UNESCO’s inscription of India’s Deepavali festival into the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity is far more than a symbolic pat on the back. It is a global affirmation that one of India’s oldest and most unifying civilisational practices stands tall among humanity’s living treasures. And the timing could not have been more apt: the decision was taken in Delhi, at the Red Fort, during India’s first-ever hosting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. For a nation that has been at the receiving end of selective narratives about its culture, faith, and identity, this moment is not just celebratory — it is clarifying. It exposes, in sharp contrast, the cynical political conduct of India’s Opposition parties, who have made a habit of mocking, trivialising, or outright insulting Hindu culture, customs, rituals, temples, and even gods and goddesses. Deepavali’s global recognition lands at a time when the Congress, DMK, SP and their ecosystem have normalised sneering at the very traditions that UNESCO now celebrates as a civilisational asset. It is ironic — and frankly embarrassing — that at the global stage Hindu culture is honoured, while at home a section of Indian politics treats it as something to be apologised for. This is not an isolated pattern but a sustained political instinct. In state after state ruled by the Congress and its allies, restrictions on Hindu festivals, temple management, traditional rituals, processions, and ancient practices have become routine governance. Whether it is arbitrary curbs, bureaucratic suffocation, or administrative hostility, the message is unmistakable: Hindu traditions must constantly justify their existence.
But when courts step in — as the Madras High Court has done multiple times while dealing with temple-related restrictions, including during the Karthigai Deepam issue — the same Opposition that swears by “institutional independence” suddenly turns its guns on the judiciary. The recent episode involving their aggressive rhetoric and personalised attacks on a sitting High Court judge is a disgraceful reminder of how far they are willing to go to preserve their politics of selective secularism. This is where the hypocrisy becomes too glaring to ignore. Secularism is not a license for one-sided appeasement. Nor is it meant to be a tool for targeting the cultural majority while pretending this bias is moral virtue. True secularism means neutrality. What we have instead is a bizarre distortion where protecting Hindu traditions is branded “majoritarianism,” while pandering to one specific community is passed off as “constitutional morality.” It is precisely this double-standard that is awakening Hindus across the country. People are not blind — they see how their traditions are treated, how temples are administered, how festivals are restricted, how faith is mocked, and how judicial interventions are attacked when they don’t align with one party’s vote-bank ambitions. This awakening is not about polarisation; it is about realisation — a collective understanding that cultural humiliation has limits and consequences. UNESCO’s recognition therefore comes as a global counter-narrative to domestic political disdain. Deepavali is now acknowledged as an intangible heritage of humanity — a festival whose symbolism of light triumphing over darkness carries universal meaning. That recognition cannot be cherry-picked; it must reflect in how the Indian state and its political actors treat Hindu culture within their own borders. This moment demands introspection from those who have spent years ridiculing the very civilisational roots they claim to represent. It also demands a renewed cultural confidence from ordinary Indians who, for too long, have been told that pride in their traditions is somehow regressive. Deepavali’s light is now global. The least India can do is ensure that its own politics does not extinguish what the world has just chosen to honour.
