Siva Rajendran wants to have Thanksgiving Day in India
Linked by admin. Join Blogbharti facebook group.Well if you look at the origin of Thanksgiving, it’s nothing but a day to give thanks to God at the end of harvest season. So it’s not a unique festival, we in India have many such days. Pongal celebrated in TamilNadu, ‘Lohri’ festival in Punjab and ‘Makara Sankranthi’ celebrated in the North India, are such festivals where one show their gratitude to God.
So why do we need another day with a different name? Is it really needed? Well I feel it’s needed because Thanksgiving can be taken beyond the boundaries of religion and could be made as a day for CSR of a different kind, i.e . Citizen’s Social Responsibility. It can be a day dedicated to charities, a day to care for our mother Earth, a day to thank friends and relatives for their timely help.
This idea is surprising since within the US, there is a feeling that this should become a day of Atonement against the genocide of the native Americans by the white settlers.
yeah. Probably the blogger is unaware of the controversies.
Bhupinder, Krish:
Thanks for your comments.
I just said that we can dedicate a day to thank people who’ve helped us, not to celebrate the Thanksgiving for the same reason as US do.
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“We’ve lot of days to thank God, so dedicating a day to honor and appreciate the fellow human beings who’ve helped in our life or helping someone who is not as blessed as we are on one single day will not be harmful.”
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Also I’m not an expert in U.S. History and was not aware of the controversy you are talking about. I’ve checked with wikipedia to know about the origin of Thanksgiving Day and i didn’t found anything about the controversies you are talking about. May be somebody need to update the wikipedia.
That’s fine, Siva. I think the Wikipedia carries the dominant view (I haven’t checked it), there are alternative, and indigenous perspectives on Thanksgiving.
Anyway, I also read somewhere that someone has even seen a correlation between the significance of Thursday in Hinduism and attributing Thanksgiving to Hindu influence !
Anyway, no reflection on your post, just wanted to give the other perspective as well. Your intentions are very much appreciated.