The perfect date and time

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Tuesday hosted a lunch for all members of Parliament (MP) on the occasion of Nutan Samvatsar, or what the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has come to call “Hindu-Bharatiya New Year”. No MP could remember if the Speaker, or any other occupant of a high constitutional post, had in the past ever officially marked the Vikram Samvat new year. A member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said the effort was to give official sanction to the Samvat calendar as a “Hindu calendar”, even when it does not find acceptance in several parts of India. Congress and Janata Dal (United) members, however, said there was little wrong if the Speaker wished to mark the occasion, but agreed that the acceptance of Vikram Samvat was limited and there were regional variations, depending on seasonal changes and harvest cycles, which have dictated the marking of “Indian” new years. They interpreted it more as an effort by the Speaker to reach out to members of all political parties in the run-up to the presidential election in July. Mahajan is being talked of as a possible contender. In 1957, India adopted the Saka calendar as its official calendar.