Author: Bibhuti Bhushan Malik
From Lord Rama’s return to Ayodhya and Krishna’s victory over Narakasura to Kali Puja and Bandi Chhor Divas, Diwali takes many forms across India. Beyond religious rituals, the festival strengthens social bonds, renews relationships and celebrates the country’s rich cultural diversity.
Few occasions in the Indian calendar travel as far as Diwali, and fewer change so much along the way. The name stays roughly constant from Amritsar to Madurai and from Kolkata to Surat, yet the gods invoked, the stories told and the rituals performed shift with the landscape. Read closely, that variety shows Diwali to be less a single religious event than a social institution, one that reveals how Indians remember the past, maintain relationships and absorb change. The best-known version comes from the North, where the lamps mark Lord Rama’s homecoming to Ayodhya after fourteen years of exile and the defeat of Ravana. The celebration unfolds over five days. Dhanteras opens the season with purchases meant to invite prosperity; Naraka Chaturdashi, or Chhoti Diwali, follows; the main evening is reserved for Lakshmi-Ganesh Puja, a prayer for wealth and wisdom.
Govardhan Puja then turns attention to nature and agriculture, and Bhai Dooj closes the cycle by honouring the bond between brothers and sisters. Faith, economy, ecology and kinship thus share a single week. Travel south and the emphasis moves. In Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, the central story is Krishna’s slaying of Narakasura, and the day begins before sunrise with an oil bath, new clothes and festive food. Parts of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh also keep Bali Padyami, a day linked to King Bali.
In the East, the same night belongs to Kali, the fierce embodiment of Shakti who destroys evil and shields the world, worshipped across West Bengal, Assam and parts of Odisha. Odisha adds an intimate note through Badabadua Daka, when families burn Kaunriya Kathi and call upon their ancestors for blessings. Western India, meanwhile, gives the festival a commercial accent. Gujarati traders mark the start of a new financial year with Chopda Pujan, placing their account books before the divine, while Maharashtra observes its own sequence that includes Bali Pratipada and Bhau Beej.
Beyond Hinduism, Sikhs observe Bandi Chhor Divas at this time, recalling the release of Guru Hargobind Sahib from captivity, and Jains commemorate the Nirvana of Lord Mahavira. No single narrative owns the occasion. Each community has shaped it from its own memory and experience. The festival’s most lasting work may happen outside the puja room. A box of sweets carried to a neighbour, a tray shared with office staff, an unannounced visit to a relative: these small gestures do considerable social labour.
Sociologists would describe them as the building of social capital, the accumulated trust and reciprocity that allow communities to function. Offering sweets to colleagues softens workplace hierarchies, if only briefly, and lets people meet as something more than their designations. A festive visit, meanwhile, offers a face-saving way to end a quarrel without anyone having to apologise first. In a society increasingly organised around careers, schedules and private ambitions, such customary excuses for reconnection matter more, not less. The sweets are incidental. What is being exchanged is recognition. Digital media has added a new layer.
Where ritual knowledge once passed through grandparents, family priests and printed almanacs, many households now turn to YouTube podcasts, Facebook and Instagram. Scholars, astrologers, spiritual guides and self-styled experts fill these platforms with auspicious timings, prescribed remedies and citations from the Puranas and Shastras. This undercuts the old assumption that modernisation would erode religious belief. Technology has instead become a new channel for faith, and devotees now fit online advice into their household observances. The shift has a troubling side, though. When anyone with a camera can claim scriptural authority, it becomes harder to separate learning from salesmanship. Whose interpretation counts, who has verified it and who profits from it are questions this growing religious marketplace can no longer avoid.
A similar negotiation between old and new is visible on rooftops and balconies. The earthen lamp fed with mustard oil now shares space with LED strings, programmable displays and inexpensive imported Chinese lights. Because these products are cheap and widely available, elaborate illumination is no longer the preserve of the well-off. It would be a mistake to see this as spiritual decline. The family that hangs electric lights still sits down for Lakshmi-Ganesh Puja and exchanges greetings with its neighbours; traditions survive precisely because they can absorb new tastes and technologies.
The real cost lies elsewhere, in surging electricity consumption and in plastic, non-biodegradable decorations that outlast the festival by decades. Sustainability deserves a place in how Diwali is observed. Taken together, these threads show why Diwali resists any single description. Rama’s return, Krishna’s triumph, Kali’s power, the remembrance of ancestors and the opening of a new ledger are not competing claims on one festival. They are evidence of a culture confident enough to hold many meanings at once, linking generations and regions through shared values rather than identical practices. Globalisation, urbanisation and digital life will keep altering the festival’s appearance, but not its core. That core is ultimately social.
The familiar message, that light must defeat darkness, is only half of what Diwali has to say. The other half concerns the people on either side of the doorway: the estranged relative, the unfamiliar neighbour, the colleague known only by designation. Lamps burn out and decorations come down within days. Understanding, compassion, mutual respect and reconciliation are the forms of light that must outlast the five days of celebration, and it is by these that any society should measure how well it has kept the festival.
In Western India, particularly Gujarat and Maharashtra, Diwali is closely associated with prosperity, business traditions and the beginning of a new financial year. Gujarati business communities perform Chopda Pujan, worshipping their account books and seeking blessings for a prosperous business year
The writer is Vice Chancellor, Rajendra University, Balangir, Odisha; Views presented are personal.