In recent years, whenever tragedy strikes or injustice stirs the nation, we see one common sight in India: people marching with candles in their hands. From the 26/11 attacks to the Nirbhaya case, the candlelight march has become the default symbol of mourning and protest.
But pause for a moment and ask: why candles?
Candles are not Hindu. They are not Indian either. They are rooted in Christian and Western traditions, where candlelight vigils are part of church rituals and community mourning. Over time, they were adopted by peace movements in Europe and America, and then exported worldwide as a visual symbol of solidarity.
The Hindu Symbol Was Always There
In Hindu tradition, we already have powerful symbols of light and solemnity:
• Diyas lit with ghee or oil, representing the triumph of light over darkness.
• Agarbattis (incense sticks), symbolising purity, devotion, and the presence of the divine.
• Deepams in temples, carried during yatras and festivals, to sanctify space and time.
If Hindus truly wanted to demonstrate grief, solidarity, or resistance rooted in their culture, they would naturally carry diyas and incense, not candles.
Why Candles Then?
The answer is simple: colonial mimicry and media convenience.
• Urban India, especially after the 1990s, borrowed Western protest culture without asking questions.
• Candles make for “good television” — uniform, neat, photogenic. Diyas are fragile, flicker in the wind, and don’t look as dramatic on camera.
• Slowly, the candle became shorthand for collective grief, replacing indigenous symbols.
A Silent Irony
So, we have Hindus — heirs of one of the world’s oldest living spiritual traditions of light — marching with Christian candles, unaware that their own culture had deeper, more resonant expressions for the same purpose.
It is not wrong to hold a candle. But it is ironic that we abandon the diyas of our ancestors in favour of borrowed symbols. A society that forgets its cultural vocabulary will always end up speaking in someone else’s.
👉 A better question to ask next time you see a candlelight march is:
Why not a diya march? Why not incense held high for justice?
That would not just be a protest — it would be a reclamation of civilisational memory.