Priyanka Singh
Published on: 30 September 2022 at 20:27 IST
In a recent judgment, the Bomaby High Court ruled that the focal point of the religious festival of Navratri is to worship Goddess ‘Shakti” which requires attention and not a noisy atmosphere, thus, negating the need of using DJ, loudspeakers to perform Garba, Dandiya, etc. [Pawan Shamsundar Sarda vs State of Maharashtra].
The Division bench of Justice Govind Sanap and Justice Sunil Shukre reiterated their observance on the nine-day festival where there is disturbance caused either to the devotee or by the devotee to others.
The Bench stated, “Dandiya and Garba being intrinsic part of a religious celebration can still be performed in purely traditional and religious way, which do not contemplate use of modern gadgets like, music system, loudspeakers, DJ sound and the like,”
The submitted petition here was to seek for a direction for barring the use of sound system for the ongoing Navratri Festival on a playground, also declared as a ‘silence zone’ as per the Noise Pollution Rules, 2000.
Here, the question arises as to whether the worship and devotion to the presiding deity of the festival is possible negating the noisy or disturbing celebration.
The Court, referring to the aforementioned question, stated that, “The answer to this question is an obvious ‘no’. No offering of one pointed worship and devotion to the presiding deity of Navratra festival is possible unless there is full concentration of mind, all energies of body and mind are focused on nothing but the deity and there is gradual shading of once own identity till the realization of the supreme reality or the truth.”
“This State of being is described in ‘Mandukya Upanishad’ as, “it is the cessation of all phenomena; it is all peace, all bliss and non-dual.”
The Court said that a devotee would like to express devotion and offer his worship without disturbance being caused around him.
Further the Court, added that there becomes a possibility of greater disturbance in retaliation to the disturbances caused by a devotee himself.
‘Dandiya’ and ‘Garba’, one of the traditional ways of the celebrating the auspicious festival, is considered by a large section of Hindus to be the best way of expressing devotion in their fullest form to the deity of the Navratri festival.
The Bench concluded by saying that, “So, the position obtaining today is that in silence zones there cannot be playing of any loudspeaker or public address system or musical system and even beating of drums or tom-tom or blowing of horns etc.”
Still, this doesn’t impose the cancellation of celebration. The Court clarified that the two forms of traditional celebrations can be expressed without the use of modern gadgets, since they are a part and parcel of the festival and the tradition.