Last night, I watched the diyas outside homes, their little flames pushing back the darkness. No speeches. No publicity department. No enormous photograph of the person who had lit them. Just light doing what light is supposed to do. I wondered whether we could persuade a few of those diyas to stand for election.
“What is your manifesto?” we would ask. “To remove darkness,” they would reply. “And after winning?” “To continue removing darkness.” Such consistency would cause considerable confusion in our political system, where promises often have shorter lives than the sweets distributed alongside them. At least a diya does not blame yesterday’s darkness on the previous government.
Diwali invites us to celebrate the victory of light over darkness and good over evil. Surely that celebration must travel beyond the doorstep. If our balconies glow while lies flourish in our conversations, we have decorated the house and left its occupants in darkness. An expensive string of lights cannot illuminate a dishonest mind.
Today, our country desperately needs truth. We need it in public statements, television studios, forwarded messages and those magnificent announcements whose achievements sometimes appear to exist mainly inside the announcement. Fake news travels so swiftly that truth, still putting on its slippers, finds the neighbourhood has already formed an opinion and ordered the fireworks.
“Have you checked whether this message is true?” I asked an enthusiastic forwarder. “Why?” he replied. “It supports our side!” There, perhaps, lies our deepest darkness. We have begun judging truth by the company it keeps. A lie wearing our party colours receives a warmer welcome than a fact arriving without an invitation.
And so, this Diwali, my prayer for our government is simple. May the enthusiasm displayed for religious ceremonies extend to the values those ceremonies proclaim. After the cameras leave and the lamps burn low, may truth remain at the table where decisions are made. Surely religion deserves a place in conduct as well as photographs.
Let there be just laws, fairly applied. Let the weak receive protection without first demonstrating electoral usefulness. Let citizens be judged neither by the clothes they wear nor by the names they bear. Equality is their right. It should never depend on whether someone in authority approves of their prayers, food or place of worship.
But we citizens must carry our own lamps too. Refuse the malicious forward. Question the convenient falsehood. Stand beside the neighbour being humiliated. There is little point asking the government to dispel darkness while we enthusiastically supply it with fresh oil. A festival becomes meaningful when its light changes what we do tomorrow morning.
And let us end with that ancient prayer: “Asato ma sad gamaya,” lead us from untruth to truth. “Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya,” lead us from darkness to light. “Mrityor ma amritam gamaya,” lead us from death to immortality. May its wisdom enter our homes, our hearts and the corridors of power. Happy Diwali to every citizen. May those who govern us discover that the finest way to honour a lamp is to stop protecting the darkness..!
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