When it comes to Hindu festivals, every Tom, Dick, and Harry start preaching to Hindus about how they should celebrate the festival. Every Hindu festival becomes a tool of preaching Hindus on issues ranging from pollution, animal safety, women harassments, women subjugation, and various other social, economical, and societal problems that exist in society.

There are a number of issues on which Hindus are preached upon on the festivals.

  • Women’s subjugation and women empowerment on Karwa Chauth.
  • Saving water on Holi.
  • Animal suffering on Pashubali.
  • Law and order and traffic rules during Kanwar Yatra.
  • Noise pollution during bhajans.
  • The most surprising thing came from PETA when they advised celebrating leather-free Rakshabandhan.

These issues simply do not arise in the festivals of other communities.

However, now it is not confined to the festivals itself, but it has now extended to various aspects of Hindu life as well. It has now spread to:

  • How Hindus should run their temples?
  • Who can enter the temple of the Hindus?
  • How should the Hindus pray?
  • What traditions should Hindus follow?
  • How temple money should be spent?

This has often led me to wonder, why it is the case that the main target is always the Hindus.

Finally, I got the answer to this question when I came across a documentary titled Altar of Fire documentary by Robert Gardner.

https://youtu.be/eKxhDQTx2m4

The documentary is quite a beautiful one and highlights in great detail the nitty-gritty of the Agnicayana a Vedic ritual of sacrifice dating back 3,000 years and probably the oldest surviving human ritual performed at Panjal, Kerala. April 1975.

This film records a 12-day ritual performed by Nambudiri Brahmins in Kerala. The ceremonies require the participation of seventeen priests, involve libations of Soma juice and oblations of other substances, all preceded by several months of preparation and rehearsals. They include the construction, from a thousand bricks, of a fire altar in the shape of a bird.

I was amazed at the documentary when I saw the Vedic ritual held at such a grand scale. Being from the North, I have never seen such rituals being held. However, one thing that surprised me the most was the fact that the sacrifice of goats being substituted.

Further I came across a video by Karolina Goswami.

https://youtu.be/pdJjatSVnrA

India is one of the least wasteful economies the survey also revealed that consumers in countries like Sweden Britain and Germany have been the worst offenders but still they express the least guilt on the other hand Indian consumers live the most sustainable lifestyle in spite of that Indian consumers feel the most guilty about their impact on the environment.

Karolina Goswami

It is because of the guilt consciousness of Hindus, that a number of governments, organizations, institutions, etc. find it easy to preach Hindus as compared to other communities.

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