Back off, it’s my Durga as much as your Parvati
Opinion

Back off, it’s my Durga as much as your Parvati

Makers of a cooking oil brand apologised and pulled an ad for offending sensitivities during Durga Puja and Navratri.

An idol of goddess Durga in Kolkata | Ashok Bhaumik/PTI

An idol of goddess Durga in Kolkata | PTI File Photo

Makers of a cooking oil brand apologised and pulled an ad for offending sensitivities during Durga Puja and Navratri.

Last year it was a well-known hairstylist, popular among young and old, who had to offer an apology. This year it was the turn of the makers of a certain brand of cooking oil, popular in kitchens rich and humble. Both had to plead forgiveness for offending sensitivities during Durga Puja and Navratri.

The hairstylist had made bold to show Durga and her children stopping by to get their hair done and tidy up before getting mobbed by crowds of mortals. It was a clever ad, smartly done, that appeared in a Kolkata daily. There were howls of protest that Hindu deities had been trivialised. The hairstylist, wishing no controversy during the extended festive season, apologised and pulled out the ad.

The makers of a particular brand of cooking oil had an equally smart ad this year, showing a wife cooking fish curry for her husband. A fringe group that goes by the name of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti forced the firm to apologise and pull the ad. Their objection: the ad insulted vegetarian Hindus who fast during Navratri.


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Neither the hairstylist nor the cooking oil manufacturer should have apologised; they should have definitely not pulled their respective ads. We will not tread down the path of Free Speech which, sadly, is being increasingly followed in the breach than in its practice. Even with ‘reasonable restrictions’, no extant law had been violated in either case.

What is offensive and worrisome is that individuals and groups are now powerful enough to enforce diktats on what can and cannot be worn, shown or eaten during Hindu festivals. Vegetarians are free to their choice of food as much as non-vegetarians are. Cultural identities and social conditioning determine whether or not to follow a particular set of rules, rites and rituals during a religious festival. What we are witnessing is a curtailment of these rights which are non-negotiable in a democracy that is founded on diversity.

In the western, central and northern parts of India, Navratri is marked by fasting. In the east, Durga Puja is marked by feasting. This fundamental cultural difference needs to be understood and respected. To deny this difference and enforce one set of beliefs, rites and rituals over others borders on cultural suppression. This must be resisted and pushed back.


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The hairstylist had borrowed his theme from the deeply ingrained belief in the east, especially in Bengal, that Durga, or for that matter any god or goddess in the pantheon of Hindi deities and divinities, is not necessarily cast in a single, monochromatic dye. The east humanises Hinduism’s celestial beings, making them alive and sentient like those who worship them. Durga is moulded variously, as mother and daughter, Devi, Gauri and Uma, and it is the human inner eye that conceives the form and shape of the divine with a Third Eye.

Bengal’s creative artists have adorned the hugely popular and much sought after Puja annuals with their interpretation of Durga and her children. None has taken offence. No two idols look the same in the thousands of pandals where Durga spends the four days between Shashti and Dashami before returning to her Himalayan abode. In the east we celebrate a daughter’s homecoming, a celebration that often appears hedonistic feasting to those who associate the festival with strict, spartan rectitude.

But we do not mock at those who fast or stick to vegetarian satvik food. We respect their faith, their rituals and their culture. We expect them to reciprocate in full measure. We eat fish and meat, we also eat vegetables – mishmash is a favourite. We offer the humblest of all foods, khichudi, to Durga and partake of it as her bhog – she is mother to all, daughter of all, rich and poor, believer and non-believer.

There was a time when, before community Durga Puja became a corporate-sponsored mega event, Uma was welcomed home with a handwoven red-bordered white saree and a gamchha. That practice still remains alive. She was, and remains, one among us. There was also a time when Durga was offered animal sacrifice. That practice has been largely abandoned. We now offer her autumn’s fruit and vegetables.

It is this diversity within and among cultures that makes Hinduism a living faith and not an ossified religion chained to antediluvian dogma and doctrine. There is no one Hinduism, and it’s not defined by one book. There is no one Hindu defined by one set of beliefs. There is neither Church nor Pope; neither Mecca nor Mullah. To coercively enforce an artificial oneness would be tantamount to Semitising one of the greatest religions in the world. Freedom would be cloistered. It would mirror everything that the essence of Hinduism militates against.


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Those who wish to restrict the idea of being Hindu to their own narrow, bleak, joyless definition, circumscribed by what clothes to wear, what rituals to follow and food to eat, do great disservice to Hinduism. Those who give a pass to these bigots for fear of controversy and reprisal are enablers of bigotry. Hinduism can do without both. At least that is the view from the east. Hopefully, it is also the prevalent view across India.

The author is a political analyst.