M.A. SRIRAM

Journalist Krishna Vattam has witnessed Dasara since 1959.

ON the eve of his departure to Madras (now Chennai) to assume charge as the Governor of Madras in July 1964, the last Maharaja of Mysore, Sri Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, in reply to a question about the future of Mysore Dasara, replied: “You can speculate, and I can speculate.”

Would it mean the end of an epoch in which a five-century-old tradition had come to mean a living symbol of the ancient culture of Kannadigas? Perhaps such doubts might have exercised the minds of people in South India 400 years ago when the mighty Vijayanagar kingdom fell in 1565.

If the picturesque details of Italian, Portuguese, Persian and Russian travellers who visited Vijayanagar are any indication, one would find a grand replica being celebrated in Mysore. Successive rulers of Mysore zealously safeguarded and preserved the form and content of the festivities, and it is no wonder that the people of Karnataka – especially in the old Mysore region – have developed a strong emotional attachment to Dasara.

Even after the integration of the princely states into the Indian Union in 1947, or the formation of linguistic States in 1956, the traditional form of Dasara was not affected. But after the de-recognition of the princely order in 1970, stripping it of all the privileges, including the privy purse, certain modifications were introduced in the festivities in tune with the constitutional framework.

For the first time in the history of Dasara, the Maharaja was not brought into the picture and it was celebrated as a local affair with government officials taking the lead. The State government was clueless, as it were, and postponed the celebration for one reason or the other, although the Mysore Citizens’ Committee conducted the festivities.

However, in a bid to recapture the glory of the Dasara, Chief Minister R. Gundu Rao revived the festivities in the early 1980s with the active cooperation of the scion of the royal family, Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wodeyar. Dasara, which centred around the Maharaja with elaborate religious functions inside the palace, admission to them restricted to a few, shifted its focus to cultural activities and is now open to all. The Maharaja has been replaced by the idol of goddess Chamundeswari, and the procession is now a secular affair depicting the culture of the State, rather than military might.

Krishna Vattam
(as told to R. Krishna Kumar)