Needlepoint: Crackers -- 'Communal' and 'secular'

The crackers – ‘communal’ and ‘secular’

By Amba Charan Vashishth*

After reading what I am writing will make me end up as an orthodox, rank communalist in the eyes of our self-proclaimed secularists, liberal intelligentsia who claim for themselves the exclusive, unchallenged intellectual property right and trademark on ‘secularism’ and think they can sell anything in their brand ‘secular’.

But I, too, do have the freedom of expression on what I see, what I think and what I believe. Others can contradict me, condemn me but only with the force of logic and argument and not by the shrill their words can emit.

Like crores of my brethren all over the country in cities, towns, and villages, I am an orthodox person who does not wish to be deprived of his peaceful sleep even on the New Year eve. I don’t indulge in an orgy of drinking and dancing with other’s wives and women, hug them and touch them in the name of wishing them a very affectionate, a very happy, sweet, loving New Year.

December 31 has come to be celebrated as the New Year Eve, though the fact remains that hardly one percent of our population, mostly in metros and big cities, has come to know of it or celebrate it because they have the money to spare and splurge. If government were to order the bills that night to be paid only through cheques, debit and credit cards, I am sure, it will collect more income tax and other revenues. But there is another side of the story. The celebrations will then lose the lavishness and the sheen. It is the black money that thrives that day and drives the mirth and festivities.

As the zero hour struck on December 31st night, I was startled out of my slumber by the sound and fury of crackers that continued for more than half an hour in full fury and, later, intermittently for about two hours.

It reminded me of the court orders banning bursting of crackers after 10 at night because it created noise and environmental pollution as it also disturbed the peace of mind of many a great gentlemen.

When more than 80 percent of the population in the country – young and old, men and women, rich and poor—are celebrating Diwali, there is a ban on crackers after 10 PM but not when only a minuscule minority of only rich elite is doing.

Does it then mean that crackers spread pollution -- noise and environmental- only when burst on Diwali day and not on December 31st and New Year Day? Are the crackers on Diwali ‘communal’ only because these have something to do with ‘Hindus’ and on December 31st ‘secular’ because the celebration has nothing to do with Hindu ethos?

I noticed signboards at many places, including at the India Gate circle in New Delhi warning us: “Don’t mix drinking with driving.” It is a crime. So tell our police, law enforcing agencies and court. But how many drivers were held up by police on 31st December night? Practically none. Had the police done its duty it could hardly come across a single vehicle driver, whether owner or a chauffer, the occupants included, without a heavy dose of alcohol and intoxication. Why should they not be? They had gone out for merry-making and not to visit a place of worship to seek spiritual blessings.

How could the poor police perform its duty and enforce law? It could do, but only at its own peril. If it did stretch its hand of law, who knows which big-big or his wards were his booty. But the policemen preferred to keep their eyes shut to the infringements of law before their very own eyes, pretending not to have seen it and therefore did not have to act. Their duty ended putting signboard warning the violators. It allowed everyone to have a free for all. Can any sane people even think that on 31st December night not a single person out on merrymaking drove his vehicle without having gulped a few pegs of wine at that late hour?

When there is traffic jam or hazard because of a political or religious procession much is talked and written about. But when vehicular traffic to Connaught Place in New Delhi was totally prohibited on New Year Eve, people coming to Delhi from outside who had to pass nearby Connaught Place were put to great inconvenience. No taxi or auto-rickshaw was willing to go to that area. How many people failed to catch their trains from New Delhi railway station situated adjoining Connaught Place, nobody knows? Nobody wrote; nobody cared. Everybody was high in spirits reporting the merry making going on at Connaught Place. ***