My parents worked in a Government organization. This meant that they had a festival advance scheme where they used to get some money during every festival. It also meant celebrations would go high tide on every such occasion. As a child what else can be better than the auspicious occasion of Deepawali? Luckily for me, there was a person who used to get crackers from Sivakashi every year and sell it off at Government offices and my mom would buy it. Remember those heavy and beautiful “gift packs?” Going out with dad in the night to burn off those crackers was a not just a festival celebration! It was making memories and living life to its fullest. Deepawali signifies the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and hope over despair and it is an integral part of our culture. Millions and millions of diyas signify another important thing. That would be the time of the year when you get new clothes and small gifts from parents and family members. It is a wonderful feeling to live it. But let us give it a pause. Is all this celebration required? Do we need this cheap display of materialism? Oh, wait! If you are someone thinking in this lines. Congratulations. You are now qualified to be a secular opinion maker who considers Nature and the ecosystem around us gets affected by Hindu celebrations and only Hindu celebrations.
Now before you rule this as a staunch Hindu sentimental article and before you brand me as a right winger I would want you to go through a few instances of Liberal thinking that has made noise in the recent times.
Dahi Handi in Maharashtra:
Ever since 2011 this celebration of breaking the mud pot by forming human pyramids, which is an integral part of Hindu festival Sri Krishna Janmashtami celebrations was under scanner. This celebration celebrates the childhood naughtiness of Bhagavan Sri Krishna. The Maharashtra high court on August 11, 2014, had ordered that the height of human pyramids should not exceed 20 feet and that children below the age of 18 should not be allowed to participate. There were other restrictions which had ordered the organizers to submit birth certificates of participants 10 days prior to the event. There was an uproar from a few Liberals who accused this festival for “The presence of these mass celebrations and mandals leading to traffic congestion and problems like excessive littering”
Jallikattu in Tamilnadu
Pongal or the harvest festival of Tamilnadu has been under the scanner in the recent years for its Bull taming sport of Jallikattu. The sport which has over 2000 years of history was opposed again by the liberals for being cruel and inhuman towards animals. Poorva Joshipura, CEO, PETA India, says “AWBI (Animal Welfare Board of India) inspectors documented at numerous jallikattu events that the bulls become so frightened by the menacing mob that they slip, fall, run into barriers and traffic, and even jump off cliffs, so desperate are they to escape.” But the irony is that Millions of animals slaughtered during Eid, Cattles being killed in very cruel ways for food doesn’t fall under the category of “Cruelty” according to PETA. In 2014 Supreme court of India went on to ban this sport. However, an ordinance passed by Tamilnadu Government in 2017 allowed the celebration of Jallikattu. The supporters of Jallikattu accuse PETA of its dubious intentions to deplete all the native breeds of India.
Kambala in Karnataka
Kambala is a sport that is celebrated by Tuluvas in Karnataka. A belief states that the festival originated in the farming community of Karnataka and is dedicated to Lord Kadri Manjunatha, an incarnation of Lord Shiva. It was celebrated to please the Gods for a good harvest. However, there was an opposition to this sport citing “The Cows are whipped and made to race through flowing water. Many of these animals die due to broken limbs which are too weak to withstand the force of the water and some die due to the intense beatings.” The “Animal activists” had petitioned in the court to stop this cruelty to animals and the High court had stayed the buffalo racing sport in November 2016.
Durga Puja in Bengal:
The Mamata Banerjee led West Bengal government restricted Durga puja idol immersion to 10 pm on September 30 of 2017 – the day of Vijaya Dashami – and banned any immersions the next day, because Muharram is on the same day, and celebration processions might have been on the same routes. This was an infringement of the fundamental right to practice religion by Hindus, and three petitions were made in the high court challenging the decision. The Bengal High court however whipped the government for its biased rules and summoned the government to remove its restrictions. The court said, “People have the right to practice their religious activities, whichever community they may be off, and the state cannot put restrictions unless it has a concrete ground to believe that two communities cannot live together.”
Adding to this is the new judgement by the Supreme Court to ban crackers in Delhi during Deepawali citing reasons of pollution.
Well if you can read in between the lines you can see a common line of action amongst all these activists and Liberals. The agenda is clear, Opposing Hindus have become the new ‘Leftist’ sport in India! This is a simple but well-planned propaganda. Groups of free thinkers who hide in their dens come out all of a sudden during Hindu festivals. They try to dissect and find out a “Harming Nature, sentiments, cruelty” clause in every celebration and start talking about it. “Wasting water” during Holi and “colours on innocent animals” become a matter of concern Cry of Patriarchal oppression mounts to its peak during Karwa Chauth. Remember no one sees cruelty in “Sacrifice of animals during Eid” or the patriarchal oppression in “Mutilating female gentiles. “ With Ganesh Chaturthi, Durga Puja comes the cry about polluting water but they don’t talk about the rivers of blood and animal waste that flows into the same water sources. The feminists who cry “Patriarchy” funnily enough celebrate the “Mahisha-Dasara” when the rest of the world celebrates the manifestation of Feminine strength in the form of Durga Devi. Opinion makers pick on every single Hindu celebration and mock our culture with a simple claim of being Environment unfriendly. The newest of the issues that the liberals see is that of cremation of Hindu dead bodies. They cite the emission of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses and consumption of wood and pollution as the reasons to stop this practice of burning the mortal remains of the deceased.
The idea is simple. Shout from the bottom of your heart about every nonsense thought you get about a Hindu custom or celebration. Go back into your den and not react when someone points a bigger problem in other religions. Come out of the den again during the next Hindu festival and cry again. These liberals are supported by National media and a bigger nexus which runs on an international level. But no matter what they plan to do, and no matter how hard they try they have to understand the fact that ‘Hindutva’ and the ‘Hindu dharma’ is a way of life and just trying to restrict us from celebrating our festivals no one can take the fire that burns deep within the hearts of every Hindu. We will live, celebrate and pass on our culture and festivals for generations to come, as we have done for centuries of oppression attack and mockery.
Bottom Punch: Did you know that the case of the ban on bursting crackers was filed by three infants aged between 6 to 14 months? Arjun Goyal and Aarav Bhandari ages 6 months and Zoya Rao Bhasin who was 14 months old had filed this case via their parents and their ‘next friend’ and their lawyer Gopal Shankar Narayan. Amit Bhandari, who works with senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, and Trilegal partner Saurabh Bhasin. The plea said the widespread use of firecrackers in Delhi during the festive season exposed vulnerable infants to severe diseases such as asthma and worsens lung condition. “They are foremost prone to lung disease, asthma, coughing, bronchitis, retarded nervous system development and cognitive impairment.” Just so that you know Abhishek Manu Singhvi is the National spokesperson of Indian National Congress, A Rajyasabha MP representing Congress from Rajasthan. Just to give you an idea on who is behind all of this!
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