India lights lamps to stand united in fight against COVID-19

Millions of people switched off non-essential lights and lit diyas and candles in their balconies and verandas on Sunday night. This was after a call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “challenge the darkness spread by the coronavirus crisis”. There are over 3,500 cases nationwide of people affected by the virus.

At 9 pm tens of thousands of diyas were lit as people wearing face masks burst firecrackers, blew conches and shouted and cheered in response to the Prime Minister’s call. Spiritual slogans and chants of “Bharat Mata ki Jai” were heard as well.

Although the Prime Minister had requested diyas be lit for nine minutes from 9 pm, people kept up the chanting and cheering for nearly 30 minutes, with the lamps left burning for much longer.

PM Modi tweeted a photo of him lighting a lamp at his official residence wearing a blue kurta. He also recited a Sanskrit poem that.

In Gujarat, the Prime Minister’s mother, 93-year-old Hiraben also joined in, lighting an earthen lamp after turning off all the lights in her home.

President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, Home Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, and BJP chief JP Nadda also lit lamps.

The entire event led to #9MinutesForIndia emerging as one of the top trends on Twitter.

The Prime Minister’s request had led to fears among state electricity boards that the sudden mass power fluctuations with millions of people switching lights off and on could overload the system. State power boards had asked workers to be on stand-by. Fortunately, no major power outages or blackouts were reported.

This was the second “collective display” to show unity in the fight against the virus requested by the Prime Minister since the lockdown started. He had earlier asked people to stand in balconies and clap, or bang utensils, for five minutes at 5 pm to celebrate medical staff in the fight against the coronavirus.

There are 3,577 COVID-19 positive cases in India, including 83 deaths.

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