Holi: “Speaking Truth to Power”

Holi is a beautiful festival, incorporating the celebration of nature with the religious. As a seasonal festival, Holi rejoices in the return of spring and the renewal of life. Spring comes to us with light and color and we welcome her with dance, song, and play with colors. We tell various stories from the Hindu tradition. One of the best known is the narrative about the child, Prahalad, and his tyrannical king-father, Hiranyakashipu.

Stories like these never cease to speak to us and, in our contemporary context, the story of Prahaland and Hiranyakashipu is especially powerful and inspiring. In so many ways, it speaks profoundly to our current time.

It is a story about the insatiable lust for power. Hiranyakashipu enjoyed the power of a king, but this was not enough. He was a megalomaniac, who wanted to be worshipped and needed unqualified flattery from those who surrounded him. People were punished or rewarded on the basis of their willingness to lavish him with praise. It is a story of the corruption of religion. Hiranyakashipu performed rituals and practiced ascetic disciples without moral commitments. He instrumentalized religion for the attainment of power and dominion over others. His religion was self-worship.

It is also a story, however, about resistance to the abuse of power and standing up for one’s moral commitments. Prahalad resisted his father’s tyranny and refused to engage in self-debasing flattery. He did not waver in the face of the direst threats. It is story also about religion as a source of inspiration for resistance. Prahalad made it very clear that his deepest loyalty could never be to a finite human being, but only to the Ultimate source of the universe-Narayana. His loyalty to a higher truth was the source of his fearlessness and his willingness to risk his life in standing against his father. In Prahalad we see a religious faith that refused that refused to be seduced by the transitory enticements of power. He practised a faith that “spoke truth to power.”

On this Holi, may the example of Prahalad rouse and embolden us to resist all abuse of power and to fearlessly “speak truth to power.” When we do so, we identify with the divine who is not indifferent to oppression and injustice.

Happy Holi.

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Anantanand Rambachan