Omicron, Urs & Nalanda conference

 

Chandan Sharma

Certainly, it is not the era of new variant of Covid-19 virus like ‘Omicron’ that forced the WHO to put the globe under another round of curbs (if possible!) forcing the globe living under another round of threats of poverty, health emergency and crisis as well as lockdowns. It has already forced several heads of the states including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UK PM Boris Johnson, heads of some of the EU nations and even China to call emergency meeting to discuss the emerging situation and putting fresh curbs on international travelers and flights.

In fact, the intermittent comeback of the pandemic has certainly changed the mindsets of the festivals and international conferences too. For example, Urs festival has been celebrated in Delhi this week in the memory of Sufi Hazrat Nizamuddin. This was 718^th Urs festival of Hazrat Nizamuddin, for attaining of the sainthood amid strict Covid protocol. Those, who stay in Delhi or well aware of culture of Delhi, are well aware of the fact that Urs festival is the biggest festival in Delhi and Nizamuddin is the biggest centre of attraction for Muslim and Hindu community in the capital apart from Jama Masjid and Kutub Minar. A seminar of top Islamic scholars was organized on the occasion apart from other cultural programmes on the occasion but the shadow of Covid curbs remained there during the seminar. Several scholars not only mentioned the pandemic but urged to keep patience to fight the menace.

Urs was not just one religious conference organized amid the shadow of pandemic but another international conference on religion of Buddha dharma in Nalanda University too witnessed fear of pandemic. The international conference attended by the Vice President of India M. V. Naidu and Bihar’s Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. But the conference could not come out from the shadow of Covid curbs. Even the Vice President too mentioned the pandemic many times and urged the participants to follow the protocol during the conference.

No doubt, both the religious conferences have been known for the scholarly discourse and debate on the religion but shadow of Covid has engulfed both the conferences to some extent. It is another matter that organizers dared to defeat the sentiment of give up and organized the conferences keeping the spirit and enthusiasm high. But new variant puts a question mark on the spirit, again! Glocally!

(Author is founder & editor of yuvavani.com) (An independent  pvt. initiative)