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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.

Mediterranean Pivot

Writer: Dr. V.L. Dharurkar
Dr. V.L. Dharurkar
May 26
3 min read

As Turkey grows closer to Pakistan and the Mediterranean gains geopolitical weight, India has discovered an unlikely but useful partner in Cyprus.

In diplomacy, small states frequently become the hinges upon which larger geopolitical doors swing. Cyprus, a divided island in the eastern Mediterranean with barely 1.3 million people, is increasingly acquiring such importance. India, whose foreign policy has traditionally looked east towards Asia or west towards the Gulf, now appears eager to anchor itself more firmly in the Mediterranean through a deepening partnership with Nicosia.


The recent visit of Cyprus’s president, Nikos Christodoulides, to India signalled the emergence of a strategic relationship shaped as much by geopolitics as by economics. Both countries formally agreed to elevate their ties into a strategic partnership


Strange Bedfellows

At first glance, the pairing seems improbable. India is a continental-scale power with global ambitions; Cyprus is a small island nation still grappling with the consequences of Turkey’s invasion in 1974, which left the island divided between the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish-controlled north. It is precisely this geopolitical vulnerability that makes Cyprus attractive to India.


For New Delhi, Cyprus offers three advantages. First, it provides a gateway into the European Union and the Mediterranean. Second, it offers a diplomatic partner aligned with India on issues such as terrorism and sovereignty. Third, it allows India to subtly counter the growing strategic intimacy between Turkey and Pakistan.


The Mediterranean has today become a crowded geopolitical theatre where energy routes, naval competition, migration crises and great-power rivalries intersect. Russia’s assertiveness, instability in the Middle East, tensions in North Africa and competition over offshore gas reserves have all transformed the region into a strategic crossroads. Cyprus sits directly in the middle of this flux.


Its importance has grown steadily over the past decade. The island has evolved into a maritime logistics hub and a staging ground for humanitarian operations involving Europe and the Middle East. British military bases, relics of empire, still dot its territory, underlining the island’s continuing strategic value to the West.


Growing Interest

India’s growing interest in Cyprus reflects a broader shift in its foreign policy thinking. Under Priem Minister Narendra Modi, New Delhi has attempted to expand its strategic geography beyond South Asia and the Indian Ocean. Europe is increasingly viewed not merely as a trading partner but as a geopolitical arena where India must cultivate influence. Cyprus, despite its size, offers a useful entry point.


Economics forms a substantial pillar of this new partnership. Cyprus has long punched above its weight as a source of foreign investment into India. Cypriot-linked investments have flowed into infrastructure, shipping, real estate and finance.


During the presidential visit, particularly significant was the emphasis on maritime cooperation. India and Cyprus established a joint task force on shipping and infrastructure development, reflecting New Delhi’s growing awareness that maritime security is inseparable from economic security. As global trade routes become more contested, India’s commercial and naval interests increasingly extend into the Mediterranean. The two countries have finalised a defence roadmap for 2026–2031, covering cybersecurity, maritime security and defence manufacturing.


This carries an unmistakable geopolitical message. Turkey’s increasingly close ties with Pakistan have long troubled India. Ankara has repeatedly echoed Islamabad’s positions on Kashmir, while defence cooperation between Turkey and Pakistan has expanded substantially. Cyprus, locked in its own enduring dispute with Turkey, naturally views New Delhi as a useful partner.


Thus, an informal strategic triangle is emerging: Turkey and Pakistan on one side, India and Cyprus on the other. Such alignments reflect how regional rivalries increasingly overlap across continents.


Cyprus has also backed India’s long-standing campaign for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council.


Energy considerations further strengthen the logic of partnership. Significant discoveries of natural gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean have transformed Cyprus into a potentially important energy player. For India, one of the world’s largest energy importers, cultivating relationships in emerging energy theatres is strategically prudent.


Both India and Cyprus see themselves as states confronting unresolved territorial questions while defending sovereignty against external pressure. This shared political psychology fosters diplomatic empathy.


Whether the relationship ultimately flourishes will depend on sustained political attention. Strategic partnerships are easy to announce but difficult to institutionalise. Nevertheless, India is no longer content to remain a regional power confined to South Asia and the Indian Ocean. It seeks influence across a wider geopolitical arc stretching from the Indo-Pacific to the Mediterranean. And in that widening map, tiny Cyprus may prove surprisingly consequential.


(The writer is a foreign affairs expert. Views personal.)

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