Is Onam A Hindu Festival? The Moral Imagination That Underpins Its Secular Appeal

This article discusses the politics of morality that underpins the secular appeal of Onam, Kerala’s official state festival. It argues that Onam’s popularity across different sections of people is not because of any religious origins, but due to its twentieth-century reinvention within the moral aspiration for equality articulated by anti-caste struggles and communist political movements in Kerala’s hierarchical society.

Views expressed are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinion or stand of the University.