Thread by @gauravsabnis

The state with #GatariAmavasya is not in the top 5 😭😭😭

https://twitter.com/iamabofh/status/1526925232715726848

I describe the delightful Marathi festival of #GatariAmavasya to westerners as a combination of Ash Wednesday, St Patty's Day & Thanksgiving.

It's the last day before a lot of people give up meat and booze for a month or so.

So the night before, indulgence is the only God. 🤗

It's a constitutional requirement for an indulgence loving Marathi uncle to say this. I myself have said it. 🤭🤭

https://twitter.com/Brewkenstein/status/1526929026668851201?t=YY_VOJjkCjUCAA7ojDKlEQ&s=19

Only in our society, where both are verboten if you follow a particular kind of brahminical Hinduism.

In other states, you're either vegetarian or drinker all year or you're not.

Maharashtra has Shravan-only vegetarian teetotalers.

https://twitter.com/kunchayjagadee1/status/1526930435309129729?t=YY_VOJjkCjUCAA7ojDKlEQ&s=19

Some even do chaturmaas (4 months from Shravan to Kartik) where they are vegetarian and avoid alcohol. Like in many other aspects, this is another one there Maharashtra is an amalgam of the meat eating south and the vegetarianism fetishizing north. Part time abstemiousness.

There's also the fact that a majority of Marathi brahmins are not staunch vegetarians. Not even the deshashtha konkanastha who were 95% vegetarian till 2 generations ago. Vegetarianism or beef has never been a political thing in Maharashtra until Fadvya made it so.

But these once vegetarian teetotalers will still have some holdover practice from the past, like no meat cooked at home or no drinking at home.

As a result, at least in Maharashtra, there is indeed a strong booze-meat connection. We even have a term for it. "Basuyaat".

"Basuyaat" basically means getting together at someone's home or in a "Permit Room", drink a lot while having chicken mutton fish, smoke a lot (outdoors only), shoot the breeze. Then go home and live the next week or two without eating meat or drinking booze. Till the next time.

This is why although sanghism was born in Maharashtra, there is a ceiling to its political power. Culturally and demographically speaking, Maharashtra just isn't "sanskaari" enough for a Gujarat UP style sanghism. Our women never cover their heads. They wore dhoti type saris.

We are the state of Tamasha and Lavni. Can't shake it like this in Bollywood style north Indian saris. Our nauvaris meant way better mobility. Why women participation in the workforce in Maharashtra has been high for centuries.

The ISKCON style Yati style Bisht style Modi style ascetic, restrictive, quasi-Victorian Hindutva just can't scale up in Maharashtra beyond a point.

The 2015 BJP wave was an anomaly. Sangh will always be competitive in Maharashtra. But can't run roughshod like in Gujarat.

Also, until the 90s, Maharashtra did not really have a history of Hindu-Muslim clashes like the north & Gujarat. They were rare even during the partition. Whatever Hindu-Muslim animosity exists on the ground in Maharashtra is an entirely modern post Babri phenomenon.

The Shiv Sena was complicit and even culpable in creating Hindu-Muslim rifts until Uddhav's recent realignment. But it was always a cynical cruel political tool for them. Why the "yuti" was bound to unravel once BJP flavor went from Advani to Modi & Fadvya.

The sangh's vision of India is an overtly devoutly religious vegetarian teetotaler brahmin dominated society where women know their place.

The cultural DNA of Maharashtra as a whole just doesn't align with that. Why MoSha are so obsessed with winning Maharashtra again.

The actual history of Maharashtra had Hindus and Muslims on both sides in any clash. True of much of the north as well. But really true in Maharashtra b where the Maratha army had thousands of Muslims and the adilshahi Nizamshahi army had thousands of Hindus.

The recasting of the Maratha empire's history as a Hindu-Muslim tussle is entirely the sangh's narrative. Which makes Aurangzeb this uniquely horrific villain to obsess over even today, as opposed to just another barbaric 17th century ruler that he was.

The Tilak-Savarkar-Purandare-Sawant was the one that over the past century rewrote and sold the proud history of Shivaji and his empire as some civilizational struggle between Hindus and Muslims. None of them were historians. Just good writers. Prolific writers.

I once made an uncle almost go into a fit of rage when I asked that okay, Aurangzeb tortured Sambhaji. But how does that impact my life today in any way shape or form?

He couldn't answer. There is no answer to carrying sanghi historical grievances except hating Muslims.

You HAVE TO hate Aurangzeb intensely to buy into sanghism in Maharashtra. Because there is nothing societal in actual Marathi history that justifies a widespread Hindu-Muslim animosity like, say, the partition up north. It is entirely propaganda and hate mongering.

Heh, where this thread started and where it ended up.

The places the mind goes between grading finals, lol.

No one has to "like" Aurangzeb. The point is it isn't necessary to intensely hate him. There is no constituency making him a hero. Academic research into different aspects of his life is not glorification. Why he even is a political issue is the question.

https://twitter.com/india_abby/status/1526932432171282435?t=TELnWqJ_lsG4vs0Gl1Zdiw&s=19

And the answer is the sangh. The whole narrative is built on tying Hinduism as an identity to Marathas and Islam as an identity to Muslims.

Then you need an easy villain. Aurangzeb was the easiest. Done. So hating Aurangzeb is central to sanghism.

They went from just 2 seats in 1984 to a supermajority in 2019 by making the whole country care about some random mosque in Ayodhya that had no impact on anyone's life in anyway. Killing Gandhi didn't work for them. Communalizing history did.

They'll keep going.

There are some who say all this mandir love jihad stuff is a distraction from the economic woes.

Nope.

To the sangh, economics is a distraction from their Hindu rashtra project. This isn't just some ploy to win elections.

Hating Muslims is their core identity.