There are political careers that advanced by the force of ideas, leading people’s struggles, some by charisma, and some – apparently – by the accumulated weight of temple blessings.
Kerala Chief Minister V. D. Satheesan’s transformation into what his sheepish admirers might call the “Kerala Nehru” has acquired a wonderfully comic dimension. Jawaharlal Nehru, the supposed model, spent much of his political life trying to prevent the newly born Republic from confusing political authority with religious authority. The “Kerala Nehru” seems to have taken the opposite route: temple after temple, offering after offering, blessing after blessing.
And the latest episode is difficult to satirise because reality has already done most of the work.
After becoming Chief Minister on May 18, 2026, Satheesan visited Guruvayur and performed thulabharam with 71 kilograms of butter. Reports describe him as a regular Guruvayur devotee, visiting roughly once a month.1
One wonders what the Constitution weighs. Perhaps considerably less. And perhaps that is why it was left outside the temple.
The Great Thulabharam of Secularism
The Thulabharam is traditionally an offering in which the devotee is weighed against an equivalent quantity of an offering. The newly elected Chief Minister of Kerala, V.D. Satheesan was weighed against 71 kilograms of butter. But there is a deeper political metaphor here. Perhaps the entire phenomenon should be called the Thulabharam of secularism.
On one side: Nehru, Scientific temper, Rationalism, Modernity, Constitutional citizenship.
On the other: 71 kilograms of butter. And the question is: What side is heavier?
Judged by the photographs, the butter wins. Nehru would probably have demanded that the weighing machine be recalibrated. For what is being weighed here is not merely a devotee. For what is being weighed here is not merely a devotee. It is the political symbolism of a Chief Minister publicly performing a religious offering immediately after acquiring the highest elected executive office in the state.
And the symbolism becomes still more ambrocious when the same politician is described as Kerala Nehru.
More worrying is the message that the Kerala “Nehru” inadvertently broadcasts: Perhaps the people merely cast their votes, while Guruvayurappan actually decided the Chief Ministership. The electorate may have gone through the tiresome business of voting, counting and forming a government, but the Thulabharam seems to reveal where the decisive authority lies.
Perhaps we have entered a new phase of Indian democracy: Nehruvianism with temple receipts.
“Thank you, God, for making me Chief Minister.”
There is another delightful feature of the Guruvayur episode.
The people elected him.
The party chose him.
The Constitutional process appointed him. But perhaps none of these explanations is sufficient.
There must be a higher accounting authority.
So, naturally, one goes to the temple.
The political message becomes:
“Thank you, voters. Thank you, party. Thank you, Constitution. And, above all, thank you, Guruvayurappaa”
The voters cast their ballots.
The party negotiates.
The Chief Minister takes the oath.
The Governor appoints.
And then – 71 kilograms of butter. One can almost imagine the electoral process receiving a devotional footnote. With the performance of Thulabharam, all the voters, the party, the Governor, are reduced to nothing more than pawns in the divine game of Guruvayurappan’s will. Election Victory, subject to divine confirmation.
This is the precise point at which Political gratitude becomes political religiosity. A politician is, of course, perfectly entitled to thank God for anything.
But when the Chief Minister, immediately assuming office, appears in his official capacity at a major temple and performs a conspicuous ritual offering, the symbolism is no longer merely private.
The question is not Satheesan believes in God. The question is: why must the political office itself be displayed before God?
The Kerala Nehru’s new itinerary.
The phrase “Temple crawl” is perhaps the most appropriate description.
A bar crawl proceeds from one establishment to another. A temple crawl proceeds from one shrine to another. Instead of cocktails, there are offerings. Instead of bartenders, priests. Instead of closing, darshan. And instead of a hangover, political blessings.
And wherever there is another deity capable of dispensing political reassurance, the Kerala Nehru may presumably be expected to arrive.
Indeed this is not entirely new. Before becoming Chief Minister, Satheesan had performed rituals in many temples and his followers performed ceremonies for his electoral success.
So perhaps the Chief Minister is merely the franchise expansion of an existing pilgrimage business.
The Man-God Circuit
And then comes the other half of the itinerary: the man-gods. Temples contain gods. Modern India had added another innovation: Godmen and Godwomen.
Traditionally deity sits in the sanctum, the modern guru sits in the reception hall. Both receive garlands. Both receive politicians. While the temple gods sit with their eyes closed, their ears deaf and their hands immobile, the woman-gods speak to their prostrating devotees, listen to them, to touch them, and hug them.
Politicians, having mastered the art of crawling before gods, have apparently decided that man-gods deserve equal, sometimes, more opportunity.
The Kerala Nehru’s recent visit to Amritapuri has therefore added another amusing chapter to this pilgrimage. A Chief Minister who is supposed to derive his authority from citizens and Constitution has found it politically useful to be photographed in the presence of a hugely influential spiritual entrepreneur.
The Republic supplies the office. The citizens supply the vote. The political party supplies the nomination. And the guru supplies the blessing. What a beautifully complete ecosystem!
Nehru and the Ghost of Somnath
But now comes the really embarrassing comparison. Because Nehru actually left us a remarkably precise statement about this question.
In March 1951, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote to President Rajendra Prasad about the proposed inauguration of the reconstructed Somnath temple. His objection was not to Rajendra Prasad’s visiting temples as such. Nehru explicitly distinguished an ordinary temple visit from participation in what he regarded as a politically significant religious ceremony. He wrote that he did not like the President associating himself with the “spectacular opening” of Somnath because it carried wider implications.2
Nehru was not demanding atheism from the President. He was defending the symbolic separation of political authority from religious authority. Rajendra Prasad defended his own position, explaining that he visited places of worship and saw no reason to refuse the invitation. Nehru did not then launch a crusade against Rajendra Prasad. But he registered his disagreement.
That is what makes the present spectacle so amusing. The man who has been hailed as Kerala’s Nehru appears to have taken Rajendra Prasad’s position and amplified it into a political itinerary:
Rajendra Prasad: “I visit temples”
Satheesan:
“Why stop at visiting temples!”
And thus begins the Kerala Temple Crawl.
Scientific Temper in the Mind
Nehru’s secularism was inseparable from a much larger intellectual project. He wanted India to be modern. He wanted science to replace superstition as a method of understanding nature. He wanted reason to occupy public life. He wanted citizens rather than devotees to constitute the political nation. He repeatedly emphasized the cultivation of scientific temper – not merely scientific education, but an intellectual disposition toward questioning, evidence, reason and freedom from superstition.
And what had happened to this magnificent legacy? Apparently it has been folded neatly into the Chief Minister’s pocket. Perhaps Satheesan keeps scientific temper there along with his handkerchief. He takes it out when addressing a public conference. Folds it back into his pocket when approaching the temple.
Then bows,
Then prays,
Then prostrates and crawls.
Then performs Thulabharam.
Then emerges.
And, presumably, unfolds scientific temper for the press conference.
What efficiency!
‘Secularism by pocket’,
‘Scientific temper by occasion’,
‘Rationalism on weekdays, divine consultation on temple days’.
There is something profoundly revealing about this.
Scientific temper means that human beings should not surrender their capacity to reason to supernatural authority. But political temple visits often communicate the opposite symbolic message.
Again, Satheesan is free to believe in god or woman-god privately. But the political spectacle is different. A Chief Minister is not merely a private individual. He is the constitutional head of the state government. His gestures have public meaning. His photographs become political symbols. His presence confers prestige. His deference communicates hierarchy. And this is precisely why Nehru worried about Somnath.
From Scientific temper to sacred temper
Perhaps we should therefore introduce a new term into Indian political vocabulary.
Sacred Temper
Scientific temper asks, what is the evidence?
Sacred temper asks: where is the temple?
Scientific temper says: Test the proposition
Sacred temper says: Take the prasadam.
Scientific temper says : Question authority.
Sacred temper says : prostrate before the guru.
Scientific temper says: Human beings must understand nature and society.
Sacred temper says: Perhaps God or Guru know the electoral arithmetic.
And when scientific temper becomes inconvenient, it can be folded very carefully and returned to the pocket.
The Chief Minister Crawling Before Gods
There is a word that should perhaps be used carefully, but cannot be avoided in satire.
Crawling
Because there is a striking visual and political contrast between the democratic idea of the citizen standing upright and the politician repeatedly appearing in postures of religious supplication.
The Republic says: Stand upright: You are a citizen.
Caste says: Know your place.
Religion says: Bow before the Sacred.
Democracy says: Your sovereignty comes from the people.
The politician says: Let me first get a blessing.
That is the comic tragedy. The modern democratic politician possesses enormous constitutional authority – and then voluntarily performs the posture of a supplicant before religious authority.
Why? Votes? Faith? Tradition? Political calculation? Personal devotion? Probably some mixture of all.
But whatever the motivation, the spectacle is unmistakable.
The Great Democratic Paradox.
Here is the paradox.
The chief Minister derives his authority from the people. Yet he behaves as though that authority requires divine rectification. The people have already spoken. The constitution has already spoken. The Governor has already appointed him.
The Assembly has already given him political legitimacy.
Why another certificate?
Why the pilgrimage?
Why the offering?
Why the crawling?
Why the guru?
Perhaps democracy is insufficiently sacred. Perhaps the ballot box requires ritual purification. Perhaps the Constitution must pass through a temple before becoming operational. Perhaps the Chief Ministership comes with an invisible clause:
“subject to divine approval”.
What would Nehru have said?
When Rajendra Prasad proposed participating in the Somnath ceremony, Nehru warned him about the political implications.
That is documented. And that is enough.
So imagine the scene. Nehru arrives in Kerala. He sees the Chief Minister.
He sees the temple itinerary.
He sees the Thulabharam.
He sees the 71 kilograms of butter.
He sees the photographs.
Then he asks:
“what happened to scientific temper?”
Satheesan reaches into his pocket. Nothing. Perhaps it is there. Folded very carefully, beside the temple receipts.
The Pocketed Nehru
And perhaps this should become the central metaphor of the whole satire!
Satheesan has not abandoned Nehru. He has folded Nehru and put him in his pocket.
Whenever necessary, he takes him out. A little Nehru for a speech about democracy.
A little Nehru for scientific temper.
Then – fold! Back into the pocket. And off to the next temple. This is pocket Nehruvianism. And it never interferes with darshan.
The Kerala Nehru’s Political Theology
Perhaps Satheesan’s admirers have misunderstood Nehru. Nehru was not simply a man who wore a Nehru jacket. He represented a political philosophy. The point was not the costume. It was the modernist content.
India of imagination of Nehru would have to be a country in which political authority would never have to keel before religious authority. A country where scientific ideas and institutions matter. A country where citizens would disagree with scriptures. A country where the state would no longer need divine certification. A country where modernity meant intellectual emancipation. A country where Gods, gurus and scriptures would not dare to command.
The Kerala “Nehru” appears to have retained the jacket but misplaced the philosophy. Perhaps the philosophy is currently undergoing Thulabharam.
Let the Kerala Nehru continue his temple crawl if his conscience permits it. But do not call it “Nehruvian Secularism”. Because Nehru’s great political question was: How do we prevent the modern state from becoming subordinate to sacred authority?
The Kerala Nehru’s question appears to be: which temple should I visit next? which guru should I prostrate before next?
And this is perhaps the most revealing comedy of the entire temple crawl. Satheesans wants to appear as the custodian of secular politics while behaving like a pilgrim in search of divine endorsement. He speaks in the vocabulary of democracy but performs in the grammar of devotion. He invokes the sovereignty of the people while genuflecting before the sovereignty of gods, gurus and godwomen. Tne contradiction is not an accidental lapse but the pious hypocrisy of a politician that wants the prestige of secularism without surrendering the blessings of religiosity.
George Orwell understood the peculiar moral deformity of politicians who use noble words to conceal ignoble purposes; political language can be made to serve precisely the opposite of what it appears to say. Satheesan’s temple crawl is therefore not merely a tour of sacred places; it is a travelling exhibition of political piety, opportunism and secular pretence. When a politician who claims to represent citizens repeatedly bows before supernatural authority, the citizen is left wondering who, in this democracy, is really the sovereign – the voter or the deity.
Perhaps the most appropriate culmination of this pilgrimage would be to spare Satheesan the inconvenience of travelling from temple to temple. Why not transform the Chief Minister’s office itself into a grand political pantheon – a secular temple, complete with icons of every god, guru and godwoman capable of dispensing blessings? Let there be a sanctum sanctorum for the gods, a special chamber of gurus, a permanent queue for godwoman. Let the Chief Minister enter each morning, prostrate before the appropriate deity, receive the requisite blessing, and then proceed to govern in the name of the Constitution. It would then perfectly suited to the new theology of electoral politics: democracy outside the door, devotion within, the citizen reduced to a voter, the voter to a supplicant, and the politician to a perpetual pilgrim. At least then Satheesan could save himself the trouble of travelling to distant temples. He could bring the entire pantheon to the Chief Ministerial office – and perhaps, in the process, finally discover the one temple in which he has always been searching for political salvation.
Footnotes:
- CM Satheesan prays at Guruvayur temple, offers ‘Thulabharam’ with butter, (The New Indian Express, May 19, 2026). He subsequently visited Triprayar and performed several offerings there as well.
- Nehru’s Letter to Rajendra Prasad, 2 March 1951, New Delhi, The Nehru Archives.
