Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah triggered a controversy on the eve of Onam by posting a message on social media where he said ‘Happy Vaman Jayanti’. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan hit out at Shah for ‘insulting the Malayalee community’ and said he must immediately apologise to the people of Kerala.
Shah posted a message on Facebook and Twitter sending his greetings on ‘Vaman Jayanti’, where an image can be see of Lord Vaman, the fifth avatar of Lord Vishnu, stepping on the head of King Mahabali, the legendary king popular in Malayali lore.
’By eulogising Vamana and denigrating Mahabali in his Facebook post, BJP national president Amit Shah has humiliated Kerala and Malayali’s national festival Onam. The belief behind Onam is of equality and egalitarianism and it is a festival celebrated by all cutting across caste, creed, religion and other barriers,’ Vijayan said in a statement.,
Asserting that during Mahabalis’s rule there was no evil, cheating and wrongdoings and the people lived in harmony, the chief minister added that Malayalis see Mahabali as the symbol of equality and egalitarianism.
‘By denigrating Mahabali and eulogising Vamana who had stomped Mahabali under the earth, the BJP president has buried the values of equality. The BJP president should immediately withdraw his statement and apologise to the people of Kerala,’ he said.
Leader of the Opposition in Kerala assembly Ramesh Chennithala said Shah’s post was the outcome of a ‘conspiracy to give Onam an upper-caste dimension’.
Onam is celebrated by Malayalis across the world to mark the ‘homecoming of King Mahabali'.
Earlier, an article published in the Onam special edition of Rashtirya Swayamsevak Sangh's mouthpiece Kesari argued that the festival marks the birth of 'Vamana', and not the homecoming of demon king Mahabali.
The article claimed that there was no reference in any mythological narrative which supports the popular and widely circulated legend that Vamana had sent Mahabali to the netherworld through deceit and that the king visits the land annually to meet his subjects.
IMAGE: A message posted by BJP chief Amit Shah on social media. Photograph: @AmitShah/Twitter
