There’s no need to decolonise Halloween

‘Decolonising’ is the latest trendy activity. It does not, no matter the reasonable room for confusion, involve enemas – injecting fluids to cleanse or stimulate the emptying of one’s bowel. While much is underway to ‘reverse’ remnants of a colonial past – the latest being Uttarakhand‘s chief minister directing government departments to start proceedings to rename all British-ruled India-era location names, and the defence ministry doing the same for cantonments across the country – one entity is picking up in popularity.

While Halloween is not, per se, ‘colonial’, it can be considered so by folks with considerable time and energy on their hands. After all, Halloween a.k.a. All Hallows’ Day celebrated tonight has its roots in Celtic harvest festivals, and the Scottish and Irish formed a bulwark of British rule in India.

Thankfully, the Americans – via Scottish and Irish immigrants – turned a night of remembering Christian saints and martyrs into a much more fun-filled, look-the-spook event.

Now, even upscale India-resident Indians celebrate Halloween with fervour – and expenses – mixing their costumes with cocktails, trick or treat with meet and greet. So, like Christmas, this celebratory evening is also becoming a secular, ‘uncolonised’ calendar event in the festival/party season. Which is not ghastly at all, but wonderfully ghostly.