The Indian festival celebration today is a crass, public display of our lowest instincts, a licence to be the worst you can be, in public and without consequence
That spirit of Hindu festivals celebrated in my childhood has been replaced by two overwhelming features: noise and violence. PIC/Modified by Gopinath from the web
This year’s first Diwali message arrived on WhatsApp yesterday evening, technically Chhoti Diwali. The AI-generated graphic showed Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity and wealth, and Ganesh, god of good luck, wisdom and auspicious beginnings. The words below were as old as my great-grandfather: Happy Diwali! Someone had broadcast that message with a single mouse click to a few hundred people.
It landed with a tinggg in my world, the first of many more identical, mindless greetings that would come through the day, flashing briefly before my eyes as though someone somewhere was really thinking of me. Some were from banks and organisations, cold as yesterday’s food, passing from one central processing unit to another.
They all left me unmoved and sad, except for a few from friends who specifically crafted a message to me, evoking a surge of affection, memory, and warmth. I waited till enough Diwali graphics had piled up, selected one, and with a single mouse click, passed it out to my hundreds of friends. Like most festival messages in India now, these required no thought or effort on my part. Our festival greetings are dispatched without love, received without interest, and forgotten in seconds.
That applies to nearly every Indian festival in the calendar year, from Holi to Janmasthami, Vijayadashami, Navratri, and Ganesh Chaturthi. Everything is happy, everyone is happy. The Diwalis of my childhood were hallowed days where we’d visit and be visited all day by friends and families bearing festival snacks. It was the one day in the year when we would be sure to meet everyone we knew. They would have bathed with oil in the morning, and be wearing new clothes. They always looked genuinely pleased to see us.
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That spirit has been replaced today by two overwhelming features: noise and violence. I metered Mumbai’s decibel level during Ganpati this year — an ear-shattering 110 dB. I have met (and written here about) a man whose mobility was destroyed by a single ear-splitting firecracker that went off after festival hours, alarming his cat, which tripped him as it darted for cover, breaking his tibia and fibula bones.
Bura mat mano, Holi hai gives the Indian male cover to touch as many women as he wants, however he wants, laughing gaily and pretending it’s in praise of a blue-skinned god who certainly did not behave that way. Violence and misbehaviour are officially sanctioned in Mathura’s infamous Lathmar Holi, where women are allowed to use sticks to ward off lascivious men, light-headed and irresponsible with bhang, who grope, manhandle, make lewd gestures and try to wet and smear women, aroused by the risk of being thrashed.
Meghna Sanka, a writer, described her chilling experience: “A sadhu put his elbows out, rubbed them against my breasts and walked away. A few locals aimed their pichkaris at my posterior.” As she fled, she felt her thighs stinging from the water. They had been scraped raw by glass powder mixed into the Holi water.
Festivals are celebrations of divinity, meant to remind us of values: Saraswati Puja for learning; Diwali for remembering that there is evil and we must fight it with virtue; Holi to be grateful for the harvest and the end of winter. Festivals are a whisper to tell us that we, atheists and devotees alike, are specks in the universe, a reminder to pay homage with humility to the larger powers that guide us.
For centuries, Hindu festivals were events that integrated cultures, castes and religions. Akbar’s Agra Fort would be ablaze with diyas through Diwali. Kings like Jahangir and Shah Jahan integrated festivals like Holi, Diwali and Raksha Bandhan into the royal calendar.
How did we reach a day when a Muslim in India might dread the violence a Hindu festival could bring? In July last year, UP’s Chief Minister ordered all stalls and eateries in Muzaffarnagar on the path of the Kanwar Yatra to clearly display the owner’s name, so that the pilgrims could avoid those run by Muslims.
The Indian festival celebration today is, uniquely, a crass, public display of our lowest instincts, a licence to be the worst you can be, in public and without consequence, driven by alcohol, hedonism, delinquency, ostentation, and often drugs.
That’s why I find myself unable to say Happy Diwali — or happy anything — anymore.
I have watched other countries, other religions, celebrate their festivals. Thanksgiving in the USA is what it sounds like, a time to be grateful for all that was received. Families come together in shared love and longing over turkey dinners. Even Christmas, as commercialised as it is, embodies a call to be the best you can be, do good to others, and spread cheer. The feast of Ramadan is a time for community, eating together, and being one.
That is a quality our majoritarian festivals no longer have. For many, like me, they are events to flee from.
However, next Diwali, you may find me in Manyachiwadi in Satara district, where Diwali is what it should be, a time of luminous, quiet joy. Far from the greed and rage of Mumbai, its leaders banned firecrackers, making Diwali all about light again, not sound.
On its streets on Diwali, you might see God again.
You can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopi@gmail.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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