The main issue with Kamala Harris’s “Festival of Lights” story is that it secularizes Diwali by separating it from its religious and cultural context.
Hindu festivals have long been facing secular, Left-‘liberal’ assault under the guise of environmental protection, gender rights, and poverty issues, amongst others. So, before every Diwali, a marketing campaign is started to keep the environment safe; before Holi, the significance of water will become paramount; on Raksha Bandhan, we are reminded of the significance of shunning misogynistic dispositions (why have to solely brothers get to defend sisters, why no longer the other way round?); and before Shivratri, we are taunted about ‘wasting’ milk on a murti when so many poor kids go hungry! Even on Durga Puja and Ganesh Chaturthi, sermons come our way to shield water our bodies from pollution!
Another fashion has gained currency in recent years: secularizing the Hindu way of life and traditions. Against this backdrop, US presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ post on ‘X’ is pretty revealing. She writes, “Tonight, we join more than 1 billion people across America and around the world lighting diyas and celebrating the fight for good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and light over darkness. Happy Diwali to everyone celebrating the Festival of Lights!”
On the face of it, what Harris says seems to be a good, revolutionary step. But, in reality, it is an extra sophisticated, sinister version of the first trend. The first one, after all, ought to without difficulty be known for solely selecting Hindu festivals in the identification of gender, environmental, and socio-economic troubles whilst extolling different religions for similar acts. This toolkit to tarnish Hindu traditions mainly backfires on social media (SM), the place where secular, Left-‘liberal’ censorship doesn’t go unchallenged.
During the recently concluded Karwa Chauth, in which better halves fast for the well-being of their husbands, one Delhi-based newspaper denounced fasting stating that such fasts weren’t correct for health. Soon, their hoax was called out on SM where people pointed out that the same newspaper had posted an article during Ramzan, declaring that fasting was excellent for one’s health!
The attempt to secularize Hindu festivals is, thus, a worrying phenomenon. The reality is that Diwali is a lot more than simply being “the Festival of Lights”, in contrast to what Kamala Harris wants us to believe. Diwali is about light, laughter, sweets, and of course, crackers. But at the core of it are dharmic rituals and celebrations spanning days, if not weeks, before and after Diwali. It is when this sacred core is pushed underneath the carpet, intentionally or otherwise, that attempts are made at turning this Hindu festival into a “Jashn-e-Roshni”!
The problem with the “Festival of Lights” narrative is that it tries to secularize Diwali to divorce it from its religio-cultural milieu. It additionally distorts the Indic thought of the sacred festivity that has a civilizational core binding them all together. So, if some Hindus celebrate the return of Sri Rama to Ayodhya from His 14-year exile in the jungle, others celebrate the killing of Naraskasura by Sri Krishna in the South and West. The festival celebrates Kali subduing demons in the East, mainly Bengal.
Then, of course, there’s a Tamil celebratory ritual of Diwali. The Tamils get up before sunrise and apply sesame oil on their heads and bodies before having a bath. It is believed that Mata Lakshmi resides in sesame oil. Likewise, Gangajal is added to the water used for bathing. “Ganga snanam aacha?” (Have you had your holy dip in the River Ganga?): This is a universal greeting exchanged on Diwali, referring to the ceremonial oil bath. Invoking Ganga manifests a sturdy experience of civilizational cohesion in Hindu Samaj.
This tendency to divorce the sacred from Hindu traditions isn’t simply restricted to Hindu festivals. One can see the way Hindu texts and additionally, Sanskrit, the sacred language, are being regarded. The activity in Sanskrit has revived, mainly in the West, however, there has been a deliberate attempt to divorce it from its Indic roots in the same way Diwali is being secularized today.
Rajiv Malhotra, in his e-book The Battle for Sanskrit, affords a charming account of Sheldon Pollock, a distinguished American Sanskrit scholar, whose thinking of Sanskrit’s revival was once “the reinvigorated learn about of Sanskrit as if it had been the embalmed, mummified remnant of a lifeless culture”. Pollock desired to see the revival of Sanskrit studies, and no longer the Sanskrit language or culture! He loved the Sanskrit superstructure but had a deep mistrust for the sacred Hindu spirit at the back of that body.
Pollock’s disregard, if not distaste, for Sanskrit subculture has been so deep-seated that he has even partly blamed “Brahmin elitism” for shaping the ideologies of British colonialism and German Nazism. At another place, he accuses Sanskrit of presenting “at the equal time a document of civilization and a document of barbarism, of tremendous inequality and different social poisons”. His uneasiness with Sanskrit’s Hindu roots is such that he even regards the Ramayana as a weapon used by Hindus for inflicting violence on Muslims. No doubt, he is the secular, Left- ‘liberal’ champion of Sanskrit in the West.
Pollock’s assault on Sanskrit would be way deeper and graver than those who invoke the Sanskrit-Prakrit or Sanskrit-Pali divide, calling the former an elite, ‘Brahminical’ language. It’s handy to combat an enemy who comes through with a simple agenda but very challenging to deal with the one who has disguised himself as a well-wisher and an ally. Those who are secularizing Diwali, and different Hindu festivals, belong to the second doubtful group. They are the adversaries of the Hindu Dharma.
