Sto­ry by SHAS­TRI BOODAN

The fate of the 2020 Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions hangs in lim­bo says De­ok­ien­anan Shar­ma, the pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC).

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Shar­ma told Guardian Me­dia the stag­ing of the na­tion­al event de­pends heav­i­ly on the guid­ance and the poli­cies of the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties dur­ing the cur­rent COVID-19 cri­sis, and the de­vel­op­ment of a vac­cine for the dis­ease.

Shar­ma said the 2020 Na­gar was card­ed for the end of Oc­to­ber and would run in­to ear­ly No­vem­ber. The Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions take place on the 15-acre site at Narsa­loo Ra­maya Road, Ch­agua­nas, an­nu­al­ly, and at­tract thou­sands night­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to Shar­ma, it is the sec­ond largest fes­ti­val af­ter Car­ni­val. He said such a sce­nario would make it im­pos­si­ble to prac­tice so­cial dis­tanc­ing since the event is es­sen­tial­ly a cul­tur­al and so­cial event that fa­cil­i­tates pub­lic in­ter­ac­tion.

The NCIC pres­i­dent said stag­ing a wa­tered-down ver­sion of the Na­gar would not make any sense since it would de­feat the pur­pose of the event.  He said in 2019, the event at­tract­ed over 100 booth ex­hibitors. How­ev­er, he said the NCIC has not sent out any in­vi­ta­tions for per­sons to ap­ply for booths for 2020, be­cause of the cur­rent coro­n­avirus cri­sis.

80-year-old Shar­ma said he was very con­cerned about the health of the many el­der­ly per­sons who at­tend the Na­gar and not­ed that Ja­maica al­ready has or­dered per­sons over the age of 70 years to stay at home.

Shar­ma said pub­lic health and the safe­ty of all na­tion­als take prece­dence over any cel­e­bra­tion or fes­tiv­i­ty.