Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has laid a grand stage, replete with traditional pageantry, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the Ganesha festival to be inaugurated by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis at the city’s historic Shaniwarwada fort on Saturday.
The PMC, led by BJP leader and Pune Mayor Mukta Tilak — a scion of Lokmanya Tilak’s family — has earmarked ₹2 crore for the month-long quasquicentennial celebrations. The State government has chipped in with an additional ₹5 crore, according to sources.
The Chief Minister will launch a specially designed mascot for the occasion, a website, and a mobile app.
“The festivities will commence with the Chief Minister hoisting a specially designed flag on Shaniwarwada Fort which will remain during the duration of the month-long event,” Ms. Tilak said.
The PMC is going all-out to make the event a momentous occasion, with the organisers even angling for a couple of events to enter the Guinness Book of World Records. These include a mega dhol-tasha concert by 5,000 dhol tasha (drummers) performers at the S.P. College Grounds scheduled on August 23,. and another programme involving making Ganesha idols from sand.
A massive bike rally is also planned, while students from a number of colleges are expected to undertake a painting drive to beautify the city walls, Ms. Tilak said.
Mired in controversy
The anticipated celebrations, however, are already proving contentious as the Bhaurangari Ganapati Trust — one of Pune’s oldest pandals said to be the first to organise public Ganesha festivities or ‘Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav’ in Maharashtra — has taken strong objection to the PMC’s initiative.
“The PMC’s extravaganza is clearly a move to brand Lokmanya Tilak as the progenitor of communal Ganesha festivities while obviating the fact that it was Bhausaheb Javale who first began the event in 1892,” said Suraj Renuse, one of the trustees.
Mr. Renuse said that Bhausaheb Javale ought to get a place of pride in the logo and mascot being designed for the event.
The Bhaurangari Trust, which has been struggling to reclaim the memory of Bhausaheb Javale as the progenitor of the public festivities, has already sent a legal notice to the PMC on the matter.
“The civic body has no basis for the celebrations as it cannot claim this year to be the 125th year of public Ganesha festivities. It is proven in records that Bhausaheb Lakshman Javale, the the royal physician who ran a charitable dispensary, was the first to begin this tradition in 1892. Lokmanya Tilak acknowledged this in his paper Kesari and later popularised the event in 1894,” said advocate Milind Pawar, representing the Bhaurangari trust which celebrated its 125th anniversary last year itself.
The trustees and their supporters plan to take out a protest march from the Pune Municipal Corporation’s plans to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Ganesha festival popularised by Bal Gangadhar Lokmanya Tilak.
The protest is to commence, ironically, from Lokmanya Tilak’s statue in the city’s Mandai area to coincide with Mr. Fadnavis’ visit to the city.
“We demand that the government ought to officially acknowledge that it was Bhausaheb Javale, and not Tilak, who was the progenitor of the concept of ‘Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav’,” said Mr. Renuse.
The trustees said that despite having met the Mayor a number of times and received assurances that the record would be set straight, no acknowledgement has been forthcoming on behalf of the PMC. The members have also begun an online petition campaign in this regard.
