Oct
21
Diwali: Festival of Child Labour, Pollution and Insensitivity
Filed Under Uncategorized | 7 Comments
I wish a Happy Diwali-New Year to all my readers. Please take a moment and ponder over the aspects of bursting crackers. Diwali is a celebration; what are we really celebrating? Does the generation in schools know why they are bursting crackers?
My major concerns about crackers:
- Our kids in schools get a vacation during Diwali, whereas the poor children who make crackers in the factories of Sivakasi have to work overtime during/before Diwali. They have to work under tyrant employers, who don’t provide any safety equipment or gloves. If we keep on purchasing crackers, the factories stay in business and these poor kids continue getting exploited.
- Households are cleaned and painted (or wall-papered) to have a pristine atmosphere during Diwali days. However, the crackers that are burst simply add to the litter on the streets.
- Diwali is a festival of lights (lights, lamps, lanterns, rangoli, etc.). However it has become a festival of sound and air pollution. The toxic fumes of the crackers and the really loud noises of the “bombs” burst on the streets are in no way related to Diwali. Its an unreasonable nuisance that we have to put up with every single year. Already, vegetation is scarce in urban areas, and we add the smoke from crackers as if the polluting vehicles weren’t enough.
- The amount of money simply blown off in smoke on account of crackers could probably be put to a more meaningful cause (your favourite charity or feed the hungry, help sponsor somebody’s school education, etc.)
- If we don’t care about fellow human beings, how the hell can we bothered to care for the animal kingdom? Simply go up to your building terrace in the evening around sunset time and notice what happens to the birds with every single cracker that is burst. They are terrified for their lives. The flock of birds who would have normally flown across in a beautiful formation are now panic-struck and fly in random directions under sheer chaos. What about the other animals? How does your pet feel? Animals also have life. Even they are sensitive to loud noises. Why have we forgotten such a basic thing.
Happy Diwali, I am not asking you to change somebody else, at least do what you feel is human and right. Educate your kids about the absurdness of wasting money on crackers.
Some kinds of crackers maybe appropriate for certain celebrations, however crackers as a whole do much more harm than anything positive.