[HCDX] Diwali in the U.K.

["Mike Brooker" <aum108@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From today's Times of India.  Of interest to FM DXers are the special
short-term FM licenses for the Hindu holy days.

73
Mike Brooker
Toronto, ON Canada

=================================================

Diwali lights Britain's lamps


BY RASHMEE Z AHMED

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

LONDON: Diwali lights are to twinkle across Britain with a special
significance this year as a 14-feet high, Vedic style Diwali lamp is lit at
the heart of London on Wednesday in a rare recognition of the festival’s
place in South Asian life.

Leading Hindus told The Times of India that the event, a first for Diwali
and Britain’s estimated population of just under a million Hindus, will give
the festival a prominence only otherwise enjoyed by Christmas.

Weeks before the Christmas season officially begins, cities across the UK
conduct an annual "switching on of lights" ceremony. The national highlight
is supposed to be the lights on Central London’s Regent Street, just yards
away from where the first Diwali lamp will glow for the first time ever.

"This is an historic event, not just for Diwali here but for Diwali in India
as well," Shaunaka Rishi Das of the Oxford Centre for Vaishnava and Hindu
Studies (OCVHS) told this paper.

Das, an Irish Catholic convert to Hindu priesthood, who is responsible for
inviting a multi-faith contingent of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jews and
Bahaiis to the ceremony, said the London event marked the diaspora’s attempt
to reclaim Diwali from its "politicised, sectarian celebration" in India.

"This is how Diwali should be – for everyone to celebrate, this is how it is
posited in India, but truly celebrated here," he said.

But Britain’s Diwali joie de vivre seems to extend much beyond the towering
lamp in central London.

Many Indians may not recognise a British Diwali at all, with its rounds of
university dinner dances conducted by the National Hindu Students Forum
(NHSF) in 40 cities from London through to Birmingham and the cultural shows
from Leicester to Portsmouth telling the story of Diwali through
Bharatnatyam and oddly, the Mitwa song from Lagaan.

"The dinner dance is Western and Diwali is Eastern. We combine the two and
insist on traditional clothes, vegetarian dinner and no alcohol. That makes
the Diwali dinner dance not Western at all," explains NHSF national events
coordinator Sreyan Dewani.

Even more peculiarly British is the mushrooming of special FM radio stations
from Leeds in the north through to Slough in the south, which bear names
such as Akashbani and Apna Punjab and are licenced to broadcast only for the
28 days covering Nav Ratri, Diwali and Guru Nanak’s birthday later this
month.

"Thousands listen to us," boasts Gurmukh Singh Bahra of Akashbani Radio
Leeds, which paid the British government 2440 pounds to use the FM
frequency, "We tell the story of Diwali, have religious discussions in
Punjabi and Hindi, traditional music and give Asians vital information about
immigration, benefits, passport and so on. People need us at this time".

Unlike the short-term FM Diwali specials, however, the BBC’s own Asian
Network radio, which claims a three per cent listenership of Britain’s
three-million-strong Asian population, says it is doing its bit for Diwali
in the diaspora.

"This year we have a live link-up between all Hindu and Sikh diaspora
communities the world over – Fiji, Kenya, Canada, Mauritius, Trinidad,
Guyana, South Africa and the point is to make Diwali the vital cultural link
between settled diaspora groups, who are far apart but actually very close,"
says the BBC’s Devan Maistry.

Das of the OCVHS says Diwali is in the process of being re-invented by
Hindus outside India, like St Patrick’s Day for the Irish. "At the turn of
the last century St Patrick’s Day was re-imported into Ireland by Irish
Americans. Could we see that happen here?" he asks.

-- Times of India, Nov. 14, 2001

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