This is it. I can’t take it anymore. Celebrating Holi by standing on the walls of a temple at Assi Ghat, Varanasi, while smoking and dancing on obscene songs, calling girl dancers who were not just dancing – but making vulgar and sexual actions at a festival so rooted in bhakti was just disgusting.
Let me give you the reason why I’m saying so. Per Vishnu Puran, Holi is celebrated because of Prahlad’s devotion to Lord Vishnu and denial to worship his father, the demon king Hiranyakashyap, because of which Hiranyakashyap tasked Holika, Prahlad’s paternal aunt, to burn him. Holika had a fire-proof cloak that she thought would protect her, but it didn’t. Prahlad was saved as he continuously chanted Lord Vishnu’s name.
Now, you tell me: destroying a festival whose essence lies in the Lord’s name and replacing it with the above-mentioned stuff. Is it at any moral stage, correct? I bet you won’t disagree.
Now, step into any major Indian metropolis during Holi, Deepawali or any other Hindu festival, and you are greeted by a kaleidoscope of neon lights, high-octane bass drops, and senseless Bollywood songs. At ‘Holi Raves’, the organic earthiness of Abir has been replaced by chemical foams, and the traditional folk songs of the Braj region are drowned out by electronic dance music. What a fall for us.
I remember Deepawali from my childhood, when we used to rejoice in the experience of Prabhu Ram’s august arrival at our homes. For us, that day, the whole Bharat was Ayodhya. In the sparkle of crackers and the light of deepaks, the puja always remained a necessity. Values always remained the actual essence.
But now, the same Deepawali has increasingly transitioned from a quiet, oil-lamp-lit homecoming for Shri Ram into a high-stakes social marathon of ‘Diwali Mixers’, where the exchange of expensive hampers takes precedence over the Deep-Daan (lighting a lamp and placing it in a specific location). Where Deepawali parties with alcohol are more prominent than Lakshmi pujan (a significant Hindu ritual to welcome Devi Lakshmi into the home for prosperity, blessings and happiness).
On the surface, all these celebrations might look vibrant. But look closer, and tell me that the spiritual gravity, the soul of the festival, is missing or not? Because what we are essentially witnessing is the birth of a generic, festival-themed party culture that uses Hindu iconography as a backdrop while discarding the theology (study of religion) that gives it a meaning.
When the story of Shri Ram’s return from Lanka or the significance of Vamana’s arrival during Onam is stripped away to make the event palatable or secular for a globalized audience, the festival no longer remains a ‘rite’; it becomes a ‘brand’. And I need not tell you, brands are to sell.
Further, this isn’t also just about how people choose to party; it is about a systemic commercialisation that treats ancient, sacred rituals as mere ‘lifestyle aesthetics,’ slowly erasing the profound religious history that once anchored these traditions.
The crux of modern Indian public life is a peculiar, one-sided expectation: that for a Hindu festival to be inclusive, it must first be stripped of its Hindu identity. We see this in the increasing pressure to rebrand Onam, a festival rooted in the specific Puranic landscape of the Vamana avatar and King Mahabali, as a purely secular harvest festival.
In 2009, EMS Namboodiripad, Kerala’s one of the most prominent Communist leaders, argued that Mahabali’s reign symbolised a time of primitive communism, a classless society where justice, equality, and prosperity prevailed. For him, the Onam legend (story) was not about devotion to Vishnu but about a pre-class utopia destroyed by Brahmanical cunning.
Following this, the Dravidian social reform poets and leaders began to cast Mahabali as a low-caste king betrayed by Vamana, a Brahmin dwarf, who represented ‘Aryan trickery’. After all, they believe in the long-debunked Aryan Invasion Theory. Like this, they used their interpretation and turned a sacred story of divine dharma where Lord Vishnu helped the King achieve Atma-Nivedanam (total self-surrender) by liberating Mahabali from Ahaṁkāra (ego), into a tale of caste conflict.
Result? In September 2016, when Union Home Minister Amit Shah wished ‘Vamana Jayanti’. Communist leader Pinarayi Vijayan, who was also the Chief Minister of Kerala, along with other leaders from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), argued that celebrating Onam as Vamana Jayanti was an insult to its secular spirit.
This shows: secularism requires you to spit on your festivals.
They argued that Onam is about an egalitarian society and not a religious victory of a Deva (Vamana) over an Asura (Mahabali).
Mortals, I’m using this as one such example to show that while the openness of Sanatan Dharma has always welcomed the guest and the seeker, there is a burgeoning, costly trend where the sacred is sacrificed at the altar of secularism.
This push for dilution stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of Indian secularism. Unlike the Western model, which seeks a total wall of separation between the state and the church, the Indian Constitution recognizes a different reality.
In India, it is the state that is secular, not the people. The state is mandated to maintain an equal distance from all faiths, yet it explicitly recognizes the right of its citizens to profess, practice, and propagate their religion under Article 25.
I know, this is laughable. But, it is what it is.
Why, then, is the burden of ‘inclusivity’ disproportionately placed upon the Hindu majority? The problem is not the act of being inclusive; Hindus have historically been the most welcoming of hosts.
The problem lies in the process of this inclusivity, a process that demands we make a mockery of our own faith to make others feel comfortable.
And it is here that I have trouble.
Because when we dilute our rituals to accommodate a secular gaze, we don’t practice pluralism; we engage in a slow, self-inflicted erasure of our cultural DNA.
And this erasure doesn’t happen by not merely sharing sweets with neighbors; it happens when the integrity of our rituals is systematically diluted.
What’s interesting is this. Nobody asks other major global faiths to secularize their core holy days to prove their tolerance. Why, then, must Hindu traditions bear the burden of erasing their own history to fit a modern, commercialized mould? Also, it is not like that we’re not responsible for this chaos. Definitely, as already said earlier in the piece, we are as much responsible as the markets and media.
If I now talk about the danger of this ‘secular’ rebranding of festivals is that it invites a form of participation that is purely transactional and devoid of respect. So, all are welcome. Welcome, even if you don’t know about the festival. Welcome, even if you think that it’s a good idea to drink on the sacred festival night. Welcome, welcome and only welcome.
This gets more serious because when a festival is stripped of its religious and moral boundaries, it becomes a product available for mass consumption. For everyone. We see this in the surge of ‘Holi Parties’, ‘Teej Kitties’ and ‘Diwali Galas’ organized by commercial entities that have no stake in the tradition’s values. In these spaces, the ritual is not merely shared; it is desecrated for the sake of lifestyle branding. It’s cool, so let’s do it.
Unlike the festivals of other major faiths where the sanctity of the ritual is generally guarded by both the community and the state. Hindu traditions are increasingly expected to be ‘open’ to the point of self-effacement. This leads to a troubling anomaly of individuals of other faiths joining the celebration, while ignoring the underlying codes of conduct or the spiritual significance.
Individuals who want the ‘aesthetic’ of the color and the light, but they reject the discipline that the ritual demands. By divorcing the ‘party’ from the ‘prasad,’ we allow our culture to be treated as a playground.
Safeguarding these rituals is not an act of narrow-mindedness; it is an act of cultural survival. It is the assertion that our festivals are not just ‘dates on a calendar’ or ‘themes for a concert,’ but living embodiments of a civilizational soul that deserves to remain intact.
The preservation of Hindu festivals is not a call for exclusion, but a demand for authenticity. To safeguard the soul value of these traditions, we must move beyond the performance of secularism and return to the sanctity of the ritual. This requires a two-fold approach: a rejection of state-sponsored dilution and a personal commitment to religious literacy.
I’m of this firm opinion that individuals must remain free to choose how they live whether that involves drinking, partying, or secular celebration. But those personal choices should not be allowed to rewrite the cultural DNA. Apologizing for the religious roots of our joy must stop.
I say: when we celebrate Deepawali, we are celebrating the return of the Maryada Purushottam; when we celebrate Onam, we are honoring the presence of Vamana. By firmly re-anchoring these festivals in their theological origins, we create a boundary that the market cannot easily cross.
The division of the ‘sacred’ from the ‘secular,’ ensuring that our ancient rituals remain not just visible, but vital, for generations to come is a necessity now, not an option.
