Everyone Wants a Piece of Onam
As Kerala’s biggest festival goes mainstream, the internet is divided over who gets to celebrate it — and what it even means.
A woman in an off-white sari with gold borders was doing what many do when celebrating Onam: arranging flowers on the floor; serving rice, payasam, and vegetables on banana leaves; and frying up pappadam and puri. A repost of the video garnered over 1 million views: “Onam’s pan-Indian soft power comes from it being India’s most Instagramable festival that’s celebrated across religious lines.”
You’re not imagining it. This Onam season, symbols of the holiday have been everywhere: the saris, the flowers, the banana leaves laden with delicious foods. Yet not everyone’s happy with this focus on aesthetics. Onam is now “plastic,” lawyer Ashwin Sampatkumaran lamented to The Juggernaut. “It is not how it used to be celebrated.” Another X user wrote: “Onam has been watered down to a fancy flower arrangement and fancy dress party with a sadya at the end. It’s been robbed of its essence to make it palatable for anyone and everyone.”
The backlash feels new, but it isn’t. From the recent debate on the festival’s commercialization to historic conversations about its roots, one question keeps surfacing: who gets to celebrate Onam? And is there a “right” way to do it? The Juggernaut spoke to scholars and Malayalis across faiths to understand why India’s most “Instagrammable festival” has also been one of its most contested.