If you look at how Onam is celebrated today, you're witnessing something closer to a slow takeover of a culture than a simple evolution of tradition.
For generations, Onam was a harvest festival — tied to the soil, the changing of the season (Chingam), and the survival of the community. More than that, it was a time to honor the memory of King Mahabali, a symbol of equality, where legend says people lived without deceit, theft, or corruption.
Today, in my view, that original spirit has been pulled at from two directions: those who want to lock Onam inside a narrower religious frame, and those who've turned it into a straightforward business transaction.
🛑 The "Myth" Narrative
This isn't a new or isolated argument. In 2023, Union Minister V. Muraleedharan publicly called Mahabali a "myth" at an Onam event, sparking a real political row — Kerala's Tourism Minister at the time accused him of deliberately trying to create division. It echoed an earlier moment in 2016, when the RSS's Kesari Weekly ran a piece reframing Onam as Vamana's birthday rather than Mahabali's homecoming — a proposal that met with visible public backlash when it surfaced.
WHAT ONAM HAS ACTUALLY BEEN, HISTORICALLY
Nearly every account of Onam — from state tourism records to popular ballads like "Maveli Naadu Vaaneedu Kaalam" — frames it the same way: a secular harvest festival celebrated by Malayalis of every religion, centered on Mahabali's yearly homecoming, not a purely scriptural event tied to one deity's story.
In my view, the recurring push to relabel Mahabali as myth, or to recenter Onam around Vamana instead, isn't really about historical accuracy. Mahabali represents a legend of total equality and a corruption-free rule — a legacy that's hard for any modern political or religious institution to compete with on its own terms. Reframing him as fictional, or shifting the festival's center of gravity, is one way to sidestep that comparison rather than sit with it.
🛒 The Corporate Takeover
While the myth debate plays out in politics, a quieter shift has been happening in daily practice.
Onam's original spirit was built on sharing — you harvested, and you shared the surplus with your neighbors regardless of background. You went outside and gathered flowers yourself for the Pookkalam.
Flowers gathered from the land around your home. Surplus harvest shared freely with neighbors. Onam as a community act.
Flowers bought in plastic packaging at inflated seasonal prices. Neighbors replaced by discount codes. Onam as a shopping event.
Caring, in large part, has been replaced by consuming.
"The harvest belongs to everyone who walks on the earth — not to whoever wins the argument about who owns the story."
🌱 Reclaiming the Spirit of It
Nobody needs anyone's certificate to tell them how to celebrate Onam — not politicians debating history, and not brands dictating what joy is supposed to look like this season.
True Onam, in my view, is a mindset before it's an event: a return to the soil, a celebration of the harvest, and a commitment to the unity and compassion Mahabali is remembered for. Let the arguments over myths and margins carry on elsewhere. For anyone who still values the actual spirit of it, Onam remains what it always was — a reminder that real prosperity is found in how we treat each other.
The harvest was never the point.
How we shared it always was.