Holi is one of the festivals brought by the indentured Indians (Girmitiyas) from mainly from North India, where it is celebrated most widely. “Phagua” is its Bhojpuri name, used by the majority Girmitiya group in Guyana. During the Indentureship period, the authorities sometimes feared the mobilizing potential of the festivals and banned processional ones like Tadzia or Muhhuram, But Phagua would have been “played” mainly in the logies of each sugar estate and was non-threatening. As Roy Glasgow noted the retention of this and other cultural practices flowed from deep imperatives: “The Indians emphasis on the value and worthiness of his culture was really a mode of expression of his desire to be treated in terms of equality within the Guianese universe.”
Because of their strained conditions during Indentureship, Phagwah would have been celebrated generally by dousing fellow logie residents with water from the surrounding canals. Powder and abeer were scarce and expensive. Because it was not recognised as a Public Holiday until 1967, the celebration had to be observed around working and school hours unless it happened to fall on Sundays – a Christian holiday. The rationales for the performative aspects of Phagwah, however, were well known to the immigrants since they all were exposed to them in the regular village activities in plays , Kathas (expositions) and dances based on the stories handed down before 300BC. For the generations far removed from Indentureship, the yearly replenishment of new immigrants to 1917 and the establishment of the mandir-centered Hinduism that evolved here, would have reiterated those lessons, two of which centered on Phagwah.
The first was on Prahalad. He defied his father King Hiranyakashipu, who insisted he was greater than the Divine Creator and Sustainer Vishnu. The story exemplifies the Hindu exhortation that adherents speak truth to power, no matter who transgresses the rules of Dharma. In one test of Prahalad’s commitment to truth, his aunt Holika attempts to incinerate him in a pyre but he emerged unscathed. In village India and in Guyana this incident is recreated as “Holika Dahaan’” (the burning of Holika) and the ash, considered holy because of the religious sacraments performed, is rubbed the participants.
The following morning, in a joyous and boisterous display of togetherness – in which all social distinctions are suspended – water if splashed and red abrack and coloured powders are smeared on fellow celebrants, while red-coloured water (abeer) is squirted from “pichkaris” (water pumps). Some mistakenly think that the abeer represents the blood of the King who was slain by Vishnu’s incarnation, Narasimha (literally “man-lion”). But this aspect of the Phagwah comes from another ancient story – the eternal love of Krishna and Radha. This is why Phagwah is also called Rangwali Holi – the festival of colors – and Festival of love.
The Krishna Radha story explains that the boy Krishna, incarnation of Vishnu, asks his mother why his friend Radha is fair while he is is dark. As the popular song “Yashomati Maiya” explains, Radha replies “Oh mother, your beloved Krishna is the most unique in the world; that’s why he’s dark”! Mother, Yashoda, playfully suggests that Krishna smear some brightly coloured powder on Radha’s face and the tradition was born. The day after Holika Dahan, then is a day of love and joy. The 7th century, Indian emperor Harsha described rhe festivities in the play, “Ratnavavali”: “Witness the beauty of the great love festival which excites curiosity as the townsfolk are dancing at the touch of brownish water thrown … Everything is colored yellowish red and rendered dusty by the heaps of scented powder blown all over.”
In modern Guyana, without any compulsion or state diktat, the celebration of Phagwah has organically spread outside of the original Hindu/Indian community into the entire society. This year, there was a special reason for celebrating Phagwah: the evil of COVID 19 – which took 1226 lives – appears to have eased, if not passed. As such, Holika Dahan would have given thanks for our survival, and the celebrations of the following day, our joy of living together as “One Guyana”.
For those who are upset at some of the changes that have crept into our celebration of Phagwah, we have to understand that culture is always evolving according to time (Kala), place (Desh) and circumstances (paristiti). But once the fundamental principle to uphold and promote Dharma is not violated, we must accept change as inevitable. It may surprise some to learn that Chowtaal has disappeared from even the Bhojpuri Belt from where we brought it.
