Deepawali, the festival of lights, had been infiltrated by Chinese lights and chandeliers in the past few years. But since last year, due to China’s gimmicks on the border, people have resolved to develop a self-reliant India (Atmanirbhar Bharat) and Vocal For Local and the effect of this is also visible during the festive season. Deepawali, the festival of lights, seems to be making a comeback.
The market of Delhi’s Uttam Nagar is full of people shopping for diyas for Diwali. Such a crowd of people to buy diyas has been seen after years. Lalita Arora, a resident of Delhi says that as a child, she used to celebrate Diwali with diyas, but her family was lighting their house with Chinese skirts on Diwali for a few years due to them being cheap and the insistence of the children. However, this year, she has resolved that to give an economic answer to China, her house will be illuminated only by lighting earthen lamps.
Rajeev Kumar, a trader who runs an earthenware shop in Uttam Nagar, says that this year, a large crowd of people are coming to take earthen lamps, which is really wonderful. The demand for earthen lamps is so much that the shopkeepers are not able to fulfill it. Kumar says he expected that due to the boycott of Chinese goods this year, the demand will increase one and a half times at most as compared to last year, but by the time of Diwali, the demand for earthen lamps broke the record and the number of earthen lamps he sold in the year 2019 and 2020 combined, he has already sold more than that this year.
Since Delhi’s Uttam Nagar is a famous and big market for earthenware, people are coming from far and wide to take designer diyas for Diwali. Rajesh, who lives in Gurugram, travelled 22 kilometres to Uttam Nagar in Delhi only to get earthen designer lamps so that he could fulfill his pledge to boycott his Chinese goods taken last year and help the indigenous artisans. According to Rajesh, Deepawali is the festival of lamps, that was the mistake of us Indians who got caught in the affair of Chinese lights and skirts, but now Indians are again moving towards Diyas.
The potters who make earthen lamps are getting the most benefit from the return of lamps in Diwali, the festival of lights. Mamraj, a potter who had has been making diyas for the last 19 years in Kumhar Colony of Uttam Nagar, says that every year he used to take the earthen lamps to the market and sell them to the merchant. Due to low demand, all the diyas did not sell and the remaining ones would get spoiled. But this year, the demand for earthen lamps is so high that traders are coming to their house to buy diyas and the order is also so high that they have to make 18-19 hours of diyas with the whole family. After a decade, there has been such a jump in the demand for diyas.
Apart from increasing the demand for earthen lamps, the price that potters get has also increased by more than double this year. According to Rajkumar, who makes lamps in Uttam Nagar itself, last year the cost of 1,000 earthen lamps was between Rs 200 and Rs 250, but this year the same number of diyas are being sold for Rs 600, 700 or Rs 900.
On the one hand, due to the boycott of Chinese goods in India and the resolve of self-reliant India, the lamps are returning on Diwali, while China is going to be hit the most. According to the survey conducted by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), an organization of traders across the country, in 20 big cities of India, this year, China is estimated to have lost more than Rs 50,000 crores due to people’s preference to buy indigenously made stuff on Diwali.
According to CAIT General Secretary Praveen Khandelwal, this year, CAIT had called upon all the traders that on Diwali, every shopkeeper must keep earthen lamps in his shop and not sell Chinese goods at all because when there are no Chinese goods in the market, people will only buy earthen lamps. The effect of this is that this year Diwali is going to be self-sufficient and China is also going to get an economic answer of thousands of crores.
