The Eternal Return of King Nobody

That pot-bellied Asura king with his handlebar moustache and palm-leaf umbrella—as the figure from the myth has been recast in part-cartoonised popular iconography—is kicking up quite a storm these days. If this runs contrary to his other image—of a benevolent, loveable potentate, almost a south Indian Santa Claus—it’s not his doing. Nor even that of most Malayalis, who, in the midst of ­manic­­ festival shopping, may have initially missed out a seemingly intellectual matter that had seized the culture-keepers of Kerala and spawned debates in television studios and social media. But then arrows started flying on Twitter from some top pol­itical figures.

It began with the RSS Malayalam weekly Kesari, in its recent issue, putting out a disapproving take on the way Malayalis portray the Onam myth, making a hero of an asura king and, by implication, reducing Vamana, one of the avatars of Vishnu, into an almost “villianised” figure. Kesari suggests that Onam be celebrated as Vamana Jayanti and the pot-bellied, handlebar king be sent back to the netherworld, where all demons should belong. Now, Onam in its present form rests on one of the most egalitarian narratives. And, cutting across religions, all of Kerala partakes of the festivities—a la seasonal festivals like Holi in the north. But the RSS is miffed that the way the festival myth is ‘angled’ does not cast the brahminical order in very favourable light.

Social media was already roiled over this when BJP president Amit Shah, perhaps unwittingly, waded into the debate with a tweet wishing all Indians a happy Vamana Jayanti. The CPI(M) CM of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, lost no time in issuing a Facebook post that said Shah’s tweet “tarnished the social values” that Mahabali upheld and was an “insult” to Malayalis. Soon enough, Shah put out a ‘Happy Onam’ tweet. Writer N.S. Madhavan was quoted in the Economic Times giving Shah the benefit of doubt because Vamana Jayanti is “actually celebrated in Guajarat and MP”.

The myth itself is rife with ambivalences, a two-sidedness on the surface that hides complex skeins of quasi-historical threads. Loosely harmonised, as myths often do, it balances a few incompatibles: local lore and festival gaiety on one side and Puranic piety, kept rather minimal, on the other.

The legend goes that once upon a time Kerala was a prosperous, happy kingdom under the reign of Mahabali. The devas, besides themselves with envy at the asura king’s growing esteem in all three worlds, wanted him cut to size and approached lord Vishnu. In the dwarfish Vamana avatar, he approaches Mahabali and asks for three feet of land. Mahabali, the very picture of benevolence, readily grants the wish. Vamana then assumes his cosmic form, and takes the earth and the sky with his first two strides. There being no place left for the third step, Mahabali bows his head. Vamana places his feet there and Mahabali is pushed to the netherworld. But he was granted a special boon: he could visit Kerala every year in the harvest season.

Malayalis celebrate Onam as this eternal recurrence, where Mahabali roams the land to check on the happiness index of his subjects. Events around it serve as a major tourism draw. The Amar Chitra Katha-type prototype—a dhoti-clad, crow­ned, moustachioed king—has been adopted uniformly (copyright be damned), including by the market. Advertisements are full of him: the perfect icon to lure shoppers, he has been doing a better job of selling FMCGs than all the non-milk-drinking models put together. In the fashion of Santa impersonators, ­real-life Mahabalis can be seen everywhere from Kochi to Dubai.

There is a parallel conception of Mahabali as a Dravidian figure, perhaps a Chera king, arrestingly handsome and full of gravitas. “Maveli is not a thread-wearing, paunchy cartoon. He is a dark avarna king,” reads a post on Facebook, reprising artist P.K. Sreenivasan’s image. This is where the legend touches on troubling historical threads like the “Aryan” conception of India, the Brahmin arrival and the consequent disappearance of Buddhism in Kerala and Pauranic myths as a co-optive technique.

The popular song Maveli naadu vaanidum kaalam/ Maanusharellarumonnu pole (When Maveli ruled the land, all humans were equal)—said to be penned by Sahodaran Ayyappan—contributes to the idea, perhaps a simplistic one, that Kerala was once a classless, casteless soc­iety. This feeds into modern subaltern perspectives, according to Dalit scholar Ajay S. Sekher. Even with that, one section of Dalit intellectuals sees Onam as rife with brahminical symbols.

Kesari chief editor N.R. Madhu enters the debate from the other side. He talks of a distortion of literature, political history and religion by Left intellectuals. “We have used intellectuals to counter that distortion. We felt the people should be educated. Mahabali is a good king but we cannot acc­ept the villainisation of Vamana. The Vamana avatar came much before Para­surama: legend has it that Parasurama threw his axe and created Kerala. Though this is a myth, there is scientific evidence that Kerala is geologically a late formation. And Mahabali was a king on the banks of the Narmada in Gujarat,” he says.

“The temple at Thrikkakara has a Vamana deity. Kerala was liberated by Vamana. This is what happened in JNU where they celebrated Mahishasura on Navratri. We also find that Mahabali is made to look more and more like Santa Claus—soon the intellectuals will say there was no Mahabali, it is only a version of Santa Claus,” he adds.

Dalit scholars think otherwise. Sek­her is convinced that, as part of the larger Hindutva project of “internal imperialisation”, enemies are first demonised and thus primed for elimination. “This happened to the Sikhs in Delhi and the Muslims in Gujarat. It is the Brahmins versus the Sramana (working people). Vamanan (‘Diminutive’) is portrayed as a child to appeal to the womenfolk. This is a brahminisation of the popular reading. In the next two decades, there will be no trace of Mahabali. This is cultural genocide. Initially, Buddhists stupas were at the centre of pookkalams (floral carpets); now you see the Onathappan, a lingam, appropriating the symbols.”

Other Dalit intellectuals reject the idea of Onam as egalitarian. They believe Kerala could never have been egalitarian. Sunny M. Kapikad points out that just a hundred years ago, women were not even allowed to cover their torso, so there could have been no question of onakodi (new clothes). As for Dalits, they had to dye their new clothes black. He considers the vegetarian feast celebrating a regicide and gold-bordered white saris brahminical symbols. “Onam is a feudal hangover, a performance of Brahmin pride. I wonder who is empowered here?” A Dalit poet, S. Chan­dramohan, seems to concur when he pens these lines on Onam, “Three-day commemoration, with women in white talcum powder/ Sway in sync: group dance. A vegetarian feast, after a cannibalistic harangue.”

Historians strike different notes too. M. Gangadharan thinks a celebration of the idea of eradicating all that was evil, like untouchability, is actually a non-brahminical assertion. As for the myth having any historical basis, M.G.S. Narayanan, who was ICHR chief during NDA-I and has conducted published research on aryanisation and the Perumal kings, dismisses the thought outright. He says that though it was a festival for the Brahmins, it has worked well for Keralites—and Vamana became an ‘enemy’ perhaps because the Dalits and landowners had to supply the food for the grand Brahmin feasts.

And yet, there have always been attempts to trace the myth to a historical dethroning. Some trace the legend to the last Cheraman Perumal, who is said to have abdicated his throne and converted to Islam. Others see a link to the eradication of Buddhism in Kerala by the influx of brahminism, whereby Buddhists temples were replaced by Hindu deities. Interestingly, the two strands may be related, with tales of double conversion, and nomenclatural and other linkages betw­een Buddhism and Islam in Kerala. Journalist Rama Chandran blogs: “I have always felt the story is based on the Cheraman myth, and there is a Mahabali, Saifuddin Muhammad Ali, in the story. Vamana destabilising Mahabali is symbolic of Namboodiri Brahmins deth­roning the Perumal. In my childhood in Tripunithura, during Onam, a Muslim used to arrive from Nettur, singing paeans to the Perumal.”

At the same time, the Mahabali myth ext­ends up coast all the way to Maharashtra, where 19th century reformer Jyotiba Phule identified “Baliraja” as the king of the subjugated indigenous people. Niranjani Shetty wrote thus on Facebook: “Onam is the day our dear farmer king arrives in Kerala and travels through Konkan region up to Raigad, and to north Maharashtra. Everyone welcomes Bal­iraja up to Diwali. These wily Brahmins have rewritten history many times. It’s atrocious to disconnect our beloved Baliraja from Onam. In my ancestral home, around Onam, my grandmother used to cook a festive meal and we gathered in our paddy field to call out to Baliraja in Tulu. Each household cooked the feast on a different day.” There are obviously traces beneath narrative traces in the Mahabali palimpsest.