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DIWALI was and is as good an occasion as any to probe complex phenomena masked as religion. Countless stories are told about Lord Ram but only one is assiduously promoted these days by the narrow-minded Indian state. In fact, other narratives, principally those that challenge the dominance of Brahminical patriarchy, are violently opposed. Likewise, there are myriad ways of celebrating Diwali. A popular narrative is the one about Lord Ram returning home after defeating Ravan and finishing his 14 years of exile. In Maharashtra and Goa, however, Diwali marks the slaying of a different demon — Narkasura — by a different hero — Lord Krishna. There’s no dearth of variety in the telling and retelling of Hindu lores.
Legends of Ram and Sita straddle the far corners of Asia. Iranian researchers would speak of the Ram legend prevalent around the Caspian Sea. On the southeast Asian island of Borneo, ancient rock carvings around Damai depict the exploits of Hanuman, Ram’s key aide. One such story pertains to the area that became Pakistan. The cities of Lahore and Kasur are said to be named after Lav and Kush, the twin sons of Lord Ram and his wife Sita. Elsewhere, burqa-clad women led the family outings with children in Lucknow to enjoy Homi Wadia’s movie on the Ramayan. Muslim patrons of a Parsi moviemaker’s saga of a Hindu lore! In more ways than one, the Gevacolour film testified to an essential charm of the Indian milieu.
Lahore’s TV watchers loved the 1980s Indian serial Ramayan. Many would be glued to their sets like their Indian counterparts on Sunday mornings for the hour the legend of Ram and Sita was broadcast by Doordarshan or relayed from Amritsar. The advent of colour TV in India in 1982 began with the live broadcast of the Asian Games and set off the search for agreeable family entertainment. Saeed Mirza and Kundan Shah produced Nukkad to portray the joys and sorrows of life on a Mumbai street corner. One serial attacked small-time corruption, a vigilante woman leading the charge. Bigger Bombay movie producers struck gold with Hindu mythology. B.R. Chopra hired Rahi Masoom Raza to write the Mahabharat and Ramanand Sagar put together excerpts from Valmiki’s Ramayan to break financial records.
Indeed, Hindu festivals like Diwali were celebrated with fervour by non-Hindus in India and abroad. A Pakistani friend from Chakwal was once looking in Delhi’s Khan Market for a mangalsutra that married Hindu women wear as a necklace. He said his wife who had evidently watched Indian heroines had requested it. With the rise of religious revivalism, celebration of festivals like Eid and Christmas became targets of uneducated Hindutva mobs that were brainwashed into seeing them as polluting the Hindu culture. Muslims and Christians were no longer encouraged to celebrate Hindu festivals as they did in the spirit of brotherhood. Muslim men were excluded from the garba dance in Gujarat because Hindu men said they eyed Hindu women. A couplet by an unknown poet on the Rekhta website perhaps sums up the new aloofness nicely. “Mil ke hoti thi kabhi Eid bhi Diwali bhi/ Ab ye haalat hai ki dar dar ke galey miltey hain” (Eid and Diwali were once celebrated together/ Fear stalks the embrace in this inclement weather.)
Many would be glued to their sets like their Indian counterparts on Sunday mornings for the hour the legend.
Like Christmas and Eid these days, Diwali too has become an occasion for conspicuous consumption, of decorated malls and buying or investing in gold and jewellery. This is obviously for those who can afford it. Many homes leave their doors ajar on Diwali night, their paths paved with mustard oil diyas to guide the visit of Laxmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity. With 800 million Indians on food dole, much of this aspect of celebration has its moral air pockets. Given that India is currently reeling under the hold of religious revivalism, state institutions have thrown in their lot with the Brahminised celebration of Diwali.
A recent decision by the supreme court on the use of firecrackers on Diwali has left many gasping, literally, given the pollution they add to the toxic quality of air in much of urban India. A rational judge would have concluded that firecrackers pollute, and they should be shunned at least in places like Delhi where air pollution tends to get trapped as in a funnel. This is unlike Mumbai and other coastal cities that have the facility of the sea breeze to ease things somewhat. The judges could have also reasoned that since gunpowder came to India from China through the Mughals, firecrackers could not be regarded as integral to the celebration of the ancient festival of lights. Instead, however, the court tamely permitted the use of “green firecrackers” whatever that means.
This is, of course, not entirely unexpected from India’s apex court, which in recent years is perceived as having been driven along religious ruts than by any constitutionally ordained reason. A judge who took part in the controversial Ram temple verdict in 2019 would later go on to confess that he took advice from his family deity before writing the unanimous judgement.
State power cannot, of course, erase popular lore and a variety of beliefs. Says Adivasi writer and poet Ushakiran Atram that Ravan, the widely projected demon killed by Ram to rescue his wife from captivity, was and is worshipped as a pre-Aryan king among the Gonds of south and east Indian tribes. Gond folklore says their land was protected by 88 samboo — those who ruled the earth — a lineage that includes princesses too such as Mandodari, Tadaka, Surpanakha and Trijata.
“In the religious texts of the Aryans, you will only find malicious and vile representations of Adivasis and Ravan, who belonged to the divine lineage of the samboo,” says Atram in defence of Gond traditions. Diwali thus like any religious celebration can be gainfully studied as part of our human history wrapped in mythology.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2025
