Amid uproar, the annual Phool Walon Ki Sair has received permission to be held at its original venue, Aam Bagh in Mehrauli.
After Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena’s intervention, who took a serious view of reports regarding non-organisation of the Phool Walon Ki Sair this year, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has granted permission to the Anjuman-Sair-E-Gul-Faroshan to organise the traditional festival at its original venue.
An official said the festival’s organisers told the DDA that they will be organising it in February-March next year. The LG attended the festival last year, while the then chief minister, Atishi, also joined the festivities.
Hitting back, AAP Delhi unit chief Saurabh Bharadwaj accused Saxena of lying. “LG saab has an old habit of lying, we challenge LG saab to suspend the Secretary and IAS officers who took the decision to stop Phool waalon Ki Sair, this year as well as last year. We know he will not dare to suspend the officer because it was on his directions that such anti-people and communal orders were passed by officers,” he said in a post on X. Claiming that AAP raised the issue of Phool Walon Ki Sair, Bharadwaj said the BJP is stopping the “centuries-old heritage of the Ganga-Jamuni culture of Delhi”.
The festival, symbolising communal harmony through floral offerings at a Mehrauli dargah and a temple, had been cancelled this year after the DDA allegedly withheld permission due to a direction on 28th November 2023 by the Department of Forests & Environment, then under the Arvind Kejriwal led AAP Government, prohibiting organising of such festival in the area.
It came to the fore that the DDA had been granting permission for organising the festival regularly till 2023 and even facilitated the organisation of Phool Walon Ki Sair in 2024, despite the orders of the AAP Government. However, the organisers this time insisted on a written permission, which was issued after LG’s intervention.
Phool Walon Ki Sair’s history began around 1812 under Mughal Emperor Akbar Shah II, who established the festival to promote Hindu-Muslim unity and seek blessings from both the Yogmaya Temple and the dargah of Khwaja Bakhtiar Kaki.
The festival was banned by the British in 1942 during the Quit India Movement but was revived in 1961 by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to foster secularism and national integration.
The LG, wherein he personally visits the dargah of Khwaja Bakhtiyar Kaki and the Mata Yogmaya Mandir for the past three years, took serious exception to the centuries old festival being denied permission. Thereafter, the DDA, in light of the fact that Phool Walon Ki Sair is a prestigious event symbolising Delhi’s heritage and communal harmony, put up the matter for review. Subsequently, after due deliberation, conditional permission to the effect that no harm is done to the environment while holding the festival, was granted. This decision balances the preservation of ecological integrity with the continuation of Delhi’s cultural legacy.
