Week 322: Attempted Secularization of Basant, Meme, Aesthetic
02/15/2026 - Modern Hindu Content
Welcome to Eternal Path! This week we cover the attempted secularization of Basant/Vasant Panchami, a meme, and an aesthetic!
Hinduphobia Highlight: Attempted Secularization of Basant
A tweet by former Indian cricket star Ajay Jadeja responding to a video of Pakistanis celebrating Basant with kites went viral and sparked a huge discussion on whether Basant is a Hindu festival or not.
We’ve covered in some previous issues that there is a concerted effort and narrative to dehinduize festivals with Onam and Pongal being some of the more prominent examples, but even events like Diwali and even Durga Puja have not been spared. Pakistanis, leftists, and some Sikhs argued Basant is purely an ancient secular Punjabi festival and not Hindu in nature. Here we see a Punjabi ethnonationalist or possible Pakistani using a Bengali caste as a slur when confronted by a Bengali Hindu pointing out that Hindu festivals seem to always face people trying to strip the festival away from its Hindu roots.
Now as a reader of a Hinduism blog, you might have heard of the festival “Vasant Panchami” and perhaps you are aware that many Indian languages take the Sanskrit “v” sound and evolve it into a “b” sound. Obviously, Basant is the same thing as Vasant Panchami and just a local variant.
You might ask why is this important? When Hindu things are not associated with Hinduism, that makes it easier to claim Hinduism is just about “caste”, which broadly in the Western mind, is associated (wrongly) with oppression and the very theoretical varna pyramid. The more things that are stripped away from Hinduism in the discourse, the easier it is to marginalize practicing Hindus as extremists and the easier it is to reduce the pride that Hindus have in their religion; a key step towards deracination and/or conversion.
Thankfully, there are some Hindus that actually are fighting this ideological battle against the stripmining of Hinduism. @vvaayu pointed out that references to Vasant go back to the Rigveda itself.
Madhvacharya in his commentary on the Chandogya Upanishad mantras 2.5.1 and 2.5.2 , gives a translation of the term “Vasanta”, quoted below and linked here.
the various names given in Sanskrit to seasons are primarily names of the Lord. Thus Vasanta means He who gives joy to the Devas in whom He dwells. It is a compound of two words “Vasa” meaning Jīva, literally “that in which the Lord dwells”; and “ta” shortened form of the verb √tan, ‘to extend’; ‘to give joy’. “Vasa” plus “ta” is equal to “Vasanta”, a nasal being added in the middle.
When we move from the textual to the historical, we even see that the greatest Sikh emperor, Ranjit Singh, celebrated Basant to worship Goddess Saraswati.
So its clear Basant, which is just the regional form of broader Vasant Panchami is Hindu. What that means for you is to always speak out against the stripping of Hindu festivals away from Hinduism and correcting the record. Every festival you celebrate when you talk about it, say “The Hindu festival Basant”, “the Hindu festival Pongal”, and so on and so forth and use the historical and textual record widely to make sure people are educated about the topic.
Meme Highlight: Pakistani Muslim Cultural Appropriation
Aesthetic: Vasant Panchami Celebration
