Harsh Mander: Will the India of ‘messy diversity’ and shared togetherness be lost in time?

It was the evening before Diwali. Dusk was just falling. A friend, returning from his evening walk, saw a man lighting firecrackers with his young son. On an impulse, he walked up to the man and quietly said to him, “Don’t you think you should worry more about your son’s health? Why don’t you celebrate Diwali just with lamps and sweets?” The man snapped back, “You should first tell Muslims to stop praying five times a day.”

Diwali, for me, was from childhood an iridescent festival of light and cheer in which neighbours and friends of every faith and identity joined. I cannot brook its rapid transformation in recent years into a locus of Hindu resentment. It is now propagated as a festival that can legitimately be celebrated exclusively by Hindus, and in ways they choose including electric lights and fireworks. And the festivals must be vigilantly guarded from both participation of and “interference” from outsiders, including people of other faiths, governments and courts.

Many family and friends’ WhatsApp groups contain belligerent posts critical of greetings of “Diwali Mubarak”. Mubarak, they admonish, is an Urdu word. Using it for a Diwali greeting implies a sly bid to “Abrahamise” (sic.) the Hindu faith. Hindus must be scrupulous to confine themselves to “Indian” languages like Hindi. They recommend instead something like “Diwali ki shubh kamnayein”.

A similar row was raised in 2021 when FabIndia, a leading Indian garment chain, advertised its Diwali clothes collection under the banner Jashn-e-Riwaaz, which is Urdu for “celebration of tradition”. FabIndia promoted its new line-up with the words, “As we welcome the festival of love and light” their clothes’ collection “pays homage to Indian culture.” BJP MP Tejasvi Surya, notorious for his Islamophobic statements, declared that this advertisement represents again a deliberate “Abrahamisation (sic.) of Hindu festivals”, aggravated by models not wearing “traditional Hindu attires”, and insists that this must be “called out”. FabIndia could not handle the heat and pulled its advertisement.

And when Delhi’s leading Lady Shriram College titled their Diwali festival Noor 2024 (Noor in Urdu means light), it spurred abusive outrage on social media. One post called for the public thrashing of the “stupid” college management for “disrespecting Hinduism and appropriating Deepawali”. Another described this as the “Islamisation” of our festivals. Yet another went further to declare that it appeared to be a “Pakistan sponsored event”.

But even more than Urdu, what has most affronted people, groups and political leaders who profess to speak in defence of “Hindus” are the court or government bans and public campaigns against firecrackers. They claim that these are illegitimate endeavours to target traditional Hindu religious practices and therefore hurt Hindu sentiments.

The fact first is that not all Hindus celebrate Diwali, and firecrackers were not invented in India and their inclusion in Diwali celebrations arose in medieval times. Ankur Barua, a Hindu studies professor at the University of Cambridge, observes that aside from traveller accounts in the 1200s about an Indian “phenomenon of rows of lights”, it is difficult to say how the festival looked in the past. “We don’t have any records saying how [Diwali] was being celebrated,” Barua told BBC. “It’s also different in North and South India But according to him, the use of fireworks in the last 50 years is largely a ‘North Indian phenomenon’.”

North Indians widely observe Diwali to celebrate the return of deity Ram from his 14-year exile. The belief is that he returned on a moonless night so every home lit lamps to welcome him.

But, as journalist Madhavan Narayanan reminds us, in south India, Diwali is celebrated at the break of dawn to “mark the slaying of a demon called Narakasura by Lord Krishna. The demon’s last wish in repentance was for people to celebrate his death as a fall of evil”. She adds that in Bengal, Kali Puja that typically falls a day after Deepavali, is the major observance, and Keralites mostly do not mark Deepavali, preferring instead Onam “linked to the appearance of Lord Vishnu as Vamana, while Tamil Nadu and the north mark the later incarnations of the same protector”. Diwali is also celebrated as Lakshmi Puja in the north because on “Dhanteras, a couple of days before the northerners mark Diwali, …goddess Lakshmi and lord Dhanvantri emerged from the ocean during ‘Samudra Manthan’ – the churning of the mythological ocean that resulted in boons”.

She also speaks of Hindus who voluntarily abjure from fireworks before the more recent awareness of their health hazards. Villagers in Tamil Nadu’s Kollukudipatti have for decades celebrated Diwali without firecrackers so as to not to disturb migratory birds that perch in the nearby Vettangudi bird sanctuary.

Diwali also has long been celebrated by non-Hindus in India. Historical records confirm that emperor Muhammad bin Tughlaq, who sat on the Delhi throne from 1324 to 1351, celebrated Diwali in his court with bonhomie and good food. This tradition continued over successive generations of rulers. In Mughal emperor Akbar’s time, Diwali was called Jashn-e-Chiraghan – the festival of lights. Akbar elevated this to a magnificent festival in the Mughal court, led by the Mughal emperor himself. He also started the tradition of gifting sweets as a mark of Diwali greetings and many delicacies were cooked in the Mughal court.

The Ramayana was read in the court, followed by a play depicting Ram’s return to Ayodhya. Shah Jahan took the festivities a few notches higher by inviting chefs from all over India and importing ingredients from Persia. He also started the tradition of lighting the “Akash Diya” (sky lamp), a giant lamp held aloft a 40-yard-high pole, representing celestial light. Even Aurangzeb followed the tradition of sending sweets to noblemen on Diwali. In Bahadur Shah Zafar’s time, plays were performed around the theme of Diwali at the Red Fort, along with Lakshmi Puja, and fireworks would be lit near Jama Masjid, Delhi.

In 2015, an unusual petition was filed in the Supreme Court in the name of three infants, six-month-old Arjun Gopal and Aarav Bhandari and 14-month-old Zoya Rao Bhasin by their fathers who were advocates. On behalf of the infants, the petition declared, “Our lungs have not yet fully developed and we cannot take further pollution through bursting of crackers”. They sought a ban on firecrackers, exercising their right to clean air guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

A leading fireworks manufacturer in the 10 billion-rupee industry in Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu opposed the petition, declaring that banning fireworks during Diwali would be against Hindu belief and mythology. “According to Hindu belief, the sound of fireworks and crackers are an indication of the joy of the people living on earth and making gods aware of their plentiful state. Therefore, a ban on fireworks and crackers would be against Hindu belief and mythology.”

The partial ban on fireworks in Diwali ordered by the Supreme Court was hardly enforced but opposition to this ban, by political leaders, on social media and among the middle-classes, has continued to boil. The Hindustan Times in 2017 reported that tweets and Facebook posts alleging “Islamic rule” and “targeting” of Hindu festivals started trending after the court’s ban on firecrackers for Diwali.

Meena Das Narayan, with a verified Twitter account and who declared herself a Narendra Modi supporter, said she would rather light firecrackers than “cut a thousand cows”. Another post by one Shefali Vaidya suggested defiant civil disobedience. “Every Hindu household in Delhi should make it a point to get firecrackers from outside NCR and light them outside the SC!” she exhorted. Sanjay Dixit, a civil servant, secretary to the government of Rajasthan called the ban “an avoidable overreach”. “Are we going to learn culture from time-honoured practices, or be taught by the courts?” he asked rhetorically. Even veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta opposed the ban, claiming that it did not properly address any environmental concerns.

Best-selling novelist Chetan Bhagat waded into the polemics by asking, “Why only guts to do this for Hindu festivals? Banning goat sacrifice and Muharram bloodshed soon too?” Writer and politician Shashi Tharoor tried vainly to reason with him: “Your examples (are) of practices integral to those observances; banning them would be like banning lamps on Diwali. Firecrackers are unholy add-ons.”

Through the years, political leaders of the BJP have been vociferous in their high-decibel opposition to the ban, describing it as “anti-Hindu”. Ramvir Bidhuri, leader of the Opposition in Delhi, declared that the “one-sided ban” hurt “people’s religious sentiments”. Kapil Mishra went so far as to exhort people to defy the ban.

The divide surrounding this festival of togetherness only persists, further deepening each year. In Madhya Pradesh this year, Bajrang Dal posters came up in many towns with the slogan, “Apna tyohaar, apna vyapaar”. This means Diwali is “our” festival, and we should make purchases only from “our” traders, implying a call for boycott of Muslim traders during Diwali.

It is, therefore, with a lump in my throat that I read an account by Sonali Kolhatkar of her childhood memories of celebrating Diwali. Her mother, she recalls, was a “a non-practicing Catholic” and her father a Hindu “with atheist Communist roots”. They were immigrants in the United Arab Emirates. In spite of the Catholic side of her family, she writes, “Diwali was a bigger deal than Christmas, simply because it is the most important annual Indian celebration”.

Her mother always ensured there were newly tailored traditional dresses for my sisters and her. The family visited the homes of friends and relatives to offer and receive gifts. She is nostalgic for “the signature mouth-watering Diwali sweetmeats, which (were both) …store-bought and homemade”. Her mother proudly lit traditional oil lamps like the grand brass lamps and small terracotta bowls of oil with lit cotton wicks “to line pathways in the hopes of attracting the goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, into homes”. Her personal favourite Diwali tradition was Rangoli, the drawing of intricate floor patterns crafted from coloured powders. “Amid the many ways to attract Lakshmi Devi into people’s homes – such as cleanliness, lights, and sweets – are these decorative patterns that are, by design, transient and can be easily swept away by a strong wind”.

She speaks glowingly of the “beauty in the messy diversity of India’s cultural and religious heritage, one that narrow-minded Hindu fundamentalists so deeply fear will dilute their political power”. Her devoutly Catholic aunt Jessie decided that their family would try celebrating Diwali with some of the explicitly religious hallmarks of the Lakshmi puja. They assembled a makeshift altar to the goddess Lakshmi and a puja plate, decorated with incense, sweets and vermillion powder. They tried to sing the devotional Hindu song customary for the event, but none could recall the words. However, she says, the “memory sticks with me most strongly for it was the togetherness, the faith in family and the enjoyment of a cultural language that we all shared… with an appreciation of history and lineage that signifies Diwali”.

Will we allow this India of messy diversity and a shared togetherness to be stamped out, maybe forever?

I am grateful for research support from Syed Rubeel Haider Zaidi.

Harsh Mander, justice and peace worker and writer, leads Karwan e Mohabbat, a people’s campaign to counter hate violence with love and solidarity. He teaches at FAU University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and Heidelberg University, Germany; Vrije University, Amsterdam; and IIM, Ahmedabad.