Lessons to be learnt

THIS year, the celebration of Diwali is a special one. As we emerge from the darkness of a global pandemic, the long isolation under Covid-19 restrictions has symbolically mimicked the very essence of the spiritual journey itself. In any spiritual journey there are lessons to be learnt since life is a dynamic and ever-changing phenomenon.

Learning, says Professor Mahmoud Mamdani, the husband of Mira Nair, is both an individual and collective experience that comes with self-reflection.

What lessons have we learnt as Hindus in Africa for more than 160 years?

What have we contributed to the cultural landscape of South Africa? How are we viewed as a people?

These questions are pertinent for us as Indian minorities, particularly in the light of the 50th anniversary of the expulsion of Asians from Uganda.

What emerges for me as a participant observer of my group is that we are often viewed as being separate and unassimilable in the larger African context.

Annually, South Africans display narrowness in their cultural acceptance and understanding of each other.

We live like 2 year olds playing in the same sand pit but oblivious of each other. Now and then we gaze at each other in blurred ignorance.

During the festive seasons of Eid, Rosh Hashana and Diwali, our senses are vaguely alerted to some meaningless festival.

Diwali will be celebrated next week and many non-Hindus fear this festival on account of its pyretic bursts of loud bangs.

Is it fair to traumatise animals and disturb our fellow human beings with dangerous fireworks made in China?

Is it sensitive to burn money on firecrackers when people are starving and looking in garbage for their next meal?

But my elderly mother presents a more benign view, one that will be more acceptable and considerate to others when she shakily sings its joyous songs in Tamil, the language of the majority of Indian South Africans.

Loosely translated, she sings: let everyone come together and joyously sing and dance for it’s a good day this Diwali, our festival of lights.

My grandson paints Diwali lamps on Jewish candelabras and brings meaning to the saying that plurality is strength, bigotry is death.

If there is any celebration that should display some semblance of unity among Hindus in South Africa along ethnic and sectarian lines, it ought to be the celebration of Diwali or Deepavali, which brings together Gujaratis, Tamilians and Hindustanis under one banner.

And yet this is not always so because we tend to create differences through ritual practices which can cause unnecessary divisions among the believers and diminish the meaning of the message.

Do we make rhot with coconut nut oil or ghee? Who is allowed to eat it and who is allowed to make it? Does a Christian Indian cook sully the sanctity of the preparation? Do we eat meat on Diwali or not? Is Diwali a religious or celebratory occasion? Is fireworks an integral part of the celebration or not?

There is no organisational authority providing any leadership in this regard. Nevertheless, it is a cultural festival of common purpose, philosophy and religious practice. They all believe in the story of Rama and Sita as the epitome of the perfect man and the perfect woman.

The story of Rama is enshrined in the poem the Ramayana, which describes a legend of bravery, suffering and devotion of Rama and the beauty and grace of his wife Sita.

Few South African Indian children today have read the Ramayana, but I do recall as a child being told the story, which went on for a whole year, by my grandfather. Every evening after bath time we would nestle around his feet to hear the great, epic story.

As I grew older I began to seriously question the subservient role that Sita was cast into. From a male perspective, however, she would have been a heavenly depiction of unquestioning purity.

The original version was written by Valmiki in Sanskrit and later by Tulsidas in Hindustani in the 15th century and followed by other versions in Tamil, Telugu, Kashmiri, Farsi and English.

There are various alleged origins attributed to this festival. In Bengal the festival is dedicated to the worship of Goddess Kali. But most commemorate that blessed day on which the triumphant Lord Rama returned to Ajodhya after defeating Ravana.

On this day, Sri Krishna was believed to have killed the demon Narakasura. South Indians take an oil bath in the morning and wear new clothes.

Homes are cleaned and decorated by day and illuminated by night with earthen oil-lamps. They light fireworks, which are regarded as the effigies of Narakasura who was killed on this day.

Every home will carry the aroma of freshly made ghee and milk sweetmeats. On this day, Hindu merchants in North India open their new account books and pray for success and prosperity during the coming year.

But though Diwali is a festival celebrated over 160 years of our history in this country, we have tended to keep our celebrations to ourselves.

Little is known about Hindu culture by other South Africans outside of a stereotype. So Diwali for many non-South Africans is about unwelcome displays of fireworks.

Annually there is open hostility against the festival and those celebrating it with loud pyretic displays from mainly white South Africans.

Animals are as traumatised as their masters. There have been several postings on Twitter and Facebook where white South Africans have expressed their annoyance at this festival.

In defence, Hindus claimed that it was their right to celebrate Diwali as they traditionally have done for centuries. In all of this I am of the opinion that protesting South African Hindus are missing the point. The festival is not about fireworks at all.

Metaphorically speaking, the message is more powerful than the story.

It is about the battle for light over darkness. Deepavali means “the array of lights”.

Thamasomaa Jyotirgamaya (Lead me from darkness to light) is a Upanishadic prayer: This means that where there is darkness, light is needed. “What is this darkness?” asks a highly respected guru. Sorrow is one form of darkness. Peacelessness is another. Loss is another. Disappointment is one form of darkness. Misery is yet another. Lack of enthusiasm is another.

All these are different forms of darkness.

As South Africans we experienced the victory of more than 40 years of darkness of racial hatred when Mandela, like Rama, walked out of prison.

On the international stage a darkness still prevails in the Ukrainian war and Putin may be cast as the demon God against whom the Western liberal world is in battle.

Within our country dark forces are still at play in the very structures of government where nepotism, racism, xenophobia and other forms of deep-rooted racism abound.

The challenge of our times is for us to fight the malaise of social degradation which is essentially about the eradication of morality.

If we do not, then sadly, we will be travelling back into darkness, and no amount of clay lamps can light our way forward.

Rajab is an award-winning writer and psychologist.

DR DEVI RAJAB