Should we change the ways we celebrate the festivities to make them more environment friendly

[Gunwant Joshi]

Navratri celebrations and the Durga Puja witness a massive community involvement. Newer materials are being used for making and decorating the pendals with all the pomp and show without much thought being given to its impact on the environment. In the recent years, the practice of immersion of idols has already become a growing cause of concern on account of its adverse environmental impacts, particularly on the water bodies. Toxic exposure of the community through deadly chemicals and heavy metals used for making idols is now under the scanner of authorities and enlightened groups. At the core of this concern is the issue of toxic materials and chemicals that has recently added a new dimension to the centuries old process of making idols and immersing them in water bodies(Visarjan).

Last month Mumbai’s sea beaches took in nearly 2 lakhs of Ganesh idols whereas in West Bengal, over 70,000 idols are immersed in the Ganges river after Durga Puja. As Ganesh utsav and navratri utsav are celebrated throughout the country, the problem is spread countrywide. Immersion of idols in aquatic ecosystems such as Lakes, Rivers, Dams, Reservoirs etc severely disturb the much sensitive and increasingly vulnerable ecological balance. The rampant use of harmful paints on the idols has triggered the fear of a health hazard and environmental pollution all across the country. The problem becomes more acute when the amount of input to these water bodies far exceeds their decomposition, dispersal and/or recycling capabilities. The toxics from anthropogenic inputs not only alter the natural fresh waters, but also have detrimental effects which shall be felt for long time.

Yesterday we burnt the effigy of Ravana on occasion of vijayadashami yet another activity causing the environment to get loaded with the smoke and toxic fumes from the crackers. Even the news channels with vouched sensitivity to the peoples cause had their own effigies of Rawan, Kumbhkarn and Meghnad set to fire in their campuses together spinning their rhetoric.

The coming month Diwali festival is also due , yet another incidence to suffocate our lungs with toxic fumes. Our festivals are an important milestones in cultural expression of our communities, but we must also consider the carrying capacity of the environment to sustain this continued onslaught of negative environmental externalities. The extravagant pomp n show and wasteful consumption of the Resources and energy on community festivities must be curbed and we all should stretch our imagination to find out the ways and means to celebrate the festivities in more environment friendly manner

[Radhika]

It should start from us and after that we can educate/aware people about side effects of this.

[Y S Narayan Dutt]

Hi gunwant,the topic under discussion is quite sensitive from time of its identification.Pollution control boards every year before festivals remind people of celebrating a eco friendly ganesha,dusherra and diwali.

But root of this menace lies with the societal factors that are governing the methods.It has become a trend which is again associated with the mythological,emotional and financial factors which over powers the very feeling of  living a wholesome life.Every one including us is so much blindly indulged in following this trend since it has been a practice from long ago.But surely slowly our generation is realizing the sensitiveness and is gearing up towards a sustainable and eco friendly festivities.Till then the only resort we can make is to control as much as possible and put all our energy and money in rehabilitation of resources.

[Gunwant Joshi]

Yes you have rightly picked-up the root cause.

Like minded people have already started thinking the ways and means to curb the environmentally damaging activities and more and more people are coming forward to bell the cat despite stiff opposition.

It's my firm belief that Indian society has always been a vibrant society sensitive to the new challenges and soon we shall overcome these problems despite the mighty onslaught of Market forces and growing Consumerism that is spoiling our Environment

[Shabdendu Pathak]

Dear Sir, fully agreed with your views!! Definitely its high time for all of us to understand that the ways we celebrate shall not create nuisance to others!!! Apart from all the points explained by you I would like to add the menace of noise that we all create in the name of these celebration!!! At times it's unbearable. Especially to the patients, elderly people, students!! Pollution control Boards and municipalities beside giving a time limit for the use of Speakers, Sound Systems ,need to monitor the same frequently during such celebration and violations of these shall be addressed by some strict means . Moreover they need to create mass awareness before such celebration involving all the stakeholders!!!

I would like to have more opinions of IEN members particularly for the issue of Noise as I believe this can surely be controlled given a sincere effort!!

[Gunwant Joshi]

Yes you are right! noise is a menace which is growing day by day and is said to kill us silently by affecting our Psychological & Physiological health and adversely affecting the Performance

• Annoyance, headache, fatigue, Sleeplessness, Mental restlessness
• Upsets Chemical balance & Cholesterol levels
• Dilates Blood vessels affecting Brain & Heart.
• General uneasiness, Errors in the Motor Performances and the Visual perceptions of Size and  Distance of the Objects.
• Shift in Hearing threshold, Auditory Fatigue, Gradual loss of Hearing, Loss of  Sensitivity   to certain frequencies, Acoustic Trauma.

  Coming Diwali we are going to experience them all!

[Ajit kumar Barik]

This Topic being one sided on the following grounds

1. It hurt the sentiment of a particular religion of world
2. Making  of Idols having an economic activity of the artist, if we stop means can u calculate how many artist lost their jobs
3. Similarly making of crackers also an economic activity we cant imagine the loss of our economy, and employment in a poor and under-develop  country
4. If such activities having bad effect good effects also there, hear the author silence on good effects.

[Harjindarpal Singh]

Whatever you have written is true but who is going to bell the cat it is a very sensitive issue. Apart from from all this pictures of all kinds of GODS adorn the packings of agarbattis and after buying and consuming it people throw the wrappers on the road/garbage this king of humilition of GODS is acceptable and no one has refused from buying or banning use of such products how come we than expect the masses to come forward to join hands in making our earth clean and green.

[Subhajit Pal]

Sir,

I agree fully with you . It should start with us and more important we have to educate the masses on the adverse impact of these festivals on our Environment.

Movies like Oh My God(OMG) which teaches us how to have faith on GOD, while keeping the harmony with the environment. 

We need environmental awareness among ourselves which we can liberally spread to others.

[Vinodh Valluri]

We can answer this question well if we actually went back to the roots, and saw how festivals were celebrated. Were the excessively noisy crackers (diwali) and tons of toxic chemicals (holi) originally a part of our traditions? Deities of Ganesh and Durga were not made with artificial chemicals, but with mud from the banks of sacred rivers. A celebration was about home, friends, culture, and most importantly, the spiritual aspect - Divine God. Our original culture is completely eco-friendly; but, the concoctions of current Indian 'festivities' are not. This is the truth, whether we like it, or not.