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Martial imagery in WesternIndia: The changing face ofGanapati since the 1890sRaminder Kaur aa University of ManchesterPublished online: 08 May 2007.
To cite this article: Raminder Kaur (2002) Martial imagery in Western India: Thechanging face of Ganapati since the 1890s, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies,25:1, 69-96, DOI: 10.1080/00856400208723466
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Martial Imagery in Western India:The Changing Face of Ganapati since the 1890s
Raminder Kaur
University of Manchester
Recent investigations of the Hindutva resurgence in 1990s India havenoted the axiomatic role that audio-visual media has had on politicaldissemination across the country.1 The influence of the Doordarshantelevision series, Mahabharata and Ramayana, on the revivalism ofreligious nationalism has been phenomenal and has spawned an industryof analysis and theorisation.2 Studies on political imagery haveconcentrated upon the changing iconography of Ram, a once quietistfigure who is now more commonly represented in the image of a valiantcrusader.3 An intensification of media outlets and religious nationalismhave led thus to the ascription of a new kind of politics and representativeimagery symptomatic of a visually saturated realm. It has been described
1 BannSee, for instance, G. Pandey, Hindus and Others:The Question of Identity in India Today (NewDelhi: Viking, 1993); P. van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); A. Rajagopal, Politics after Television (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2000); R. Davis, 'The Iconography of Rama's Chariot', in D. Ludden(ed), Contesting the Nation: Religion, Community and the Politics of Democracy in India(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996); and C. Brosius and M. Butcher (eds), ImageJourneys: Audio-Visual Media and Cultural Change in India (New Delhi: Sage, 1999).2 P. Richman, 'Epic and State: Contesting Interpretations of the Ramayana', in Public Culture, Vol.7,no.3 (1995), pp.631-54; P. Mankekar, 'Television Tales and a Woman's Rage: A NationalistRecasting of Draupadi's "Disrobing"', in Public Culture, Vol.5 (1993), pp.69-92; and Rajagopal,Politics after Television. The fraternity of Hindu Right-wing organisations include the BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP), the Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or National Volunteer Organisation, theVishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Council, the Bajrang Dal (Bajrang Army) and, morerecently the Mumbai-based Shiv Sena (Shivaji's Army). Of these organisations, only the BJP andShiv Sena are electoral parties. The RSS is a cadre-based organisation preferring to work in a'cultural' manner, the VHP is an international Hindu revivalist organisation backed by finances of theIndian diaspora, particularly in America, and the Bajrang Dal is a para-military organisation (see T.Basu, Tapan, P. Datta, S. and T. Sarkar, and S. Sen, Khaki Shorts, Saffron Flags. Tracts for theTimes/1 (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1993). It is notable that Hindu epics such as the Ramayanaand Mahabharata in the 1980s were televised on Doordarshan, a terrestrial station very much in thehands of the then Congress government. Nonetheless, the reception of such narratives fed intoHindutva discourse.3 A. Kapur, 'Deity to Crusader: The Changing Iconography of Ram', in Pandey, Hindus and Others,pp.74-109.
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as 'televisual politics'4 in an arena characterised by cinema, television,advertising, chromolithograph, comics and magazines—one that is aptlysummed up by Arjun Appadurai's and Caroline Breckenridge's term, the'inter-ocular field' of visual and auditory signifiers.5
This article seeks to widen a debate that has so far concentrated on thepost-1980s period. In the attention given to the contemporary scenario—a period which saw both an increase in media technology and theresurgence of the Hindutva brigade—earlier precedents have tended to beoverlooked.6 Anuradha Kapur notes how the Ram deity in contemporaryHindutva iconography has been endowed with Kshatriya warrior-likefeatures, and given an ugra (angry) visage which does not address theviewer but looks away, inviting the viewer to gaze with him in thedirection of an assumed enemy. This contrasts markedly with the benign,almost androgynous standard representation of Ram meeting the gaze ofthe viewer.7 Kapur asserts that 'a moment of violence' has produced thisnew imagery of a combative Ram.8 But it is also largely to do with thelegacy of European realism and technologies that since the late nineteenthcentury have enabled the reproduction of 'realist' conventions.Specifically, 'through-lines' between character and context are createdsuch that, unlike pre-modern representations of a 'disengaged' Ram, thisman-god is now seen to accommodate the contingencies of circumstance,such that there is 'a tight fit between body and event'9—in other words,between martial representations of a deity and resurgent Hindunationalism.
Evidence from considering the changing forms of the deity, Ganapati,however, suggests that it cannot be simply asserted that the linear logicsbetween militarised masculinity implicit in Hindu nationalism arenecessarily represented in the martialisation of a deity. Instead, a
4 C. Pinney, 'The Nation (Un)Pictured? Chromolithography and "Popular" Politics in India: 1878-1995', (Paper published by the Department of Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies,London, 1995), p.4.5 A. Appadurai and C. Breckenridge, 'Museums are Good to Think: Heritage on View in India', in I.Karp, CM. Kreamer, and S.D. Lavine (eds), Museums and Communications:The Politics of PublicCulture (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), p.52.6 Pinney does however consider earlier instances of politicised imagery with a focus on popularpolitical prints in the early part of this century in relation to the Cow Protection movement in northIndia. He notes the use of prints of a cow body covered with deities and a group of figures eitherunderneath its udders or advancing as if to slay the cow in the movement. Effectively, the imageportrayed the sacred associations of cow and nation, as well as disseminating communalist messagesagainst Muslims ('The Nation "Unpictured", pp.9-10 and C. Pinney, 'Chromolithography, Localityand the Articulation of the "Popular", 1878-1995 (Department of Anthropology, School of Orientaland African Studies, London, 1995). Instead, this study concentrates on earlier instances of martialdeities which might be directly compared with contemporary images of a masculinist Ram.7 Kapur, 'Deity to Crusad:r', pp.74-5.8 Ibid., p. 107.9 Ibid, p.103.
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dialectical relationship can be discerned. Due to a number of factors, thisresults on occasion in a correspondent response; at other times, the effectscan in fact appear to be counter-intuitive. The argument is madeconspicuous when considering earlier examples of warrior-liketransformations of deities from the 1890s, a subject that appears to haveescaped the attention of analysts of contemporary Hindu nationalism.The phenomena of combative gods have striking historical antecedentsfrom at least the 1890s as can be seen in the representations of Ganapatitnnrti shown in the act of vanquishing rakshasa (demons) (illustrations 1-2).
In this article, I focus on this complex terrain between insignia andpolitics by considering the colonial and post-independent period inWestern India in as much as it pertains to nationalist imagery associatedwith the annual Ganapati utsava (festival).10 In so doing, I highlightrelationships between religious imagery and politics that complicatecontemporary wisdom about a direct and unmediated relationshipbetween audio and visual insignia and socio-political contexts, and Ireconsider the assumption that a moment of chauvinistic politicsnecessarily equates with representations of active, aggressive andcombative gods as a new kind of political imagery. Despite the history ofmartial Ganapati murti installed during the mobilised Ganapati festivalsince the 1890s, warrior deity forms of Ganapati are no longer popularamongst artists (murtikar) and their clientele. Indeed, there seems to be areversion to pauranik precedents for the Ganapati form." The deity mostpreferred is one that is presented in a quietist pose, pot-bellied(lambodara), ideally wearing a yellow garment, his hands holdingvarious attributes such as an elephant goad {ankushd), a noose {pasha), avessel of modaka (sweets), with the fourth hand in the protective abhayapose, and made out of matti (clay) as opposed to plaster of Paris, popularfrom the 1960s. For the contemporary Ganapati form, a militant religiousnationalism has not necessarily resulted in the popularity of a militarisedHindu deity, even though the deity has been presented in an aggressiveand active form in the past.12 This is not to say, though, that the imagedoes not partake in a political narrative, for the murti may well be placed
"' Ganapati—literally 'Lord of the hordes'—is the most frequently cited name for Ganesha inMaharashtra." The two specific pauranik sources devoted to Ganapati are the Ganesha Purana (dated around1100-1400) and the less widely known Mudgala or Maudgateya Purana. See L.W. Preston.'Subregional Religious Centres in the History of Maharashtra: The Sites Sacred to Ganesh' in N.K.Wagle (ed), Images of Maharashtra: A Regional Profile of India (London: Curzon Press), p.103.12 There are, however, large martial murti installed by some of the chauvinist Shiv Sena controlledmandals in Mumbai which would bear out Kapur's observations for Ram. Nonetheless, evenamongst Sainik supporters, the tendency to prefer non-activist representations of Ganapati is ofoverwhelming importance, for reasons that we shall see below.
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in the middle of a tableau with vignettes representing Hindu nationalism,and their reception may certainly inform chauvinist sensibilities.
By presenting a brief history of the relations between Ganapati murti andpolitical contexts, this article asks what conditions made for a militantGanapati in the colonial period, yet led to their demise in the post-independence period despite the recent resurgence of Hindu nationalism?In investigating this apparent conundrum, the implications of Kapur'sanalysis on the Ram figure, where straightforward assumptions of thereligious essence of a conventional image are transformed by politicalstrategies or mundane 'impurity', are reconsidered. Allegoricalrepresentations cannot simply be flattened to accompany a politicalnarrative in a linear fashion. Other factors need also be taken intoaccount, such as the multi-layered resilience of image and metaphor, thelimits of acceptable transformations in a commercialised mediaenvironment, and the religio-ethical concerns that the transformationsraise even amongst Hindu nationalists. The following is divided intothree main sections. The first part of this article explores the emergenceof warrior Ganapati murti during the public festival from the 1890s. Thesecond section examines the contemporary scenario of Ganapati murtiand festival displays. The final part of the article outlines the influence ofexpressive cultures and contextual politics on the development of themurti and the surrounding tableaux up to the present era. Thiselaboration provides insights into the contemporaneous 'inter-ocular'field and religio-ethical factors which have led to, on the one hand,elaborate nationalist displays around the Ganapati murti, and on the other,the predominating reversion to pauranik ideals for the Ganapati form inpresent-day Maharashtra.
The Mobilised FestivalThe Ganapati utsava played a significant role in anti-colonial agitation inMaharashtra, particularly under the auspices of Bal Gangadhar Tilakduring the 1890s. Tilak and a number of others—the key figure herebeing Bhausaheb Laxman Javale, to whom we shall return below—wereinstrumental in politicising the Ganapati utsava. After the demise of thePeshwas dynasty in 1813, the public festivities petered out but continuedto be celebrated in domestic and temple contexts. It was not until the1890s that the festival was revitalised for large-scale public involvement,lasting ten days instead of one and a half.
In reviving the Ganapati festival the nationalists were interested inrestoring the former glory of the region when it was under indigenousrule. The celebrations began to be conducted on a grand scale withceremonies, lectures and debates on current issues. With the vehicle of
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the Ganapati utsava, Tilak, amongst others, was able to circumventBritish colonial laws against political gatherings and disseminate hisviews concerning the ills of society, including colonialism, to a widepublic within the rubric of areligious festival.13
Even though a thoroughexposition of this period ofpolitical representation isdifficult, there is substantialevidence that points to thewarrior-like transformationof three-dimensional murtirepresentations of Ganapatiinstalled in sarvajanik(public) mandate from the1890s onwards. Due tomandal practices of theimmersion of a secondsmaller Ganapati murti inPune, several of the originallarger Ganapati murti havebeen kept for subsequentyears. Murti from the 1890sare extant to this day.14 Theystand as significant relics ofthe nation's emergence, andduring the festival whenthey are brought out fordisplay, they sit almost as if they were part of a pulsating, 'livingmuseum' on the streets of the city. Of the early Ganapati forms installedfor the mobilised festival in Pune, there are largely two types of poses forthe murti. Conventional representations show a sitting Ganapati with acherubic face and beatific smile, exuding in other words shanta rasa—that is, tranquillity, compassion and benevolence. This benign imagecontinued to be created for the politicised festival. But murti forms in the1890s also began to be represented in an active and punishing pose—thatis, in ugra forms of iconography. Often they would be in the form of astanding Ganapati bending over to deliver a blow to a demon, as with the
Illustration 1
13 R. Cashman, The Myth of the 'Lokmanya'.Tilak and Mass Politics in Maharashtra (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1975); and P.B. Courtright, Ganesa: Lord of Obstacles. Lord ofBeginning (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).14 Unlike Mumbai, large murti are not immersed in Pune due to the shallowness of the River Mula-Mutha. The historical murti are made out of wood pulp, and annually re-painted before the festival.
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Bhau Rangari Ganapati (illustration 1), the Taravade Ganapati and theChatrapati Rajaram Ganapati (all established in 1892). These murti weremade by Bhausaheb Laxman Javale (alias Bhau Rangari).
Other models showGanapati in the act ofovercoming a demonwith a mace, sittingupon an elephant, orstriking a demon ortiger with a spear{trishut), as exemplifiedby the Akhil NavipethHatti Ganapati(established in 1893,illustration 2).15 Thelatter also alludes topopular representationsof the Kshatriya form ofKhandoba, the guardiandeity of the Deccan,who is commonlyshown on horsebackbrandishing a sword tothwart demons. As 'theremover of obstacles'(yighnaharta), theseGanapati murtidemonstrate thedevelopment of activeand martial images ofthe deity in the process
Illustration 2
of killing models of rakshasa in various forms.
Bhausaheb Lakshrnan Javale was a renowned ayurvedic doctor who hadalso developed a talent for dying clothes (hence his alias, Rangari).Along with some of his militant friends—Dagdusheth Halvai, NanasahebKhasgivale, Maharshi Annasaheb Patvardhan, Balasaheb Natu,Ganapatrao Ghoravadekar, and Lakhusheth Dantale—he established the
" There is another important and unique prototype in Pune—the Mandai Mandal Ganapati, areclining Ganapati tended to by one of his consorts. The mandal was established in 1896. Themurtiis popular due to its historical value, beauty, and the fact that it is placed in a very busy market area,which since World War It has become the focus of the city's commercial and social activities. Otherforms of Ganapati have been essentially hieratic models with the features of other deities such asKrishna and Durga.
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earliest mandal in Pune, the Bhau Rangari Ganapati Mandal (illustration1) in 1892. As well, Javale made similar murti for mandals inauguratedby his associates. Thus, contrary to popular understanding and itsreflection in scholarly texts, it was not Tilak who pioneered thepoliticised festival.16 Tilak approved of the revitalisation as a means ofunifying the community, and widely publicised the festival throughouthis journalistic writings, particularly from 1893 onwards. In 1894, he hadhis own public Ganapati installed in the courtyard of the then Kesarinewspaper press in Vinchurkawada. Later, after Bhau Rangari's death in1905, Tilak became a Trust member of the Bhau Rangari GanapatiMandal. But he did not originate the movement.
The Bhau Rangari Ganapati murti is shown in the act of killing arakshasa 'as a personification of action and even violence'.17 Therepresentations of Ganapati murti present overwhelming evidence of theuse of icons for conveying a veiled political message. M. M. Underhill,writing in 1921, noted:
The growing interest of students in politics, and the adoptionof Ganesa as their patron god, have united to connect himclosely with the national movement.... The legend of slayingthe elephant-headed demon, Gajasura, is interpreted to hisworshippers, who are coming to his temple in increasingnumbers, as being the deliverance of the people from thenational oppressor.18
Although I have not come across any representations of elephant-headeddemons in the historical murti designs, there are a number of populardemon stories associated with Ganapati.19 These murti representationsdemonstrate an abstract distillation of demonic forces as opposed toreferring to a particular allegory. Rakshasa was a common way ofdescribing hindrances and grievances of various kinds; for instance in aspeech on 13 February 1917, Tilak insisted that the nationalist 'demandwas a united demand. The great Rakshasa in the path of union haddisappeared'.20 Similarly, in a speech delivered in Calcutta, Tilak is
1(1 For a considered reassessment of Tilak's actual role in the Ganapati festival, see Chapter 3 in myforthcoming book, A Trunk Full of Tales:Performative Politics and the Culture of the Spectacle inWestern India. Due to the lack of historical information on, or writings by, Bhau Rangari, he cuts ashadowy figure; yet he is a significant local actor.17 Maharashtra Herald, 17 Dec. 1990. Even though these viewpoints are taken from the newspaperarticle, they were also corroborated by the present-day mandal members and other informants.18 M M Underhill, The Religious Life of India:The Hindu Religious Year (London: OUP, 1921), p.50.19 Courtright, Ganesa, pp. 129-36.20 B.G. Tilak, Bal Gangadhar Tilak: His Writings and Speeches, with an appreciation by BalAurobindo Ghose, (Madras: Ganesh and Co, 1922), p.343.
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reported to have 'compared the CID with the Rakshasa who wanted todestroy his creator, "Lord Shiva'".21
The representations of Ganapati murti discussed above presentoverwhelming evidence for the use of icons for conveying veiled politicalmessages—the view which is proposed by informants in Pune to this day:'To many the rakshasa Ganesh is shown killing is a personification of thecountry's erstwhile British rulers'.22 The whole composition in times ofpolitical agitation makes allegorical allusions to the overthrow of colonialpowers, and Ganapati's role as the remover of obstacles (yighna) in theway of national justice and self-determination is recalled. However, thenature of allegory precluded straightforward incrimination or accusationof seditious intent by colonial authorities. This was not simply due to theofficial British policy of non-interference in religious matters,23 but alsothe nature of prosecution, which however biased in the colonial context,was required to meet certain mandatory standards. As Tilak put it in hisdefence in the Kesari prosecution trial of 1908: 'A case of seditiondivides itself into three points, first there is the publication of the article[representation], secondly, there are certain insinuations and innuendoesand lastly the question of intentionality'.24
Whilst representations could be suspected as seditious, and insinuationsand innuendoes could be sensed, the question of intentionality remainedintransigent.25 Intentionality carried the burden of proof.26 Gauging this
2I/Wd.,p.333.22 Maharashtra Herald, 17 Dec. 1990. This would seem a Maharashtrian counterpart to unresolveddebates about whether lithographs of Kali striking a demon with a lion couchant in the comer oughtto be seen as a personification of nationalists overcoming the colonial 'evil' in Bengal. See C.Pinney quoted in C. A. Bayly, The Raj: India and the British. 1600-1947 (London: National PortraitGallery, 1990), p.341.23 By the latter half of the nineteenth century, the British authorities arrived at a reasonably firmpolicy of not involving the state in matters of religion, and did not have a policy of imposingChristianity, even though several missionaries worked independently of official government support.See S. Dube, 'Travelling Light: Missionary Musings, Colonial Cultures and AnthropologicalAnxieties' in P. Kaur and J. Hutnyk (eds), Travel Worlds: Journeys in Contemporary CulturalPolitics (London: Zed Elooks, 1999). The state enacted uniform codes of civil and criminal law, but,as with the 'secular1 state after independence, personal law was seen to be governed by the respectivereligion of the individusil. See P. Chatterjee, 'Religious Minorities and the Secular State: Reflectionson an Indian Impasse', in Public Culture. Vol.8 (1995), p. 15.24 The Kesari Prosecution: The Trial of Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1908) (Madras: Ganesh and Co.Publishers, 1908).
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enabled a means of distinguishing between the legalistic definition ofdisaffection (a punishable act) and that of disapprobation (an act that canbe overlooked in the interests of 'free speech') as covered by Section124A of the Indian Penal Code. As Judge Strachey advised the jury in anearlier case of sedition against Tilak's newspaper articles:27
You will thus see that the whole question is one of theintention of the accused in publishing these articles.... Thereare various ways in which you must approach the question ofintention. You must gather the intention as best you canfrom the language of the articles; and you may also take intoconsideration, under certain conditions, the other articles thathave been put in evidence.... But the first and most importantindex of the intention of the writer or publisher of anewspaper article is the language of the article itself. Whatis the intention which the articles themselves convey to yourminds? In considering this, you must first ask yourselveswhat would be the natural and probable effect of readingsuch articles on the minds of the readers of the Kesari towhom they are addressed?28
The emphasis on written evidence and its possible interpretations isdifficult in itself. But suitable evidence against immanently seditiousreligious iconography would be even more intractable for the proceduralrationality of the colonial courts. Evidently, the murti vividly served as avisual and conceptual vehicle of'hidden transcripts'.29
A hidden transcript is defined as a text which 'typically expressedopenly—albeit in disguised form—...a critique of power while hiding
23 On the distaste felt for the allegorical politics of a drama, Kichak Vadh, Chirol elaborates: 'It m a ybe said that this is mere fooling. But no Englishman who has seen the play acted would agree. Allhis life, he will remember the tense, scowling faces of the men as they watch Kichaka 's outrageousacts, the glistening eyes of the Brahmin ladies as they listen to Draupadi 's entreaties, their scorn o fYudhis t ra ' s tameness, their admiration of Bh ima ' s passionate protests, and the deep hum ofsatisfaction which approves the slaughter of the tyrant ' . V. Chirol, Indian Unrest, with anintroduction by Sir Alfred Lyatt (London: Macmillan and Co, 1910), p.339. Disturbing as it might b eto the authorities, it was constitutionally difficult to impound all those involved .26 Pinney prefers to describe colonial efforts of 'cracking of the code ' as a 'cryptologicaP pursuit .See ' Indian Magical Realism: Notes on Popular Visual Cul ture ' , in G. Badhra, G. Prakash and S.Tharu (eds). Subaltern Studies X: Writings on South Asian History and Society (New Delhi: O U P ) , p .213 . Whilst this is feasible, it is also the case that intentionality had to be proven such that an artist-author could be attributed with dissent and thus penalised.27 Th i s act is still in place as a prohibition of inflammatory writ ing.28 J. Strachey, Charge to the Jury in the Case of the Queen Empress r Bal Gangadhar Tilak andKeshab Mahadev Bal in the High Court of Bombay (Bombay: Thatcher and Co, 1897), pp. 16-17.29 J.C. Scott, 'Prestige as the Public Discourse of Domination', in Cultural Critique, (Spring, 1989);and Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press,1990).
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behind anonymity or behind innocuous understandings of their [authorial]conduct'.30 My use of the term is not intended, however, to convey theidea of texts having meanings that are evident to some exclusive few andhidden to others. Indeed, such representations have been the subject ofheated debate in many colonial circles. The point is that it was not soexplicitly obvious, and that the message was adaptable to suit theopportune occasion. As Sandria Freitag states: 'The very ambiguity ofthe visual mode of communication—the very ability of the viewer tobring to his or her gaze individual interpretations and contextualisation—provides much room to manoeuvre and negotiate in the relationship to thestate within the public sphere'.31 As opposed to clearly propositionalexpressions, the visual mode, along with the allegorical trope, had theadvantage of being at once religious, yet imparting a political message.32
Even though understood as an emblem of retaliation against the colonialpowers (due to the unstable and provisional nature of the religio-politicalvisual iconography), incriminating evidence was not always enough forcolonial prohibition.
Whilst the warrior image of Ganapati provides earlier examples of themartialisation of Hindu deities antecedent to, though not necessarilydirectly informing, the changes of contemporary images of Ram underthe influence of Hindutva, there appears to be a dissonance in readingsbetween the two martial figures of Ganapati and Ram in their temporalcontexts. The martial Ganapati is more an allegorical message againstturn of the centur/ British colonialism rather than a provocative statement
30 Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, p.xiii. Applying a Foucauldian paradigm of pluri-centred power, hidden transcripts can also be articulated by those that professedly rule: 'Thepowerful, for their part, also develop a hidden transcript representing the practices and claims of theirrules that cannot be openly avowed'. (Ibid., p. xii). This is a subject outside the purview of thisstudy but is explored by B. Cohn, 'Representing Authority in Victorian India', in E. Hobsbaum and T.Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 165-209.31 SB. Freitag, 'Visions of the Nation: Theorizing the Nexus between Creation, Consumption, andParticipation in the Public Sphere' (paper delivered at SOAS Popular Culture Conference, 1995), p.31.32 I stress both , a s visual modality alone is not inherent ly subversive. Non- re l ig ious imagery w a sindeed confiscated by colonial authorities. For example, in 1907 G.B. Phansalkar used 'drop-scene'curtains in Marathi theatres to spread anti-British feelings. According to the Central InvestigationDepartment (CID), the words on the curtain read: 'Have patriotism, don't take articles from foreigncountries and don't drink', and were interposed by three pictures: 'The first picture depicted anEuropean talking to a Marwari trader. It was meant to show the Europeans who first came to Indiaand obtained informaticn on trade and commerce. The second showed the Peshwa sitting on thethrone with half-drawn sword, flanked by his Sardars, and an European kneeling before him with hiscap off. It showed how "humble and crouching" they were initially. The third portrayed a Europeansitting in the carriage being pulled by a Brahmin. It was meant to portray the contemporary state inwhich children of the soil were being treated as beasts'. A.G. Ganachari, 'The Contribution OfMarathi Theatre To the Growth Of Nationalism, 1897-1913', Proceedings of the Indian HistoryCongress, 54h Session, 1993, p.588. Not surprisingly the curtains were confiscated, and Phansalkarand the painter were reprimanded.
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against Muslim communities. However, bearing in mind the vacillationsbetween anti-Muslim and anti-British messages during the colonial era, itis arguable as to how exclusive such anti-colonial allusions were.33
It is also instructive to consider the nature of the masculine body, thenand now. Even though the deity has the head of an elephant, his bodyremains that of a human being. In the case of contemporary Ram, thereappears to be a regulated, 'disciplined' body—disciplined both by agymnastic aesthetic and the standardisation of the tall, slim and muscle-bound body under the influence of a hegemonic globalised modernaesthetic. Kapur indeeddescribes the contemporaryRam figure as resembling thefigures from Hollywoodepics.34 Such a disciplinarybody frame is not so obvious,though, on the historicalGanapati murti. Instead, weare presented with otheraesthetics of martialisation—dynamic yet fluid, aggressiveyet with almost androgynouslyrounded limbs—as opposed torepresenting a comparativelyregimented and standardisedmale body aesthetic.
Warrior-like images ofGanapati persisted from the1890s, and spread throughoutthe region. Other, later,models present less ambigiousdevelopments as to theirnationalist import. One, theSakhalipir Talim RashtriyaMaruti Mandal (established
Illustration 3
in 1919, illustration 3), formerlyassociated with a talim (roughly translated as gymnasium) in Pune, has a
33 For the complexities of anti-Muslim or anti-colonial resentment, see also the literature on the CowMovement, for example A. Yang, 'Sacred Symbol and Sacred Space in Rural India: CommunityMobilisation in the "Anti-Cow Killing" Riot of 1893', in Comparative Studies in Society andHistory. Vol. 22, no.4 (1980), pp.576-96; SB. Freitag, 'Sacred Symbol as Mobilising Agency: TheNorth Indian Search for a "Hindu" Community', in Ibid., pp.597-625; and P. Robb, 'The Challengeof Gau Mata: British Policy and Religious Change in India 1880-1916', in Modern Asian Studies.Vol.20, no.2, pp.285-319.34 Kapur, Deity to Crusader, p. 105.
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four-armed Ganapati in a white chemise typical of earlier wrestlers, and,according to a mandal member, sports a watch as one might find inchromolithographs of the freedom fighter, Chandrashekhar Azad.Another, the Jai Bajrang Tarun Mandal in Shukarwar Peth (established1907, illustration 4), shows a muscular, standing Ganapati in shorts,ripping apart his heart to reveal his 'parents', Shiv and Parvati. This is asone might find in representations of the deity, Hanuman, the patron saintof wrestling, ripping apart his heart to show his undying devotion to theIndian heroes of (he Ramayana, Ram and Sita.
Photographs of early martialrepresentations of Ganapatiprovide further evidence. TheNarasimha Samaj KaryalayaGanapati in Nagpur showsa six-armed Ganapati on atiger homologous to thegoddess, Durga, spearing ademon configuration arguablyallegorical of the overthrow ofBritish rule (Chitramai Jagat1922, hereon CJ). The 1923Jummadada VyayamamandirGanapati in Baroda depicts afour-armed Ganapati wrestlinga demon (CJ, 1923). The 1924Jummadada Vyayamashala
•fei&£..w>J*£' • ' B S s a E H H i The Bharata Vaishnava Samajfrom Malad in 1926 shows aGanapati dressed in military
clothes spearing a tiger and a lion. Mumbai's Colaba Ganapati and theRatnagiri Ganapati both show Ganapati wrestling with a lion, whilst astout looking 'Jungle Satyagraha' Ganapati comes from Ankola. Alsoinnovative is Alibagh's Bal Manmitra Mela with a Ganapati on a chariotwith a woman spearing two tigers behind them (CJ, 1922); and the 1928Paral Ganapati, v/hich shows a Peshwas-type Ganapati on elephant-back,again spearing a tiger (CJ, 1928). In the majority of cases, Ganapati isshown as above the beast he is attacking. His supremacy is indicated bythe way he is placed in a position of power. Although I was not able toget contextual information for these historical mandals, one can
Illustration 4
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reasonably suppose that the representations were attuned to the socio-political developments of the time, particularly as to activist expressionsof an emergent nationalism. Significantly, these ran alongsideconventional representations of Ganapati that were also installed bymilitant-minded nationalists, a prominent example being the mandalassociated with Dagdusheth Halvai, now one of the most popularGanapati murti in India.
Other photographs show Ganapati assuming the characteristics ofpolitical figureheads. The fusion of religious and nationalist iconographylends another reading to the murti forms; if not always an aggressivemasculinity, certainly an uncompromising nationalism. The NagpurRashtriya Utsavamandala Ganapati of 1917 shows what appears to beGanapati dressed in Tilak's dress, holding a flag and surrounded bytwo lions. Later unaccredited pictorial evidence, available with themurtikar, Pradeep Madhuskar,likely to be from Mumbai inthe 1940s, exists of Ganapatidressed in military gear asSubhas Chandra Bose, one legon a step and holding up a flag.Another provocative fusionshows Ganapati with the faceand dress of MohandasKaramchand Gandhi in theact of spinning khadi(illustration 5).35 The Ganapatimurti are made withrecognisably human features,such that the divine is mademore earthly and the earthly isfurther sanctified. In theprocess, a religious nationalism
is effused which, one canreasonably surmise, wouldhave thrown the British policyof non-interference in religious matters into a quandary, particularly as itwas murti of deities, the core of religious transactions, that were thesubject of concern.
Illustration 5
5 Sakal. 26 August, 1984.
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Contemporary Spectacles of NationalismNot surprisingly, after independence, martial representations of Ganapatiwere deemed anachronistic, illuminating further their intricateentanglement with anti-colonial politics. The earlier martial Ganapatimurti are still venerated and respected to this day in Pune, but seem tohold comparatively more historical value than devotional intimacy.Other more conventional murti forms seem to be preferred by devotees incontemporary times, particularly hieratic figures which allow a fulldarshan of the deity's eyes.36 In a bid to move away from what theyconsider as commercially-driven innovations, Hindu revivalists aspiretowards orthodox versions of the Ganapati murti, as stipulated in thePurana. It appears that mandap tableaux around the murti of Ganapati arenow the predominant sites for contemporary socio-political commentaryand allegories. Thematic mandap tableaux have become widespread inthe last couple of decades due to the influence of (audio-)visual media,intensive media coverage, newspaper-run competitions, and the collectionof substantial funds for large displays.
In present-day Maharashtra, murti placed on the mandap platform withdecoration alone are generally termed 'simple'—that is, simply the murti.Ganapati murti may be anything from two-handed to ten-handed, one- tofive-headed, standing, sitting, reclining, in motion, playing an instrumentand so forth. Ganapati murti may also be made out of an array of novelmaterials such as coconuts, pearls, coins, buttons and the like. It maydemonstrate characteristics of other gods, as with the attributes in itshands, its vehicle, its pose and clothing. Sometimes the features ofearthly figures are merged with Ganapati's features, so that we might finda Peshwas-type Ganapati, or a Shivaji-type Ganapati, but suchinnovations have their ethical contestations. In recent years the Ganapatimurti has, to much controversy, assumed for instance, the features of theactor, Rakesh Khanna, the cricketer, Kapil Dev, and even an Arabdressed in a long white tunic designed for Gulf-migrant Hindus. Thelatter was declared so offensive by Hindu chauvinists, presumablybecause of its Muslim connotations, that this murti form was unofficiallybanned by the Shiv Sena leader, Bal Thackeray, in the 1980s.
The revulsion towards excessive commercialism in the festival and thenovel forms of Ganapati have also led to a reversion to pauranikconventions along with their production in matti. An example may
36 This is not to assume that the murti has not shown innovations in post-independence years, orindeed earlier in Peshwas times. It is known that the ruler. Madhava Peshwas, had made a murti outof blue sapphires, known as the Neelmanjach ('Blue Beads') in the eighteenth century. See D.B.Parasnis, Poona in Bygone Days (Bombay: The Times Press, 1921), p.9, anticipating the wholesaleinventions and innovations of the Ganapati murti form in the twentieth century.
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suffice. Shortly after India won the 1983 Cricket World Cup, themurtikar, Pradeep Madhuskar, wanted to make a Kapil Dev Ganapati, buthe thought that, in the end, it was not 'dharmik' (roughly translated asreligious) to do so. Eventually he opted for a conventional standing andhieratic form of Ganapati who, in two of his hands, held out the WorldCup. Kapil Dev was made as a separate figure reaching out his hands toaccept the trophy to the side. Similarly, on requests to make a SanjayDutt Ganapati based on the film actor, Prafullah Bilaye negotiated tomake a conventional murti form with Sanjay Dutt in the form of a mouse,mushaka, characteristically the vehicle of Ganapati. These examplesreflect concern that the murti does not become polluted by too close anassociation with the profane. As a deity on the threshold between thedivine and the mundane, he is 'invited' onto earth to offer hope and, aswe shall see with some of the contemporary displays surrounding themurti, entrench faith in what is seen to be a world out of control.
It is in this light significant that we do not come across the production ofmany Ganapati forms fused with the features of notable human beings incontemporary times. This reversion to dharmik models conjoins withother revivalist trends in Maharashtra. There is also a contingent,generally associated with the more plebeian regionalist political party, theShiv Sena, who prioritise big, muscular yet hieratic representations ofGanapati. Thus, there are a handful of large twenty-five foot muscularGanapatis regularly installed in Mumbai. However, Hindu nationalists ofa more orthodox persuasion consider it a vulgarisation of the Ganapatiform, particularly if it entails a flat stomach, because, according to thePurana, Ganapati eats up the evils of the world, hence his pot-belliedappearance (lambodara).
As distinct to 'simple' mandap, there are those that picturise a specificnarrative. These can be variations of two types: those tableaux that depicta single narrative, which tend to be static representations; and those thatdepict multiple narratives and tend to incorporate moving models and'trick scenes'—that is, effects intended to deceive or surprise thespectator.37 The latter I have termed masala mandap after the descriptionattributed to Hindi film formulas, which often involve elaborate sound-and-light shows. The tableaux surrounding the murti do not just shownationalist scenes, but a variety of vignettes—an arrangement which,
" See R. Kaur Kahlon, Performative Politics.Artworks. Nationalism and Festival Praxis withreference to the Ganapati Utsava in Western India (Ph.D disseration, SOAS, University of London,1998) and R. Kaur, 'Rethinking the Public Sphere: The Ganapati Festival and Media Competitions inMumbai', in South Asia Research, Vol.21, no.l (2001), for more details on audio-taped masaladisplays.
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considering the large number of these mandals, is not too dissimilar fromthe one that obtained in historical times.38
As with film and theatre genres, there are distinct types of recurrentnarrative themes in mandap tableaux.39 They can be summarised thus:
(i) 'Nationalist' (rashtriya) which proffer themes with an explicitnationalist message; occasionally these types of tableaux can be brokendown further into different kinds of nationalism whether it be explicitlyHindu chauvinistic, 'secular'—that is inclusive of other religions as tendsto be the Congress predilection—or regionalist, referring specifically to aMaharashtrian sense of heritage and cohesion. Hindu chauvinistictableaux tend to prioritise the holiness and integrity of the nation and theHindu religion. 'Secular', or 'national integration' {rashtriya ekatmata)scenes, on the other hand, emphasise the brotherhood between allnational religions, primarily, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Parsi and Christian,and present threats as coming from 'outsiders' intent on breaking thisbhai-bhai (brotherhood) situation;
(ii) Topical or 'latest'—that is, containing stories about current newsitems whether it be the turmoil in Kashmir; news about corruption as withthe Dubai-based gangster don, Dawood Ibrahim, living in Dubai butoperating in Mumbai; the film actor, Sanjay Dutt's collusion with theMenon brothers held responsible for the bomb blasts in Mumbai in March1993; Harshad Mehta's stock market scam in 1993; scandals such as theJalgaon rape incident in which Congress politicians were implicated in aseries of videoed rape scenes in 1994; the Naina Sahni tandoor murder inwhich the then leader of the Congress Youth Committee murdered hiswife by grilling her in a tandoor oven in 1995; or nuclear missiles in1998;
(iii) 'Social' referring to the public good or health-related themes.Mandap in this category deliver messages about the cleanliness of theenvironment, anti-pollution measures, polio vaccinations, saving water,promoting education, modernity and the need for more job-creation andindustrialisation;
38 There are no extensive surveys on the number of mandal, present or past. Contemporary mediaestimates put the figure at approximately nine thousand for Greater Mumbai, three thousand forPune, and around twenty-five thousand for the whole of Maharashtra (The Metropolis on Saturday,11 Sept. 1994).!9 Even though vacillations may be demonstrated in these categorisations, there remain distinctpatterns in the spectrum that I outline here. These categorisations of mandap tableaux are articulateamongst popular parley, and further congealed by media coverage and competition categories.
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(iv) Religious/mythological {dharmik/pauranik) with scenes depictingstories of the gods; these are largely taken from the two main epics of theMahabharata or Ramayana but also other pauranik stories whereGanapati might be placed in the midst of other gods or seen in place ofother gods, as with narratives of Krishna overcoming the lake serpentking, Kalyamardan, where Krishna is replaced by Ganapati;
(v) Historical (aitihasik) featuring scenes of Shivaji, the Peshwas court,the British in India, freedom fighters and so forth;40 and
(vi) 'Entertaining' or 'commercial', which offer scenes such as portraitsof circuses, dancers, brightly-lit Ganapatis or what are these days referredto as 'disco Ganapatis'.
In masala mandap tableaux, one might find a number of the abovecomponents appearing one after another, as a litany of events connectedwith India's nationalist history, its religious make-up and socio-politicalscenarios are reeled off. Many of these extravagant tableaux with soundand lighting are constructed according to the rubric of nationalism ornational integration (rashtriya ekatmata). Indeed, it is possible to arguethat each of the above thematic displays can be subsumed to nationalistcategories if we are to consider nationalism as an umbrella term for thenation's cultural and religious heritage. My prime focus here, however,is what happened in the interim years between martial deities and masalanationalist scenes? How is it that the displays around the murti began totake on the more prominent socio-political message-bearing load, and notthe Ganapati representations themselves?
The Evolution of Mandap DisplaysIn historical times, displays surrounding the Ganapati murti played amarginal role compared with other activities in the festival. Nonetheless,it was the festival activities and contemporaneous audio-visualdevelopments that came to influence the nature of contemporary masalatableaux. The historical utsava consisted of an arena of lectures, debates,pravachan (religious discourses on sacred verses from the Vedas,Puranas, Upanishads, Bhaktisutras and the like), kirtan (narration basedon stories from the Puranas and history, blended with poetry and music),melas (mobile dramas), bhajans (devotional songs), music groups, and,from the 1910s, film shows.41 Judging from historical accounts, it was
40 Admittedly, the distinction between mythology and history is contentious for seemingly asserting ahierarchy between 'real' or 'true' and 'imaginary' pasts. However, this is not the sense by which theterms are used amongst festival participants.41 It is known that Dadasaheb Phalke, famed for making the first Indian feature movie, RajaHarischandra (1913), produced a documentary on the Ganapati utsava (now not available).
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melas rather than mandap tableaux per se that enabled the construction ofa 'creative patriotism'—to quote from the title of B.L. Vashta's essay,Deshbhaktipar Kalavishkar (1992). Melas were derived from other folkart forms, and were 'the audio-visual medium of the times, which greatlyinfluenced the minds of people.... [They] had portable sets, chorus songs,dances, enthusiastic participants, and a lot of sarcasm which wasunderstood by all and made people laugh'.42 Melas also enacted well-known stories inflected with socio-political messages:
A lecture on the inhumanity of child marriage is lesseffective than when the same problem is presented in aMarathi play called Sarada, as the latter has the potential oftouching the hearts of people. The songs from the play werememorable, and the meanings of those songs were etched inthe hearts, of the people.43
Sarada was based on the part of the Mahabharata where Kichak, thebrother-in-law of the king of Virata, tries to abduct Draupadi, whomaudiences readily identified as an emblem of Indian womanhood and thusas a personification of India. Unbeknown to Kichak, Yudhistra hasdressed up as Draupadi. As a result of Kichak's transgressions, Bhimavows to kill Kichak. The same story also inspired the drama, KichakVadh, which became hugely popular as a vehicle for veiled politicalmessages44 and the subject of a series of Ravi Varma paintings, whichwere reproduced widely through chromolithographs and postcardsthroughout Mumbai and the Deccan area from the 1900s.45 Despite itsveiled message, the seditious potential of these artistic forms wasrecognised by the colonial authorities but, as I have argued above, wasdifficult to prosecute in the theatre of court rationality withoutincontrovertible evidence, preferably in the form of written texts.46
Travelling cinema in portable tents, following in the footsteps of theatre companies at the turn of thecentury, were quickly replaced by picture palaces in the 1910s. See S. Chabria (ed.), Light of Asia:Indian Silent Cinema 1912-1934 (New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Limited, 1994), p.6. The popularity andpower of the new medium was so great that the colonial government introduced the 1918Cinematography Act, which was used to ban internally produced films, such as those oncommunalism, and foreign movies particularly American movies which might show immoralconduct or spread nationalist or revolutionary ideas. See Gerald N. Barrier, Banned: ControversialLiterature and Political Control in British India (Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1976). p.97.42 B.L. Vashta, 'Mela: EkDeshbhaktipar Kalavishka\ in Sarvajanik Ganeshotsava Satakaci VatcaLtrans. M.S. Paranjape (Mumbai: Shri Sarvajanik Ganeshotsava Samstha, 1992), p.134." Ibid..44 Chirol. Indian Unrest; Ganachari, 'The Contribution of Marathi Theatre'; and Pinney, 'IndianMagical Realism'.43 Pinney. 'Chromolithography', p.l 1 and 'Indian Magical Realism', pp.215-6.46 On the flouting of the theatre of court rationality, see Kaviraj's account of M.K. Gandhi's courtcase after the Chauri-Chaura incident in 1922, 'Performative Aspects of Defiance: Gandhi's TrialRead as Theatre' (paper presented at workshop, 'The Performance of Power: Knowing the SouthAsian City', University of Manchester, 2001). On the engagement with the rituals of legality, see
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Nationalist campaigners Ganesh and Vinayak Damodar Savarkarestablished a mela in 1900 known as the Nasik Mitra Mela, which laterbecame the Abhinav Bharat (Young India Society).47 It was set up for thepurpose of performing during the Ganapati utsava, but was also used as acloak for revolutionary activities. By 1901, the group had becomerenowned for their use of religious stories for disseminating politicalmessages; for instance, a local poet called Govinda had composed adialogue between Ram and Chitrakar. Outwardly, it appeared the sameage-old tale from the Ramayana where Ram rescues Sita from the demonking, Chitrakara. But the reception of it was in terms of Sita as apersonification of the concept of freedom, Ram as the quintessentialIndian warrior, and Chitrakara as the embodiment of the tyrannicalcolonial ruler.48
There was a substantial increase in Ganeshotsava mandals in the 1930s,the melas being seen as training grounds for physical combat thatincreasingly came to the fore with the Quit India Movement from 1942.Several of these melas were attached to talims (gymnasiums), evidence ofwhich persists in the names of older mandals such as the SakhalipirTalim Rashtriya Maruti Mandal mentioned above. Just as Sandria Freitagnotes the prevalence of akharas (gymnasiums) in colonial UttarPradesh,49 so in Maharashtra, talims were often found connected toGaneshotsava melas which themselves were linked to mandals.Physicality, masculinity and militancy allowed for an activist arenaagainst perceptions of an emasculated nation and reached a performativecrescendo at times of public festivals.50
The melas along with the dramatic arts were precursors, if notconterminous with, the development of illustrative Ganapati mandaps—tableaux with movement, narration, sound and lighting effects. Theinfluence of drama can be seen both in the choice of themes and style of
Tilak's case for sedition in 1908 in which although of different outcome, the argument was about thelimits of Marathi-English translations and the accessibility of Marathi sources to a non-Marathispeaking audience (The Kesari Prosecution, 1908).
Cashman, The Myth of the 'Lokmanya', p.91. Savarkar also writes about it in his autobiography:'We named our organisation the Mitra Mela [Friends' Group] as it appeared harmless, and wassuitable for government servants as much as it was for revolutionaries' (cited in Vashta, Mela,p.135).48 Vashta, Mela, p. 135. This polarisation of good and evil, light and dark may well have beeneffected by the semiticisation of Hinduism. See C. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement inIndia (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1996). Such dichotomisation may also be relevant to therepresentations of the martial Ganapati attacking demons mentioned above.4 ' Sandria Freitag, Collective Action and Community: Public Arenas and the Emergence ofCommunalism in North India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p. 225.'° See A. Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism (Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press, 1983); and T.B. Hansen, 'Recuperating Masculinity: Hindu Nationalism, Violenceand the Exorcism of the Muslim "Other"', in Critique of Anthropology, Vol.16, no.2 (1996), pp. 137-72.
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presentations. Plays would often be accompanied by other literature suchas song pamphlets, leaflets, and advertisements, presenting a rich field ofmedia forms. This situation is even sharper today as photographic, videoand film projections are incorporated into mandap tableaux and scripts,and artists from the theatre and film worlds provide narration for mandaptableaux. In effect, the display of sound, light and narration have more orless substituted mela and other kinds of folk arts.
There were distinct types of drama subjects performed in the festival—historical (aitihasik), religio-mythological or devotional(dharmik/pauranik), and 'social' genres. Historical plays included topicssuch as Shivsambhav, Shapsambhram, Shakuntala and, very commonly,Shivaji. Social plays engaged with themes of a contemporary relevance.Other more original plays looked at topical issues, and experimental topicmatters, such as village life, the theme of war, life in a chawl and soforth.51 Such typologies of plays laid the basis for contemporary mandaptypologies.
Film and magic lantern slides were yet another method of propaganda incolonial times, particularly in the 1930s.52 Whereas film production waslargely in the hands of European and Indian capitalists due to its expenseand the limited availability of film stock, magic lantern slides were verymuch part of Congress' anti-colonial strategies. In addition to news-sheets and hand bills, magic lantern slides were used to show'controversial scenes or "Boycott British Goods" labels surreptitiouslyaffixed to mail articles'.53 One magic lantern slide showed a child beingflogged by an East India Company employee. Another had a slogan:'Ruling and Sucking Blood are the functions of the same government'.54
Although I have not come across explicit evidence, the use of magiclantern shows during festival times is more than likely, judging by thepolitical potential of the expressive festival. Furthermore, theincorporation of new media, such as sound, lighting, video, and slideprojections are a common feature of several mandals in contemporarytimes, so, if available, we can feasibly speculate about similar dynamicsin the past.
31 P. Kamat, 'Ganeshotsvatun Jhaleli NalyacalvaV in Sarvajanik Ganeshotsava Satakaci Vatcal(trans. M.S. Paranjape, Mumbai: Shri Sarvajanik Ganeshotsava Samstha, 1992), p. 155. A chawl is aterm to refer to a cluster of communal houses, for people in the low to middle income brackets.52 Barrier, Banned, p. 117; and B. Chandra, M. Mukherjee, A. Mukherjee, K..N. Panikkar, and S.Mahajan. India's Struggle for Independence (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1989), p.279." Burner, Banned, p. 117."Ibid..
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A Long Train of EtceterasAfter Independence melas began to be regarded as fairly anachronistic,having lost their purpose of propagating anti-colonial nationalist values,and the main developments in Ganapati murti forms and displays fromthe 1950s were due to the influence of increasing commercialism. VictorBarnouw, writing in 1954, noted '...while the Ganapati festival has nowlost its political emphasis, it is still an enormously popular affair'.55 But,he added, 'lecturing and speech-making has given way to commercialisedentertainment. The high moral purpose of the festival has become lost inthe course of its expansion'.56 N.G. Jog replicated the sentiment a fewyears later: 'It is true that [the festival's] socio-political purpose is beingincreasingly subordinated to its entertainment aspects'.57
During times of war and particularly from the 1980s onwards, however,nationalist concerns in mandap displays were foregrounded. This wasaccompanied by a revivalist turn for the Ganapati deity form. The post-independence period saw the proliferation of vivid picturisation ofnationalist scenes, as opposed to veiled imagery and avenues to evoke, orrather provoke, nationalism. The spectacles have become bigger, morevivid and elaborate, a diversification indicative of the popular and artisticimaginary in openly nationalist environs. Nationalism is less about astruggle for meaning with tendentious and perhaps surreptitious agendas,but an out-and-out defiant celebrating, building and sustaining of thenation-space. It is not necessarily a political agenda imbued in theappearance and disposition of the deity, but openly displayed in a varietyof ways through surrounding vignettes and narratives.
Notwithstanding the demise of melas, folk plays and amateur theatreremain a part of the festival.58 In the 1960s, for example, a Worker'sTheatre was set up by migrants from the Konkan region and SahyadriGhats who had come to Maharashtra to look for better workopportunities.59 Around 1970, however, the trend of Worker's Theatre
55 V. Barnouw, 'The Changing Character of a Hindu Festival', in American Anthropologist, Vol.56,no.l (1954), p.74.* Ibid., p.83.57 N.G. Jog, Builders of Modern India. Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak (Delhi: PublicationsDivision, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1962), p.43.38 Kamat, 'Ganeshotsvatun Jhaleli Natyacalval', p. 151.3* Examples include the Navahind Balmitra Mandal in Chinchpokli, an area renowned for itsGanapati celebrations. Other groups had formed in mill areas and Girgaum including the PragatiKala Mandir, Ganesh Kala Mandir, Dattaraja Kala Mandir, Kumar Kala Mandir, Arun Kala Mandir,Nutan Natyalaya and Sahakar Natya Mandal (Ibid., p.153). In fact, it can be reasonably postulatedthat, even though folk plays are not as popular as they used to be, it can be surmised that any extantmandal with a Natya or Kala in its name started off as an amateur theatre group which would make aspecial effort to arrange entertainment programmes in the Ganapati utsava period. Most of thesewere mobile groups that moved from chawl to chawl. Some of these people ended up excelling inset designs. Many of these artists began to pursue a professional career in the arts.
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began to wane. This was for a number of reasons, the main ones beingmunicipal corporations levying taxes on stages erected in public places,chawls being replaced by modern buildings with no communal groundsthus constituting an obstacle to the levels of increased traffic, and theincreased popularity of films.60 Due to the fascination for movingimages, moving models began to be used in Ganapati tableaux in the late1940s and early 1950s—the first in Tulshibagh, Pune with a sceneinfluenced by the movie, Ram Vanvas.61 This scene related the story ofRam being sent to Vanvas by Kaikee, Bharat's mother and the step-mother of Ram. The movie had an enormous impact on developingpeople's interest in pauranik themes again, and many mandals createdthis scene for their Ganapati tableaux.62
According to mandal records and the testimony of residents in Girgaumin south Mumbai, the first moving scene in Mumbai was created by theBalmohan Mandal in Girgaum in 1952, the same area of the firstsarvajanik Ganapati utsava. This mandal was established in 1947 by thelate Chintaman Potdar, Haraschandra Patil, Kamlakar Patil, KamlakarPethe, Prabhakar Pethe and Kishore Rahut in the Varik House. In 1952,Chintaman Potdar constructed a tableau with moving models {chalatchitra) featuring the figures of Sherpa Tensing and Edmund Hillary onMount Everest. Afterwards, mythological stories were chosen. In 1962-63, the sculptures and moving scenarios were made slightly bigger,leaving the platform too small, so everything was moved to a largerplatform.
Moving models were hugely influential. In a bid to innovate and drawvisitors, the more affluent mandals constructed even more extravaganttableaux involving 'trick scenes' of moving images. This entailed atransposition of 'tricks' executed in drama and seen on film to themandap platform.63 In the 1960s, with the professional help of artists,larger sets and plaster of Paris or clay idols and figures began to be used
60 Nowadays, such plays are mainly performed for competitive occasions organised by Mill Owner'sAssociations, labour welfare centres, inter-school, inter-college, interstate competitions, radio andtelevision and so forth (Ibid., p. 158).61 The film was in fact completed in 1918. Its director, Shri Nath Patankar, was helped by Tilak whopersuaded financiers Bhagwandas Chaturbhuj and Dharamdas Natyandas to invest in his company,the Patankar Union. Sse A. Rajadhyaksha and P. Willemen, Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema (rev.ed., New Delhi: OUP, 1999), p.172. Tilak's encouragement suggests that he recognised the socio-political value of not just festivals but also film with its broad reach of audiences. Patankar wasrenowned for historical and mythological films, again indicating the profound importance given byTilak to history and religion.62 SaptahikSakal 25 Sept. 1993.65 Several of the set designers ended up earning names for themselves including Ashok Palekar,Tulsiram Gavade, Rangankar, Shyam Adarkar, Pandurang Kothare and Junnakar Painter. As some ofthese set designers worked in theatre and the film industry, styles of construction would becomparable for these expressive forms.
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to decorate scenes.64 As sets became more 'busy', some of the figuresnow began to be made as hardboard cut-outs, similar to cinemahoardings, to minimise expenditure. Then in the 1970s, light effectsbegan to be integrated with sound as one might find in a film. In recentyears, mandals have paid handsomely for recording studios andtheatre/film practitioners to construct small film-like Ganapati shows forthe entertainment of visitors. Lighting today is thus an essential part ofthe mandap aesthetic: people generally prefer to take their darshan of themurti in the evening in order to see the lights and decorations, despite thecompetition posed by raging crowds.
We have seen that increased finance allowed for the mounting ofextravagant Ganapati sets featuring audio narratives influenced by theatreand film. By this means a dramatisation of visual forms was constitutedwithout live drama, although moving and 'trick' scenes went some waytowards compensating for the stasis of the scenes.65 These tableauxcovered all manner of topics. But in the main, if not religious, they weregenerally connected to the progress and crises of the nation. Althoughthe narratives are not available, I have come across several photographicexamples of earlier sets that look as if they were taken from a theatricalor filmic episode.
Illustration 6
64 Prominent artists who took the initiative to make large models included Arvind Shedge, N.N.Vagh, B.R. Kherkar, Anant Vaikar, Vivek Khatavkar, Prakash Gosvami and Dinaneth Veling.63 From the 1980s, cassette tapes have been specially produced for the season of the Ganapati utsava.See Peter Manuel, Cassette Culture: Pop Music and Technology in North India (Chicago: Univerityof Chicago Press, 1993). Several of them adapt popular film tunes to lyrics about Ganapati or for theworship oiarati. as with the songs, Tu chij badi hai masta masta (You are a very intoxicating thing)and Aja meri gadi me baith ja (Come, sit in my car) The Metropolis on Saturday, 11 Sept. 1994.These practices, however, are not always appreciated by the more orthodox members of society.
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Around the time of the Indo-Pakistan conflict of 1971-72, for instance,the Pehli Sutar Galli Sarvajanik Utsava Mandal constructed a tableau ofGanapati against a backdrop of a map of India, with a portrait of IndiraGandhi superimposed on the area of what is now Bangladesh, a picture ofwarring soldiers and aeroplanes to the side, and a tall building to the otherside (illustration 6). In front stand various three-dimensional figures—aman in Indian dress standing with a garland of flowers in his hands, thegoddess Durgamata or what could conceivably be Bharatamata, crushinga man under her foot, and two men dressed in western clothes standing tothe viewers' right who are meant to represent the then Prime Minister ofPakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and the Bangladeshi leader, MuzhbraiRehman. Although the illustration bears no title, there are labels, barelyvisible, at the foot of each of the models.
Although it is not possible to provide more contextual informationwithout details of the audio-taped narratives, mandal members'aspirations and political affiliations, the above commentary illustrates theuse ofmandap tableaux as mediatory points in the dynamic flux betweenart, culture and politics in the festive context. The political pageantry ofdisplay is made manifest in the surrounding displays, rather than themurti form itself. From the 1980s, there was an increasing revulsiontowards merging Ganapati's figure with human beings, such as film starsand politicians, and the murti form became subject to revivalist measures.Comparing the present-day scenario with the past, people claiming themoral high-ground began to complain about the 'vulgarisation' of thefestival and its displays—citing excessive commercialism, racketeering,and the practice of obscene behaviour and dances during immersionprocessions. This has not only been the case with Hindu nationalistpolitical parties, but also with less blatant organisations such as theBrihanmumbai Sarvajanik Ganeshotsava Samanvay Samiti, a regulatingcommittee established in 1982 to oversee the festival.66 Similarly,newspaper-organised competitions since 1986 began to encouragefestivals based on religiously and socially progressive grounds. They notonly encouraged competitive innovations, but also served a regulatoryfunction by, on the one hand, giving primacy to displays of nationalismand, on the other, religious criteria for the murti. This is the case with theGirnar-Loksatta Ganeshotsava competition organisers' advocacy of theprinciple of national integration through festival proceedings andtableaux designs, and social work such as educational and health-related
66 2,795 Ganeshotsava mandals in Mumbai, almost a third of the total number, are part of thevoluntary organisation. See P. Silim (ed), Ganeshotsava Margdarshika (Guide to the GanapatiUtsava) (Mumbai: Prakash Silim, 1991). The members meet once before the time of the festival todiscuss key concerns and issues concerning its arrangement.
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facilities for the neighbourhood.67 Murti forms began to be judgedaccording to how far they innovated within the sanction of traditional orpauranik precedent. The prizes were separated into various categories onwhich to give marks. For evaluation of the murti, the followingcategories were used:
a) traditional shape and beauty of the murti (murtice paramparik svarupva saundriya);b) innovations {navinyata);c) proportions (pramanvaddhta);d) harmony of colours (rangsangati); ande) complementarity of murti and scenery (dekhava va murti yamadhilvishyavyd)—that is, how well in terms of colour, design and size, themurti complemented the surrounding vignettes.
Notably the innovations in the murti were best appreciated if they couldbe held to have pauranik precedents or merged with the attributes ofother deities. Furthermore, centennial celebrations since 1992 recalledthe festival's glorious past during colonial times when it was consideredas having a progressive role to play without undermining its religiouspurpose of uniting people and god. In the process, a reconstructed senseof religious purism was advocated for the murti whilst the display wasrecommended for nationalist or socially-useful messages. For the mandalorganisation and mandap display, the main evaluative criteria were:
a) to what degree was an understanding of socialawakening/encouragement and national welfare communicated throughthe scenery (Janjagraticya drashtine dekhavyatun pratit honarerashtriyahitace bhan);6S
b) to what extent was social cohesion demonstrated through thedecorations (sajavatitil samajik bandhilkici janiv);c) to what extent was the selection of the scenarios consistent with thegeneral scheme of the mandap {dekhavyacya sanhiteci nivada);d) any particularly outstanding aspects about the decorations (yisheshlakshavedhi arasa);e) the level of organisation, discipline and pleasant ambience{vyasthapana, shista, vatavaranatil prasannta);
67 Kaur, 'Rethinking the Public Sphere", p.l.68 The concept of janjagriti recalls Tilak's times when it is said that with the mobilisation of thepublic Ganapati utsava, he 'awakened' the people, or raised consciousness of social and politicalinjustice.
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f) cleanliness (svacshta)—that is, consideration of the cleanliness ofsurrounding roads and squares, dirt or gas pollution, and contribution toenvironmental measures such as tree planting;g) the mandal's all-year round projects (mandalace varshbharatil samajikupakram); andh) the scenery's total effectiveness (dekhavyaci ekuna parinam-karikata).
Thus it is now the surrounding vignette that is the space for commentaryon topical and nationalist visions and sentiments, not specifically thedeity form. And this surrounding space, it could be argued, has an almostlinear equivalence with contemporaneous affairs. The deity form, eventhough a product of the times, refracts another dialectic with the socio-political context—one that touches upon a reified notion of the divineseemingly unsullied by the mundane world of politics. The festivalamongst other cultural practices has been seen as instrumental inmobilising ideas and people in the pursuit of revivalist, nationalist orreligio-political goals in Maharashtra. In the process, versions of thenation are played out through the tableaux, and the Ganapatirepresentation predominantly represents a reconstructed sense of Hinduessence and purity. Moreover the image of the deity was subject tostrength being represented in an internalisation of religious devotion, asopposed to strength being represented in external insignia as is usuallythe case with a martial, strong and aggressive god. This represents avolte-face from assumptions about the politicisation of religion leading toa straightforward martialisation of deity forms in contemporary India.
In sum, the development of illustrative displays was due to a combinationof factors that demonstrated the primacy given to display and spectacleover and above performative participation. This involved the absorptionof mela, theatre and folk arts contents and conventions and the influenceof film and other audio-visual media. The collection of large amounts offunds enabled ths construction of extravagant displays. Competitions andregulating committees encouraged innovations between mandals when itcame to the tableaux, but promoted religious revivalism by encouragingversions of pauranik prototypes of Ganapati. Effectively, the displayaround the Ganapati tnurti was prioritised for a socio-political message,whilst the murtis themselves became the apex of a reconstructed sense ofHindu purism.
ConclusionThe political career of the public festival of Ganapati shows a discrepantand uneven involvement in politics, but, nonetheless, demonstratesstrands that were overwhelmingly nationalist, particularly at times ofintensified campaigns and national crisis. This is the case for the post-
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1980s Hindutva resurgence. Whereas around the turn of the century, theGanapati murti provided a site of innovation and veiled commentary onsocio-political aspirations, later more explicit socio-political commentarywas provided by illustrative mandap tableaux. Indeed, afterindependence, the tableaux became more and more extravagant andassertive in deference to the democratic nation-state. They absorbed, too,influences of other festive activities, as well as responding to thecontemporaneous 'inter-ocular field' of auditory and visual insignia. Onthe one hand, Ganapati murti representations fell under the sway ofrevivalists who promulgated the idea that any murti innovations ought tobe of a religious provenance. On the other hand, elaborate displaysaround the murti form began to take on board openly nationalist subjectmatter.
This article raised at the outset the question of why Ram has been thefigure chosen for a martial transformation to suit Hindutva agendas. Themost obvious explanation is the regional specificity of the deities, Rambeing more popular in the "North than the West of India. Furthermore,unlike Ganapati and Hanuman, Ram has a visibly human face and bodilyexterior that can easily be adapted to emulate the manly forms of the likesof Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. The sense of empathyfrom the mainly male militant brigade, and the sense of recognition froman international community, is much greater for the divine in the form ofhuman representations, than heralding an elephant- or monkey-headeddeity. As Rustom Bharucha states, 'Heterosexist, supremacist, andhierarchical, these norms of "being" a man in India can get reinforcedthrough international images of virility'.69 Furthermore, Ram'sassociations with Sita pave the way for asserting a preferentialmonogamy, rather than the ambiguous position of the deity of Ganapati—which is sometimes presented as celibate, and at other times with twoconsorts. Certain representations of Ganapati might show hieratic,muscular transformations of late, but they lack the full credentials forpromulgating a pious masculinity in times of resurgent nationalism andunceasing globalisation. Instead, Ganapati representation haspredominately become the repository of a reinvented purism which isinternalised in the murti form rather than externalised in dynamic and
69 R. Bharucha, 'Dismantling Men: Crisis of Male Identity in "Father, Son and Holy War'", inEconomic and Political Weekly, 1 July 1995, p.1613.
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warrior-like imagery. The Ganapati murti is perceived as something ofthe world, but not tainted by it. It is almost as if it was the divineelephantine equivalent of the religious motif of lotus flowers floating on amurky pond.*
* The research for this article was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (awardnumber R00429334179), SOAS. the Central Research Fund and the RAI/Sutasoma Award. It wascompleted during the term of a Getty Research Fellowship at the University of East Anglia. Thanksto Christopher Pinney, Stephen Hughes, Sudipta Kaviraj. Thomas Blom Hansen and KoushikBanerjea for comments, on an earlier draft. Thanks also to Sanjeev Javale who provided much helpand information on his great grand-uncle, Bhausaheb Rangari.
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