Dire need to sustain the spirit of Holi longer

Holi celebrates the arrival of spring, the end of winter, the blossoming of love. It is a festive day to meet others, play and laugh, forget and forgive, and repair broken relationships. The festival also celebrates the beginning of a good spring harvest season.

The moral of the story is that good always wins over evil, and those who seek to torment the faithful will be destroyed. To celebrate the story, large bonfires are lit on the day of the festival. Holi gets us close to our religion and our mythology as it is essentially the celebration of various legends associated with the festival.

Foremost is the legend of Prahlad and Hiranyakashyap. The legend says there once lived a devil and powerful king, Hiranyakashyap who considered himself a god and wanted everybody to worship him. To his great ire, his son, Prahlad began to worship, Lord Vishnu.

To get rid of his son, Hiranyakashyap asked his sister, Holika to enter a blazing fire with Prahlad in her lap, as she had a boon to enter fire unscathed. Legend has it that Prahlad was saved for his extreme devotion for the lord while Holika paid a price for her sinister desire. The tradition of burning Holika or the 'Holika dahan' comes mainly from this legend.

The misfortune of our Indian political system is that we keep narrating the stories of Holika but refuse to learn any lesson from it. Leaders in a routine manner extend Holi greetings to the people but fail to translate the spirit of the Holi into practice.

Political differences on policies is understandable but accusing other party leaders as useless and good for nothing, calling them brainless and patting their own back is not healthy politics.

What cannot be put in practice, should not be used as a ritual. It is said even when you pray it is the devotion and belief that is important than ritual. But our politicians believe more in rituals and not in what they say.

Imagine a situation where the ruling party members going to the house of opposition party leaders, apply colour on them, share sweets, shake a leg with people present there and express bonhomie. It could be the other way round as well.

But that will never happen. Because they do not believe in giving up ego and following the spirit of Holi. The only thing in their mind always would be how to gain political advantage out of everything.

Let's take the example of Telangana. Leaders will apply colours on each other, will dance and may taste Bhang also. Nothing wrong in it as it is all part of tradition. But if they come across a microphone of any TV channel they would forget the spirit of Holi and the intoxication of Bhang and would give lecture on how the centre was not following the rules of federalism and how they were trying to muzzle the voice of the opposition.

The ruling party leaders on other hand would lash at Centre detailing how it was anti-democratic and how it was heaping injustice on the state and will challenge the state unit of BJP to get funds of Rs 10,000 crore or Rs 20,000 crore if they have the capacity. What should we call this if not hypocrisy?

If they get a little extra time to speak, they will repeat what their top leaders including the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao or MAUD Minister K T Rama Rao had sad both in the Assembly and outside about the alleged injustice meted by Modi government.

Their claims would include, 'Single Engine' Telangana government was on right track. For the first time the state has been able to get Rs one lakh crore as revenue. It is the only state which has introduced welfare schemes which no one could even dream anywhere in the country. India has become rotten as there is no leader who can take it forward. Only TRS and its leader KCR has the vision and capacity to see that India become Golden India. Telangana is now corruption-free.

There is nothing wrong in making such claims. For a moment let us also agree that they are true to the core. Every political party does and should make such claims. Even BJP keeps making several claims. But then in the process no political party should stoop down to personal accusations which has become new norm in the last one decade.

Added to it the 'Durbaris' in all parties paint a scenario saying all is well. We have seen how 'Durbaris' have led to the decimation of Congress from the political map. If the regional satraps do not wake up and stop falling in this cesspool, their political future too would be in danger.

Added to this, we now have a new breed of commercial strategists who believe in creating a wedge between different sections of people. The controversy that broke regarding a statement made by Tridandi Srimanaryana Chinna Jeeyar Swamy relating to Sammakka Sarakka is being seen as a game for some narrow political advantage.

While the Congress leaders want to utilise this to see that their Adivasi vote bank is intact, the TRS apparently wants to see that the Adivasis do not get attracted towards Congress or the saffron party. The BJP has been silent on this as it fears that it might lose the Adivasi votes if they defend Chinna Jeeyar Swamy. However, informally they feel that there has been too much of Kolaveri for no reason.

They wonder how the social media suddenly picked something that was said about twenty years back and has been making mountain out of molehill. What has come as a surprise is that how and why a two-decade old statement is being presented as if the said it now and an agitation was being sought to be created.

In fact, the general impression one had all these years ever since Telangana state was formed was that the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao who is considered to be a highly religious person who had performed many yagnas has been considering Chinna Jeeyar Swamy as sort of Rajaguru.

He had been seeking the advice of Jeeyar Swamy in the renovation of the Yadadri temple on various aspects pertaining to Agama Sastra and Vaastu Sastra. He also took active interest in supervising the arrangements for the inauguration of Samatha Murty, the statue of Equality when it was ready for inauguration.

But when the controversy broke out, he was silent. On the other hand the indications are that Chinna Jeeyar Swamy may not be taking part in the inauguration of renovated Yadadri temple. Jeeyar Swamy himself said that he had no invite and would go if invited.

The protests and statements that have been pouring in across Telangana had even left Chinna Jeeyar Swamy surprised. He had to come before the media and clarify that he never insulted anyone and that a statement made about 20 years back was torn out of context apparently for some narrow gains.

Trying to put an end to this issue he said that he had stated that Sammakka and Sarakka were grama devatas. They were people from among us (tribals) who attained the stature of a devata by their deeds unlike other gods and goddesses. He said having said so, he also added that some anti-social elements were misusing the name of these grama devatas and resorting to certain acts which could be dangerous for the society.

He said instead of indulging in all kinds of protests and speaking on electronic media, it would have been better if the so-called protectors of society had met him and taken his clarification and examined the context in which he made the statement. He said he belongs to system of Ramanujacharya who never discriminated between any religion or caste and infact worked for the upliftment of the Girijans and Dalits. He also added that he himself has been working with Adivasis in Adilabad area since 2002.

All this reminds me of a dialogue from a film called Rajneeti where it is said that politicians pull out even dead from grave if they feel that it is necessary politically. Are the ongoing protests on Swamy ji's statement similar to the dialogue in the film ?

This episode also perhaps conveys a message that it is time the seers and Swamy's keep themselves away from the politicians. They need to ensure that there was no gap between them and the God and not move or appear to be moving closer to any politician or political party or leader.

The spirit of Holi can blossom only when a clear line is drawn between the politicians and seers and swamis and when the people too play their part sensibly during elections. They should resist the temptation of note for vote during polls and stop getting lured by promises of freebies.