Bastar district

Dashara celebration in Chhattisgarh is special too.

Bastar Dashara lasts approximately 75 days.

Unlikely many other Dashara celebrations, it does not primarily focus on Rama's victory over Ravana.

Instead, it honors Goddess Danteshwari and the traditional deities of the Bastar region.

Vaishnavi, as you have heard the stories around Dashara, can you tell what lessons does Dashara teach us apart from religious significance and stories? Dashara teaches

us that good intentions must be supported by good action.

So before I begin, I need to tell our listeners that religious conversion has been a major political issue in Chhattisgarh, and this has been since the last assembly elections in two thousand twenty-three.

And also for at least the last eight years, there have been communal disturbances, especially in the tribal-dominated Bastar region.

Coming to your question, earlier this year, Christian community leaders claimed that the district administration has gradually received over a thousand self-declaration forms from non-Christians in Dhamtari.

So these people said they were going to church out of their own choice.

So one such case over burial rites last year went to the Supreme Court as well.

Uh, this case was Ramesh Baghel versus the State of Chhattisgarh.

And, uh, several fights over burial rites have happened across the Bastar region.

And in the Supreme Court case, as I mentioned, the court had also asked the government to make adequate graveyards for Christians.

And that really tells you something.

And that for somebody, the bus is really going towards Bastar, and for somebody else, it's going, towards Berlin, but like the capacity of the bus and the, yeah, the optimism in the bus is very, very different, I suppose.

Succeeded in bringing the spirits down to the floor.

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