Let Chhath Be

Will the BJP's attempt to mobilise Bihar's Chhath puja into its muscular and menacing Hindutva bring electoral dividends?

- Subir Sinha

BIHAR'S quintessential Chhath puja has just got over. Falling just days before the state elections, its celebrations inevitably got caught up in the campaign, now in full swing. Of all political parties in the fray, it was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that attempted hardest to make political capital from it. All BJP Chief Ministers were shown performing elaborate Chhath in their respective state capitals. The simple Chhath of my youth, when we went before dawn to the banks of the Ganga with my mother, aunts, cousins and some male members of the family, accompanied often by a Muslim or an Oraon friend, waiting for the sun to rise so those who had kept a long and difficult vrat could break their fasts, and we could lay our hands on the thekuas and pedakiyas whose aroma, as they cooked, had filled the house. As the rising sun shimmered on the water, we returned home, receiving and sending prasad to neighbours, friends and relations.

I would have never imagined then that Chhath would become so elaborate, pan-India high decibel and over-the-top as it has this year. The political use of Chhath did not start this year: only a few years ago, Tejashwi Yadav, the Rashtriya Janata Dal's (RJD) 'CM Face' today, had mocked now-deceased BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi asking if his Christian wife had kept fast. Today, BJP leaders are asking the same question to Tejashwi, who married a Christian woman too.

If Chhath is a marker of authenticity for Biharis, it is important to the BJP to show that it, too, is Chhath-identified. Lacking any leader of stature in Bihar, it fell to BJP allies, Chirag Paswan and Nitish Kumar, to exchange Chhath greetings, Chirag touching Nitish's feet in a show of exaggerated respect, even as he denied that the latter was the agree-upon CM face for the NDA. Chirag's glamorous sartorial choice, and choice to perform the