One day, sitting in my uncle's house, I watched a very unique event. The Chief Minister of Karnataka Mr. Siddaramiah was doing a puja of the murthi of Chamundeshwari Devi of Mysuru. As he offered flowers to the murthi carried by Arjuna, the towering lead elephant of the procession for Mysuru Dasara, a chain of questions and thoughts started in my mind.
You would ask me why it is a unique event - the Chief Minister of Karnataka has been doing this for Dasara every year for decades and the tradition itself can be traced back to the Mysuru Kingdom and even the Karnataka empire, what is today known popularly as the Vijaynagara empire. Siddaramiah is an avowed atheist who is strongly against rituals and superstitious practices. His government passed what is popularly known as the "anti-superstition Bill" and he pointedly refused to invoke God's name while taking his oath in the Karnataka Assembly, preferring instead to swear on "truth". He once said he would be open to eating beef - an issue which mainstream Hinduism has consistently frowned upon and outright condemned for centuries.
Now, this person offering flowers to Devi Chamundeshwari is clearly not a Hindu devotee of the devi. So why is he doing it? Is Mysuru Dasara a secular event? An event does not become secular because people of all faiths participate in it. People of all religions often go to Ganesh Chaturthi or Durga Puja pandals. This doesn't make the celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi a secular event - it is a Hindu event, or an event of people who have Bhakti for Ganesha. The people attending perhaps aren't necessarily subscribers to the idea of God and the existence of Ganesha but merely attend because they live nearby or belong to the same community. Even then, there is some etiquette to be followed - no one, for example, may approach while wearing slippers. All the puja, the practises, the iconography is clearly of the Hindu God Ganesha.
Offering flowers to Devi Chamundeshwari is an avowedly Hindu practice - or at least avowedly a practice of Bhakts of Devi Chamundeshwari. Why is an atheist offering flowers to her? Well, because he is the head of the Karnataka government and it has been the tradition of decades, actually a few centuries, that the ruler of this region performs this puja. Before, it was the Mysuru Maharaja, then the baton was passed to the secular governments of Karnataka (formerly Mysore) state.
Does this mean the Mysuru Dasara has ceased to be a religious event? It would be absurd to suggest that showering of flowers on a deity is divorced from Hindu practices or forms of worship. It would be absurd to suggest that Chamundehwari Devi has been "secularised". She doesn't belong to any community, everyone is free to pray to her, but how can a state of the Union of India, whose constitution believes in "scientific temper" and who pledges to stay equidistant from all religions and not facilitate the practice of any religion adopt this clearly religious practice and event as a "state festival"?
The state of Karnataka considers itself the inheritor of the legacy of the great kingdoms of this particular region. However, there is a distinction it draws. The piece of land does not define the history of Karnataka. It is the the Kannada language that defines Karnataka. So, even though the Cholas and the Marathas, Tamil and Marathi kingdoms respectively, ruled large parts of present-day Karnataka for a long time, their linguistic or cultural legacy is not something the state of Karnataka has inherited officially. The Vijaynagara empire widely patronised literature and poetry in Kannada, and hence we proudly say that we are inheritors of their grand heritage. Starting from the Gangas, the Satavahanas, Hoysalas, Chalukyas, Vijaynagara, Mysuru kingdoms and several others, these were all kingdoms who supported Kannada and gave us great monuments, feats of architecture and recently dams and industry. Their patronage led to some of the greatest Kannada literature ever written and also aided the Bhakti movement.
So when the Karnataka state believes it must carry forward the legacy of the Mysuru Maharajas, can it be selective in only choosing to inherit the language without the religion, the customs without the Bhakti? The Mysuru Maharajas were never secular - they were clear that they followed Hinduism even if they were tolerant and inclusive of all faiths. They conducted the Dasara celebrations as a purely religious event. How does the secular Karnataka government go about inheriting this? Must the religious meaning of this traditional event be completely stripped for the sake of the Karnataka government to celebrate this festival? Or can the Karnataka government momentarily defy the Constitution of India for 10 days a year as it organises a grand religious event? If the Mysuru King owned temples as they were patrons of the temple and had a family tradition where each family member dedicated his/her life to the service of this devi, can the secular Karnataka government inherit only the material wealth of the temple without being a patron of this temple, without enforcing that all in the Karnataka government must act in humble service of the Devi?
A word that often comes to the rescue here is "cultural". I believe this is a vacuous word - a word that means religious but can be used by secular folk to say that they're steering clear of religion since they're talking about this whole other thing called "culture". There is absolutely nothing irreligious about Chamundeshwari Devi. Whether you bow your head to her because your family forces you to or you believe she will give you her divine blessing, bowing before her is a religious act, no matter what high-level logic you are weighing in your mind while doing it. No matter what religious community you belong to. And here was Mr. Siddaramiah, a militant atheist one would say, doing it as a representative of the Karnataka government of the secular Union of India. He prayed for good rains and good prosperity in the state, he says.
A parallel might be drawn to the Kumbh Mela. I am not sure about the exact details of how the Kumbh Mela works, but if I understand it correctly, the mela itself is just a congregation and the individual aartis on the ghats are performed by individual temples. The government merely provides amenities such a accommodation, sanitation, etc. Perhaps the UP government does this viewing it as a tourism opportunity or as a necessity to prevent the spread of disease and maintain cleanliness. After all, you cannot simply ban people from congregating peacefully at one place. Either way, I am not here to defend expenditure on the Kumbh Mela. If the secular government of UP facilitates the religious aspects of the Kumbh, then I am opposed to this expenditure of public money.
I have no answer to this question and my concerns with this are two-fold.
As a citizen of India, I wish that the tax money paid by my parents and people I know, and the money that I will soon pay when I am earning in India, should be spent in accordance with the constitution. No matter the blessings what Devi Chamundeshwari may shower on the Karnataka government, this is a religious event and the Karnataka government has no business celebrating it and spending money on it. Why should my money go into the hands of a person with a faith that throwing flowers on a statue made of stone will somehow benefit them? What if I believe in a stone with a different shape? Or believe in no God?
As a Hindu and a Kannadiga who is proud of the legacy of the Mysuru Maharaja and the Vijaynagara Empire, I do not understand who a secular government is to interfere in a religious practice of my community and my Devi. That a person who is avowedly non-Hindu is given a chance to offer Puja from the pedestal where once a Maharaja who was a devotee and patron of Chamundehwari did it is an affront to my religion. It doesn't matter if the Chief Minister is HD Kumaraswamy, who is such a big devotee that he visits more temples after elections than before elections - he is representing a non-religious state that washes its hands off my religion - no bother, this staying away from religion is good - just allow my own community to celebrate it and organise it on our own.
Karnataka is a Hindu Rashtra in blatant disregard of the Indian constitution? Mysuru Dasara is a secular event in blatant disregard of its history? I am opposed to either being true, but one of them has to be true!
Thaayi Chamundeswari, neene heLbekamma! (Mother Chamundeswari, you only have to tell, mother!)