The Sangh’s political recruitment of Ganapathy: A case study from Kerala

In August 2012, a group of Hindutva activists gathered in the small town of Ottapalam in Kerala’s Palakkad district with a singular aim. In just fifteen days, they had to organise their hometown’s first ever Ganeshotsavam (locally spelled ‘Ganesholsavam‘), a festival celebrating the Hindu god Ganapathy. The Vinayaka Chaturthi festival was nearing, and this was their chance to make a clear political statement about the “might of the Hindus” in Ottapalam. That first step, nearly a dozen years ago, has helped transform the small town into a throbbing centre for the Sangh Parivar in Kerala.

“It was an act of retaliation,” recalls P Aravindan, coordinator of the Ottapalam Ganesholsavam Committee and a decades-long worker of the Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). “We were enraged after the police attempted to block a ghosha yathra (celebratory procession) from the Poozhikunnu Sree Krishna Temple here. The yathra consisted of just about 50 people, and they claimed we were blocking traffic,” he says.

Aravindan and other committee office-bearers, all “dedicated workers” of either the RSS or its allied organisations, had gone to the police station to negotiate. “But instead of allowing us to proceed, they registered a case against us. That was when we decided, we had to show them the Hindu’s strength.“ So over the next two weeks, they laid out the plan to conduct Ottapalam’s first Ganesholsavam. And what was started with a small gathering of 50 has now grown into a flashy display of “Sangha shakti” or ‘Sangh power’, as the men behind the mobilisation call it.

Over the years, the Sangh has gone on to use popular film stars, their faces lending legitimacy to the event, in a systematic bid to blur the line between popular culture and fringe Hindutva. Videos from the Ottapalam Ganesholsavam, held in August this year, show thousands of men, women, and children gathered at the Ottapalam bus stand for a public meeting, where popular film stars along with leaders of the Sangh repeatedly asserted the need to “protect the Hindu faith” from “atrocities” by the “Communists” and other vested interests. Saffron flags with the famous ‘angry’ Hanuman, the Om symbol, and the Maratha emperor Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj waved over the crowds. An army of youngsters, wearing saffron mundus, shawls, and tilaks on their foreheads, led a grand immersion procession with over hundred pickup trucks carrying huge Ganapathy idols, swanky light-and-sound systems and loud music in tow. An upbeat DJ party followed, as young men, women, and children danced in abandon to catchy devotional and cinematic songs.

Not long ago, this would have been a rare sight in Kerala, a state where the RSS’ political offshoot Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to win a single seat in the 2021 assembly elections. But the BJP’s consistent electoral defeats take attention away from the extensive efforts the Sangh has employed at the ground level, to percolate Hindu nationalist sentiments into the common sense of the state’s people.

Several organisations like the Ottapalam Ganesholsavam Committee have now mushroomed across Kerala. Many of them also conceal their political affiliations with the RSS, which speaks of the Sangh’s ability to create well-oiled grassroots organisational networks that masquerade as cultural groups.

In their research paper on the Sangh’s attempts to create a fertile ground for the growth of Hindutva in Kerala, scholars Dayal Paleri and R Santhosh point out that the Sangh is prepared to put elections on the backburner for now. Instead, their attempt is to create a “Hindu atmosphere”, which the scholars believe is a “deeply political endeavour aimed at creating an exclusivist Hindu hegemony in the cultural sphere, which they assume will pave the way for their electoral hegemony in Kerala in the long run.”

‘Myth alla, swathwam’

Manoharan Nair, one of the committee members, is curious to know how we came to hear of their Ottapalam event, which had so far been unexplored by the mainstream media. “It was that viral video, wasn’t it? Of Unni Mukundan and Anusree?”

Speculation regarding the alleged Hindutva leanings of these popular Malayalam actors, Unni Mukundan and Anusree, have been rife for several years. This year, they confirmed their sympathies by turning up as chief guests at the Ganesholsavam celebrations in Ottapalam. Both made impassioned speeches to loud cheering crowds about the need to protect the Hindu faith, and asserted that Ganapathy was not a “myth” as some “vested interests” would claim.

The speeches were in reference to a comment made by Kerala Assembly Speaker AN Shamseer, a leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M). During his speech at a school in Ernakulam’s Kunnathunad on July 21, Shamseer had said that “myths were being taught as science” at schools, spurring a wave of protests across the state. He was referring to two claims that Hindutva proponents have made in the past. First, that plastic surgery was invented in India and Ganapathy got his elephant head through such a procedure. And second, that the pushpaka vimanam mentioned in Hindu puranas was the world’s first aeroplane.

The Sangh was quick to latch onto the opportunity and capitalise on it, peddling a narrative that Shamseer had called Ganapathy a “myth”. Memes went viral accusing the Speaker of questioning the sanctity of the deity. His speech became the main talking point in the state’s political discourse, with the BJP and dominant caste organisations such as the Nair Service Society (NSS) launching statewide protests demanding his apology and resignation.

The actor Anusree, in fact, had voluntarily requested to be given a stage to "express her feelings" in Ottapalam, when she came to know that her friend and script writer Abhilash Pillai was attending the event. “She wanted a platform to speak about a political atmosphere that disfavoured the Hindus. She had also apparently heard a lot about the Ottapalam festival, and wanted to participate,” says Aravindan.

For Unni Mukundan, the platform also doubled as a marketing opportunity. The actor had used the occasion to unveil the motion poster for his next film Jai Ganesh, which he is expected to both produce and headline. The film’s title, the stage at which it was presented, and Unni’s speech on the occasion together manufactured significant social media buzz surrounding Jai Ganesh, triggering speculations that the movie was being made in response to the Speaker’s controversial speech. Director Ranjit Shankar later clarified that the film was in no way connected to the said speech, adding that he had registered the film's title much before the row broke out.

Aravindan admits the “myth” controversy played a role in the tremendous response to the Ganesholsavam, which was scheduled to be held a month later around August 20, the day on which Vinayaka Chaturthi falls as per the Malayalam calendar this year. An extensive promotional strategy was laid down, with posters around town advertising the event and social media posts asserting “Ganapathy myth alla, swathwam aanu” (Ganapathy is not a myth, he is our identity.)

Ironically, what stood out most among them was a re-adapted version of the popular quote “First they came for the Communists” by German pastor Martin Niemöller, originally used to indicate the silent complicity of ordinary citizens in the imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions in Nazi Germany. In the Sangh’s version, the quote translated so: 

“First they said Ganapathy is a myth, and I did not speak out, because I was not a devotee of Ganapathy. Then they said Krishna is a myth, and I did not speak out, because I was not a devotee of Krishna. Then they returned to say that you, your race, and your culture are all myths. I wanted to speak out, but I realised very late that myths can’t speak.”

'No time like now'

Though the controversy is gradually losing heat now, the Sangh effectively kept it alive for nearly two months with the help of ostentatious Ganesholsavam celebrations. Their efforts were aided by two Vinayaka Chaturthi dates – August 20 as per the Malayalam solar calendar, and September 19 as per the traditional Hindu lunisolar calendar. New committees mushroomed in several pockets across the state with the aim to introduce new Ganesholsavams for the first time, capitalising on the Shamseer controversy to make their respective events a success. 

“Changaramkulam, a town in the Ponnani taluk of Malappuram district, had conducted its first ever Ganesholsavam this year,” says Aravindan. “As we have been doing this for years, they had called us to know what kind of arrangements had to be made. A few of us went there and helped them ahead of the event.”

One of the promotional videos for the Changaramkulam Ganesholsavam notably appeals to the nationalistic sentiments of Changaramkulam’s people as well, referring to Ganesholsavam as the “national festival of Bharat” and inviting those with “national interests” to attend the event. The video also makes references to the myth row, reiterating that “Ganapathy is not a myth, that he is the wealth of the Hindu community.”

Iritty in Kannur district also witnessed its debut Ganesholsavam at an unprecedented scale in September this year. Despite a heavy downpour on the evening of September 22, when the immersion procession was to be held, the town transformed into a sea of saffron.

In a video from the event, a booming voice can be heard proclaiming through the loud music, “There have been propaganda claims that something happened to the Hindus in Iritty, that some terrorists have made Iritty their stronghold. The upcoming evening will be an answer to all such concerns. This great town is becoming a platform to showcase the valorous devotion and strength of those who believe in the Sanatana Dharma.” The statement was a veiled reference to the fact that Iritty has a large Muslim population, and is considered a stronghold of the CPI(M) and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).

In Ernakulam, meanwhile, two separate Ganesholsavams were held surrounding both of the Vinayaka Chaturthi dates. The first one was supposed to be a secular festival, held in August by the Ernakulam district committee of the Shiv Sena’s Ganesholsava Trust, and attended by prominent personalities cutting across religions and political parties. Among the speakers were popular actors Jayasurya and Urmila Unni, Congress politician and Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan, Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Hibi Eden, Hindu religious leaders such as Swami Adithya Swaroopanandapuri, and even Islamic cleric Moulavi Hussain Badri.

The event which may otherwise have gone largely unnoticed by the media, however, garnered attention due to a speech made by actor Jayasurya, who took subtle digs at Shamseer on the occasion. Addressing the crowd, he had said, “It was the people’s faith in me that made me an actor. Similarly, whether you are a minister or a Speaker, you are in that position because we put our faith in you. So we must always hold on to faith, and I hope we are able to tightly hold on to our culture.”

In September, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) held the district’s second Ganesholsavam this year. Helmed by director-actor and VHP state president Viji Thampi, this was the first time the organisation was conducting a Ganesholsavam celebration. As he flagged off the immersion procession at Kaloor on September 23, Thampi came down heavily on Shamseer, asserting that the “unprecedented number of people who have gathered” were all making an unequivocal political statement against the Speaker. Actor Devan and Malikappuram script writer Abhilash Pillai partook in the VHP’s immersion programme at the Puthuvype beach later in the evening.

Actor and BJP leader Suresh Gopi attended the Ganesholsavam at Shoranur, where he dramatically thanked “the demons” who “awakened the Hindu“ in Kerala. “That demon awakened the believers, awakened me,” he said. Expressing regret that he hadn’t been able to attend this festival in the past six to seven years despite being invited, he said the Ganesholsavam celebrations next year would parallel the scale of the Thrissur Pooram. “I have now taken an oath that as long as I live, as long as I can straighten my spine and walk on my two legs, I will continue to attend Ganesholsavams.”

An Ottapalam ‘success’ story

Aravindan says around 50,000 people attended the Ganesholsavam celebrations in Ottapalam this year. “In 2012, we started small by installing 22 Ganapathy idols in 21 places across the town. The number rose to 42 the next year, and 62 the year after that. This year, we had up to 250 Ganapathy idols set up in 136 places. We have at least 124 official local committees in place, with people from seven panchayats and two municipalities participating. We are bigger than ever,” he says. 

Prominent film stars, poets, senior leaders of the Sangh and BJP, and several other public personalities have graced the Ottapalam Ganesholsavam over the past eleven years. In the first two years, the event’s chief guest remained Hindu Aikya Vedi (HAV) leader KP Sasikala, widely known in Kerala for her radical and inflammatory views. The committee subsequently began inviting more popular celebrities, starting with Malayalam actor Jayaram in 2014. “Jayaram was shooting for a film at a location close to Ottapalam at the time. When we asked, he immediately agreed to come,” says Aravindan.

After Jayaram, several notable guests made appearances — some with a history of making incendiary remarks, others not so much. Lyricist and poet Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri, actors Unni Mukundan and Anusree, singer Nanjiyamma, scriptwriter Abhilash Pillai, right-wing activist Rahul Easwar, chenda artist Peruvanam Kuttan Marar, and BJP leader Shobha Surendran figured among the event’s dignitaries over the years. 

Annually, the committee also organises a programme called the ‘Vichara Sadassu’ (Stage for Thought), which they claim is a secular platform for open discussions on matters of national importance. “This year’s topic was the Uniform Civil Code, and we had invited people of different faiths to speak on the subject,” says Aravindan. The Muslim woman who took part in the discussion was TP Sulfath, a BJP leader from Malappuram. The two other participants were HAV state secretary PV Muraleedharan and another BJP leader Sanku T Das. 

Ahead of the Vichara Sadassu programme, the committee also held a vilambara ghosha yatra (an announcement bike rally), which worked out as an effective strategy to draw in more youngsters to the event.

Aravindan adds that the local sub-committees formed under the Ganesholsavam Committee have also been engaging in social work on the ground. “They distribute free stationery items, arrange medicines for patients, build bus stops, and take up people’s hospital expenses. Each of the sub-committees have their own ways of operating and engaging with people. During the 2018 floods, they had done a lot of work on the ground.” This, the organisers say, is in tandem with the charity services provided at the grassroots level by the RSS-affiliate non-governmental organisation Seva Bharati.

The RSS leader says that after the first instance of police action during the Poozhikunnu ghosha yathra, they have not faced any resistance from the administration. “We never gave scope for it. We have been doing everything in a systematic and organised manner, and the event has grown into a platform where all Hindus unite beyond politics.” 

That’s what he was taught, growing up in the RSS, he says. “This is not just about the elections or any benefit we can gain for ourselves. The RSS taught us the need to unite and strengthen the Hindu community, and we will dedicatedly work towards that without the expectation of any reward. I do not have any political ambitions. We are also not saying you have to vote for BJP because we are organising a Ganesholsavam.”

The politics of Vinayaka Chaturthi

Historian and academic Kesavan Veluthat says Kerala traditionally tends to “observe”, and “not celebrate” Vinayaka Chaturthi. “At least until a few years ago, the observance of the festival was mostly limited to two factors, of which primary is the belief that people should not look at the moon on the night of Vinayaka Chaturthi as it would bring bad luck. Secondly, on the morning of the festival, young women were made to carry out a small ritual called ‘Ganapathi iduka’ at their homes. After offering prayers, they would throw in coconuts, jaggery, flattened and puffed rice, and other such items into the fireplace as an oblation to the deity,” he says. 

Even this ritual, believed to help avoid hindrances in the women’s lives so they can find a ‘suitable’ husband, was mostly just limited to Brahmin households. Events such as the Nimajjana Yatra, a grand procession during which several Ganapathy idols set up across a locality would be brought together before immersing them in a waterbody, have never figured in Kerala’s brand of Vinayaka Chaturthi.

In a 2001 essay, anthropologist CJ Fuller notes that even in Kerala’s neighbouring Tamil Nadu — which has also been relatively closed off to the Sangh in terms of electoral acceptance — extensive public celebrations during Vinayaka Chaturthi were virtually unheard of until the 1980s. It was in 1983 that a group of Hindu activists from the Hindu Munnani, RSS, and the BJP first installed a Ganesha idol in a public place near a temple in the West Mambalam region of the city, a few days after which they took the idol in a procession and immersed it in a temple tank. From here, the scale of public Vinayaka Chaturthi celebrations grew rather swiftly in Chennai. 

Fuller says that “in almost every locality, the festival's principal initiators have been activists belonging to the Hindu Munnani, RSS, BJP and other allied organisations in the Sangh Parivar” — a pattern that the Sangh has replicated in Kerala as well. Chennai is also said to have witnessed its first communal riot between Hindus and Muslims during a massive Ganesh immersion procession in 1990. Two Muslim men were killed in the aftermath of the incident.

Writer Sunil P Elayidom points out that even in Maharashtra, where this grandiose version of the Ganesh Chaturthi originated in the late nineteenth century, it was a decidedly political affair rather than a religious one. In fact, it was in 1893, during a series of communal violence outbreaks in the then Bombay city, that Maharashtrian nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak first endeavoured to reshape this annual festival. 

That’s not to say the Deccan region did not publicly celebrate Ganesha before Tilak’s intervention. On the contrary, as writer Richard Cashman points out in his 1970 scholarly article on the ‘Political Recruitment of God Ganapati’, the region used to hold annual one-and-a-half day festivals in honour of Ganesha since before the 13th century. Though this too was predominantly a private affair, it sometimes spontaneously turned into a group activity, as neighbourhoods came together to form unplanned groups while immersing the idols in water.

What Tilak sought, however, was a community spirit of an even larger scale. He was allegedly miffed by the British colony’s “partiality for the Muslims” and the alleged “non-recognition of the Brahman elite” of the Deccan. “It was imperative for Hindus to boycott the Muslim Muharram celebrations, in which they had participated in previous years, so as to present a bold and united front. The festival was an ideal occasion for Brahmin and non-Brahmin to join in a common protest,” notes Cashman. Besides, even beyond its role as a protest venue, this emerging form of festival is said to have paved the path for the creation of a new national identity — one based on the “revival” of the Hindu religion.

To reinvent the festival, Tilak had employed a number of innovations, which included the installation of multitudes of Ganapathy mandals housing tall idols, and a united ‘sarvajanik’ (all people) immersion procession on the tenth day of the event. He also introduced singing and dancing parties to the event, which often included renditions of what were considered topical political songs. Several of those verses, however, sought to alienate Islam from the mainstream, instead calling upon Hindus to “boycott Muharram” and embrace their own religion.

In today’s Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations, these dancing parties have evolved into DJ parties, propounding a culture of ‘Hindutva pop’ often defined by its hateful and anti-Muslim rhetoric. In Ottapalam too, the immersion procession is essentially a DJ party, as has been the case in several local Ganesholsavams and other Hindutva events across the state. Like the adrenaline rush of the bike rallies, the lure of music and dance too have proved to be persuasive factors that attract youngsters to the cause. 

Videos from the Ottapalam Ganesholsavam this year show young men, women, and children dancing in abandon under the disco lights to popular film and album songs — ranging from the Marathi devotional pop song ‘Aaya Bappa Morya’, Shankar Mahadevan’s ‘Shree Ganeshay Dheemahi’, and Malayalam film songs such as ‘Velmuruka Harohara’ and ‘Pala Palli Thirupalli’, to more controversial choices for the Sangh Parivar’s taste, such as the Tamil romantic song ‘Manmatha Raasa’. Songs of hate, however, don’t seem to have reached Kerala so far.

The import to Kerala

There are varying opinions as to when and where a Ganesholsavam celebration of the nationalist variety was first held in Kerala. Veluthat says it first happened in the state’s northernmost district of Kasaragod, bordering the coastal districts of Karnataka. “It was from Karnataka that it spilled over to Kasaragod, long after the Kannadigas especially in the coastal regions first adopted it from Maharashtra,” he says. Coastal Karnataka, notably, is known to be among the Sangh Parivar‘s first successful Hindutva laboratories in southern India.

But Aravindan believes Kerala’s first Ganesholsavam was held in Palakkad in 1992. A devout attendee of the festival since its inception, the RSS leader has been a member of the Palakkad Ganesholsavam district committee since 2004. “The procession started from a place called Moothanthara, and over the next few years, its popularity and scale quickly grew. It is now the biggest such event in Kerala.”

Though it was the Palakkad Ganesholsavam that inspired them to organise a Ganesholsavam of their own, Aravindan says there is a crucial difference between the celebrations in Palakkad and Ottapalam. “In Palakkad, the festival is limited to the setting up of Ganapathy pandals and the immersion procession. In Ottapalam, our platform is bigger. We give stage to public assemblies and debates. It is an opportunity for a proper dialogue, for Hindus to speak without fear,” he says.

Saji Thuruthikunnel, leader of the Shiv Sena Kerala unit and president of the Ernakulam Ganesholsava Trust, however contends that it was Shiv Sena that brought the concept of Ganesholsavams to Kerala. “The organisation, inspired by the Ganesh Utsavs in Maharashtra, took permission from the Secretariat and held a large-scale celebration in Thiruvananthapuram in 1989. We wanted it to be a cultural celebration, one that can unite people across castes and faiths, and not simply a Shiv Sena event. So we later formed a state-level Ganesholsava Trust, which now has several district-level branches. In Ernakulam alone, we have been conducting the festival for 29 years,” he says.

But the members of the Ottapalam committee reject any association with the Shiv Sena, despite the Shivaji flags at their event this year. “In Kerala, the RSS and the Shiv Sena aren’t allies. They are organising Ganesholsavams in some areas, but not in Ottapalam.”

Aravindan says participants sometimes use Shivaji flags during the event simply because he was an “honourable Hindu emperor” who worked for the betterment of the community. “Besides, the Hindu festival celebrations in Maharashtra and other northern states are always something to look up to. In Kerala, we usually limit festivals to prayers and rituals. It is in north India that all Hindu gods and deities are extolled with utmost devotion and celebrative flair. There, every deity from Sri Raman and Hanuman Swamy to Ganapathy are celebrated with grandeur. It is something we should learn to emulate,” he says.

Curiously, in certain parts of Kerala, even the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has made attempts to co-opt Ganesholsavam festivities, allegedly in a bid to hold on to turncoats from the BJP. In Kannur district’s Ambadimukku, a famously saffron bastion until a group of youngsters from the BJP defected to the CPI(M) in 2014, the local CPI(M) leadership had made headlines by giving permission to their ‘new comrades’ to celebrate Ganesholsavam in the village. 

When controversy arose, the Communist leaders claimed the party was drawing a distinction between believers and communalism, which meant it can allow its members to adhere to their beliefs as they are no longer associated with the BJP.

But despite the claims of its local leadership, a prominent leader of the Kerala CPI(M) tells TNM that the party is well aware of the communal nature of Ganesholsavam celebrations — even if it publicly refuses to acknowledge it. “What happened in Ambadimukku was a local affair that had no far-reaching implications. These new party members would not have been able to change their beliefs overnight, and this must have been the local leaders’ way of accommodating them. The party high command will hardly be able to control every move of its cadre,” says the senior politician, who requested anonymity.

“Even back in 1992, the Sangh Parivar’s decision to hold a Ganesholsavam in Palakkad had not occurred in isolation. It was a fraught time, merely months after the region had its first brush with communal riots and subsequent bloodshed, which happened while the then BJP chief Murli Manohar Joshi was on his Ekta Yatra from Kanyakumari to Srinagar. A procession held by the BJP in Kerala was attacked in Mepparamba, only a couple of kilometres away from Palakkad, causing tensions to erupt,” he says. 

The incident he is referring to took place on December 13, 1991, and had triggered widespread arson and rioting by sections of Hindu and Muslim communities in areas surrounding Palakkad in the days to follow. The subsequent tensions also led to the tragic death of an 11-year-old girl, Sirajunnisa, who was killed by a police bullet. “The Sangh was at its vicious best during this time in Palakkad,” says the CPI(M) leader, “capitalising hard on the communally sensitive Ram Mandir issue and igniting hate against Muslims to better its own electoral prospects.” 

It was during this time that the RSS suddenly decided to hold a Ganesholsavam in Palakkad, he adds. “It is only a matter of putting two and two together.”

According to the politician, Palakkad is one of the few areas in Kerala where the RSS had succeeded in putting down roots early on. It is also the first municipality in Kerala to elect a BJP administration. After governing the local body from 2015, the party was also elected to power a second time in 2020. “When you visit certain pockets of the region, it becomes evident how deep-rooted and prevalent the ideology of Hindutva here is,” he says.

Today, in Ottapalam and nearby regions too, the RSS believes its ‘ground work’ has brought steady electoral gains for the BJP. For instance, nine out of 36 councillors in the Ottapalam municipality are currently from the BJP. This number stood at three in 2010, and six in 2015. Similarly, in the neighbouring Shoranur municipality too, BJP witnessed an electoral growth from three BJP councillors in 2010, to seven in 2015, and nine in 2020. “Vaniyamkulam panchayat presently has four BJP councillors, while there are three in Lakkidi - Perur,” Aravindan says.

He believes the reason for Hindutva’s failure to gain electoral victory at the state level is the disharmony between caste organisations such as the NSS and the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, associated with the dominant Nair and Ezhava castes respectively. “They need to reconsider their priorities. If Hindus truly unite beyond caste and class, we can easily win here,” he says.

“But it will happen,” Vijayaraghavan, the committee’s treasurer, pitches in. “It will happen soon enough.”