Ban on Diwali fireworks as late, sudden and ill-planned as the lockdown

I write this on the morning of Diwali, Kali Puja, Children’s Day and so on. Greetings to all for everything.

This is my favourite festival. The impulse from within is to be celebratory because although there is little to celebrate, how long can one live in uncertainty and doom and gloom?

How long indeed.

Last night, through the cool fresh mountain air there was a distinct odour of cordite. I live in a fairly remote area outside Dehradun. And yesterday wasn’t even the main Diwali day. But fireworks could be heard all around and eventually even picked up by our noses. In some parts of India, fireworks have been banned but not here.

But even this banning has been ad hoc and ill-planned. Newspapers write about distraught vendors who bought fireworks in preparation for Diwali only to be informed at the last minute that sales were banned. Given how bad this year has been for business, they hoped this was their chance. But no. Between last minute court orders and government decisions, not only are they now left with useless stock, the chance to make up the year’s loss in festive season sales is gone.

As one man plaintively asked, why do you allow the manufacture of something which it is illegal to sell. This is a question that I would like answered as well and have never understood about India’s regulations. As with “green crackers”, whatever they are. Many vendors stocked up on these being told that they’re eco-friendly and will therefore be permitted but even those hopes went up in smoke.

Did no government agency realise that the added pollution thanks to Diwali has been a health hazard for years? Doctors say that Covid19, which latches on to breathing problems to thrive, has only worsened a bad situation. North India’s terrible air pollution has been under discussion for at least a month. All these discussions could have been made earlier to avoid potential heartache and probable harm. During this time do remember that your elected “leaders” were fighting elections, fighting with each other and unelected leaders, and lying as usual about economic recovery.

Meanwhile, some eminent worthy benevolently added to the confusion by grandiosely telling people to go ahead with fireworks as long as they weren’t Chinese! Someone should have told him who invented the whole notion of fireworks!

Well. That was festive cheer of one sort. At least one can still laugh.

But if the virus, its mishandling, the political situation, the sectarian and majoritarian hatred that rules India, the flailing economy and its dire consequences on the people were not bad enough to drown any hope, the Supreme Court of India has just provided us the bitter cherry on our sour gulab jamun.

In its heartfelt arguments for “personal liberty” for just one man it has brought home to us just how precious and beyond our reach personal liberty is for all of us. So many activists, academicians, students, lawyers, thinkers, users of social media, comedians, journalists sit hopelessly in jails across India because the judiciary plays ducks and drakes with “personal liberty”. The lesson from the Arnab Goswami case is that if you are a favoured person as far as the ruling dispensation is concerned, then your “personal liberty” is of paramount importance.

If you are a dissenter, you can run from court to court for bail and not get it.

You might be old, you might be ill and you might be both. It makes no difference.

No vacation bench will put all other matters on hold. No virus will stop your search for “justice”. No big-time lawyers will put their lives on hold for you. As the wise Supreme Court declaimed, we are on a “path to destruction”. And indeed, we are, and on so many fronts. Of course, some of us more than others need to introspect why.

Where’s the happy bit, you’re thinking. I couldn’t find any in myself, so I decided to look for a bit of joy from elsewhere.

And I go back as ever to my old favourite, Bertrand Russell:

“Although both love and knowledge are necessary, love is in a sense more fundamental, since it will lead intelligent people to seek knowledge, in order to find out how to benefit those whom they love. But if people are not intelligent, they will be content to believe what they have been told, and may do harm in spite of the most genuine benevolence.”

Season’s Greetings!