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Ravi Dev does not want a PNC and PPP Diwali

Nov 02, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
I was impressed by Mr. Ralph Ramkarran’s Manu-like pronouncement on the Divali date issue.(Let’s have two holidays for Divali, SN 11-1-15) However I suspect the dispute is the casus belli rather than the causa belli for the dispute. It reminds me of Swami Vivekananda  bemoaning Hindus  arguing  about whether water should be thrown over their left or right shoulder during their ritual bath, rather than arguing about confronting existing challenges.
As Mr. Ramkarran says, the internet today provides a veritable cornucopia of information. One does not need to read  ”panchangs” in Sanskrit to know about the phases of the moon. There are literally thousands of sites that will tell you more that you ever wanted to know about the “tithis” of the moon as its “phases” are called in Hinduism.
But those same web pages show that for thousands of years in India, the same data was utilized by different groups (regional and even castes) with different starting dates to count the “lunar dates” and arriving at different dates for festivals. With Divali, for instance, you have the situation where BOTH the 10th and 11th are being called “Amavasya night” in different parts of India and Divali is celebrated on both those days there.
Hinduism teaches that it really doesn’t matter how or when you make offerings to the Lord, male or female: it is your devotion that counts. And if, the Hindus in India in more than a thousand years have not started another Mahabharata War to settle their differences, why have we embarked down that path?
I had an early inkling that there was going to be a stand off on the date for Divali. One of the protagonist’s path crossed mine and he complained that the “other side” refused to attend a meeting called to discuss the date for another ”darkest night” –the   birthnight or Janamasthmi of Sri Krishna.
The arguments surrounding the calculations from the lunar calendar were a dress rehearsal for the present contretemps. But ever since that conversation, I have been wondering if the dates for the festivals were really the cause of the war (causa belli) or rather simply the occasion for the war (casus belli) by the “two sides” – with Guyana Dharmic Sabha on one side and a host of others on the other.
There is no question that Pandit Reepu Daman Persaud’s  Dharmic Sabha, straddled the Hindu community like a colossus. And with his passing, there are many vying to fill what they consider to be a power vacuum created. One point of view was that “Dharmic” became powerful because of Pandit Reep’s nexus with the PPP and its access to state power via which largess could be provided to those who aligned with his organization.
But the Dharmic Sabha was built from 1974 when the PPP was out of power. Yet by 1992 it had long supplanted the older  organizations such as the Maha Sabha (which Pt Reep had left), and the Pandits Council headed by Pandit Gowkarran Sharma, then a Minister in the PNC government.
Without any “largess” it was no secret that whatever benefits were provided by Pandit Reep in the post-1992 era because of his being a Minister in the PPP government, had also been previously funneled by the PNC government via the organizations and  leaders whom Pt Reep and Dharmic supplanted. Are we going to have a replay of History?
I hope that even at this late date the Hindu leaders can reach a compromise on essentially a disputation about ”form” and not the “substance” of our eternal way of life (Sanataan Dharma). We do not want to have a “PNC Deepavali” and a “PPP Divali”, do we?
Ravi Dev

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