by JINOY JOSE P.
Dear reader,
Heard of Dinkan? No, he’s not another bumbling American diplomat. He’s a mouse. And a god. If you are from God’s Own Country, Dinkan needs no introduction. If you are not from Kerala, meet this super-powerful, super-cute, super-helpful rodent who, in a delicious twist of cosmic irony, ascended from comic strip to deity status faster than you could say “cheese”.
Dinkan springs, cheekily, from the pages of Balamangalam, a beloved comic periodical published by the Kottayam-based Mangalam Publications until 2012. The character was created by the story-writer N. Somasekharan and the artist Baby in 1983. Even after the publication’s closure, fans created quotable wisdom—sharp, satirical responses to social absurdities—and formed motley groups around Dinkan’s “teachings”. Soon, a curious phenomenon emerged: Dinkoism, which many called Kerala’s most honest religion, started in 2008 by a group of rationalists.
The premise was devastatingly simple. Why should anything not become divine? As Voltaire reportedly observed, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Dinkan’s disciples inverted this warning, wielding absurdity itself as a vaccination against dangerous certainties. Devotion, they demonstrated, requires merely followers, texts, and testimonials of miraculous intervention. Within this framework, Mickey Mouse or Thor could command equal reverence—if the worship fostered peace and compassion.
A few years ago, in 2018, I profiled this anthropomorphic superhero mouse. This was when Dinkoism was trending. Like many, I had recognised its surgical precision as cultural critique. Dinkoism functioned as a clever deployment of divinity to dissect organised religion’s contradictions. Followers understood their assignment perfectly, organising gatherings—digital and physical—that exposed religious orthodoxy’s cracks with the enthusiasm of archaeologists discovering forbidden artefacts. They reminded people about faith’s absurdities, how brainwashing operates, and why rationality matters when confronting religion, spirituality, culture, and tradition’s sensitive territories.
Dinkan was a sensation for a few years. Hundreds attended Kerala’s conclave of the mock religion in Kozhikode in 2016. But over the years, Dinkoism lost momentum. Yet, I still encounter Dinkan’s suktas—the mouse’s sacred sayings—whenever organised religion’s vagaries surface online or in conversations with friends frustrated by religion’s dysfunction, its alarming divisions, and hatred-triggering mechanisms.
There’s an interesting facet about Dinkoism worth highlighting—most Dinkan devotees were, predictably, atheists, rationalists, and agnostics who recognised opportunity in their cartoon deity. They found a chance to construct counter-movements against organised religion’s hegemony. Dinkan held a mirror to society, demonstrating that anything can achieve godhood.
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