Cultural Capital: The Vanabhojanam Mannequin and Its Impression on Caste Dynamics in Telugu Society

If you wish to perceive how caste mobilises in 2025, don’t take a look at rallies. Take a look at picnics. Throughout Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the vanabhojanam has change into a fastidiously organised machine that gathers individuals, attracts sponsors, and converts celebration into energy. What seems to be a innocent cultural outing is more and more turning into probably the most efficient engines of caste visibility within the Telugu states.

These gatherings peak throughout Karthika Masam—a Hindu holy month, sometimes occurring between late October and November, and historically related to group rituals, worship, and out of doors festivities. Nevertheless, the character of those festivities has undergone a dramatic transformation.

Current vanabhojanams throughout each states spotlight the size and variety of this shift. In Khammam, Kamma Maha Sangham organised a big group gathering that drew crowds and state-level dignitaries. In Miyapur, the Progressive Reddy Affiliation’s occasion attracted hundreds, together with a number of public figures. Yadav gatherings in Mangalagiri and Vizianagaram mobilised huge youth teams alongside political leaders.

Gowda group branches—such because the Settibalijas in Akiveedu and the Munnurukapu Sangham in Hyderabad—hosted sizeable cultural picnics. Scheduled Caste occasions typically featured photographs of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, mixing cultural assertion with trendy identification. Many of those gatherings now additionally function casual matrimonial platforms.

These examples level to a sample: vanabhojanams have change into an annual establishment via which caste teams display unity, scale, and visibility. Even in different Indian states, the place caste gatherings exist, the size, regularity, and institutionalisation seen within the Telugu states are distinctive.

Behind the festive look lies a deeper logic. Vanabhojanams operate as a social expertise—easy, repeatable, and able to changing completely different types of capital into each other. They convey collectively massive teams in relaxed settings, flip that presence into an indication of energy, and translate that energy into social and political relevance.

The aspirations of various communities form this logic. Marginalised teams primarily search dignity and recognition, whereas dominant or upwardly cell castes purpose for consolidation and affect. Group associations acquire organisational legitimacy. Youth volunteers construct networks. Sponsors earn status, whereas elected representatives acquire direct entry to organised blocs.

Digital media amplifies all of this. Drone photographs, reels, and coordinated color themes remodel native picnics into mass spectacles. Different communities see these and really feel compelled to match or exceed them. Escalation turns into predictable: extra crowds, extra sponsorships, extra consideration.

This evolution carries penalties. Vanabhojanams now operate like establishments—with committees, budgets, and political participation. They normalise caste as a public identification even in city areas that in any other case seem cosmopolitan.

In fast-growing cities, the place individuals think about themselves as a part of various, fluid communities, these caste-branded gatherings subtly reshape the social ambiance by making identification traces extra seen. They strengthen cohesion inside teams whereas additionally creating quiet competitors between them. Celebration and rivalry now journey collectively.

None of this implies vanabhojanams ought to vanish. They maintain cultural that means for households, and communities have each proper to collect. The actual query is whether or not they should stay closed, caste-specific areas that deepen boundaries—or whether or not they are often reshaped into one thing extra open and civic.

This doesn’t require dramatic reinvention. Communities can proceed their gatherings whereas lowering overt political signalling. Native governments can encourage festivals that convey a number of teams collectively with out diluting anybody’s cultural identification. Youth leaders who excel at organising vanabhojanams will be supported to coordinate combined civic actions—corresponding to environmental drives, blood donation camps, or neighbourhood clean-ups. Some youth teams are already experimenting with such initiatives, although they continue to be uncommon exceptions.

Small shifts can change incentives. If elected representatives keep away from explicitly caste-branded appearances, the aggressive escalation will soften. If sponsors diversify their contributions, networks will widen. Tradition can stay with out turning into an area for accumulating affect.

One fact is turning into clear throughout the Telugu states: what we rejoice, we strengthen. If vanabhojanams keep unique, they strengthen caste boundaries. If reshaped with broader participation, they will improve the group as a substitute. Nevertheless, so long as political rewards proceed to move to the largest and most unique teams, the escalation will persist. Within the Telugu states, what we rejoice is what we change into.

Kanchi Dileep is a Grasp’s pupil of Political Science on the College of Hyderabad, with analysis pursuits in Indian politics and political economic system.

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