While not as far away from the equator as Northern India to fully appreciate the fear precipitated by the inexorable increase in darkness over the last few weeks in autumn. This led the settlers to light fires to encourage Mother to reverse the seemingly apocalyptic end state with no sunshine. But in Guyana we still get the idea. Tomorrow night will be the darkest and longest night of the year and Hindus and well-wishers will light their diyas and other illumination. No matter what our religious persuasion, we can appreciate how the early Indians could have moved from the experience of this physical phenomenon of light overcoming darkness to the symbolic representation of the removal of evil as darkness by the light of goodness. This is the origin of the Hindu festival of Divali or Deepavali – meaning ‘a row of lights”.
By now most Guyanese should be aware of the symbolic aspects of all Hindu festivals that seek to transmit lessons on living in society so that the greater good for all is increasingly approached. Because of changing circumstances, notions of the “good” will also change so that a “better society” is always a work in progress. Our country of Guyana is at an important crossroads on our long journey towards achieving the good life. We began in chattel slavery which was one of the darkest periods of human life: enslaved Africans were property that could be used at the whims, fancies, and pathologies of the “master”. That darkness was removed by 1838 through the resistance of the enslaved. Darkness in human life will only be removed by the light of human struggle.
This was followed by eight decades of indentureship rather than the ‘free labour” that was promised by the “humanitarians” who attempted to take the credit for the abolition of slavery. During indentureship the forces of “law and order” ironically kept the indentured “bound” in darkness to labour for a pittance. But that too passed through the light of struggle even as the colonials used “the leaden argument” – bullets. It was during this period that Hindu Indian indentured introduced their festival of Divali.
Since they were forced to labour from dawn to dusk, while they were unable able to properly observe all the Indian practices they lit solitary diyas in their fourteen by ten feet room, which they cleaned as scrupulously as they could… Divali was important to them for two reasons. The first was they had specifically come to Guyana for economic reasons and by their Hindu beliefs, Divali honored Mother Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth.
Divali also commemorated the return of Sri Ram, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu, who sustains the universe, and who had been banished to the forests to endure privations for fourteen years. Because the story of Rama was familiar to the North Indians who were the majority of indentured, they identified with his trials and tribulations and eventual victory. During that time, his wife Sita had been kidnapped by the evil King Ravan and he had gathered an army and defeated his nemesis. The Indentured saw him demonstrating that they also should confront their oppressors directly to remove the darkness of plantation exploitation. By the end of indentureship by 1920, Divali was publicly celebrated by the Hindus vary widely both in their homes and their temples (“Mandirs”) that had sprouted in their villages.
Fast forward past the twenty-eight years of darkness and “independence” when the PNC denied their human right to vote for a government of their choice they had struggled for. It must be confessed that many chose to flee the darkness rather than fight it because of the enormity of the forces arrayed against them. But free and fair elections were returned in 1992 so that when at last oil was struck the country has the wherewithal to remove both economic and political darkness. Divali 2022 should remind Hindus and all Guyanese that they have to be the light to ensure we do not return to darkness.
