Lably
Skip to content

Ganesh Chaturthi

Hindu religious festival

  • 14 min read
  • 6 chapters
Khairathabad Vinayakudu 2021
Batthini Vinay Kumar Goud · CC BY-SA 4.0

Related on Lably

Through Indian subcontinent, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh

Lab · Class 6–11How India Is GovernedLab · Class 6–12Ancient Indian Ocean TradeLab · Class 7–11Disaster ManagementLab · Class 6–10Maps & Projections

The festival celebrates Ganesha as the god of new beginnings, the remover of obstacles, and the god of wisdom, fortune, prosperity and intelligence. It is observed throughout the Indian subcontinent by Hindus, especially in the states such as Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Goa, as well as Sri Lanka. Ganesh Chaturthi is also observed by the Hindu diaspora elsewhere such as in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, other parts of the Caribbean, Fiji, Mauritius, South Africa, the United States, and Europe. In the Gregorian calendar, Ganesh Chaturthi falls between 22 August and 20 September every year. Reading of texts, feasting, athletic and martial arts competitions are held at public venues.

Although the exact origin of Ganesh Chaturthi is unknown, public celebrations were popularized by Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the 1600s, who used the celebration as a means to promote harmony and unity across castes. Celebrations were re-popularized by Bal Gangadhar Tilak in the 1880s as a means to rebel against the British, who had banned public assemblies in India. The celebration served as an opportunity to unify Indians across castes and protest against British rule in India.

History

Festival

Although it is unknown when (or how) Ganesh Chaturthi was first observed, the festival has been publicly celebrated in Pune since the era of King Shivaji (1630–1680, founder of the Maratha Empire). The Peshwa in the 18th century were devotees of Ganesha and started as a public Ganesh festival in their capital city of Pune during the month of Bhadrapad. After the start of the British Raj, the Ganesh festival lost state patronage and became a private family celebration in Maharashtra until its revival by Indian freedom fighter and social reformer Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, popularly known as Lokmanya Tilak, championed it as a means to circumvent the colonial British government ban on Hindu gatherings through its anti-public assembly legislation in 1892. Lokmanya Tilak started the festival in Pune and Girgaon, Mumbai.

I followed with the greatest curiosity crowds who carried in procession an infinite number of idols of the God Ganesh. Each little quarter of the town, each family with its adherents, each little street corner I may almost say, organises a procession of its own, and the poorest may be seen carrying on a simple plank their little idol or of paper mâché... A crowd, more or less numerous, accompanies the idol, clapping hands and raises cries of joy, while a little orchestra generally precedes the idol.
– Angelo de Gubernatis, Bombay Gazette (1886)

According to others such as Kaur, the festival became a public event later, in 1892 when Krishnajipant Khasgiwale (also known as Nanasaheb Khasgiwale), a Pune resident, visited Gwalior then under Scindia rule where he witnessed a public Ganesh Chaturthi celebration (Sarvajanik Ganesh Mahotsav) for the first time. This inspired him to conceptualize a similar public festival back home in Pune. Khasgiwale shared this idea with his friends in Pune Shrimant Bhausaheb Rangari (a respected royal physician and freedom fighter) and Balasaheb Natu. Enthused by the idea, Rangari took the lead and installed the first sarvajanik (public) Ganesha idol in his wada in the Shalukar Bol area of Pune. In 1893, Lokmanya Tilak praised the celebration of Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav in his newspaper, Kesari, and dedicated his efforts to launch the annual domestic festival into a large, well organised public event. Tilak recognised Ganesh's appeal as "the god for everybody", and according to Robert Brown, he chose Ganesha as the god that bridged "the gap between Brahmins and non-Brahmins", thereby building a grassroots unity across them to oppose British colonial rule.

Other scholars state that the British Empire, after 1870 out of fear of seditious assemblies, had passed a series of ordinances that banned public assembly for social and political purposes of more than 20 people in British India, but exempted religious assembly for Friday mosque prayers under pressure from the Indian Muslim community. Tilak believed that this effectively blocked the public assembly of Hindus whose religion did not mandate daily prayers or weekly gatherings, and he leveraged this religious exemption to make Ganesh Chaturthi to circumvent the British colonial law on large public assembly. He was the first to install large public images of Ganesha in pavilions in Bombay Presidency, and other celebratory events at the festival.

According to Richard Cashman, Tilak passionately committed himself to Ganesha after the 1893 Hindu-Muslim communal violence in Bombay and the Deccan riots, when he felt that the British India government under Lord Harris had repeatedly taken sides and not treated Hindus fairly because Hindus were not well organised. In Tilak's estimate, Ganesha worship and processions were already popular in rural and urban Hindu populations, across social castes and classes in Baroda, Gwalior, Pune and most of the Maratha region in the 18th century. In 1893, Tilak helped expand Ganesh Chaturthi festival into a mass community event and a hidden means for political activism, intellectual discourse, poetry recitals, plays, concerts, and folk dances.

In Goa, Ganesh Chaturthi predates the Kadamba era. The Goa Inquisition had banned Hindu festivals, and Hindus who did not convert to Christianity were severely restricted. However, Hindu Goans continued to practice their religion despite the restrictions. Many families worship Ganesha in the form of patri (leaves used for worshiping Ganesha or other gods), a picture is drawn on paper or small silver idols. In some households Ganesha idols are hidden, a feature unique to Ganesh Chaturthi in Goa due to a ban on clay Ganesha idols and festivals by the Jesuits as part of the Inquisition.

Sign in to keep reading

5 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Religion

PinyinRomanization scheme for Standard ChineseHindusAdherents of HinduismTraditional Chinese charactersStandardized set of Chinese charactersLiteral translationWord-for-word translation of a textReligionSocial-cultural systemTheologyStudy of the nature of deities and religious beliefs