The nine minute long video message to the nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi aired at 9 am on Friday has evoked mixed reactions ranging from taunts to appreciation. The Prime Minister asked the people to switch off the lights in their houses at 9 pm on Sunday for nine minutes and light up candles and diyas as a show of solidarity to fight the Corona Virus.
While the Opposition leaders came down heavily on the Prime Minister for his request to the countrymen to light up candles and small oil lamps as a move to take the country away from its proposed path of scientific temper, Sanskrit scholars, physicists and vedanata experts welcomed the suggestion as a right move in the right direction.
Shashi Tharoor, Congress leader and MP from Kerala described Modi’s speech as a return to Ram Bharose. In a message in Twitter, the controversial MP from Thiruvananthapuram said: “This is no accident: the PM spoke on Ram Navami at 9 am for 9 minutes, asked us to light diyas and candles on April 5 at 9 pm for 9 minutes. He is invoking all the auspicious elements Hinduism associates with number 9. Back to Ram Bharose?! #COVID19 must be more serious than we thought!”.
The CPI(M) leaders, the virulent critics of the PM too took to the social media. The party cadre went to town making fun of the PM for taking the country back to the days of religious obscurantism. But Sanskrit and Vedic scholars in Kerala said that the suggestion to light up diyas and candles on Sunday is justified as it finds justification in Upanishads and Vedas.
Parappanangadi Unnikrishna Panikkar, Vedic scholar who spends his entire time during the lockdown in prayers and pooja told The Pioneer that Modi’s request to light diyas and candles has similarities with a silent prayer. “Our tradition is based on the prayer tamassomaa jyotirgamaya which means lead us from darkness to light, It is a prayer to lead us from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge,” said the scholar.
He said this is the way to make people understand the seriousness of a complex medical situation and the PM has done it in his own style. “Don’t you feel that this is better than the Chumbana Samaram (agitation of kiss) and human wall organised by political parties under the pretext of ushering in renaissance?” asked Panikkar.
PM Gopala Menon, Thanthrik scholar, and his son Prof MG Gireeshan a physicist, preferred to analyse the April 5 lighting of lamps through the eyes of astrology. “Sunday begins with the star Makam which lasts upto 3pm. The combination of Makam and Sunday result in two Yogams (phases) , Mrithyu Yogam an Visha Yogam (Death and Poison). The Makam phase gives way to Visha Mukthi yogam (phase free of poison) after 3pm and the choice of the time of 9 pm to light up lamps is an apt move. It is after the period of Visha Mukthi Yogam, the lamps are being lighted. As per Indian philosophy, God is in the form of Viraat and hence the offering of prayers in the form of lamp is similar to praying to the almighty to light up the world from darkness,” said Menon.