Tradition at its best in this Dadar building

While most Navratri mandals celebrate the festival garishly, a mandal at Khandke buildings in Dadar, where public celebrations first began as a revolt against caste hierarchy, sticks to celebrating in a traditional manner.

It was late Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s social reformer father, “Prabodhankar” Keshav Sitaram Thackeray, who began public celebrations of Navratri in the state in 1926 as a revolt against upper castes who did not involve other communities in celebrating Ganesh utsav.

“We refrain from throwing gulal in the immersion procession, this does not fit into our ethos… nuisance during festivals defames our culture,” said mandal treasurer Prafulla Potnis, adding that many volunteers of the mandal located near Sena Bhavan fasted and avoided non-vegetarian food during the celebrations. Devotees found drunk or smoking are not allowed at the pandal. They also refrain from using DJs or playing loud music.

The feisty Prabodhankar and  his fellow reformers like Raobahadur Sitaram Keshav Bole and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in 1926 demanded that non-Bramhins be allowed to worship Lord Ganesh in public celebration.

After a struggle, a compromise was struck to allow Dalit activist Ganpat Mahadeo Jadhav “Madkebua” to offer flowers to the priest for the Lord. This led to upper castes stopping the utsav to prevent the incident from being repeated.

Prabodhankar, who was a proponent of pro-Bahujan Hindutva as opposed to the upper-caste dominated one, Bole and others then began celebrating Navratri as the Mother Goddess was Maharashtra’s principal deity.

Accordingly, the ‘Shiv Bhawani Navratri Mahotsav’ was started in Dadar and later spread out across Maharashtra. It was celebrated for a while elsewhere before being shifted to Khandke buildings, where Prabodhankar had stayed for a while.

“Prabodhankar did not start this to snare backwards in the clutches of religion but to show that untouchability existed in society,” noted Dnyanesh Maharao, editor, Chitralekha (Marathi), and author of Thackeray: Life and Style. “He wanted to stress that religion… needed to be inclusive,” he added.

Journalist Sachin Parab who has documented Prabodhankar’s life and work, said this development led to the Ganesh utsav being forced to become all encompassing. He noted that ironically the Shiv Sena had used the Ganesh utsav to spread its influence.