The usual suspects pretending to be wise do not stop surprising people with their ignorance. Sujata Anandan, who claims to be an author and a journalist seemed to have shown her incompetence in understanding facts after she put out a tweet claiming that most of the South Indians do not celebrate the festival of Diwali.
Senior Journalist Yashwant Deshmukh in a twitter conversation with a fellow journalist was talking about how Deepavali is celebrated across the country with different names and traditions attached to it. Sujata Anandan, gatecrashing the conversation, claimed to represent the entire South Indian populace and declared that people from the South do not celebrate Diwali, as they are not homogeneous people. She went on to say that Keralites do not celebrate the festival in no form whatsoever and Tamilians burst crackers on the morning of Narak Chaturdashi.
South Indians don’t celebrate Diwali either. Keralites not at all, Tamilians burst crackers on Narak chaturdashi morning, Goa burns narkasur effigies day before Laxmi puja. We are not a homogenous people. Allow us to be different https://t.co/myfg63UoY4
— Sujata Anandan (@sujataanandan) November 6, 2018
Sujata Anandan rejected that the fact that Deepavali or Diwali is celebrated across the country for a span of four days with different names and manner of celebrations attached to it. She went on to say that South Indians are not homogeneous people with respect to celebrating festivals and asked to let them be different.
Social media users reacted to the ignorance of the author-cum-journalist and asked her not to put false facts regarding the celebration of Diwali. Some people questioned her South Indian credentials and asked her not to tweet representing South India.
Sujata ji, I don’t know which part of South you are from, but I’m a Telugu guy and we celebrate Naraka Chaturdashi and Deepavali both. Please don’t tweet representing the entire South BHARAT!!
— sr8_curve75 (@SCurve75) November 6, 2018
I know this is the practice in Karnataka, Maharashtra, and other parts. On Amavasya, we do Lakshmi puja. On Bali Padyami, it’s Vamana showing Bali chakravarthy his ego is misplaced, by seeking in donation just 3 steps of land.
— Guru – eTestZone.com (@Equateall) November 6, 2018
Some users went on to school her regarding the celebration of Diwali across the country and also the reason why one of the Hindu communities known as Mandyam Iyengars do not celebrate the festival. They went on to slam her for trying to divide Hindus based on a false narrative.
The only group of ‘South Indians’ who do not celebrate the 2nd day of the 4 days of Deepavali are the Mandyam Iyengar Brahmins.
Reason?
Because your secular blood thirsty hero jihadi tipoo sultan massacred over 800 of them on this very same Naraka Chaturdasi day. So pipe down. https://t.co/yATy3Nbt8c
— Ugra (@_ugra_) November 6, 2018
As much as degenerates such as her want to divide Hindus on the basis of some imaginary region, lang whatever. Fact is Hindus have united under the saffron flag of Dharma ?. Hindu unity is real. Hindu consolidation is real. Get used to it.
— Ugra (@_ugra_) November 6, 2018
I hail from ayodhya and I was in Hyderabad in https://t.co/EIc1lFF54O was one of the best Dipawali of my life.This lady seems to have been baptised to create a regional divide so as to help vatican ?
— Manmohan Misra (@ManmohanMisra2) November 6, 2018
Diwali or Deepavali celebrated across the country, symbolises the spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance. Diwali is a five-day festival, which is celebrated with different names coinciding with the darkest nights of the lunar month Karthika. It is celebrated as Dhanteras or Kali Pujo on Day 1 and on the second day, it is celebrated as Choti Diwali in North India, while people from other parts celebrate it as Naraka Chaturdashi.
On Day 3, the festival is known Diwali or Dhanlakshmi Pooja, while the fourth day of Deepavali is the most important day in the South, celebrated as Bali Padyami, while North Indians celebrate it as Padwa or Govardhan Puja. Fifth-day celebrations are often limited to North India, where they celebrate it as Bhai-Dhuj to honour the sister-brother bond, similar to Raksha Bandhan.