Mumbai Janmashtami 2025: Keeping The Govindas Safe

Testing the limits of human potential and endurance through sports or sports-like activities is an age-old practice. However, a few sharp questions must be asked when highly hazardous physical activities are given the stature of or are treated on par with sports, especially with considerable political backing and large purses of prize monies. Two people, one a 32-year-old man and another a teenager of barely 14 years, died, and more than 300 were injured in Mumbai and Thane over the weekend as the annual Dahi Handi pyramids were formed to mark Krishna Janmashtami or Gokulashtami.

Dahi Handi has been among Maharashtra’s favourite festivals; its photos are displayed on tourist brochures, and spectators are dumbstruck to see the human pyramids rise. These go up to 50 metres and above, with some of the youngest or lightest participants at the very top re-enacting Lord Krishna’s mischievous act of breaking the earthen pot full of curd, milk and other goodies. Called ‘Govindas’ as a nod to the Lord himself, there has been a proliferation of Govinda Pathaks, or groups, across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and other cities in the past few years, many of these backed by local politicians, often rivals supporting two groups, and large sums of prize money at stake. The height of the Handi has gone higher; there have been horrendous deaths and hundreds of injuries every year.

Child rights activists, among others, argue that young boys are pushed into an activity whose repercussions they may not fully understand. However, instead of scaling down the competitiveness and regulating the height at which the Handi is tied, the erstwhile Maharashtra government led by Eknath Shinde accorded, in 2022, the status of a sport to Dahi Handi; announced a Pro Dahi Handi League; made Govindas eligible to apply for government jobs under the 5 per cent sports quota; and included government insurance of up to Rs 10 lakhs and medical insurance of up to Rs 7 lakhs for the injured. In effect, this spurred the Govinda Pathaks in virtually every neighbourhood to aim their human pyramids higher.

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The arguments that all participating Govindas are trained, even if for a few days, and there’s an interlocking system that usually protects them are hardly sufficient to allow any and all increase in the height at which the Handis are tied or to rope in young boys for their agility and low weight. What the government ought to have done, and still can next year, is to cap the height of the Handi and take away the lure of the several lakhs of prize money at stake for the participants. Such regulatory measures will restore the Dahi Handi to what it was meant to be—a fun-filled socio-religious activity in honour of one of the most beloved Hindu deities.