With the administration fearing a fresh wave of Covid-19 in Madhya Pradesh’s commercial capital Indore, which has been reporting in excess of 100 new cases a day over the past week or so, the famous event of Gair (involving processions) during the Rangpanchami festival in the city has been called off.
Celebrated around the historical Rajwada area on Rangpanchami every year, the festival sees thousands converging amid a splash of colours, in continuation of pre-independence and Holkar-rule traditions.
Processions joined by revellers are taken out from different parts of the city on the day and all these groups gather at Rajwada for the colourful bash organised five days after Holi.
Last year, the event was celebrated as Covid-19 was yet to make its presence felt in Madhya Pradesh. The processions weren’t taken out but people in the thousands had come out on the streets to participate in the revelries.
The administration had put up barricades to prevent locals from reaching Rajwada in large numbers but somehow hundreds of people dodged these measures to reach the historical site.
Locals say that in the past 75 years, the event, which now has national and international fame, has never been curtailed, except in 2020.
Instances like the Emergency, severe drought and riots could not stop this colourful event in the past, they say.
One of the organisers of the event, Shekhar Giri, said that in 1990 there were riots around the Ramjanmabhoomi movement in the city, but the-then collector Naresh Narad had asked organisers to celebrate the event to lighten the mood. “In 2002-03, we took out a Gair using less water. Five years ago, we had called off the event once when one of our colleagues had died,” he recounted.
Premswarup Khandelwal, another organiser, said in 1976, the-then chief minister Shyama Charan Shukla had personally intervened to instruct officers that the event should not be cancelled despite Emergency-induced political tension.
Various religious fairs have been cancelled in different districts of Madhya Pradesh by crisis-management committees in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.
The famous Mahadev and Ramji Baba fairs organised annually in Hoshangabad have also been called off.
The Balaghat district administration had on Tuesday announced the imposition of night curfew because of the Covid-19 threat but later withdrew the order and wrote to the administration in Bhopal for permission. Additional chief secretary (Home) Rajesh Rajora had earlier said that no night curfew could be imposed without the authorisation of senior officials in Bhopal.
According to the medical bulletin issued on February 23, Indore reported 102 cases and Bhopal 40 cases.
Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has urged the public to exercise caution by using masks and maintaining social distancing.
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