The holiday-less celebration of Dewali

Written by: Maryam Tajjali and Bakhtawar Ali

"I miss spending Dewali with my family," said Meena Kumari in a melancholy tone.
Strolling around the university all day, we wondered whether the Hindu students wanted Dewali to be considered a national holiday across the country. Dewali is the biggest and perhaps most vigorously celebrated event in the Hindu culture. Underneath the sheet of colors, and fireworks that glitter the nights during the festival, there are a crux of festivities which relates to prayers being offered to their gods.
It is intriguing to know that the attachment and indulgence associated with this occasion are very similar to that tied with Eid. Also, like Eid, its dates are decided by the moon calendar and they fell on Sunday and Monday, 3rd and 4th of November, this year. We have always wanted and prayed the fourth day of Eid be declared a holiday, so the fact that the Hindu student body is not granted a holiday even on their "Eid" seemed overwhelming.
One of the questions asked to the Hindu students on the campus was “Do you want the university to be closed for Dewali, even though Hindus in the institution are a small minority”; the responses varied- some were defiant, others were compromising. Upset about spending Dewali away from her family, one of the freshmen quoted "The festivities end late at night and I wouldn't have been able to attend classes early morning the next day, we shouldn't be deprived of our holidays just because we're a minority". Another freshman had a different take, “It’s inconvenient, but I don't expect a university of thousands to shut down for less than a hundred people". The variety in responses did not just end there; a junior year student referenced to India's holiday policy in the following words, "Our government should implement a policy regarding the monitory events as our neighbor (India) does, which allows both Eid and Dewali to be a gazetted holiday". It was further asked whether they wanted to be excused from attending classes during Dewali. This turned out to be controversial as although majority of the students were willing to take the offer, some of them felt that having to miss classes was equally inconvenient.

To widen the scope we then went to non-Muslim faculty members. It was a pleasant surprise that the government of Pakistan does recognize minority holidays. Mr. Manoj from the city campus told us, "IBA allows Dewali holidays as an option to its staff as it's a gazetted holiday by the government of Pakistan". The students not getting an off while the teachers enjoyed optional holiday seemed rather unfair but Mr. Roger Eli shed light on a different point of view: "Student life is when you're making something of yourself so you can't afford to stand against the rush and be left behind. The staff is merely enjoying the perks and payoffs of the efforts they put in to get where they are."

Interestingly, Pakistani Christians are lucky to have Christmas coincide with the winter vacations and Muhammad Ali Jinnah's birthday. However, they too are denied holidays on occasions like Thanksgiving and Easter as students or private sector employees. The Christian students we came across were generally just happy that they get to celebrate Christmas with wholesome zeal and zest, "our other occasions are secondary compared to Christmas". A highly esteemed member of IBA teaching staff, Professor Leon Menezes said the taking up the optional holiday can be a burden in itself "if faculty takes leave, he/she will have to conduct make up session later."

The students and teaching faculty at IBA generally think that although closing the University for every Minority’s Events would be a drastic step, it's only reasonable to at least allow the students leave on the days of their festivals. Just because they're a smaller group does not mean their feelings are any less important and giving them holidays on their festivals would make them feel much more welcome and valued. We approached Professor Bilal Munshi with this problem and he replied with what is the-cherry-on-top to this argument "You guys get off for all your Eid days, if Hindus getting Holidays on Dewali makes them happy- Why not?"