Ganeshotsav 2026: Vidyanand Bapat’s sound logic

Ganeshotsav is upon us and the latest faceoff between Pune’s progressives and its orthodoxy is over the use of DJs and high-decibel sound systems during the festival, which gets under way on 14 September.

It all began with the humiliating expulsion of 37-year-old Vidyanand Bapat from a public meeting called by the municipal authorities on 25 August. Bapat is a resident of Narayan Peth in the heart of the city, and describes himself as an atheist and rationalist.

At the meeting, Bapat objected to DJs, high-decibel sound systems and dhol-tasha processions during Ganeshotsav, and demanded a ban on their use to restore sanity in public spaces. He made a point about the noise pollution and traffic disruption and cited data to bolster his argument. The Ganesh mandals were not amused and their men got aggressive. The police had to escort Bapat out safely.

A video of the confrontation went viral and Bapat’s crusade quickly turned into a citywide debate. It was in the Marathi newspapers, on TV, on social media and people’s lips. Citizens who had long complained, albeit privately, about sleepless nights, blocked roads and the deafening festival music had found a spokesperson. Large numbers came out in support of Bapat, who works in a BPO and hails from the socially influential community of Kokanasth (or Chitpavan) Brahmins.

On 30 August, they gathered at Goodluck Chowk. On 6 September, hundreds took out a silent protest rally, saying the festivities now strike fear in their hearts and minds. They weren’t against Ganeshotsav celebrations, they insisted, but they opposed the use of DJs and the excessive noise.

Bapat’s stand is uncompromising. He says big sound systems and dhol-tasha should not be allowed at all, because decibel levels cannot be controlled if these giant boom boxes are allowed. “Everything cannot be allowed in the name of tradition,” he says, “…you can then argue that sati and child marriage are also tradition and must continue.”

The city’s orthodoxy didn’t like this. On 3 September, Bapat was slapped in public by one Santosh Chavan, former president of a local Ganesh mandal. The FIR records that Chavan called him an atheist and ‘anti-Ganapati’. The incident has further incensed the Pune citizenry.

Audiologist Kalyani Mandke has been flagging this issue as a public health concern for years. In 2024, she moved the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for effective noise-control measures during Ganeshotsav. The numbers are startling. A study by the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP) found that average sound levels on the final day of the 2023 festival at Laxmi Road touched 105.2 decibels, far exceeding the permissible residential limit of 55 db during the day and 45 db at night.

In August 2024, before Ganeshotsav, the NGT ordered real-time monitoring at pandals and immersion processions, regulation of loudspeaker capacity, limits on dhol-tasha-zanj participants, seizure of sound systems for violations and a ban on DJs in immersion processions.

The Bombay High Court also directed civic authorities to act against noise-level violations and illegal temporary structures on streets, warning that official inaction could be seen as an infringement on the fundamental rights of citizens under Article 21. But both the NGT order and the Bombay High Court observation fell on deaf ears.

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Pune has a history of bitter, often violent, confrontation between its progressives and so-called sanatanis.

In the 13th century, Dnyaneshwar brought the Bhagavad Gita into Marathi through the Dnyaneshwari. It is a religious text, not a rationalist manifesto, but it was a radical cultural act to take a Sanskrit work to the masses. Dnyaneshwar and his siblings faced the wrath of Pune’s elite Brahmin class.

The Varkari saints, including Tukaram, were not modern secularists either. Their radicalism sat inside faith. Tukaram’s devotional abhangas challenged ritual pretension, caste pride and the monopoly of religious authority.

Later, Jyotirao Phule attacked caste hierarchy and Brahminical domination. Agarkar and Gokhale made reason and reform central. The Ganeshotsav in Pune — across Maharashtra, in fact — carries this tension.

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The modern public festival, popularised by Bal Gangadhar Tilak in the 1890s, emerged as a form of anti-colonial mobilisation, a radical act of assembly defying the writ of the Raj. So, while Ganesha worship is an ancient tradition, taking Ganapati to the street is not.

The public festival, too, has evolved over more than a century — and today, it carries a distinct political overtone, with leaders across the political spectrum funding extravagant, high-decibel showdowns, as it were, to mobilise vote banks.

Bapat’s crusade is once again trying to flip this modern ‘tradition’. Where Tilak made Ganeshotsav a means of public mobilisation, Bapat is asking whether the festival should have an unquestionable claim on the street, even when it becomes a public nuisance and affects other citizens’ rights on commons.

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The street is common. It is public property where several rights intersect and impinge on one another. One person/ community’s right to celebrate must accommodate another’s right to move and access without obstruction. Your celebration should respect my desire for peace. Conflicts arise when one right subordinates all others.

Bapat makes the point in chaste, free-flowing Marathi one moment and switches to English with ease while invoking social theory jargon. His delivery creates an aura; it brings to mind Maharashtra’s tradition for rational debate. The medium is new — where pamphlets and public debates were the battlegrounds earlier, today it is social media.

Bapat, however, underlines that he has no quarrel with anyone’s belief, that he is only making a civic argument. His call for a complete ban on loudspeakers and dhol-tasha in public places is perhaps maximalist. Even some Ganesh mandals have suggested that moderation may be the answer — fewer drums and speakers and adherence to mandated decibel limits. But for some legislators of the ruling BJP, giving in to his demands is to lose this currency of political assertion.

Jaideep Hardikar is a senior Nagpur-based journalist and author of Ramrao: The Story of India’s Farm Crisis. More by him here