Pune’s DJ row gets noisy and political

Vidyanand Bapat was giving an interview to TV9 Marathi news channel on Tilak Road in Pune when a youth attacked him. Few cameramen of news channels were present at the time of the incident. The youth objected to Bapat’s stand against the use of DJ systems and dhol during the Ganesh festival. The attack took place on September 3, but the debate over DJs and dhol had been running since August 24, when Bapat first spoke at the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) preparatory meeting for the festival. The issue has since polarised the city, and Maharashtra at large, with consequences that could prove decisive.The debate over noise pollution during Ganeshotsav in Pune has run for over a decade. But this year, Bapat’s intervention changed its dynamics and took it to the national level. He was a private citizen, unknown beyond his family and neighbourhood in Narayan Peth, until August 24. That day, the PMC had called its annual preparatory meeting for the festival, set to begin on September 14. Bapat raised his hand to speak, and what followed was a movement nobody had anticipated.In his first sentence, Bapat opposed DJs and dhol at the festival. He said that when Lokmanya Tilak started Ganeshotsav, there were no DJs. “Ganesh festival has nothing to do with DJs and dhol. It raises noise pollution, and the immersion procession also creates traffic problems for citizens.” Of the roughly 300 to 400 people at the meeting, Bapat was the only one to oppose DJs and dhol. The rest shouted him down, and the police escorted him out, given the seriousness of the situation. But a video of a private citizen calmly opposing DJs before hundreds of Ganesh mandal workers went viral the same day. Bapat, unknown until then, became popular across Pune and Maharashtra almost immediately.Several mandal workers, along with BJP’s Pune city president Dheeraj Ghate, issued statements opposing Bapat and supporting the use of DJs and dhol during the festival and its immersion processions. The issue became a hot topic, and Marathi TV news saw an opportunity. Within a day or two, ABP Majha arranged a face-to-face debate between Bapat and Ghate. Bapat set out his views on noise pollution with examples. A pro-DJ participant told the anchor that the media was giving Bapat undue importance. Ghate reportedly went further, saying, in Marathi: “Not even a dog of his lane knows this Bapat.” Bapat remained calm, with a straight, almost expressionless face, while this was said. This clip, too, went viral.Within two days, several news channels, YouTube pages, and citizens with large social media followings had interviewed Bapat. In every interview, he repeated the same argument, citing shlokas from the Mahabharata and other Sanskrit texts, as well as examples from Latin and Greek literature. He described himself as an atheist, a rationalist, and part of the tradition of Socrates and Narendra Dabholkar. His command of Marathi, Sanskrit, English, and Hindi, delivered without a fumble and in a consistent tone across every interview, made him a sensation in Pune and Maharashtra within days.As Bapat’s popularity grew, BJP leaders and supporters backing DJs at the festival reached for a familiar counter. They began raising questions about noise pollution during the Eid-e-Milad night, celebrated this year on August 26. Pune Police, whose credibility has come under strain in recent times over unrelated matters, booked four people for noise pollution during Eid-e-Milad. In response, Bapat and his supporters, who by now saw him as a figurehead against noise pollution, said they opposed noise pollution across all castes and religious festivals equally.On August 30, the forum Sakal Hindu Samaj announced, then cancelled, a march at Pune’s Goodluck Chowk on Ferguson College Road against noise pollution from DJs. Hundreds of Punekars gathered anyway. Many were vocal about being BJP supporters or RSS volunteers, yet opposed DJs. Two statements from the gathering stood out. One man, who did not give his name, said he was an RSS volunteer and a Hindu, but opposed DJs: “It is harmful. Many senior citizens who stay near the Ganesh pandals feel uneasy during the festival. Heart patients and others are also irritated by these DJs. This is why it must be banned.” The other, identified as Dr Shirolikar, addressed the BJP’s leadership directly: “I want to tell the top brass of BJP that they got elected in 2014 because many people like us, who are fence-sitters, supported the party. We liked some policies and supported them. But don’t take us for granted. Now people are getting angry and are not ready to listen to your illogical things. Take this seriously. It won’t take time to change our political opinions.”BJP’s balancing actThese reactions and the Ferguson Road gathering gave BJP leaders a clear sense of the public mood, and they moved quickly to identify with it. Pune BJP leader and Maharashtra’s Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakant Patil posted on X: “I appeal to Punekars for a healthy and joyful celebration of Ganesh festival. Kindly do not overuse DJs and laser beams...” Tejasvi Surya, BJP’s Bengaluru South Lok Sabha MP, supported the marching citizens on X, calling it “encouraging to see citizens across India’s cities take to the streets for clean air, less noise and protection of green spaces”. Neither leader, however, asked BJP’s Pune workers or local leadership to stop supporting DJs at the festival.

The use of DJs and dhols in Pune has exceeded the limits for noise pollution during the Ganesh festival. This image is representational. | Photo Credit: The Hindu Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis followed the same pattern of ambiguity. At the BJP’s state executive meeting in Pune on August 31, he made a vague statement that avoided the core of the DJ controversy: “I know the media will now ask me about DJs and all that. I want to tell Punekars that they know how to celebrate the festival in a cultured way. So I appeal to celebrate the festival in that same spirit.” Fadnavis’s statement drew further criticism for its lack of a clear stand. It was against this backdrop that Bapat was attacked in Pune on September 3.The demand to ban DJs in Pune and the rest of Maharashtra is not new. In 2023, Sunil Mane, now spokesperson for the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar), first filed a petition in Pune against DJs. Mane, himself an Ambedkarite and a former journalist, first demanded a ban on DJs during Ambedkar birth-anniversary processions. He faced strong opposition from within his own community but continued to press the issue. This year, the birth-anniversary procession in Solapur, on April 14, was completed without DJs. Last year, in Kolhapur, people voluntarily stopped playing DJs during the Ganesh immersion procession. The demand to ban DJs has grown stronger every year; with Bapat’s intervention and public support behind him, Pune has become the centre of this year’s debate.What the numbers showThe College of Engineering, Pune (COEP), has studied noise pollution on Pune’s Lakshmi Road on Ganesh immersion day for the past 25 years. Barring the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, every year in that period has recorded noise levels above 80 decibels. Readings have gone as high as 105.2 decibels in 2022, 101.3 decibels in 2024, and 94.8 decibels in 2025.As per guidelines from the Union Environment Ministry, noise levels in commercial areas should stay below 65 decibels during the day and 55 at night. In residential areas, the limits are 55 during the day and 45 at night, and in industrial areas, 75 during the day and 70 at night. For 25 years, Ganesh immersion day in Pune has exceeded these limits. Citizens taking to the streets against noise pollution is, therefore, not a knee-jerk reaction to Bapat’s intervention.Public support for Bapat was not the only reason the BJP moved on the issue. On August 22, Pune saw a large rally by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as part of his “Chhatron Ki Gunj” programme, drawing a large turnout of college-going women. The BJP soon after decided to hold its state executive meeting in the city. In between, the DJ controversy grew larger.Over the past decade, particularly after the 2017 municipal corporation election, in which the BJP won Pune with a thumping majority, the party made systematic inroads into the city’s cultural centres. Ganesh mandals are key to Pune’s mass mobilisation, and thousands of mandal workers have gradually become BJP supporters over this period. These workers are staunch supporters of DJs and dhol during the festival. With this base in mind, the BJP initially supported DJs and dhol. But faced with public anger over the issue, it also tried to identify with the protesters. This has put the party in something of a bind. Pune has historically been one of the RSS’s strongest centres, and BJP’s leadership knows well that losing its grip on such a city would not be affordable for the party in the long term. Politics around DJs and noise pollution in cities like Pune has always been fraught. With the attack on Vidyanand Bapat, a rational and popular citizen, it has become murkier still.Also Read | Why do we want to militarise our gods? Also Read | Pact for peace