindu pantheon. For example Ganesha becomes Ekadanta (one toothed) because of the other being chopped off by Parashurama, an incarnation of Vishnu, and the most aggressive champion of Brahmin supremacy in our scriptures, whose parashu’ (axe) is constantly wreaking havoc on non-brahmins.
 
As per another story of his origin, Ganesha belongs to aboriginal (rakshasa) stock, being born of a rakshasa couple
 
Malini and Gajasura. As an off-spring of Parvati, he is said to have been constructed out of the scruff of her body. As an off-spring of Shiva, he is formed out of mud. Whichever way you look at Ganesha, his origin lies in a troubled social discourse which has yet to be resolved satisfactorily.
 
The Griha Sutras and Yagnavalkya Sutras of roughly around the 5th century profess much fear of Ganesha as a trouble-maker, as vighna (obstacle) personified. From there to his emergence as the custodian of goodwill and success is an anthropomorphic transformation which completely glosses over the myriad contradictions of this origin.
 
However, what is interesting for us today is how the same Ganesha figure is emerging as a controversial vehicle for a rather forced splinting together of the fractured shaivite and vaishnavite limbs of the pan-Hindu collective. In the past roughly 15 years, we have seen in Bombay, Pune, Nagpur, Hyderabad and Madras a curious pantheon of made-to-order Ganeshas: a 25’ Ganesha tearing open his chest, in the manner of Hanuman, to reveal Rama-Sita-Lakshmana; a 40’ Ganesha holding the earth in his bore’s tusks the manner of Vishnu’s Varaha-avatar; Ganesha like Vamana; Ganesha like Vamana; Ganesha like Krishana dancing on the serpent Kaliya; and just to round it up, even a Ganesha with ten arms like Devi, riding a lion and destroying Manisha.
 
While all this certainly represents cleverness, it also represents a certain desperation on the part of fundamentalist organizations spearheading this artificial grafting to unite a base that has no potential for such a unity. In fact, we may increasingly find in the coming years a reverting to a more mono-cultural image of the Vettri Vinayaka or Veer Vinayak which is bound to get more and more gigantic and domineering as it spreads the message of aggrandizement not auspiciousness.
 
In Madras, this year, a 30’ tall Vinayaka murthi has been constructed in a narrow lane; the poojas are over; only now they realize that they overshot their ambition, for there is no way they can move such a tall structure out of that street without snapping electricity, telephone and TV cables along the way, cutting down a few trees and even pruning a few balconies. Hopefully a few such goofs will return Ganapatibappa to his normal benign size and the festival in his name will stop being a synonym for resurgent fanaticism.
 
(The writer was, in 1996, the Arts Editor, The Economic Times)
 

The post O GANESHA! – Part 2 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

We’ve always had a Ganapati at my mother’s place, started because my grandmother wanted it. For me as a youngster, the excitement was that of a social event stretched over 10 days… decorating the mandap, making chaklis and modaks for people who dropped in; the pooja who dropped in; the pooja part incidental.
 
Then, as a I grew older, observing the yearly ritual, I began to think how strange it was that though we bring Ganapati home for 10 days, and do all this around him we don’t actually look at Ganapati but the decorations, the dance we do around him, the food that is cooked, etc.
 
This thought in mind was confirmed when I visited other Ganapatis at Dadar and Lalbaug, the traditional areas. There were huge Ganapatis but the conversation point for people who visited was, apart from the size, centered around the film hoardings on display, the scale and extent of light and flower decorations and the surrounding mandap themes, whether it was a swan or army jawaans flanking Ganapati!
 
I found it exciting to explore this aspect through visits to various Ganapatis all over Bombay and actually experience how people feel about Ganapati and relate to this festival, especially in traditional areas where the celebrations are so important. Why do people throng there, visiting mandap after mandap all over the city?
 
After my exposure to Kalipooja in Calcutta some years later, with this experience of the Ganapati festival behind me, I realist that for these mad thronging crowds traveling all night, queuing up just to glimpse a deity or participate, all this wholesale participation was a source of recreation, to enable them to come out and be part of a massive community event, travel around at all hours, something that they would otherwise never do.
 
This festival extended from being a religious or social event to a cultural occasion: plays were staged, films shown, beautiful music performances heard and competitions held. Theatre activities were also held. All these were opportunities for local talent – not necessarily great actors or actresses – to come forward and display their talent before a community audience.
 
Artists and stage decorators found an occasion to contribute their talent: brilliant ideas of local technology are innovatively applied in stage decoration, in lighting. The way lights and colours are used are perhaps very gaudy but fascinatingly worthy of study.
 
Have you noticed the themes that emerge from Ganapati mandaps?
 
They are often social or political and are an interesting expression through popular art. Every time we’ve had wars, the Indo-China war, (1965), the Indo-Pak war (1975) all the Ganapati mandaps in those years sat (or stood) with a background of the Himalayas – and though Ganapati was spared – jawaans engaged in scenes of combat stood around while Nehruji also figured. Even here, the Ganapati though central was small, incidental.
 
In the eighties, the Shiv Sena and the BJP systematically appropriated this, an occasion which reflected the popular expression of ordinary people to further their ideology and to brainwash people: the SS-controlled mandaps which portray the Marathas (pitted against the Moghuls) and those of the BJP, which show dominant images of Ram and Sita, serve their respective ideologies well.
 
These, and some other aspects that have emerged in recent years I find very disturbing. The long queues outside the Siddhivinayaka (another “avatar” of Ganesh) temple round the year when people seek a divine boon or blessing, for example, have nothing to do with this celebratory cultural event which also has its positive sides. That is just plain andhashradha (blind faith) linked closely with a general growth in religious consciousness. That is, for me, upsetting.
 
We all know that the Ganapati festival as we see it in its sarvajanik (community) from, particularly the aspect of its public immersion preceded by a huge procession, was started by Lokmanya Tilak as a way of mobilising people against the British, (leave aside the fact that it was also conceived or perceived in competition with the moharram procession), but today this same politicization has taken a distinctly communal turn.
 
The ten days of Ganapati celebration are used by certain parties who have taken control of all the Ganesh mandaps in the city, to brainwash people… they use theatre, skits, plays and films, songs to further their agenda. And because it is a Hindu festival, in Maharashtra it is obviously the Shiv Sena and the BJP who are the pudharis (the leaders). And, when we say they use the festival to further their agenda, don’t we know how dangerous that agenda is?
 
During the communal riots in Bombay in 1992-93, the mahaartis were used to mobilize ostensibly against Muslim namaazis. Even now, this tension is still there just below the surface, people are trying too cope with it individually but these parties don’t want to allow people to forget and are actively creating further tensions.
 

Then the money aspect, crude commercialization, has also crept in Ganapati has become a front for huge money collection (see box). So not only does the political brainwashing go on, there are select political parties behind the festival Bombay who are in complete control of all the mandaps, and they will use it, each year, as a front to collect funds for the next elections.
 
Do you remember the “Vardhadada’s” Ganapati at Matunga? A criminal and a don who sought social respectability began to be seen as a Robin Hood figure through this massive Ganapati that he instituted, replete with lavish lights and decorations. It was the trend started by Vardha, after which all these other “sponsored” Ganapatis started. The local political heavweight of simply a deity sponsored by Gwalior or Dinesh suitings!
 
The whole charm of a community event, the original sarvajanik Ganapati festival, made possible through painstaking collections of small and voluntary individual contributions, is gone. The element of faith and worship, individual and collective, has been replaced by the crudeness of a purely commercial activity.
 
How many people actually think of poor Ganapati? The fact that he is such a cute God, as an art form, the Ashtavinayaka, he is beautiful. As an artist I call him cute, children take to him, he eats ladoos and modaks, he’s half-elephant, half-human, he has a perculiar vahaan (vehicle of transport, the rat): everything to awaken the curious. And the endless chain of Ganapati stories on which so many children have fantasised.
 
Where has the Ganapati got lost in all this?
 
(As told to Communalism Combat; Shakuntala Kulkarni is a well-known artist)

Also Read
O GANESHA! – Part 2

The post O GANESHA! – Part 1 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: Indian Express                 Representation Image

West Bengal: West Bengal, rather undivided Bengal, is historically known for its unique AND rich culture. Generally, culture depends on the socioeconomic and demographic structure of that area.

After River Saraswati’s death in the western part of modern India, another civilization got stabilized in the eastern part of that land on the Bank of River, called Ganga. This civilization gradually became very strong economically because of its fertile land and suitable weather.

Due to this demographic character, the people of this area became soft in nature and started worshipping many such Gods and Goddesses which are representative of natural power, energy and threat.

With the evolution of such a list, people of this part got habituated of worshipping Lord Shiva, Lord Bishnu, Lord Indra, Lord Barun, Goddess Durga, Kali and other forms of these Gods and Goddesses.

Mainly, the economy of this land was based on farming and partially on trading. So, it was important to worship those powers which are favourable for farming and trading. Since this land was full of rivers and prone to various disease and prone to death due to snake and insect bites. This forced people to worship such powers which could prevent calamities or safeguard them.

Rituals of this area also vary from other parts of our nation because of various reasons including above-mentioned points.

Language and linguistics also play a major role in the development of culture and ritual.

Over the years, Durga puja, Kali puja, Manasa Puja, Shitala Puja, Kartik Puja, Ganesh Puja, Satyanarayan Puja, Dhammo Thakur Puja became a part of the life of Bengal.

Surprisingly, from last three to four years Ramnavami, Hanuman Jayanti have started being celebrated in Bengal, whereas Lord Ram was never popular in the list of worshipped gods by Bengali people and the latest addition is the celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi across Bengal but mainly in urban areas.

There was Ganesh Puja in Bengal which was undertaken mostly by traders and businessmen during Nabobarsho or just after that during Akshay Tritiya. During that time, Lord Ganesh is worshipped and distribution of sweets is a common ritual but with big pandals and popular Hindi item numbers, these celebrations are recent to Bengal.

Now, what’s the reason for this sudden change and who are causing this cultural change? Surely this can be thought of the hour.

Is it normal to get changes in social behaviour within such a short span of time? From a social point of view, it is impossible without having some affiliation.

What can be those affiliations or motives which make these changes? From last two-three years, the increasing trend of establishing Hanuman temples indicates a different story.

Normal social behaviour or socioeconomic narrative can’t explain such changes. But are people taking these changes spontaneously?

The answer is yes. But bitter truth is that they are swallowing it unknowingly. When people are suffering from all corners, this can be an easy way out to flow them away from the mainstream. By giving few thousand bucks if people can just enjoy, they will.

Whether that is normal or not, whether that is good or bad, is immaterial.

Nowadays, it is a common trend to take everyone under their own comfort zone, under their own perspective.

It may ruin the basic characteristics of our nation “Unity in Diversity” for which we are known in the world and which is the strength of our nation.

Ruining regional identity, regional culture, regional rituals, regional language by ingression of fake nationalism may be suicidal for us as a great nation.

Tanmoy Ghosh is a social activist and entrepreneur. He is also the Secretary at Bangla Sanskriti Manch

The post Opinion: Ganesh Chaturthi Replacing Ganesh Pujo in Bengal: A Cultural Threat or Political Move? appeared first on SabrangIndia.