Indian High Commissioner hails Guyana’s unique Diwali celebrations, culture

– says motorcades make celebrations more colourful, very special

Guyana and India share many values, heritage and traditions but over the years, some of these practices have been refashioned to fit the Guyanese culture – something which Indian High Commissioner, Dr Amit Telang, has lauded for its uniqueness.

“Diwali is a very special festival, and this is also part of our shared heritage between India and Guyana, and other countries like Suriname and Trinidad, where again, it is very widely celebrated… In Guyana, there is a very unique feature, which I find very interesting, and that is basically the Diwali Motorcade.”
“So, I would like to mention and compliment all our Guyanese brothers and sisters first, because this is a very unique initiative, which we normally don’t see, at least not in India… Maybe the Guyanese diaspora might be doing it at a smaller scale in other places where, say for example, in the US or Canada. But this is something which makes it even more colourful and very special,” the High Commissioner stated in a recent interview with Guyana Times.
Diwali, also known as the Festival of Lights, is a religious Hindu observance that is celebrated as a national holiday in Guyana.
In Guyana, the observance starts weeks before with the cleaning and decoration of homes in preparation for Diwali. On this day, Hindus prepare sweetmeats – delicious treats like mettai, parsad, vermicelli, etc and scrumptious meals like seven curry, a cuisine unique to Guyana. These are shared with family, friends and neighbours – even strangers.
Dr Telang noted that many of these sweetmeats are variations of traditional Indian sweets.

At night, homes are beautifully illuminated with lit diyas (small clay pots) and fairy lights placed around yards and inside houses.
According to High Commissioner Telang, who is spending his second Diwali here since being posted in Guyana, Guyanese celebrate some of these festivals more than some parts of India.
“I think this was a pleasant surprise for me when I came to Guyana, that the Indian diaspora, they are very closely connected to the temples in Guyana. And it is not only at Diwali, but any other major [Hindu] festivals. I think Guyanese families, communities, they make it a point to visit their temple. They engage in, you know, in terms of the aarti, the puja and satsang (singing and chanting).”
“Sometimes I do find in India that, especially maybe in some parts of India, it might be very common, but in the majority of the other areas sometimes we feel that that kind of visit to temples at the time of festivals is not very commonly observed. So, this is a very good thing which I find here in Guyana,” he noted.
This sense of togetherness and community, the Indian diplomat explained, is very integral to the Diwali celebration. He commended the unity and harmony displayed during this holiday especially with the thousands of Guyanese from all backgrounds who line the roadways or gather at various venues across the country to witness the vibrant float parades during the motorcades, and the grand event hosted on the night before the holiday from Georgetown to the LBI Community Centre Ground on the East Coast of Demerara.
“One thing is: people visiting their temples, meeting the extended family, and of course, it is also community spirit, which is very important… If I may try to make a guess, that has something to do with the plantation culture. Because normally when people were at the plantations, these were the occasions when the entire community could come together. They could visit a temple; they could share their happiness. So, probably that trend has continued over the generations. And we did not have something similar in India, that we don’t normally see,” he stated.

Cultural exchanges
Since Dr Telang’s arrival to serve as the Indian High Commissioner to Guyana, there have been heightened cultural-related activities being hosted through the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre (SVCC), from a film festival with special showing of Indian movies to annual Garba celebrations and for the first time this year, spectacular depiction of Ramleela during the Dusshera celebrations.
Moreover, there are also a series of cultural exchange programmes to bolster these relations between the two countries and their peoples, including the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) initiative.

Currently, the SVCC – the Indian Culture Centre in Guyana with support from the ICCR, is hosting a folk-dance group from Uttar Pradesh, Vraj Sanskritik Group, that has been showcasing the Brijbhumi culture across Guyana.
In addition to their grand show on Saturday evening at the Indian Monument Garden in Georgetown, the folk-dance group has already performed at the First Family’s Pre-Diwali celebrations at State House on Friday evening and at the Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha’s motorcade events in various regions including the grant cultural programme on Sunday evening at LBI.
According to Dr Telang, these activities are geared towards fostering the rich shared culture between Guyana and India.
“Culture is very integral to our relationship… We cannot ignore the fact that we are connected through our culture. Over a period of time, certain new trends have emerged, even in the Caribbean region. Indo-Caribbean culture has also emerged, which is a mix of new trends from the region and all that.”
“But yet, we see there is a lot of attachment of people in Guyana still with their ancestral roots. So, they are still interested in music. They are interested in dance and everything to do with Indian culture, celebrating all the festivals. Some of them are celebrated, as I said, more enthusiastically in Guyana compared to what we see in India. So, culture has been a very important part of our celebration and of our relationship.”
The Indian High Commissioner noted that there was feedback from elders in the Indo-Guyanese community who wanted to see more cultural events outside of the major celebrations like Diwali and Phagwah holidays, such as Dusshera Ravan Dahan – something that is widely observed in Trinidad and Tobago as well as Suriname.
Dr Telang added that these activities are also part of efforts to reintroduce and reinvigorate the Indian culture among the younger generation.
“We recognise that without culture and without this historical link or collective heritage, the relationship [between Guyana and Indian] cannot develop. It is essential for the relationship to develop and these bonds need to be preserved,” the High Commissioner asserted.
Guyana and India formally established diplomatic relations in May 1965 and since then, both nations have maintained strong and vibrant relations premised on the historical, cultural, and economic ties.