In the con­tin­u­ous, seam­less tran­si­tion that is life, the last Di­vali cel­e­bra­tion was one of the most sig­nif­i­cant oc­ca­sions in the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty as well as the larg­er so­ci­ety. Once again, the man­i­fes­ta­tion of what is best for our so­ci­ety could be ev­i­denced through­out the coun­try.

The tri­umphant lights of Di­vali bright­ened the na­tion­al land­scape in sev­er­al hues and colours. Each street, com­mu­ni­ty, and group cel­e­brat­ed Di­vali with great fes­tiv­i­ty. Against a back­drop of crim­i­nal­i­ty by a small mi­nor­i­ty of cit­i­zens, Di­vali stands as the bea­con of spir­i­tu­al light to guide mis­guid­ed souls on the cor­rect path.

Di­vali rep­re­sent­ed a pro­found soul-search­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty for in­di­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies, and the coun­try alike to en­gage in an analy­sis of their re­spec­tive lifestyles and the need to re­view. Our coun­try can­not af­ford the stag­ger­ing loss of large­ly young lives, whether many of them fol­lowed the wrong path or not is moot. There has to be an in­te­grat­ed ed­u­ca­tion ap­proach to chang­ing the neg­a­tive lifestyles, val­ues, be­liefs, ethics, and habits of many peo­ple in the coun­try.

The an­nu­al ex­pen­di­ture on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty has been a dis­as­ter. Over $100 bil­lion would have been spent on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty over the last decade, yet cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to live in mor­tal fear of hav­ing their lives snuffed out. Every sin­gle un­usu­al sound is now a trig­ger for a pan­ic at­tack. The cit­i­zens of the coun­try can­not af­ford to lead lives that are so sub­stan­tial­ly lack­ing in qual­i­ta­tive val­ue.

No amount of wealth can gen­er­ate the safe­ty of lives un­til there is a fun­da­men­tal trans­for­ma­tion in val­ues and be­liefs. The 2026 Bud­get for the men­tioned se­cu­ri­ty is sig­nif­i­cant, cou­pled with ad­vances in the Po­lice Ser­vice, the cit­i­zens look to­wards a safer New Year.

The Gov­ern­ment and all cit­i­zens have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re-en­gage in new ways to use our re­sources. While it seems glib to speak about every­one hav­ing to make do with less be­cause of the coun­try’s de­creas­ing rev­enue, we must un­der­stand that this is a puerile and su­per­fi­cial ar­gu­ment.

The most salient point has to be the best dis­tri­b­u­tion of the avail­able rev­enue, where the most val­ue, ben­e­fit, and im­pact will be achieved. Di­vali stands as a light in this new think­ing. It is nec­es­sary for the gov­ern­ment, cor­po­rate sec­tor, and wealthy in­di­vid­u­als to pro­vide re­sources to the groups, or­gan­i­sa­tions, and oth­er en­ti­ties that are more ca­pa­ble of mak­ing ad­vances against crime.

Too many of our cit­i­zens be­lieve that re­li­gious and oth­er so­cial groups should not be sup­port­ed by state rev­enue, con­ve­nient­ly for­get­ting that every­one con­tributes to the tax­es col­lect­ed. If the Gov­ern­ment re­al­ly wants to make an im­pact in trans­form­ing lives, then re­li­gious groups ought to be sup­port­ed more fi­nan­cial­ly, gen­er­ous­ly, to make a dif­fer­ence in the lives of in­di­vid­u­als.

It must be re­mem­bered that the po­lice and ju­di­cial ser­vices are large­ly puni­tive by na­ture and are not geared to im­prove­ments in the lives of peo­ple in most in­stances. There are po­lice youth clubs and oth­er sim­i­lar out­reach ini­tia­tives, but these are quite few over­all and tar­get spe­cif­ic per­sons and com­mu­ni­ties. The re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions have the widest reach in the coun­try and in­flu­ence more lives than the gov­ern­ment.

It will be shud­der­ing to think what would be the fate of this coun­try if the re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions were to fail. While re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions do not trum­pet the thou­sands of lives that they have changed, it would be sil­ly to be­lieve that they have not made an in­cred­i­ble dif­fer­ence in the lives of cit­i­zens. The salient point, there­fore, is that the coun­try has to be­come alert to the fact that in good as well as dif­fi­cult times, the en­deav­ours of re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions ought to be sup­port­ed whole­heart­ed­ly.

When the lights of Di­vali were lit, they bright­ened the en­vi­ron­ment and lives of both Hin­dus and non-Hin­dus alike – be­liev­ers and non-be­liev­ers alike. Our re­flec­tion on Di­vali has to en­com­pass a greater and wider vi­sion for our coun­try. Nar­row parochial and po­lit­i­cal bound­aries must be de­mol­ished for our coun­try to ad­vance. Our think­ing has to be re­vis­it­ed.

This post-Di­vali re­flec­tion is an as­sess­ment of the val­ues of our coun­try and the need to re­vis­it these val­ues to progress. In the same way, the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty ob­serves Di­vali in the sa­cred month of Kar­tik.

Hin­dus, af­ter re­ceiv­ing the bless­ing of Lak­sh­mi Ma­ta, must recom­mit them­selves to lofti­er goals in life and pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions to so­ci­ety. A bath in the Holy Month of Kar­tik and wor­ship of the Supreme are build­ing blocks to as­cend the di­vine re­gions.