Canadian PM draws Indian ire by wishing ‘Diwali Mubarak’

[Shahzaz ud din]

Canadian PM draws Indian ire by wishing ‘Diwali Mubarak’

• Justin Trudeau asked to correct his ‘mistake’
• This year, Diwali will be celebrated on Oct 19 across India

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by Dawood Rehman | Published on October 17, 2017 (Edited October 18, 2017)

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OTTAWA – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Twitter on Tuesday morning to wish everyone a happy Diwali, and suddenly came in the line of fire of several users from India for his choice of words.

‘Diwali Mubarak’, Trudeau greeted his 3.71 million followers, with a picture of himself in a black sherwani, lighting a lamp.

“Diwali Mubarak! We’re celebrating in Ottawa tonight. #HappyDiwali!” reads the caption of the image that has been retweeted nearly 800 times and ‘liked’ by 3.5K users.

View image on Twitter

https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau
PM Trudeau was instantly criticised for using the word ‘Mubarak’ that Indian say has its origins in ‘Arabic’. He was asked to correct his mistake:

16 Oct
Justin Trudeau

✔@JustinTrudeau
Diwali Mubarak! We're celebrating in Ottawa tonight. #HappyDiwali! pic.twitter.com/HBFlQUBhWX


Follow
Bhavesh K Pandey @bhaveshkpandey

It's not "Diwali Mubarak", it's "Diwali Ki Badhai" ... Correct it ..

16 Oct
Justin Trudeau

✔@JustinTrudeau
Diwali Mubarak! We're celebrating in Ottawa tonight. #HappyDiwali! pic.twitter.com/HBFlQUBhWX


Follow
Ashish @Ak_Ashii

Mr Trudeau. Please don't disrespect Hindus. We would love to celebrate our most sacred festival without your Arabic "Diwali Wishes".


16 Oct
Truthsayer @a_truthsayer
Replying to @JustinTrudeau
Word to the wise : It's "Shubh-Deepavali", (Auspicious Deepavali), and NOT "Diwali Mubarak". "Mubarak" is Arabic, not Indian. @CanadainIndia


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Truthsayer @a_truthsayer

PM Justin, thanks for the Deepavali Greetings. Confirm w. @CanadainIndia, please amend your tweet. Nobody, but nobody, says "Diwali Mubarak"


16 Oct
Justin Trudeau

✔@JustinTrudeau
Diwali Mubarak! We're celebrating in Ottawa tonight. #HappyDiwali! pic.twitter.com/HBFlQUBhWX


Follow
Abinayah Raguraam @AbinayahR

Thank you, Mr.PM. Its good to hear from a global icon. But it's either 'subh deewali' (Hindhi) or deepavali Vazhthukal(Tamil).

There were also some who thought the criticism was unnecessary and that the spirit of the festival should be enjoyed:

16 Oct
Justin Trudeau

✔@JustinTrudeau
Diwali Mubarak! We're celebrating in Ottawa tonight. #HappyDiwali! pic.twitter.com/HBFlQUBhWX


Follow
Shaan @Shanyousaf6

You are awesome. Not sure why ppl getting offended by "Mubarak" Respect the sentiments behind, Mubarak just an Arabic word for blessing

Follow
Sameer @QmSameer
Replying to @Cricrifi @JustinTrudeau

There isnt anything muslim about Mubarak..Its a Urdu word and people say this on congratulating others...Get a life !!

16 Oct
onie @OnieXOX
Replying to @a_truthsayer @JustinTrudeau
oh. then youre correct

Follow
Suryanarayan Ganesh @gsurya

Ignore these Trumpkins, if HAPPY Diwali is acceptable, Mubarak is too. Its an Urdu word, very much a language of India. @a_truthsayer


The festival of Diwali marks the return of Hindu Lord Rama to Ayodhya city in northern India after he defeated Ravana – the powerful demon king of Lanka – to rescue his wife Sita.

On Diwali, people light fireworks and illuminate their houses with different types of lights.

This year, Diwali will be celebrated on October 19 across India.

 

[MultaniGuy]

Well okay he made a mistake.

 

[Shajida Khan]

WTF? How does it matter if it is Diwali Mubarak or Happy Diwali or Subh Deepawali. Some folks have too much time and too less mind.

 

[Canuck786]

Well this is shallow way of thinking. The Prime Minister greeted out of the way by saying 'Diwali Mubarak' which essentially means Happy Diwali. I think Hindus should then not say 'Happy Diwali' either as it would be something that Christians do when saying 'Happy Christmas'.

 

[dreamer4eva]

Freaking some people are so full of you know what. Someone is showing goodwill and people are laying into him...

 

[EyelessInGaza]

Some people have a lot of spare time.

In the meanwhile, belated Diwali mubarak everyone.

 

[saiyan0321]

Jeez. Bura he haal hain.

Anyway belated diwali Mubarak. May you have enjoyed it and celebrated it with great fervor.

@Joe Shearer @hellfire @Nilgiri

 

[Joe Shearer]

Well okay he made a mistake.

BALLS, he did. I've wished several friends, all Hindus or Sikh, and nobody had anything to say to this. The ones who were unhappy are simply troglodytes. And they should go back where they came from.

 

[ranjeet]

Expected from the Canadian pappu ... what's sad is liberal turds promoting "Jashn e Chiraghan" instead of Diwali. Servitude towards Mughals can only be paralleled by Sonia's secular darbaris.

https://twitter.com/x/status/921055849858056192

 

[Nilgiri]

WTF? How does it matter if it is Diwali Mubarak or Happy Diwali or Subh Deepawali. Some folks have too much time and too less mind.

Indeed it was overblown reaction by some twitterati etc.

There is genuine criticism regarding Trudeau, this one is not one of them.

 

[El Sidd]

Diwali mubarak too.

This is normal.

Like azaadi mubarak

 

[proud_indian]

Diwali mubarak too.

This is normal.

Like azaadi mubarak

Muzhe aapki baat pe pur "Vishvas" hai (I wholeheartedly believe you.)

‘Vishvas’: A word that threatens Pakistan
By Khaled Ahmed
Published: September 18, 2012
The writer is Director South Asian Media School, Lahore khaled.ahmed@tribune.com.pk

Scandal: Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf recently told the Supreme Court: “Mujh par vishvas karen”. By “vishvas” he meant ‘trust’; he wanted the Court to trust his sincerity.

TV channels immediately reacted. Intellectually-challenged actor Shaan spent time making fun of the prime minister who used the Hindi word. Others followed suit. An article titled “A silent invasion” appeared in The News (September 3) lamenting Indian culture’s invasion to destroy Pakistan’s ideology. The word ‘vishvas’ was the missile that would do the trick.

It went on: “Raja’s choice of Hindi vocabulary… is symptomatic of a creeping cultural penetration of Pakistan by our eastern neighbour. This silent invasion is taking place mainly through the opening of Pakistan to cheap Bollywood movies, Indian TV entertainment, DVDs and videos of Indian films and, most insidious of all, the home-screening of popular children’s programmes, especially cartoons, dubbed in Hindi.”

Naively, the article refers to France not encouraging the use of English words but it forgets France, when it recommends a ban on all TV and cinema plus DVD home projections of this ‘cultural invasion’. The intelligence agencies, fired by their perceptions of Indian danger, have always said what the article discussed. Somehow, the cultural invasion by America through cinema, TV and restaurants does not affect our spooks.

America’s soft power has bothered many but no one curtails freedom as a weapon to thwart it. Now Indian soft power irks Pakistan, although it does not disturb Central Asia and Africa where this ‘slow invasion’ is also proceeding apace. Shall we curtail our freedom through police action to secure the country against Indian culture?

Pakistan doesn’t know how to respond to challenges based on culture. A number of things have happened over the past years because of this refusal or inability to understand culture as a value in human life. The people have been forced to look for entertainment on their own because the concept of entertainment cannot be discussed in Pakistan without inviting the restrictive maximalism of the clergy.

After 1947, culture was what joined Pakistan with India. Pakistan has killed culture to face India more effectively in the battlefield. Two contaminations are to be fought. The first is the local accretions that Islam suffered when the Muslims were ruling India; the second is the entertainment that comes across the border in all manner of ways.

When Pakistani singers, musicians, actors, cricketers, commentators and some writers go to India, the Indians pay them good money for Pakistan’s ‘slow invasion’. Nor are they upset by the dominance of Persianised Urdu in Bollywood songs. Indians, in fact, buy glossaries to make sense of Urdu words in them. Instead of using this as Pakistan’s ‘soft power’, some writers want the door in Pakistan shut to regional culture. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are strangely not bothered about India’s ‘slow invasion’.

‘Vishvas’ in my Monnier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary literally means “breathing freely” (trust). It gets abbreviated as ‘svas’ and appears in Hindi as ‘svast’ (healthy). Another more familiar derivation is swastika(auspicious). Punjabi has its abbreviation from ‘vishvas’: ‘vasah’. The above article in The News would accept ‘bharosa’ for trust, not knowing that ‘bharosa’ is actually ‘bharvasah’, directly taken from ‘vishvasah’. ‘Vishv’ (full) and ‘bhar’ (full) mark the transition here.

Maulvi Muhammad Hussain Azad in his Sukhandan-e-Fars twins Persian and Sanskrit as sister languages. Iran, too, has its soft power over Pakistan, but with India, the linguistic co-extension bothers the Pakistani ideologue, who sees survival of the state only as a steadily self-curtailing entity, already being nibbled away by the culture-hating Taliban.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19th, 2012

https://tribune.com.pk/story/438587/vishvas-a-word-that-threatens-pakistan/

 

[JohnyD]

It is okay! I dont see much difference... We use lots of words originated in foreign in our day to day conversation...

 

[Indika]

ppl making big deal out of nothing. He meant to convey diwali wishes and nothing more. In a multicultural environ ppl do tend borrow words or use words known to them. For example there will lot of words for god but the meaning/understanding is still the same.
At a technical level if an arab had said that it would not have garnered much attention.

ppl who expect exact words or impose stricter meanings are such scaring away friendly ppl who want to share & know more about your culture.

 

[El Sidd]

Muzhe aapki baat pe pur "Vishvas" hai (I wholeheartedly believe you.)

‘Vishvas’: A word that threatens Pakistan
By Khaled Ahmed
Published: September 18, 2012
The writer is Director South Asian Media School, Lahore khaled.ahmed@tribune.com.pk

Scandal: Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf recently told the Supreme Court: “Mujh par vishvas karen”. By “vishvas” he meant ‘trust’; he wanted the Court to trust his sincerity.

TV channels immediately reacted. Intellectually-challenged actor Shaan spent time making fun of the prime minister who used the Hindi word. Others followed suit. An article titled “A silent invasion” appeared in The News (September 3) lamenting Indian culture’s invasion to destroy Pakistan’s ideology. The word ‘vishvas’ was the missile that would do the trick.

It went on: “Raja’s choice of Hindi vocabulary… is symptomatic of a creeping cultural penetration of Pakistan by our eastern neighbour. This silent invasion is taking place mainly through the opening of Pakistan to cheap Bollywood movies, Indian TV entertainment, DVDs and videos of Indian films and, most insidious of all, the home-screening of popular children’s programmes, especially cartoons, dubbed in Hindi.”

Naively, the article refers to France not encouraging the use of English words but it forgets France, when it recommends a ban on all TV and cinema plus DVD home projections of this ‘cultural invasion’. The intelligence agencies, fired by their perceptions of Indian danger, have always said what the article discussed. Somehow, the cultural invasion by America through cinema, TV and restaurants does not affect our spooks.

America’s soft power has bothered many but no one curtails freedom as a weapon to thwart it. Now Indian soft power irks Pakistan, although it does not disturb Central Asia and Africa where this ‘slow invasion’ is also proceeding apace. Shall we curtail our freedom through police action to secure the country against Indian culture?

Pakistan doesn’t know how to respond to challenges based on culture. A number of things have happened over the past years because of this refusal or inability to understand culture as a value in human life. The people have been forced to look for entertainment on their own because the concept of entertainment cannot be discussed in Pakistan without inviting the restrictive maximalism of the clergy.

After 1947, culture was what joined Pakistan with India. Pakistan has killed culture to face India more effectively in the battlefield. Two contaminations are to be fought. The first is the local accretions that Islam suffered when the Muslims were ruling India; the second is the entertainment that comes across the border in all manner of ways.

When Pakistani singers, musicians, actors, cricketers, commentators and some writers go to India, the Indians pay them good money for Pakistan’s ‘slow invasion’. Nor are they upset by the dominance of Persianised Urdu in Bollywood songs. Indians, in fact, buy glossaries to make sense of Urdu words in them. Instead of using this as Pakistan’s ‘soft power’, some writers want the door in Pakistan shut to regional culture. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are strangely not bothered about India’s ‘slow invasion’.

‘Vishvas’ in my Monnier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary literally means “breathing freely” (trust). It gets abbreviated as ‘svas’ and appears in Hindi as ‘svast’ (healthy). Another more familiar derivation is swastika(auspicious). Punjabi has its abbreviation from ‘vishvas’: ‘vasah’. The above article in The News would accept ‘bharosa’ for trust, not knowing that ‘bharosa’ is actually ‘bharvasah’, directly taken from ‘vishvasah’. ‘Vishv’ (full) and ‘bhar’ (full) mark the transition here.

Maulvi Muhammad Hussain Azad in his Sukhandan-e-Fars twins Persian and Sanskrit as sister languages. Iran, too, has its soft power over Pakistan, but with India, the linguistic co-extension bothers the Pakistani ideologue, who sees survival of the state only as a steadily self-curtailing entity, already being nibbled away by the culture-hating Taliban.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19th, 2012

https://tribune.com.pk/story/438587/vishvas-a-word-that-threatens-pakistan/

Strange world.

Kisi par andha vishwas na karna