National Inter-Faith Festival

The National Inter-Faith Festival was held this weekend. It was well represented by many different religious and faith groups and had some great music. Tenzin Chogyal from Tibet is always great and there was also this great Iranian group performing with five or so Dafs; just amazing.

The first day, Saturday, began with an Arati in which I provided the tabla accompaniment. The Arati was performed for Gaura-Nitai, Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda, and was filmed by representatives of all the national media. After the Arati we performed Bhajans for about another hour. I say we as I (sorry) have forgotten the woman's name who was singing and playing the harmonium. Anyhow the bhajans were well received except by a particular Catholic priest who prayed for us the whole time. It seems he was a bit freaked out by the Buddhists too.

On the second day, Sunday, we also performed a fire yajna (sacrafice) for shanti (peace). The second day also saw a few forums too. I attended a couple of the forums and I would have to say that, at the least, I was a little disappointed. I expected the forums to be of a higher standard and I was hoping to learn something new. I was particularly upset with how the representatives of Islam were treated in the forums. While a common question for the Christian representative, for example, would focus on love most of the questions fielded to the Islamic representative were phrased in a way that the representative would need to be defensive. For example most people only asked questions of the Islamic representative relating to the treatment of women. This was sad to see particularly at a National Inter-Faith Festival.

I would have to say that the festival needed better advertising and also better facilities so every religious/faith group could have the opportunity to engage publicly with their philosophy. It would seem that even at the National Inter-Faith Festival there is a hierarchy of religions. Such a pity seen as on the Sunday for half the day more than half the marques weren't even being used. These could have been used, as on the Saturday, by the different groups in ways they saw fit. Also, if you took your kids along then you would have discovered that there was nothing to keep them occupied. There are only so many religious forums and musical performances that children are willing to sit through.

My main criticism though is the disregard the organisers showed towards the practices of the different religious and faith groups. The example I'll give is of the Arati and fire yajna that we performed. By we I am referring to ISKCON here. We were told that were we to participate we needed to perform a ceremony. This may seem fine however a ceremony is not a necessary condition of religion and Arati and Yajna are not the main focus of ISKCON. The organisers should not assume that every religion or faith has ceremonies that are able to be publicly displayed, especially in only 20 minutes, and they should be willing to accept the practices of the religious and faith groups that they invite. Don't ask people to perform ceremonies and other actions just for public display when they are not part of the mainstream, often practiced 'methods of worship' of the particular religion or faith. Religion does not deserve to be essentialised in this way, or any other way for that matter, and especially not at a National Inter-Faith Festival. I heard one of the organisers complaining that the community at the festival were essentialising Islam but the way the festival was organised essentialised the religious and faith groups as it was.

The food was great but of course I'd say that. Krishna prasadam is always the most popular food at any festival. I'm not sure if the rabbit stew at the Gypsy stall had much success though.

Overall though I had a good time at the festival, even if my expectations weren't met, and I am looking forward to participating again next year.