When pollution becomes patriotism and crackers
become culture, Diwali loses its light.
Diwali was once a quiet dialogue between the soul and the flame. Today, it
has become a competition of noise, smoke, and self-congratulation. What was
meant to celebrate light over darkness now celebrates defiance over discipline.
The modern Diwali is less about devotion and more about decibels — and, under
the shadow of political Sanatanis, even firecrackers have been recast as
instruments of nationalism. The BJP and its ideological family have turned this
ancient festival into a political performance, where bursting a cracker is not
a matter of joy but an act of identity.
Diwali was never meant to be a festival of noise. It was, in its essence,
the celebration of light, of inner awakening, of knowledge conquering
ignorance. It was the evening when flickering diyas became metaphors for the
human spirit — humble, luminous, enduring. Today, however, those lamps struggle
to be seen amid the blinding flashes and deafening bursts of modern vanity. The
festival of light has slowly turned into a theatre of explosions. What was once
a spiritual symphony has become an environmental emergency wrapped in the smoke
of misplaced pride and manufactured faith.
To understand how this happened, one must travel back in time. The earliest
references to Diwali appear in the ancient Sanskrit texts of Padma Purana
and Skanda Purana, where it was described as a celebration of the return
of light, harvest, and prosperity. It was linked to the victory of Lord Rama
over Ravana in the north, the worship of Goddess Lakshmi in the west, and the
triumph of Krishna over Narakasura in the south. The oil lamp was its
centrepiece. No firecrackers. No sulphur clouds. Only the soft glow of oil
lamps lining the courtyards of homes, symbolising the eternal triumph of good
over evil.
The story of firecrackers in India begins elsewhere — in China. Around the
ninth century, Chinese alchemists discovered gunpowder while searching for the
elixir of immortality. What they found instead was a formula that could fill
the sky with thunder and colour. The technology travelled through Arab traders,
reached Persia, and finally arrived in India around the fourteenth to fifteenth
centuries. By the time the Mughal emperors began to rule, fireworks had become
a form of royal entertainment, known as atishbazi. The Mughals used them
to celebrate victories, coronations, and grand festivals. Akbar is said to have
enjoyed magnificent firework displays that illuminated his palaces like
daylight.
From there, the flame of fascination spread. Fireworks became a symbol of
power and celebration. Wealthy merchants and zamindars began using them in
weddings and festivals, including Diwali. Slowly, a ritual of light turned into
a spectacle of noise. The transformation of Diwali from an occasion of
spiritual reflection into a carnival of firecrackers was not a sudden event but
a gradual cultural drift — a merging of tradition with imperial display, and
eventually with commercial greed.
During the British period, fireworks became more accessible. The East India
Company imported gunpowder and pyrotechnic materials from Europe. By the late
nineteenth century, local workshops began producing small-scale fireworks in
Calcutta and Bombay. However, the real explosion came in the early twentieth
century with the establishment of the Sivakasi industry in Tamil Nadu. What
began as a printing and matchstick business soon diversified into firecrackers.
By independence, Sivakasi had become the heart of India’s fireworks production,
supplying the nation with its annual dose of festive pollution. The sacred
festival of lamps had now acquired a new avatar — one that came with smoke,
sound, and child labour.
The irony is painful. Diwali, which once celebrated the victory of life
over darkness, now fills the air with toxins that choke life itself. The
Central Pollution Control Board records dangerous spikes in air quality levels
every Diwali night. Cities like Delhi, Lucknow, and Kolkata witness air quality
indexes soaring into the severe category. The morning after Diwali smells of
burnt chemicals and suffocated lungs. Children and animals suffer silently.
Hospitals report an increase in respiratory distress, eye irritation, and even
heart complications. Yet, every year, the spectacle returns — louder, brighter,
and deadlier.
And now, to this ecological chaos, politics has added its own brand of
toxicity. The so-called Sanatani brigade and its political custodian,
the BJP, have turned even firecrackers into a litmus test of religious
identity. The right to burst crackers has become, in their vocabulary, a mark
of nationalism. Any attempt by the courts or civic authorities to regulate
fireworks for health or environmental reasons is projected as an “attack on
Hinduism.” This deliberate distortion turns science into sacrilege and pollution
into pride.
When a court says “do not pollute the air,” they say “save Sanatan Dharma.”
When a doctor says “this will kill your lungs,” they say “this is our
tradition.” The very people who preach discipline and purity have made defiance
their political ritual. Firecrackers have become another weapon in their larger
war of cultural assertion — not against darkness, but against dissent. It is
not about faith anymore. It is about domination.
This selective religiosity does not protect tradition; it manipulates it.
The BJP and its ideological parent, the Sangh Parivar, have turned every
cultural practice into a battlefield. From food to festivals, every act of
daily life is now loaded with a communal message. They want to tell you what to
eat, whom to marry, and now, how loudly to celebrate. The idea is simple — to
project Hindutva as Hinduism, and political arrogance as divine right. In that
process, even Diwali’s soft light is weaponised to cast a shadow over other
communities.
It is not uncommon today to hear hate-filled slogans around Diwali that
equate the bursting of crackers with revenge against “invaders.” This is the
language of resentment, not religion. The same voices that talk about Lord
Rama’s return to Ayodhya conveniently forget that Rama’s victory was not
through noise or hate, but through dharma and restraint. Those who shout the
loudest about Sanatan Dharma often practise the least of its values. They burn
the skies in the name of God, while burning reason on the ground.
A noiseless Diwali is not an attack on faith. It is a return to faith. It
is a reminder that light itself is enough. The diya never competes with the
sun, yet it transforms the night. The silence of a lamp is not its weakness; it
is its wisdom. When we abandon the sound of crackers, we rediscover the sound
of conscience. When we clear the air of smoke, we make space for the fragrance
of devotion. The true celebration of Diwali lies not in the destruction of the
senses but in the awakening of the self.
Let Diwali be a festival that unites joy with responsibility, beauty with
compassion, and celebration with conscience. Let us light our homes, not our
skies. Let the only explosions be those of laughter and love. The world is
already burning with enough hatred and noise; it does not need another fire.
The festival of light must return to its roots — luminous, peaceful, and
pure.
Author’s Note:
Advocate Siddhartha Shankar Mishra is a practising lawyer at the Supreme
Court of India. He writes on law, politics, and society with a focus on reason
and reform. He can be reached at ssmishra33@gmail.com.
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