Mumbai: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday inaugurated a shila (rock) temple at the Sant Tukaram Maharaj mandir (temple) dedicated to the 17th-century saint in Dehu, near Pune, a move seen as an outreach to Maharashtra’s Warkari sect,
A community that traces its roots to the Bhakti movement, the Warkaris claim to be apolitical and caste agnostic. Members of this community are devotees of Marathi saints Tukaram, Dnyaneshwar, and Namdeo, among others.
While BJP leaders have officially said that PM Modi’s rally at Dehu must be seen purely from a “spiritual point of view”, political observers argue that the event was part of a well-thought-out Warkari outreach of the party in western Maharashtra.
Also crucial is the timing of Modi’s Dehu visit, given that the ‘Wari’ — annual pilgrimage of Warkaris — is slated to begin next week.
“We should not politicise the PM’s visit as he has not delivered any political speech. It was a spiritual visit,” BJP MLA Ram Kadam told ThePrint.
However, a senior BJP leader said on condition of anonymity that while Modi’s visit may have had spiritual bearings, it could help the BJP electorally since “it was the first time a Prime Minister attended a programme of the Warkari sect”.
Political analysts Hemant Desai and Pratap Asbe concurred.
“Earlier, nobody thought of Warkaris as a community to be tapped (electorally). But this is a well-thought-out strategy. The Warkari sect has a lot of significance in Maharashtra and his (Modi’s) announcements were received with claps everywhere,” Desai told ThePrint.
Asbe said, “Going to Dehu is like directly going among the Warkaris and the Bahujan Samaj (Backward Classes).”
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Warkaris & ‘Wari’
Modi turned up at the gathering of about 50,000 Warkaris Tuesday in traditional Warkari attire — wearing a turban and a shawl, with a tika (vermillion) on his forehead.
After he offered prayers at the Vitthal Rukhmini temple, PM Modi began his speech with lines from an ‘Abhanga’, a devotional verse, and referred to his party’s ubiquitous slogan by saying that his government follows the teachings of Warkari saints, following the principle of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas, Sabka Prayas”.
The Prime Minister further reiterated his government’s commitment to spend Rs 11,000 crore on the development of two ‘Palkhi Marg (routes of pilgrimage)’ spanning 350 kilometres.
Advocate Vikas Dhage Patil, a functionary at the Shree Dnyaneshwar Maharaj Sansthan Committee in Pune’s Alandi, said the Warkaris do not subscribe to any caste or religion and are followers of the saints who themselves hailed from different castes.
“Tolerance and inclusiveness is the idea behind this (Warkari sect). The message about a casteless society led to the social movement,” Dhage Patil added.
The sect is most visible when it undertakes the annual ‘Wari’ pilgrimage, which dates back nearly 700-800 years, Dhage Patil said.
For centuries, the temple towns of Dehu and Alandi have been the starting points of the ‘Wari’, which sees participation by lakhs of devotees who accompany the padukas (representation of feet) of Sant Tukaram and Sant Dnyaneshwar, respectively, to Pandharpur.
“A person from a ‘lower caste’ can also participate in the Wari, while we have many Muslim participants as well. All you need to be is a devotee of the saint,” said Dhage Patil.
While many who take part in the ‘Wari’ are farmers, one can also spot working professionals among the 12 lakh Warkaris — according to Dhage Patil’s estimate — who gather at Pandharpur each year for the pilgrimage.
‘BJP wants to appeal to Bahujan samaj’
Referring to Modi’s rally in Dehu, political analyst Pratap Asbe told ThePrint that one cannot rule out political motives. “The BJP directly wants to appeal to the Bahujan samaj since Sant Tukaram has higher appeal in that community,” he told ThePrint.
Political analyst Hemant Desai added that Modi’s outreach to the Warkaris can be seen as an attempt by the BJP to shed its “upper-caste tag” and make inroads into rural parts of the state, particularly western Maharashtra, that include Dehu, Alandi and Pandharpur.
In May last year, the BJP managed to trounce the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in a bypoll to the Pandharpur-Mangalvedha assembly seat in Maharashtra’s Solapur district. The BJP’s candidate, Samadhan Autade, registered a victory in the bypoll by defeating Bhagirath Bhalke of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) by a margin of over 3,700 votes.
“Warkaris are from all castes and communities, but Marathas are mostly dominant. The population from rural Maharashtra is especially associated with the Wari and BJP wants to take rural Maharashtra along with them,” said Desai.
The BJP leader who spoke to ThePrint on condition of anonymity said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to don traditional Warkari attire, recite an ‘Abhanga’ and hold the Veena — an instrument held by Sant Tukaram and other Marathi saints — struck a chord with the Warkaris.
“It is not easy,” the BJP leader said. “With all this, people have connected to the fact that this man is one among us.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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