When festivals become tools to deepen divides

A disturbing trend is taking shape today where religious processions are turning into a show of force or projection of power

- Shashi Shekhar

I was feeling jittery on the day of Holi. The last fortnight had been full of ominous news. Two states had already witnessed clashes between two of the country's largest communities.

Is Holi, a traditional festival of love and universal kinship, fast becoming a relic of a bygone golden era?

To find an answer, let me take you on a tour down memory lane to the formative years of my journalistic career. I remember the time in the early 1980s when I would attend meetings organised by the district administration in police stations in Varanasi and Allahabad. They were called aman committee meetings. All the senior district officers along with many priests, sants, heads of the mutts, muftis and maulvis as well as important citizens of the city would attend these peace meetings.

Every year, after holding hours of discussions, the committee would arrive at the same conclusion that all the communities would celebrate Holi together. The officers, while maintaining utmost cordiality, never failed to issue veiled threats, albeit in sugar-coated words, casually mentioning that anyone who tried to act smart would pay a heavy price.