Whose Onam will you celebrate?

Illustration by ChatGPT

There is something radically subversive about the Onam story. For those who may not be aware, Onam is the state festival of Kerala. It celebrates an erstwhile legendary utopia, the time when Kerala was ruled over by Mahabali (Maveli as Malayalis call him fondly). The country was prosperous, the citizens were honest, and everything was just wonderful. The land was a heaven on earth. And the gods were displeased with that out of sheer jealousy. They send Vamana, a god, to drive Maveli away into the netherworld, which he did using deception. But Maveli’s wish to visit his land once a year was granted. Onam celebrates the annual return of the great king to his beloved country albeit for a short while.

The right-wing now wants to do away with Maveli from Onam and redefine it as Vamana Jayanti. After all, Vamana is the god while Maveli was an asura or demon.

Of course, both Vamana and Maveli existed only in stories. And stories have certain functions to fulfil. When you rewrite a story, you’re rewriting an entire culture.

Maveli is the personification of an ideal ruler and Malayalis are celebrating that natural human yearning for a utopia. If you elevate the fraudulent Vamana above Maveli, what will Onam mean anymore?

The pookalam (floral carpet for seating Maveli), the sadhya (grand lunch), numerous games and art forms all will lose their meaning absolutely, if Vamana replaces Maveli. The very meaning of the festival will be lost.

In Kerala’s version of the legend, the god wins and the king loses. But the people remember and celebrate the defeated king. Quite unusual for a religious festival. The victorious deity is not the emotional centre of Onam; the vanquished king is. Onam is not about the victory of the gods. It is about the greatness of a king. It is about the possibility of a utopia.

Onam is a celebration of a human ideal. A dream of equality. A longing for fraternity. A dream of a society in which nobody is hungry and nobody is humiliated. Onam teaches us that kings can be benevolent.

Transforming Onam into Vamana Jayanti will erase precisely the element that makes Onam distinctive in Kerala’s cultural imagination. Why do you want to replace equality with hierarchy? Fraternity with victory? A people’s beloved utopia with a theology of divine conquest?

Of course, this effort to transmute Onam has been going on for many years now. It won’t succeed. Kerala won’t accept an interpretation imposed by a sinister political project.

Onam belongs to the Malayali collective memory. That memory is not just about a king, but about the world that his story represents. A world where people were genuinely happy, equal, and free.

As Kerala has already started celebrating Onam and the educational institutions are closed for a whole week for the celebrations, let me wish you all A HAPPY ONAM.