Subhas Mitra : 05 Oct 2022
We are a nation where the Rafale fighting plane is inaugurated with ॐ and some hybrid Hindus ridicule, but when a 14-year-old girl from Kolkata unravels the Power of MANTRA in the physical laboratory in terms of microwave frequencies, such hooligans hide under their bed.
Similarly, whether we are confused about the festival in Hinduism (Durga Puja, Kumbh Mela, etc.), the secular event (Republic Day, etc.), or the Abrahamic religion, we tend to equate “ours“ with”theirs”.
Such feelings are often incorrect and mostly born out of the psychological complex of centuries of domination by Abrahamic masters. Except for Birthdays, Abrahamic celebrations are mostly events of sorrow and thanksgiving, while ours is the opposite. People who do not believe in death as an end, why should they mourn?
ICH:
Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) includes oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe, and the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.
Durga Puja is one of these ICHs. Is it a traditional skill? We now join 584 such elements, corresponding to 131 countries. @@@@ https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/UNESCO_Intangible_Cultural_Heritage
India has a total of 13 ICHs, to which Durga Puja of Kolkata was added by UNESCO in 2021, with the contribution of Historian Smt. Tapati Guha Thakurta with financial & diplomatic assistance of GoI, Centre for Cultural Resources & Training ( Established in 1979, pioneered by Smt. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and Dr Kapila Vatsyayan). Here is the list: https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=176981.
What is our Target?
Will this achievement help us join a global festival called CARNIVAL?
When soldiers are taken to the firing range for firearm training, the very first thing taught is how to hold the weapon and look through it at the target. Hope those who are trying to join CARNIVAL know what carnival means. Is that our Target?
Origin of Carnival and its utility:
Carnival is not held at Christmas; other festivals are mourning, and it does not demand a carnival celebration. Then what is it?
Hindu festivals are introduced by men of spiritual authority with knowledge of cosmology and astronomy, and they never align with the Gregorian calendar. Each of our festivals has a spiritual narration and a scientific explanation.
Catholicism is purely theocratic (based on belief only). Cosmology & Astronomy is not our exclusive knowledge, but right from Moses to the Prophet, all those who knew or practised it were called non-believer stargazers and Pagans, thus destroyed or not allowed to prosper till they came to know about India’s and China’s civilisations around the 14th century AD (the era of Papal bulls).
We Hindus, including some Sadhus/Mahants/ some Ashrams like Ramakrishna Mission & Yogananda, consider Jesus as God, while for believers, Jesus is the Son of God. This is a very peculiar misconception that weakens Hindutva and disrupts Hindu unity.
Our friend Supriya Pillai has provided a chronology of Christianity’s evolution originating in Portugal. https://www.facebook.com/crochetandmore1/posts/pfbid02tm6rfymF4WGTiG71JFQxQMAUoNEDwFYJEs6MwQZC7Bp76aXvS69oJdy72hyo1X9ml. From where we find most rituals in Christianity are edicts.
In 594, PURGATORY was invented. (Christ died for a believer’s sin)
In 788, worship of pagan deities is imposed.
In 1090, the Rosary was imposed.
In 1216, the account of the terror of bread (a god in Greek mythology) turning into human flesh was invented by Pope Innocent III.
In 1870, the absurdity of an infallible pope was imposed, in which the concept of recruitment was invented.
On those developments, Sri Vijaya Kumar Dar writes
1. Only when a political power backed by an army desires to propagate religion, only then does it prosper.
2. Christianity before Constantine was another individual belief, and had it not received the backing of an Emperor, it would have remained within its earlier followers or possibly died for lack of political patronage.
With such a background, try to understand carnival:
The Latin word ‘carnelevamen’ (“remove meat” or “throw flesh”) became English “Carnival“”“ (Festive procession) in the 16th century through a PAGAN festival of ‘abstaining from meat’ linked to the 40 days of observance of LENT (before the death of Jesus).
Another such English word is “Barbarian”. Webster’s Dictionary says a barbarian is a person from an alien land, culture, or group believed to be inferior, uncivilised, or violent. (When much of Italy had slipped from the grasp of the Byzantines, they became victims of the vigorous Germanic barbarians). But when they were converted to Christianity the same Byzantine goddess became Santa Barbara, a catholic saint.
Is anyone thinking of Saint Durga of Kolkata?
Kolkata has a record of giving birth to (a Holy Cross wedding ॐ) to form the Brahma Samaj.
Why such wild apprehension:
What does carnival mean?
1. A season or festival of merrymaking before Lent
2. An instance of merrymaking, feasting,
3. A process of Masquerading. ****
4. An instance of riotous excess, a carnival of violence****
5. A travelling enterprise- offering
6. An amusement.
An organised program of entertainment or exhibition: a festival, a winter carnival, and 46 other synonyms, antonyms (mostly for evangelical use)
Italian Catholic:
The festival originated with Italian Catholics in Europe, and it later spread to the French and Spanish, who brought the pre-Lenten tradition with them when they settled (and brought slaves to) Trinidad.
Where do they celebrate Carnival? (@@@@Please see the list of ICH of Africa link given above to understand that it is a means of mass mobilisation to attract Pagan (****Sr.3 &4).
What is the history of the carnival?
Historians believe the first “modern” Caribbean Carnival originated in Trinidad and Tobago in the late 18th century, when a flood of French settlers brought the “Fat Tuesday masquerade party” tradition to the island. (The first ship, the Fatel Razack, left Calcutta in February 1845 and arrived in Trinidad on 30 May 1845 carrying 225 Indian immigrants.)
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Attracting millions of people, Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is the largest of all the festivals worldwide. It begins on the Friday preceding the week of Lent and ends on Ash Wednesday.
They go to Dominica, Haiti, Martinique, and other Caribbean islands.
Is it a “Great honor” for India to join?
Background of Latin American Christianization:
The Pope allotted Latin America to Spain and Portugal. Natives were the Sun worshippers. The Sun used to be represented as a Ball made of Pure Gold of various sizes. Their Temples used to be open-plan (like we see in South movies), unlike Hindu temples. As Invader looters began collecting them aboard their ships and converting the conquered natives, the free natives began fleeing with the Sun to deep forests, mountains, or lakes (Pew Research Centre reports that 8% of non-converts still live there in 2019).
Dr. Mrinal Kanti Debnath (my brother/neighbor from EB) visited Andes Mountains and Lake Titicaca with family and wrote in his Travelogue ( Debotader Deshe or To lands of gods ) that those non-convert tribes who still live on the artificial floating island believe their God, the Sun (balls thrown in the lake and they are guarding) will protect them and salvage them to KALASH ( Kailash at Mansarovar in Incan Mythology ). Dr Debnath believes their Condor and Amaru birds are comparable to our Garuda.
Who knows? Through this CARNIVAL, many such natives might have been attracted by food, beverages, merry-making, and fun to catch and convert or massacre.
Kolkata (Bengal) has been a land of intellectually different people:
Here is how they celebrate or play Durga Puja: https://www.facebook.com/subhas.mitra.54/posts/pfbid031MEB77afRgxNZ5Lms7TjQQxmczMkMdWs7GdFeaTTGufpz7iKKnihtx3CCu7aXorWl. I have worked in Kolkata from 1989 to 1999 and came in contact with a few such intellectuals, and here are my experiences:
They created a “Millennium Park” to commemorate Kolkata’s 300th anniversary, since Job Charnock, a Briton, founded the city.
I wonder: if there was no city here, why did Sher Shah Suri bring the GT Road here?
Xuanzang writes about THREE trans-Bharat roads from TAKSHASHILA, one of which goes up to Chattagram, who “vanished” that road to make G T Road within FIVE years of rule.
I once attended a conference on Indology where one group discussed (Durga Puja) Hinduism with reference to William Jones & Max Muller (or their ardent followers from Bengal), while another group referred to Karl Marx, Erich von Däniken, and Rahul Sanskritayan.
Not one person mentioned the Markandeya Purana or the Sri Chandi.
I presumed their introduction to Hinduism is through Cambridge/Oxford. No one knew Sanskrit. CM of that time was present who is known for telling সংস্কৃত চাল কলার ভাষা (Sanskrit a language to collect dole by Hindu priests).
A fanatic Sunni Wahabi /Berhevi, Titu Mir (Syed Mīr Nisār ʿAli – 1782 – 1831) revolted against the Shia Illyas Dynasty. In June 1830, Krishnadeva Rai, Zamindar of Purha (var. Talukdar of Sarfarazpur) attempted to check him, he created mayhem by throwing beef in a Temple on a ‘Bhai Phota’ (Hindu festval) day. But he is a secular hero for leftist writers. In 2021, a Puja Pandal glorified him. The present CM has named a Bus Stand and a bridge after himself.
In such a “city of Inculturation,” a carnival might have many surprises in store.
“Kolkata Carnival” is in the 5G era, where a driver in Europe can operate a vehicle from his home in India. I cannot even imagine how or if “Ma Mahishasurmardini” can become St. Durga or St. Chamunda through CARNIVAL.
References:
Wikipedia
Dr Mrinal Kanti Debnath
Muazzam Hussain Khan
Atis Dasgupta
Charles C Maan (USA)
subhasmitra.co.in 
You must be logged in to post a comment.