The division within the Hindu community

Oct 28, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

For the second year running, there is division over the date for the annual Diwali celebrations. The main Hindu Organization in Guyana says Diwali should be celebrated on a particular day. The government, claiming that it has been advised by Hindu organizations, says that Diwali should be celebrated one day earlier.
This was the same masquerade that played out last year. The majority of Guyanese ignored the government-declared holiday and celebrated Diwali in accordance with the date that the Dharmic Sabha had prescribed. However, it did cause consternation within the Hindu community.
The government has once again gone ahead and declared a holiday for Diwali this year which is not in accordance with the wishes of the major Hindu organization in the country. The government seems to not be very interested in trying to achieve consensus on this issue. It opens itself to criticism that it is encouraging division within the Hindu community.
How is it that under the PPPC, there was never such a division? Why now? Why suddenly when there is a new APNU+AFC government in place there is division on one of the most important festivals on the Hindu calendar?
The PNCR, which is part of APNU, likes to boast that Burnham was the architect of social cohesion. It claims that it was Burnham who made Diwali a national holiday. It therefore lays claim to forging respect for all the major religions of Guyana.
So why now is it not making more strenuous efforts to stop this division over the date when Diwali should be observed? Is it part of a political strategy to divide the Hindu community? If this is so, then all the talk about social cohesion is mere wish-wash.
The government is clearly leaning towards the opinions of certain Hindu leaders, however miniscule their support base, who are of the opinion that Diwali should be held one day earlier than the date declared by the Dharmic Sabha. The government is being disingenuous, and perhaps naughty, in ignoring the submission of the major Hindu organization in Guyana.
The actions of the government are divisive. The government is making a mockery of its own objective of social cohesion. It is creating discontent and confusion within the Hindu community in Guyana.
The division over the date of Diwali should not have occurred again this year. The government is shooting itself in the foot. The coalition won the elections because it enjoyed sufficient support from Indo-Guyanese to narrowly pip the PPPC. The AFC was seen as the party which brought that support over to the coalition.
The AFC is now embroiled in this division over the date of Diwali. It is alienating the very supporters which it needs to ensure a victory for the coalition the second time around. The Hindu community has not yet protested over what is happening. But it would be dishonest for anyone to claim that there is not major discontent over this decision.
The government should have made strenuous efforts to end this division. There was no need for the problem from last year to reoccur.
The government will be blamed for this state of affairs. The public will point to the fact that under the PPPC, there was never a voice raised in protest over the date of Diwali. So how come suddenly the government is being advised by sections of the Hindu community to keep Diwali on a date not shared by the major Hindu organization in Guyana?
One possible explanation could be that it is the major Hindu organization that is the source of the problem? But what can be the motivation of the organization on such an issue? And would such a decision not alienate its own membership?
The government, in the final analysis, will have to take the blame for not trying hard enough to resolve this problem, which may have been of its own creation.

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The division within the Hindu community

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