Thackerays’ All Out Effort To Hijack Dahihandi  

Mahesh Vijapurkar

Raj Thackeray is in the mood to defy the Supreme Court and possibly organise the dahihandi this Janamshtami. His cousin, Uddhav Thackeray, wants the government to neutralise the order by issuance of an Ordinance by the Maharashtra Government so the event can be held with no restraints. The cousins head their respective parties.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is in a fix.

Would letting Raj Thackeray do his defiance act, were he really to stare back at the law, or passing an ordinance because the Shiv Sena has demanded it, reduce its macho at the forthcoming civic elections? By not complying, would it hand over an issue in its political-rival-cum-partner to beat it with? This is all politics.

The Supreme Court last week laid out that the annual dahihandishall not have human pyramids of over 20 feet, or four tiers, and the children, that is those up to 18 years of age, shall not be allowed to be part of such pyramids. The idea is to ensure safety of participants, who have either been hurt. Many are badly injured, and some even died.

The dahihandiis just what many may remember enacted in the Hindi movie, Bluff Master, in which Shammi Kapoor was the hero and the centrepiece of that effort to pluck the pot with curds in it, even as the song, Govinda ala re, ala was being sung and danced to. The only change has been the height of the pyramids, and the increased prize monies.

Political parties are seeing dahihandi as a Hindu religious event. But the Supreme Court has said Lord Krishna as a child did steal the butter kept out of his reach with his friends giving him a leg up, but not with antics bordering on the dangerous, with risk to life and limbs. Those who are bristling at the order see it as an interference in matters religious.

Dahihandi is a huge affair in Mumbai and Thane, and a few other cities, and people rush home from work to avoid the clogged roads when the Govindas – members of teams which go from pot to pot hung in public spaces – and try to reach it. They even ride trucks, an illegal an act. Over years, they have changed hands from the local communities to trusts runs by politicians.

The organisers see it as a platform to remain visible, and the pots are hung so high that two years ago, the pyramid had to be as high as 43.79 feet of nine tiers. Even after a High Court order, which barred children, they were used in some locations by some teams because as the pyramid rises, children mean lower weight on the shoulders of the lower tiers. Government did not report and contempt of court did not happen.

Initially, the miffed organisers, known as mandals¸ threatened to discontinue the events rather than comply with the norms set would lead to an immediate rethink. They said that the lustre of the boisterous event would be most, the fun missed, as if they were talking of the Roman arenas where the emperors conducted the fun and games where lives of the gladiators did not count for much.

The politicians were the first to react, not the Hindu priests, temples or even religious organisations, which clearly indicates how over the years dahihandi has been hijacked for a political platform, and converted it into a sport where safety was not a concern at all. Till the Bombay High Court demanded it, none of the organisers had insisted on even safety harnesses for even the children sent to the apex.

If it were purely religious, there wouldn’t be the competition among rival politicians, say JitendraAhwad of NCP and Pratap Sarnaik of the Shiv Sena as to whose sponsored event has a higher prize money or the pot is hung at a higher point, if need be, by a crane. Nor would there be a desire to have them recorded by the Guiness or the Limca Book of Records.

Here is the clincher. Had been religion, Vindod Tawde, the BJP’s minister for sports would not have told the legislature that he would set up a panel which would help make dahihandi an adventure sport. None of those who now lament at the court order, flinched at the blasphemy, if it was from a BJP minister. It is evidently not even a sport as yet. Nor a religious event, but politics.