GANGTOK,: Amidst controversies and disputes, the Udhauli Sakewa 2023
festival of the Rai community was celebrated in a grand manner at Legship
ground, West Sikkim on December 30.
Hundreds
of Rai community members along with people from other communities gathered at
the venue to witness the Sakewa celebration organised by the Rai community
members. They witnessed the traditional Rai dances, cultural aspects and
rituals performed by Rai faith healers during the daylong event which also
included felicitations of eminent Rai personalities.
AKRS
Sikkim secretary general JP Rai was the chief guest with National Teacher
awardee PM Rai as the resource person.
The Sakewa
celebration in Legship had run into controversy with Akhil Kirat Rai Sangh
(AKRS) Sikkim functionaries and ruling SKM alleging that the Legship Sakewa is
sponsored by opposition SDF to divide the Rai community. They had also accused
the Legship organisers of trying to pitch their event as the official Sakewa
celebration in Sikkim.
Speaking
to the media, the Legship Sakewa celebration committee strongly refuted these
allegations.
Committee
member Jack Rai stressed that the Sakewa celebration was being held at Legship
for the past two years. “This is our third year and we are celebrating our
sacred festival in a grand manner. We are thankful to all those who supported
us directly and indirectly for organising the Sakewa festival in a grand
manner. We are also thankful to all those who came and took part here,” he
said.
Jack Rai
maintained that the Sakewa festival at Legship was to bring all the Rai
community members on a united platform to celebrate their festival. “The Rai
community members follow different faiths but today we have come together in a
united platform as a Rai. We are also thankful to members of other communities
who joined us in our festival. There were many allegations made against us but
we stayed focussed on organising a grand Sakewa celebration,” he said.
According
to the organisers, several government employees from the Rai community also
attended the Sakewa festival. Their presence is interesting in the context of
indirect warning issued by the ruling front of taking action against those
government employees attending the Legship event.
Asked on
the allegations, celebration committee member Yojana Rai condemned the efforts
made to paint the Legship Sakewa event as a SDF-sponsored political programme.
“There are
no SDF flags here. We are here to celebrate our Rai festival. We may belong to
different political parties but it does not mean that this is a SDF festival.
We are from different faiths but have come together as Rais to celebrate our
holy festival. There is no political party involved in this. We organised the
festival with contributions received from the people,” she said.
Regarding
the warnings issued to government employees, Yojana maintained that the Legship
Sakewa festival is a Rai community programme.
“It is not
a SDF organised programme but a Rai community programme. The Rai community
strongly objects to the victimization threat issued to government employees of
Rai community for attending this programme. Sakewa is our holy festival and it
should not be politicized. If any government employee of Rai community or
others are victimized for attending our holy festival then the Rai community
will come to the streets in protest. Every community celebrates their festival
but we have never heard such threats of victimization for attending those
festivals. Why they are giving such threats to us? They are trying to supress
the Rai community by issuing threats. They should not think Rai community
members are weak,” said Yojana.
