India needs a mass movement for banning crackers. For what is considered enjoyment is tantamount to collective suicidal self-indulgence
India is in the grip of a raging COVID-19 pandemic, which is surging forward relentlessly. New cases and deaths are reported every day in alarming numbers. Things are made worse by severe air pollution levels in many places — particularly Delhi. Besides enhancing people’s vulnerability to the Corona virus — these are causing permanent damage to the health of children and the old. One would have thought that all this and the crisis stalking the economy would invoke a sombre mood that would be reflected in the observance of Deepavali, one of the most beautiful events in the country, which is celebrated by a large section of Indians of the diaspora as well, and prompts warm gestures by friendly countries. Witness the lighting up of the Times Square in New York City on the occasion.
One had expected that the emphasis in India would be on observing Deepavali as a festival of lights, dispelling the gloom that has enveloped the country this year, creating an interlude of cheer in the midst of grief and despair. One had hoped that people would abjure crackers, whose use had been banned or severely restricted in many parts of the country. Nothing like this happened. There was not only no decline in their use but they continued to be burst on Deepavali day, which was November 14, and in some cases, even a week later, albeit in diminishing frequency.
Sky-rocketing decibel levels heaped miseries on the old, infirm and the ill. Animals, particularly dogs, suffered terribly, with some going almost crazy with fear. Billowing smoke from cracker bursts severely spiked the already high air-pollution levels that had been playing havoc. Unforgivably, all this happened despite restrictions and bans, exhortations against unrestrained cracker bursts by civil society elements, environmentalists and a growing army of school children pleading that their future be not jeopardised. In fact, over the past several years now, there has been a growing movement calling for a progressive reduction in the explosion of crackers and a ban on the more deafening and polluting kinds of these, without, of course, any significant effect.
Why is it that a large section of Indians is relentlessly trying to reduce what is meant to be a splendid festival of lights into a prolonged orgy of horrid, ear drum-splitting noise? They cannot be unaware of the consequences of what they are doing and the impact this will have on their children and grandchildren, not only in terms of health but of character. Their progenies, and those of the latter, will come to feel that what matters is doing what they want to and not their society’s well-being and future, and that rules and laws can be broken with impunity. The consequences can be serious in terms of maintaining social harmony and law and order if this leads to a generally cavalier attitude towards obeying laws, including those embodied in the penal code in respect of crimes like murder, robbery, serious fraud, printing of counterfeit currency and so on.
People engaged in orgies of bursting crackers cannot be unaware of the consequences of what they are doing. These have been dinned into their consciousness for at least two decades now. Is it that they enjoy bursting crackers so much that they cannot help doing it heedless of the consequences? If this be true, what can be the explanation?
To answer the first question, one needs to look at some of the deeper processes at work. Every action by an individual is fundamentally a result of instinct or an exercise of will. One instinctively jumps out of the way of a truck that suddenly comes across a bend and threatens to run one over. It is the result of the instinct for survival at work. The bursting of a cracker is an act of will, the final one of a series that involves the decision to buy it, the act of buying it, followed by acts of storing it, taking it out and igniting it.
Every act of will is an act of self-assertion. The self wills the action which, in turn, underlines its existence. One can act because one exists. A much-referenced statement by the French philosopher, Rene Descartes, runs, “Cogito ergo sum” or “I think, therefore I am.” One can see a subconscious extension of the same thought process behind the statement implied in each cracker burst, “I explode crackers, therefore, I exist.” In fact, there is more. One sometimes gets hurt — even badly — while setting off a cracker. This therefore, can also be projected as a testimony to one’s courage. It can be doubly so if the act is in defiance of a ban – or restrictions – on the use of crackers. One can then show oneself as a daring rebel as well.
There are doubtless, other means of self-assertion in the form of producing works of art like painting and photographs, making films, staging plays, writing, dancing, singing, making sculptures and designing and building celebrated works of architecture. Engaging in these requires training, skill, effort and, of course, talent, and the expending of a huge amount of time, which would leave one with little opportunity for going though all the stages of activity associated with explosion of crackers. One may be asked: How does one know that people who explode crackers are not engaged in creative activity? Some of them may. This writer, however, is not aware of any survey, which shows how many or what percentage of cracker enthusiasts are engaged in creative pursuits. The nature of activity required in any form of creative venture and the setting off of crackers respectively are, moreover, totally different and this writer knows of no novelist, poet, playwright, painter, film-maker or stalwart photographer who explodes crackers.
The argument can be that people explode crackers because they enjoy doing it and that those engaged in pursuits that are essential to the functioning of a society but are not regarded as creative — businessmen, administrators, managers, clerks, lawyers, doctors, engineers and so forth, for example — have as much right to enjoy themselves as writers, painters, film-makers, photographers and so on. They certainly do, but not when it causes serious damage to public health and the environment. In such a situation, enjoyment is tantamount to collective suicidal self-indulgence. We are steeped in a culture conducive to it.
Throughout history, most cultures have sanctioned an element of self-indulgence in the form of gorging on food that thrills the palate and consuming beverages that can inebriate. There is nothing wrong with this within limits. It has created demands, the satisfaction of which has contributed to economic, and even creative, activity. In the present instance, the cracker industry employs thousands in the manufacture and distribution of its products.
It is, however, an industry that causes severe damage to society. Year after year, there has been talk of drastically restricting use of crackers during Diwali and a few days before and after it. Virtually nothing, however, has been coming out of it; as almost unrestricted supply of crackers is available every year and, if anything, used on a continuously escalating scale. Since restrictions imposed by the Government on the use of crackers have hardly had any effect, the Union and State governments need to take steps to drastically curtail production, if not close the industry down altogether. It should not be difficult to absorb the workforce thus rendered surplus into the manufacture of fireworks, which will receive a boost as the bulk of the money now spent on crackers will then be spent on these.
Meanwhile, school children and civil society organisations and personnel, who have been demanding severe restrictions on the use of crackers, must step up their efforts. The target must be on building a nationwide citizens’ mass movement whose tidal sweep can be ignored by neither the Union and State governments nor the manufacturers, the distributors or the exploders of crackers.
(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)
