“The commercialization of festivals has eroded their real significance.“ Express your views for or against this statement.
For the Statement
A festival is an occasion for rejoicing and celebration. It conjures up scenes of gaiety and merry-making. It is an occasion for family rejoicing and community celebrations. Being a multi-religious, multilingual and multi-racial country, Indians celebrate a number of festivals throughout the year. But now their use and significance have been eroded by their commercialization. These have now become just important occasions in order, to promote personal and commercial purposes.
Most Indian festivals usually have their origin either in religion or in myths and legends of popular faiths. Some are connected with the memory of venerable men and events. They are intended to keep alive the memory of those days and personalities and inspire people to emulate their example. But now, the real purpose has been abandoned. In the name of those men and occasions, celebrating the event has become a means to attract funds, acquired in the name of those functions.
National festivals, like Republic Day, Independence Day and others are supposed to be celebrated with great patriotic fervour. The organizer of these functions never brothers to follow the principles of those great men i.e., of simplicity and non-violence, they rather fight with their co-ordinators to stay in limelight. These festivals have become commercialized.
Thus, most of the Indian festivals that have come down to us from antiquity are connected with the course of nature. But does this spirit exist in today’s, fast-paced competitive, nuclear family? Therefore, the commercialization of festivals has eroded their real significance completely.
Against the Statement
India is a secular country. Every religion is free to celebrate its special days as festivals throughout India. Some religions celebrate their festivals with pomp and show but there are certain festivals that are celebrated in a very simple way. I am not at all in support of the notion that the commercialization of festivals has eroded their real significance.
As we all know every festival of India has certainly some reason, some myth, some story or some moral teaching behind it.
Christmas is a Christian festival which is celebrated only on 25th December in winter every year when Lord Jesus was born. There are some Christians who go to church and offer their prayers, burn candles and exchange gifts with their friends and relatives. They make merry and enjoy. But there are few Christians who are very poor, they just burn one lamp or candle and pray to God in a simple manner. Similarly, on the same day in the USA or London, people celebrate this festival by holidaying, dancing and drinking liquor. The significance of the festivals does not decrease. It just depends on human behaviour, how the festivals can be celebrated.
In the Muslim community, there is a festival of Moharram, in which their Prophet underwent some painful period. This festival is celebrated as a mourning day, they cannot celebrate it by merrymaking. Similarly, the harvest festival of Baisakhi is celebrated on 13th April every year, we cannot shift it to any other day and the purpose of the festival cannot be changed according to our will.
The commercialisation of festivals also has a reason behind them. Nowadays, every person wants name, fame and status in society. They want to change their life status as status on Facebook or on WhatsApp like “Celebrating Diwali with my friends”, “Doing Garbha Raas in Navratri.” They all celebrate some festivals to become famous and to get lots of ‘likes’. Similarly, many people double their happiness by decorating their houses with a lot of lights.
The way of celebration may be different but everybody has the same aim of celebrating the festivals. They are free to celebrate according to their budget. Then, why should we stop them? This doesn’t mean that the commercialization of festivals has eroded their real significance. Instead, I would conclude by saying that, commercialization of festivals has made them beautiful, spectacular and more interesting than ever before.