The weather outside is quite warm and pleasant. The wind has gushing quietly since last night creating perfect weather to play outside. One can see the efficacy of weather on the kids playing with coloured water spraying on each other with delight. Rishika who lamented sleeping late last night is equally excited to play with her friends. She has been preparing for this day for a week now, buying mixed colours, water balloons, and water guns. Her mother screamed fruitlessly at her for not eating before running out to play with her friends, but her eagerness for the day knew no hurdles and she leaped out of the house all geared up to play with her friends in the neighborhoods.
Azad who lives in the slum on the outskirts of Delhi, as a few years back the government had uprooted all the slum dwellers from within the city in the name of beautification of capital is equally thrilled for the day and is playing with colours mixed in a bucket full of water. He woke up early just before the sun was about to come up and began to play pranks with colours with other slum dweller kids.
Our country is a nation of celebration indulging itself in numerous fests and festivals all around the year with full enthusiasm and excitement regardless of one’s class and financial status. Festivals have their own identity and beginning, Independence Day or Republic Day are a few festivals that are nation-based festivals, some are calendar-based such as Children’s Day, Teacher’s Day, or Valentine’s Day, and many are religion-based - Holi, Diwali, Id, Christmas or Baisakhi. Over the years these festivals have melted with the culture of our country and evolved, now one can easily see a Hindu attending a Christmas mass, a Muslim burning firecracker, a Christian fellow playing Holi with people across community, class, and society with immense unanimity and tranquility which is unheard of in any other civilization in the world.
A festival unrelated to its nature or identity accommodates great economic benefits for the society and its people. People filled with excitement push themselves and spend enormously on festivals providing a mammoth push to the economy. It is extremely important in times of uncertainty, high unemployment as it currently prevailing in the society as a result of the covid outbreak. The assumption of increased expenditure from the society pushes the firms and industry to produce more in the festival times. Especially the production of non-essential items gets a boost as during a recession people cut back their expenses to essential items leading to a liquidity trap and further severe recession. From the early days of the Gupta Period, kings and merchants have been organizing fests to drive the fests and stimulate the economy.
From ancient times, a period of the nascent stage of mercantilism, festivals have been celebrated within a community with dual purposes, one to enhance the morale of the society and the other to boost the economy of the society, especially in perilous times. In hard times society searches for the intent to celebrate to forget the misery of hard times to remind themselves that hard times are temporary and will eventually go away. It reminds them to stay strong and collective in the face of the peril and overcome the constraints imposed as a result of the peril. Fests act as the natural promoter for economic activities, producing goods which include clothes, foods, and items specific to a particular fest, bringing work to otherwise laid-off employees to put them in the production till the sale of the commodities.
Our world is going through an unprecedented time right now, societies are isolated, people are scared and terrified with the outbreak of covid pandemic and war, societies are breaking apart and creating protectionist barriers amongst themselves, in this tumultuous time, people need a show of solidarity and what could be a better than bringing everyone together tied to the thread of festivals. It has become a resilient feature of our economy absorbing the external economic shocks and providing stability to the economic activities within our society. People have an inherent quality to learn, and this lesson of the economic benefits of festivals is one which the world needs to learn from our country.
The world can learn to let go of its ego and its individualistic identity with the amber of festive environment and embrace the collective thoughts of fair trade which would result in sharing of technology, medicines, and resources to support each other economy. It would help the world leaders to shed their hesitancy in sharing their resources for the common good. A great example of the global celebration is the recent celebration of International day for women, men, women, leaders, and organizations across the world transcending the national boundaries celebrated this festival with great zeal sharing thoughts, stories, and resources. A boost to the morale of women entrepreneurs, athletes, gamers, journalists, and leaders across the globe.
The economic benefits of celebrating the Indian festival of Diwali is well known, the manufacturing industry prepares inputs and inventories throughout the year with the expectancy of selling them off during the festive season, the large industry of automobiles, real estate, and electronic goods, as well as the small and informal industry of handicrafts, sees a sharp increase of manifold sales in this festive season which balances out the low or loss of sales during the rest of the financial year. It gives hope to each factor of the economy from entrepreneurs to employees.
In all said and done, the benefits of a festival are enormous with its ties from culture to the market and we need to remind ourselves of this and have the patience to sail through this turbulent time with resilience, happiness, and solidarity and not by protectionism and separation. We must fight the urge to stay within the umbrella of protectionism and bring the whole world within this umbrella by sharing technology and trade.
