Mahisha Dasara was held peacefully in Mysuru on Saturday, with about 20 people visiting the Mahishasura statue on Chamundi Hill to offer flowers and light candles despite prohibitory orders around the site, according to a report by Prajavani. A public programme was later held at the Purabhavan premises.
The event was organised by the Mahisha Dasara Celebration Committee. Police were deployed at both Chamundi Hill and the Purabhavan compound as authorities managed security arrangements for the programme. The report described this year’s celebration as the first occasion on which the event took place without disruption.
The access to the statue has been a recurring point of contention. According to the report, the police department had previously refused permission each year for organisers to offer flowers at the Mahishasura statue on Chamundi Hill. On those occasions, prominent participants were taken to the location in the evening to offer flowers.
This year, the group visited the statue in the morning. Participants offered flowers, lit candles and recited the Trisarana and Panchasheel chants. The visit took place while restrictions were in force in the area.
A prohibitory order was imposed within a 200-metre radius of the Mahishasura statue from midnight on October 9 until 6am on October 11 in connection with the Mahisha Dasara celebrations. The report did not specify the number of personnel deployed or detail the conditions under which the morning visit was permitted.
Former Mysuru mayor Purushotham said the police had allowed the flower offering following instructions from Home Minister G. Parameshwara, according to the report. He said the organisers would not cause trouble and asked that prohibitory orders not be used to insult them. The statement was made in the context of the restrictions around the statue.
Purushotham also said the government should decorate the Mahishasura statue during next year’s Dasara inauguration in the same way that Chamundeshwari is decorated. He warned that the organisers would undertake the decoration themselves if the government did not do so.
The Purabhavan programme included the release of the book Mahisha: Historical, Chamundi: Fictional, written by litterateur Vitthal Vaggann. Historian Nanjara Arasu and Professor K.S. Bhagwan released the book during the stage programme.
The event placed police administration, public access and competing cultural interpretations of Mysuru’s Dasara celebrations in the same operational setting. For this year’s programme, the immediate official arrangements centred on restrictions around the Chamundi Hill statue and police deployment at the two venues. The prohibitory order remained scheduled to end at 6am on October 11.
