Meddling with people’s lives must stop. Reactionary forces are seemingly trying to have a say in everything that people do — what they eat, how they dress, fall in love, worship or celebrate festivals. The resistance to Christmas celebrations was handled with some firmness in a few states. But it appears this needling of people is spreading, with cries beginning against New Year Eve festivities. The argument about following the Gregorian calendar is fallacious. People now go by chronological convenience of something the world follows uniformly, even if many major religions in India follow their own calendars to fix the dates of their festivals.
The Madras high court had to step in to rule that temples could keep their doors open at midnight to welcome the New Year. It’s a paradox that governments have a say in the administration of major temples in certain states. They have no business to be in temple management and controlling religious matters. However, this isn’t a total disaster as temples have flourished in states like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, getting their grabbed lands back and fair rents from tenants, which might not have happened had they not been government-administered. But even so, temples that wish to keep their doors open to fulfil the people’s desire to seek the blessings of their gods very early in the New Year must not normally be denied. It’s one thing to say ancient temples must follow the Agama Sastras; quite another to insist on a blanket ban on every temple remaining open at midnight on a special day. It’s time for these ultra-conservative forces to learn to live and let live.
