Firecrackers and the Hindu religion

There was massive controversy in India last month when the Supreme Court banned the sale of firecrackers in and around Delhi, in an ostensible Move to cut pollution.

As one might expect, the move drew heavy criticism on the grounds that the court was ruling against a fundamental tenet of Hindu religion. In return, other people pointed out that bursting firecrackers on the occasion of Deepavali is a rather recent tradition, and thus has nothing to do with the “fundamental tenets of Hinduism”.

As it happened, the ban continued to stay, though reports say that both noise and air pollution levels in Delhi were unaffected by the ban. Here’s my humble attempt to argue that why modern traditions such as bursting firecrackers is important to religion,

As I’ve mentioned several times on this blog, religion in general and festivals in particular are memes, in the traditional Richard Dawkins sense of the term.

Religion and festivals are basically ideas that compete in an ideas marketplace, and people propagate the ideas that they like the most. In one sense people like what they find useful – which is why imagined orders such as democracy or public limited companies continue to propagate and thrive.

At a more personal level, though, people will choose to associate with and propagate ideas that they simply like, and at a very basic level, enjoy. In other words, the more fun people find a concept, the more heavily they’ll adopt and propagate it.

Hence religions evolve, and (in what can be seen as parallels to mutation), pick up ideas from outside that can make them more fun. So the American Christians picked up and appropriated thanksgiving from the red Indians. Even further back Christianity picked up and amalgamated the idea of Christmas. Hare Krishna people picked up wild dancing. Bombay people picked up Ganesha processions. And so on.

By incorporating fun practices from outside, religions make themselves fitter, as they open up leeway’s for new recruits (such as kids). Short of coercion, without fun practices there’s little chance that religion can pick up new recruits.

Crackers on Deepavali, or colours on Holi, are aspects that have come into the hindu religion that have made it more fun. That theee aspects make the religion more fun mean that it’s easier to co-opt new recruits, especially the young kind. This makes the meme that is the hindu religion fitter.

So it doesn’t matter how ancient a practice is – as long as it’s fun, and increases the memetic fitness of a religion, it remains a fundamental part of the religion.

Without firecrackers the idea of Deepavali might lose its identity and people might stop celebrating it. And it being one of Hinduism’s most celebrated festivals, a weakening Deepavali meme leads to a weakening hindu meme.

So the banning of firecrackers in Delhi on the occasion of Deepavali was indeed injurious to the hindu religion.

Just keep in mind that culture (using memes) evolves much much faster than organisms (which use genes)!

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