{"id":2240,"date":"2008-07-29T06:24:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-28T22:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/indian\/2008\/07\/29\/deepavali-the-festival-of-lights-to-be-dimmer\/"},"modified":"2008-07-29T08:42:01","modified_gmt":"2008-07-29T00:42:01","slug":"deepavali-the-festival-of-lights-to-be-dimmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/indian\/2008\/07\/29\/deepavali-the-festival-of-lights-to-be-dimmer\/","title":{"rendered":"Deepavali the Festival of Lights to be dimmer?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HINDRAF has called upon its supporters to celebrate Deepavali in a quite form &#8211; more to meditation and prayers, instead of joyous party mode. This is to show sign of respect and kinship with the 5 detained HINDRAF leaders.<\/p>\n<p>I guess that means no open houses and spending money on food for neighbors, friends, colleagues etc. Well, usually no problem for me since my Deepavali is always a quiet affair, but this time planning for open house cum house warming function. Will see how it goes. I doubt all those Indian businesses in little Indias will be happy to hear about this \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Would the community follow this suggestion, or go about their daily business during Deepavali?<\/p>\n<p>Malaysiakini also picked up this <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/malaysiakini.com\/news\/86863\">news<\/a>. Below is the press statement from Waytha (received via email):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>26 TH JULY 2008<br \/>HINDRAF is calling upon all its supporters to celebrate Deepavali this year in quiet penance, meditation and prayers with their family and friends without the usual festive celebration in a symbolic silent protest in favour of our 5 HINDRAF brothers who are unjustly detained for championing equal rights, equal opportunity and freedom of speech and religion.<\/p>\n<p>Deepavali, itself although has many versions, it is primarily celebrated when the good triumphs over the evil. The most popular version is when Narakasura, the evil and unjust ruler of Pradyoshapuram was killed by Krishna&#8217;s wife \u2013 Satyabhama.<br \/>The death of Narakasura was rejoiced by the celebration of Deepavali that signifies advent of joy, happiness and spiritual enhancement. It is celebrated as festival of lights as light depict good over darkness depicted as evil.<\/p>\n<p>For the Malaysian Indian society, the darkness still prevails as basic human rights such as equal rights, equal opportunity and freedom of speech and religion is still lacking for them. HINDRAF had brought forward many issues on these aspects but it has always been side tracked and ignored for political issues and self serving agenda. HINDRAF believes that the Malaysian Indians are still in darkness in a country that we call our own although all efforts have been made to make this Government understand.<\/p>\n<p>In Malaysia, the celebration of Deepavali by the Malaysian Indian does not signify the actual significance of its occasion as Malaysian Indians are still in darkness as far as their freedom and rights are forever compromised.<br \/>HINDRAF urges it&#8217;s supporters to seek the inner light, a self-luminous light of &#8220;self&#8221; that resides in their heart and soul in observing Deepavali in quite penance, meditation and prayers that will eventually shed the light of &#8220;Freedom&#8221; for our society and make this Government realise how their draconian ISA laws is opposed by the entire community.<\/p>\n<p>HINDRAF has always been apolitical and will always be so as our intention is solely to defend and protect the well being of Malaysian Indians who are continuously being subjected to systematic marginalization and discrimination in a country that they call it their own. We have never asked for more than what is rightfully deserved as a Malaysian citizen respecting human rights and its truthness.<\/p>\n<p>Waytha Moorthy<br \/>Hindraf- Chairman<br \/>Currently in London<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HINDRAF has called upon its supporters to celebrate Deepavali in a quite form &#8211; more to meditation and prayers, instead of joyous party mode. This is to show sign of respect and kinship with the 5 detained HINDRAF leaders. I guess that means no open houses and spending money on food for neighbors, friends, colleagues [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-2240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indian","tag-hindraf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}