The changing economics of Mumbai’s Ganpati festivals

This year, the Adani Group signed an exclusive sponsorship agreement with Chinchpokli’s Chintamani, Mumbai’s 107-year-old Ganpati festival mandal. Under the agreement, the Adani Group will sponsor the festival for all 11 days. The sponsorship will cover all the mandal’s expenses for the duration of the festival. In return, the Adani Group will receive all advertising rights, including those for banners, posters, and digital screens.“This is for 11 days this year. As of now, I won’t comment on the future course of relations between us and the Adani Group. We have been taking sponsorship from many corporate groups for all these years. There is nothing new. Only this year will the Adani Group be the sole sponsor instead of many,” said Devendra Desai, vice-president of the Chintamani Ganesh Mandal.The Adani Group has previously sponsored several Ganesh mandals in Mumbai. However, this is the first time the Group has taken up the entire sponsorship of one of the city’s prominent mandals.Last year, Mukesh Ambani’s youngest son, Anant Ambani, became a committee member of the Lalbaugcha Raja Sarvajanik Ganesh Mandal (Lalbaug’s king social Ganesh mandal). The Ambani family had already been regular visitors to Lalbaug’s Ganesh festival for years. The family has also been sponsoring the city’s most iconic Ganesh mandal through its CSR funds.The mandal runs several community initiatives, including financial assistance for patients in need, ambulance services, help with school fees, and tiffin services. The Reliance Group has funded many of these activities for years. Anant Ambani’s entry into the mandal came against this backdrop.Before large corporate houses began entering into exclusive sponsorship agreements with mandals, festival fundraising was largely local and dispersed. Mandal workers would approach local politicians, shopkeepers, residents, and corporate houses for support. There would typically be several sponsors rather than one. This funding allowed mandals to celebrate the festival and run their annual activities for the local community.A freedom-movement legacyThe Ganesh festival in Mumbai and Maharashtra has a long and important place in the history of India’s freedom struggle. The first public Ganesh festival is generally associated with Pune in 1892, when Bhausaheb Rangari (Bhausaheb Laxman Javale), a Pune-based physician and social worker, organised celebrations at his wada (mansion). Lokmanya Tilak, then a prominent leader of the freedom movement, recognised the festival’s potential for mass mobilisation and encouraged more people to celebrate it publicly.In 1893, a public Ganesh festival was organised in Mumbai’s Girgaon at Keshavji Naik Chawl. Tilak’s supporters installed a two-foot Ganesh idol and celebrated the festival for 11 days. Since then, the number of mandals has grown, and the festival has spread across Mumbai and Pune. Areas such as Girgaon, Byculla, Lalbaug, Chinchpokli, Parel, Worli, and Dadar became major centres of the festival. This mass mobilisation later became an important part of the social and political life of the city.When Tilak began promoting the festival on a larger scale, however, some rationalists and social reformers of the time opposed the idea. Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade, Tilak’s contemporary, colleague in the Indian National Congress, and a prominent Maharashtrian social reformer, warned him about its possible negative effects. “Don’t bring Ganpati out onto the streets,” Ranade is said to have told Tilak.The original political purpose of the public Ganesh festival ended with India’s independence in 1947. By then, however, the festival had become a deeply established tradition and an effective instrument of mass mobilisation. Political parties, mainly the Shiv Sena after its formation in 1966, and later the BJP and the Congress, used the festivals to build political networks and mobilise supporters.The new economy of the festivalAround the turn of the century, as the effects of economic liberalisation became visible in the country’s cities and Mumbai began transforming from a cotton-mill city into a city of malls and skyscrapers, festival mandals began receiving larger amounts of funding from real-estate developers, corporate houses, and other businesses.Over the past two decades, a new local economy around festival mandals has developed. The live telecasts of the counting of Lalbaugcha Raja’s offerings after the festival have also brought the scale of donations into public view. Money has increasingly become central to the organisation and presentation of the festival. The latest development is the move towards exclusive sponsorship by large corporate groups.So far, the corporate sponsorships do not appear to have disrupted the activities of Ganesh mandals or diminished popular devotion to Lord Ganesha. Yet the trend has triggered concern in parts of Maharashtra, where it is being interpreted as a sign of growing corporate influence over the state’s cultural life.In a recent public interview in Kolhapur, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut cautioned Maharashtra against this trend. “Now Mumbai’s Ganesh mandals are being bought for five or ten crore rupees. This is an attempt to capture Mumbai culturally. First, they took control of all the businesses of Mumbai, and now they are taking control of Marathi culture,” Raut said. He was referring to what he described as the growing influence of Gujarati business families in Mumbai; both the Ambani and Adani families have roots in Gujarat.Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Sandeep Deshpande also strongly criticised corporate funding of the mandals. “Why are you handing over the Marathi festival to Gujarat?” Deshpande asked mandal activists. “How much money do you need to celebrate? You get crores of rupees from the donations of common devotees. Isn’t that enough? After a few years, we will get to see garba [Gujarati popular dance] in Ganpati pandals,” he said.Marathi language activist and Centre for Marathi Studies chief Deepak Pawar posted a strong reaction on X after news of the Adani Group’s sponsorship of Chintamani emerged. “Earlier, mill workers used to mortgage their gold to the Marwari. Now Marathi people have started mortgaging their God,” he wrote.These reactions indicate a more widespread concern among some Marathi activists and political figures that corporate sponsorship, particularly by business groups associated with Gujarat, could give outside corporate interests greater influence over Maharashtra’s cultural institutions.In Hindu theology, Ganesha is associated with intelligence and learning and is also described as the presiding deity of the 64 arts. Historically, Ganesh mandals organised intellectual lectures, cultural programmes, and other public activities alongside the religious celebrations. Critics argue that many of these traditions have now been marginalised, while VIP visits to pandals have become a major focus of media coverage and mandal culture.Against this backdrop, exclusive sponsorship arrangements with large corporate groups have generated unease among sections of Marathi society. For critics, the growing presence of corporate money seems a departure from the community-centred character that shaped the Ganesh festival.Also Read | Who wants Third Mumbai?Also Read | Something is rotten in the state of Maharashtra