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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.

Israel-Iran Escalation Tests India’s Strategic Tightrope

Writer: Ruddhi Phadke
Ruddhi Phadke
Jun 17, 2025
4 min read

India’s delicate diplomacy in West Asia has enabled it to maintain strong ties with both Israel and the Arab world.

In a region perpetually on the boil, India’s ability to maintain robust ties with both Israel and the Arab world has long been one of the understated successes of its foreign policy. At a time when ideological loyalty often outweighs pragmatism, New Delhi is walking a tightrope with uncommon poise by courting Tel Aviv’s strategic heft even while nurturing deep economic and cultural connections with Tehran, Riyadh and other Arab capitals.


This delicate quadrille began in earnest in 1977, when the Janata Party government led by Prime Minister Morarji Desai and with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as External Affairs Minister, cracked the diplomatic ice with Israel. Though India did not open a full embassy in Tel Aviv until 1992, that early outreach laid the foundation for a relationship built on security, technology and mutual realpolitik. Vajpayee, known for his right-wing convictions and rhetorical flair, surprised many by reaching out not only to Israel but also to the Arab world, establishing that ideological rigidity need not preclude diplomatic dexterity.


A famous cartoon in the Marathi weekly Marmik from that period captured the moment’s irony. It showed Vajpayee clad in traditional Arab attire, greeting his hosts with the words “Pahchana kya?” (“Do you recognise me?”) - a nod to how out of place he might have seemed, and how far Indian diplomacy had come.


Since then, India’s ties with Israel have grown remarkably close, particularly on matters of defence and counterterrorism. During the fraught years of the Kashmir insurgency in the 1990s, Israel repeatedly backed India’s position in international forums, including at the United Nations. Analysts say that at one point, Tel Aviv even offered to carry out a pre-emptive strike on Pakistan’s nuclear facility at Kahuta so long as India provided mid-air refuelling for its bombers. India, mindful of the regional implications, politely declined. But the episode illustrates the depth of trust between the two countries.


India’s refusal to overtly support Israel in international forums, often abstaining on UN resolutions condemning it, has never seriously impaired bilateral ties. Instead, strategic cooperation has deepened. Israel has become one of India’s key defence suppliers, providing an array of sophisticated weaponry - from precision-guided munitions and anti-tank missiles to night vision equipment and thermal imaging sensors. Perhaps more crucially, Israel has shared vital intelligence and counterterrorism expertise, helping Indian security forces tackle insurgencies in Kashmir and beyond.


Yet even as Israel has become a cornerstone of India’s defence strategy, New Delhi has preserved and even strengthened its ties with the Arab world. Trade and employment have long underpinned these relationships. Gulf nations, especially Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, have employed millions of Indian workers whose remittances contribute significantly to India’s foreign exchange reserves. In return, India exports a cornucopia of goods, including agricultural produce, garments and meat, and continues to import crude oil and natural gas.


Iran, despite its complicated relationship with the West and frequent sanctions, has also been a key partner. At one point, it accounted for the largest share of India’s oil imports. But beyond hydrocarbons, Iran became crucial to India’s regional strategy when China began developing Gwadar port in Pakistan - a project that gave Beijing a strategic foothold on the Arabian Sea. In response, India partnered with Tehran to build Chabahar port on Iran’s southern coast, opening a vital trade and transit route to Afghanistan and Central Asia that bypasses Pakistan entirely.


That collaboration bore fruit in 2017 when India sent its first major shipment of wheat to Afghanistan via Chabahar and Iran’s road network - an act of regional diplomacy made possible only because Pakistan denied overland access through its territory. While Chabahar has not advanced at the pace India once hoped, it remains a powerful symbol of what pragmatic diplomacy can achieve even amid geopolitical headwinds.


India’s West Asia strategy is tinged with historical irony. The Jewish state of Israel emerged after World War II as a response to the horrors of the Holocaust, with the West carving out territory from what was then British Mandate Palestine. Arab states, feeling betrayed by this division of land, launched a series of wars to destroy the nascent state. The animosity between Israel and the Muslim world has festered for over seven decades, with peace agreements few and fragile.


Yet India, a country with the world’s third-largest Muslim population and a long-standing tradition of sheltering Jewish communities has managed to engage both sides without alienating either. Its ability to straddle these rivalries is not just a testament to bureaucratic skill but to a larger geopolitical vision rooted in autonomy and balance.


This balancing act will be tested as conflicts escalate across West Asia. India must continue navigating a minefield of competing allegiances and shifting alliances. Its close defence partnership with Israel may raise eyebrows in Tehran or Riyadh; its warm ties with Iran may prompt concern in Washington or Jerusalem. Yet if the past four decades are any guide, India will continue to walk this tightrope with careful steps and steady nerve.


In an era when global diplomacy is increasingly polarised, India’s ability to cultivate seemingly contradictory friendships offers a rare case study in the art of coexistence. Far from being torn between the Star of David and the Crescent, India has thus far managed to embrace both.

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