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By:

Rajendra Pandharpure

15 April 2025 at 7:55:54 pm

The BJP’s Ganesha Gambit

Pune’s Ganeshotsav has become an enormous civic and political stage, and the ruling party has proved adept at occupying it. Pune: The city’s Ganeshotsav is entering its final phase, but the festival has already demonstrated something beyond its extraordinary crowds and familiar spectacle: the extent to which it has become a political stage. This year, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has left a particularly visible imprint on the festivities, using an event that reaches deep into the city’s...

The BJP’s Ganesha Gambit

Pune’s Ganeshotsav has become an enormous civic and political stage, and the ruling party has proved adept at occupying it. Pune: The city’s Ganeshotsav is entering its final phase, but the festival has already demonstrated something beyond its extraordinary crowds and familiar spectacle: the extent to which it has become a political stage. This year, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has left a particularly visible imprint on the festivities, using an event that reaches deep into the city’s neighbourhoods as an opportunity for public outreach. The political appropriation of the festival has not, however, been without a counter-current. Demands were raised for curbs on noise pollution, loudspeakers and the volume of dhol-tasha performances. The argument was not against Ganeshotsav itself, but for moderation - notably, a complete ban on DJ music and limits on the number of dhol and tasha instruments used by performing troupes. Familiar Troubles The festival’s reality has been rather different. Major roads have been occupied by mandaps. Processions celebrating the arrival of Lord Ganesha have unfolded amid punishing noise. DJ music, while subject to restrictions, has continued. Traffic congestion has become a familiar feature of the festival, with the movement of political leaders adding another layer to the city’s already strained roads. The Peth areas have remained crowded deep into the night. The Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Ganpati temple has drawn enormous crowds for darshan from the opening day. From the old city to housing societies and neighbourhood mandals, Ganeshotsav touches virtually every part of Pune. For a political party seeking a direct connection with citizens, few occasions offer such a ready-made network of people, institutions and local influencers. The BJP enters this festival with an unusually formidable organisational base. It has two MPs, seven MLAs and more than 100 corporators in Pune. Murlidhar Mohol, one of the city’s MPs, is a Union Minister of State. Chandrakant Patil is a Cabinet minister in the Maharashtra government, while Madhuri Misal is a Minister of State. The party’s presence also extends into the festival’s organisational architecture. Its influence is visible across numerous mandals, large and small. BJP MLA Hemant Rasane is General Secretary of the Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Sarvajanik Ganpati Trust. Kunal Tilak, a member of Lokmanya Tilak’s family, is a BJP corporator. The political and cultural histories of Pune therefore intersect in ways that are difficult to ignore. The BJP’s senior leadership has also made the most of the occasion. National President Nitin Nabin visited Pune to seek Lord Ganesha’s blessings, while Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis visited the city before and during the festival. Such visits are about more than religious observance. In a festival watched by millions and embedded in the city’s social life, political visibility comes almost automatically. There is also talk in Pune that the BJP provided substantial financial support to Dhol-Lezim troupes and their organisers, with claims that some major mandals received financial backing as well. These claims would require independent verification, but the perception itself points to the depth of the political contest around Ganeshotsav. BJP workers, according to local observers, have also sought to make their presence more conspicuous than that of festivities organised by housing societies. Useful Expedient The festival arrives at a politically useful moment for the BJP. The party has faced disquiet on several fronts. Young people have been agitated over the paper-leak controversy. Broader public dissatisfaction has been voiced over inflation and unemployment, while government policies relating to ethanol and charges associated with UPI transactions have also generated criticism. While a political party can defend a policy in a press conference and advertise its achievements, during Ganeshotsav, its workers can be physically present in neighbourhoods, among processions, mandals, cultural groups and devotees. Politics thus becomes less about argument and more about visibility. That is the BJP’s advantage in Pune. Ganeshotsav, after all, is not simply a sequence of religious rituals. It is an elaborate civic network involving local organisers, volunteers, cultural groups, businesses, residents and political representatives. Whoever has influence over that network acquires a powerful channel of communication with the city. The BJP appears to understand this particularly well. Its strength in Pune’s electoral politics has been reinforced by a presence that extends beyond elections and into the institutions and social spaces that organise public life. The irony is that the very scale of the festival that makes it politically attractive also magnifies the civic costs. The political value of Ganeshotsav and the civic burden it creates are therefore two sides of the same phenomenon. For Pune, the larger question is not whether politics has entered Ganeshotsav. It has done so for decades. The more consequential question is whether the festival’s extraordinary social capital will remain primarily a vehicle for political outreach or whether the same influence can be used to reconcile celebration with the ordinary civic needs of the city. For the moment, the BJP seems to have understood the first proposition better than most.

AI Will Decide Which Small Businesses Survive

Writer: Rajiv Shah
Rajiv Shah
Jul 20
3 min read

India’s economic future may not be decided by its billion-dollar technology companies alone. It may well be determined by the ability of millions of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to embrace artificial intelligence. The recent World Economic Forum report, Transforming Small Businesses: An AI Playbook for India’s SMEs, serves as a timely reminder that the next industrial revolution will not be fought in corporate boardrooms alone but in thousands of workshops, factories, retail stores and service businesses across the country.


For decades, India’s MSME sector has been described as the backbone of the economy. More than 60 million enterprises contribute nearly one-third of India’s GDP, generate almost half of the country’s exports and provide employment to over 230 million people. If these businesses fail to remain globally competitive, India’s ambition of becoming a developed economy will remain incomplete.


Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic luxury reserved for multinational corporations. It has become an economic necessity. Businesses across the world are using AI to predict demand, optimise inventories, improve quality control, reduce waste, automate customer service, detect fraud and shorten production cycles. The question is no longer whether AI will transform industries; it is whether Indian SMEs will become participants or spectators in this transformation.


One of the most striking observations in the report is that AI adoption could potentially unlock hundreds of billions of dollars in additional economic value for India’s MSME sector. That value will not come from replacing human workers but from enabling them to become more productive, reducing operational costs and expanding financial inclusion through better credit assessment and faster loan processing.


Yet technology alone cannot guarantee success.


The greatest challenge before Indian SMEs is not software but preparedness. A large percentage of businesses still maintain manual records, depend upon fragmented accounting systems and operate with limited digital infrastructure. Many entrepreneurs continue to perceive AI as an expensive technology designed for large corporations. This misconception could prove extremely costly.


History repeatedly demonstrates that every industrial revolution rewards early adopters while punishing those who hesitate. Nations that ignored mechanisation lost manufacturing leadership. Businesses that ignored computers disappeared. Companies that underestimated the internet lost global markets. Artificial intelligence represents the next such turning point.


The World Economic Forum rightly argues that AI adoption cannot follow a one-size-fits-all model. India’s MSME ecosystem is remarkably diverse. A textile cluster in Surat has different technological needs from an automobile component manufacturer in Pune, a pharmaceutical unit in Hyderabad or a leather exporter in Kanpur. Similarly, a village repair shop cannot be expected to adopt AI in the same manner as a medium-sized engineering company.


This diversity demands cluster-based solutions, affordable cloud services and practical training rather than theoretical seminars.


Equally important is the need for digital maturity. AI cannot function effectively where reliable digital data does not exist. Before businesses can implement predictive analytics or intelligent automation, they must first digitise records, modernise accounting systems and establish disciplined data management.


Government initiatives such as IndiaAI provide an encouraging foundation. However, policy support alone will not create an AI-driven economy. Industry associations, banks, educational institutions, technology companies and start-ups must jointly build an ecosystem that makes AI affordable, understandable and trustworthy for small entrepreneurs.


Many entrepreneurs fear that AI will eliminate jobs. In reality, the larger risk lies elsewhere. Businesses that fail to adopt AI may lose competitiveness, leading to declining revenues, shrinking markets and eventually greater job losses. The future workforce will increasingly require digital literacy, analytical thinking and continuous learning.


Another overlooked opportunity lies in financial inclusion. Millions of small enterprises continue to struggle for formal credit because conventional lending depends heavily upon documentation and collateral. AI-driven credit assessment can analyse alternative business data, making financing faster, cheaper and more accessible.


Rapid AI adoption must be accompanied by responsible governance. Data privacy, cybersecurity, algorithmic transparency and ethical decision-making cannot become afterthoughts. Trust will become the currency of the AI economy.


The future will not belong to the biggest companies, nor necessarily to the oldest. It will belong to those enterprises—large or small—that learn faster, innovate continuously and embrace artificial intelligence as a partner rather than a threat.


(The writer is an advocate, legal, geopolitical and public policy analyst. Views personal.)

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