Leicester's diwali celebrations all but cancelled this year

LONDON: Leicester’s Diwali celebrations this year have been significantly scaled back, despite once having been the largest Diwali celebration in the world outside India.

Labour-run Leicester city council has announced all the activities will be cancelled apart from lighting up Diwali lanterns on lampposts and a road closure.

In previous years the festival saw a Diwali village consisting of a funfair, stage hosting music and dance, food stalls, and aerial fireworks display spread across Cossington Recreation Ground and Belgrave Road. There were two huge events – a switching-on lights ceremony two weeks before Diwali Day and Diwali Day. Last year, to save money, the switching-on ceremony was cancelled and all the entertainment was restricted to Diwali Day itself. This year a safety advisory group (SAG) made up of representatives from the emergency services has decided the stage show, Diwali village and fireworks will not go ahead on public safety grounds after it attracted a record 55,000 people last year.

Instead the city council will close Belgrave Road on October 20 to enable people to visit restaurants and shops on the Golden Mile; 6,000 LED Diwali lights, some shaped as diyas, will be hung across lampposts and the Wheel of Light, a Ferris wheel lit up in lights, will be the only entertainment.

Vinod Popat, convenor of the Hindu Community Organisations Group (HCOG) Leicester: said: “For many, Diwali without fireworks just doesn’t feel complete – like Christmas dinner without turkey. When we look at events like Notting Hill Carnival, which faces its own challenges, but continues to grow, it makes you wonder why Diwali in Leicester is treated differently.”

Leicester East MP Shivani Raja and Tory MP Neil O'Brien have written to temporary chief constable David Sandall urging him to allocate additional police resources to allow it to go ahead, pointing out that closing Cossington Park and forcing everyone into the Golden Mile would be concentrating the crowds into a smaller area.

A Leicestershire police spokesperson said the SAG unanimously concluded that the current format poses a serious risk to public safety. “This was grounded in several near-crush incidents, uncontrolled crowd densities, insufficient evacuation routes, lack of emergency access and over reliance on emergency crowd management control,” the spokesperson said.

Leicestershire police probe Ganesh Chaturthi car procession
Leicestershire police has started investigating a Ganesha Chaturthi car procession which took place in Leicester on Aug 25 after the Hindu Community Organisations Group (HCOG) Leicester filed a complaint to the police accusing the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) of religious hatred after it called ancient Hindu saffron flags used at one of the processions “extremist”. The MCB had claimed the flags belonged to Bajrang Dal and “other Hindutva-associated flags.”

A Leicestershire Police spokesperson said: “Enquiries are continuing into an unauthorised procession that took place in Green Lane Road on Aug 25. Neither Leicestershire police or the local authority was notified of this procession and it was not authorised to take place. It is a legal requirement to notify the police of any procession and failure to do so may constitute an offence. To date, we have issued seven seizure warning notices for the antisocial use of vehicles as well as community protection notice warnings for antisocial behaviour”. ”

TOI understands that a group from Daman and Diu held a large Ganesha procession with saffron flags on Aug 25 which did not have permission.