Festivals and bhakti
Recently I received a question: ‘Why Yeshu bhaktas should be celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi’. In response I wrote: ‘No need to celebrate’. But another person responded by saying ‘OK but we have the freedom and in some case the duty to celebrate’. Here is my dialogue on this issue.
One is free under the sun (except in Communist countries) to do anything which is not against the Law of the land and common moral code of contact (dharma as we call in India) of a given community or society. Regarding the ‘duty’ (dharma) it is applicable when a bhakta stays with her parents who do not follow our kind of bhakti. There too her duty is limited to not to hurt their religious sentiment and her dharma as a member of the family in arranging and co-operating with her parent’s to celebrate their faith.
Tell me why should we celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi or any other festival related to other deities? Is it to prove our ‘Hindu-ness’? There is no need for me to prove my Hindu-ness to anyone. I am a Hindu and a bhakta of the Lord. But when it comes to the question of proving my bhakti in the Lord, I should do both in words and deeds witnessing for my bhakti in the Lord. This life oriented bhakti involves my whole life and should never be an agenda to ‘impress’ others or to ‘impose’ my idealism on anyone. And to prove my bhakti in the Lord should I need to celebrate or worship other deities? No is my answer.
One might that she wants to celebrate every Hindu festivals in order to remain connected with our culture and heritage, and not to prove her ‘Hindu-ness’. But
Celebration of festivals alone is not the only way to remain connected with our culture and heritage. Every sectarian Hindu does not do this by celebrating every religious festival. Sometimes over zeal to prove our link with our culture and heritage might end up creating another kind of NBCD (Native born confused desi like the ABCD =American born confused desi).
Every Hindu is not celebrating every festival. Most of the festivals are regional—however the particular deity gained pan-Hindu approval and devotion. For example Rama is widely accepted deity for all Hindus, except staunch Shivites like Veera Shaivas (Liygayats) and some Sakta sampradays (worshippers of goddess Shakti). While Sri Ramanavami is celebrated in several places, it is not celebrated with same devotion in every part of India. Similarly Durga though become a pan-Hindu deity, the grand Durga Puja celebration is mostly limited to Bengal and where Bengalis live in large scale. We can multiply this example.
Have you ever heard of Nanda and Sunanda, the two local goddess of Garwal area? Nanda Rat yatra in Garwal hills is very famous as it comes once in 12 years. By not celebrating or joining this festival other Hindus never cease to remain Hindus. As we often discuss Hindu identity is mostly related to birth in Hindu home and sometimes through conversion (which is not accepted by others) and not based on our faith in particular deity.
Though Ganesh Chaturthi now becomes famous, we all know the way it was promoted by B.G. Tillak to raise (Indian) National spirit against British. Later it was ‘USED’ by Hindu Nationalists to promote their religious nationalism. Till as a young boy I never witnessed any grand-scale community festival of Ganesh in Tamilnadu. We never saw any community pandal or immersion that happens now in the past. Even now we never hear about such community based celebration for Ganesh in other parts of the country like Bengal, Orissa, Jammu, Himachal, and Rajasthan. Though Ganesha is a pan-Hindu deity, his festival is not pan-Indian or even pan-Hindu. Though certain (Sri) Vaishnavites, that too in south India, specifically in Tamilnadu adopted Ganesha by calling him as ‘Thumbikkai azahvar’ and displaying big tripundara (namam) on his forehead by making him (or converting him) as Vaishnava, most of the (Sri) Vaishnavites not even celebrate him even on small scale in their homes on Ganesh Chaturthi. Note here Ganesh is accepted as one among the ‘Alvars’ (12, Vaishnavites bhakti saints, making him as the 13th) but not even as ‘Nitya Suries’ (celestial beings) who dwells forever in Vaikunta with Vishnu (who take avatara times to time along with Vishnu).
So in order to prove my Hindu identity I need not celebrate or worship other deities. Even my Hinduism never expects me to do it. While Hinduism liberally accommodates all kinds of faith expression from everywhere (including Muktinath in our case, but not Christianity), it never expects one to compromise her orthodoxy related to her theology (doctrine) in her bhakti towards her chosen deity. Orthodoxy with the core, concession in peripheral and charity in all is the worldview of Hinduism when it comes to theology.
As a digression I need to insist on one point of Hindu deities and festival used for religious nationalism. In general those who uphold religious nationalism never believe in regional versions of Hinduism as it will never help them to universalize their Hindu ideal by brining homogeneity to Hindu faiths. Heterogeneity is the core of Hinduism. Religious nationalists to bring homogeneity to Hinduism will use anything and everything that will serve their purpose. When Rama served their electoral politics they used him and we know well about the history of Ratyatra conducted for Rama. Now to win election he is no more in need and thankfully Sonia family, particularly Rahul Gandhi is doing that service for BJP to win election. As long as Congress remains a Family party of Sonia, now Sangh Parivar do not need any particular religious identity or agenda to win the future elections. Long live Rahul and Congress as a Family party.
Till the recent past, even last year I witness several ‘immersion processions’ (visarjan) in our area. This year, thanks to the economic slowdown there were very few ‘immersion processions’ which fortunately also saved the water from contamination. There was no large scale ‘murtis’ of Ganesh even in this processions and virtually there was no community pandal in our area as it was arranged in the past. As part of community when they come to collect money for any celebration on ‘community’ level, we need to contribute—irrespective of one’s faith. When the local boys came to collect money for Ganesh pandal, I used to tell them to get it from my shishya Vijay, as I don’t want to contribute to the ‘water pollution’. But the local boys know well that it is very difficult to get money from Vijay and they won’t get it till the end. However, I remain diplomatic by not saying ‘no’ at the same time not contributing to environmental pollution.
So Hindu deities also have to depend not only upon the need of religious sentiment of religious nationalists but also keep an eye on Sensex Index for their devotees to arrange large scale festivals for them. Particularly Ganesh should do this as he is the favourite local deity in Mumbai where the HQ of Indian Stock Exchange functions. When thousands of (contract) labours are thrown away from the factories people are more worried about their survival than celebrations. This being the Hindu reality we as bhaktas of Muktinath need not unnecessarily become overzealous Hindus to demonstrate our Hindu identity which is not demanded or expected from us.
Of course there are several festivals which overlap with cultural aspects—like Pongal (Sankaranti), Diwali etc. At the same time every festival is not cultural oriented though it has cultural aspects. But why it is celebrated is the essential question, to celebrate the culture or to celebrate a deity? Pongal, Diwali, Rakshabandan etc. are both cultural and religious. One can replace one deity to celebrate the same festival with another deity. Diwali is celebrated both keeping Rama and Krishna. As Muktinath bhaktas we can also celebrate Diwali and Pongal. But can you remove Ganesh and celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi as mere cultural festival. Christmas is both a religious and commercial festival. Diwali, Pongal, Rakshabandan etc. are the same. People use that religious occasion to buy new things which they won’t do it in normal time. This gives and motivates them to buy something for the family and children, even if one does not have faith in the religious aspect. But festival like Ganesh Chaturthi does not even have this commercial aspect. Above all it creates lots of environmental problem when large scale of immersion takes places, particularly in those parts where there is no running water. Added to this it also creates law and order problem creating lots of inconvenience to common people. On immersion day traffic routes are changed and even in few places local government bodies ended up arranging water to dissolve big statues of Ganapati. In few areas artificial ponds are created with lots of water to immerse several statues. After the immersion lots of money and men power are invested to clear the debris. And I need not mention about the communal clashes ending up in the loss of precious life. In this year alone, according to one News report more than 70 lives are lost as many youths drowned during immersion time. What kind of tragedy those deaths brought to those families.
There is no point of saying, ‘why one needs to replace presiding deity of a particular festival’ but just celebrate like a Hindu atheist as part of our cultural heritage. I think I already addressed this issue above. If you are compelled to join such festivals as part of the community or family, just join the celebration. But where there is no such compulsion, one need not celebrate all festivals just to celebrate one’s culture and heritage. For most of the atheists like god, culture is also not that much important. They might celebrate just for the sake of entertainment which a bhakta of the Lord need not do.
At the same time Hinduism is also evolving and adjusting to the demands of time. For example Janmashtami (or Krishna Jayanti) though does not have much cultural and commercial aspect, now it is also included now. Particularly parents who have little children (mostly below five to 10 years old) are decorated that day as Krishna or Radha to take to the relatives and friends houses. So like the past where mostly money was spent in preparing special sweets and food, now more money is spent on costumes. Similarly in Gujarat during Navaratri (at the time of Durga Puja in Bengal) people spend lots of money for Garba dance even arranging competition.
But the reality in these festivals is that most of the Diaspora Hindus living outside India use ever festival occasion to celebrate as a community festival to express their Hindu identity to survive in an alien environment. So even strict religious oriented festivals also promoted as cultural event there. At the same time, those who promote religious nationalism among them, try to export their brand of ‘Universalized’ Hinduism to India and make us to believe that this is what Hinduism should be. Like the Western Christian Missionaries, who decide what Christianity should be in India, these Diaspora Hindus try to decide for us about Hinduism. Anything and everything ‘foreign’ is glorified in India. So naturally this kind of ‘foreign’ Hinduism imported from the West also accept as valuable one in India. Indians, who in general keep a generous spirit of accepting and accommodating every kinds of faith expression, become hegemonic once they go to the West. And with this same spirit they impose their religious ideology on us in the name of culture. Then it is promoted also in India copying them in the name of celebrating Hindu culture in India. When I was young boy ‘foreign return’ means a great thing. Now the same spirit prevails not for the foreign return person but ideals and agendas, particularly from Diaspora Hinduism.[See my article ‘Native Invasion’].
But when a typical (or popular Hindu) joins in the local festivals of other faiths, she never does it to celebrate it part of her culture or heritage. Last year one Hindu woman in Tamilnadu observed forty days of fast during Ramzan. This she does every year. Similarly in several parts of India, particularly in South India, during Urs procession, in which they (Muslims) carry the decorated palanquins crossing the fire (as Hindus do for their local deities).@ Several (popular) Hindus will join and touch and worship that palanquins after it was carried on the shoulders and crossed the burning coal to receive blessings from it. But every Hindu won’t do it to join that festival to celebrate it as part of our Indian culture and heritage. There are religious festivals overlapping with culture aspect (like Pongal, Diwali etc.). But there are other festivals which have only religious aspects. All need not to celebrate every religious festival to prove one’s identity as an Indian or Hindu.
Considering all these various aspects related to Hindu festivals, a bhakta of the Lord should know which one she can celebrate, which one she can participate and which one she can avoid. And we cannot give any normative guidance for such festivals. Bhakta staying with their family they don’t have many options but to participate though worship of the deity is meaningless. But others who live separately should take their own personal decision based on their understanding and approach to their bhakti and commitment to the Lord.
[See ‘Concession and Compromise]
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9-9-2019
@ At some shrines, urs ceremonies take the form of sober mawlid (eulogies of the Prophet) and Quran recitations. At other Sufi centres urs rites have come to feature the parading of ceremonial chariots and cult objects as well as ecstatic dancing, singing and fire-walking, and buffalo and cock sacrifices which are just like those staged at sakti goddess shrines; all these, and many other ‘superstitious’ or ‘un-Islamic’ acts and practices have been condemned by the so-called Islamic purists. In the Tamil country kanturi rather than urs is term used most frequently for these festivals, and over many centuries the Muslims of Tamilnad have evolved their own distinctive variant of the Sufi death anniversary commemoration. The details have varied from shrine to shrine, but in most Sufi establishments in the region the central act of the kanturi has been a set of rituals known as the santanakkutam or sandalwood paste.— Susan Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian society 1700-1900, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, (1989), First Indian Edition, 1992. p. 142 [This happens even today and I received one video message of this celebration in one village in Karnataka by Sweta.