Punjab Today uncovers how one festival carried two faces in official ads across India.
ON OCTOBER 20, full-page Diwali greetings from the Punjab Government lit up newspapers across the country.
Every advertisement looked the same — Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann with folded hands, five glowing lamps, and a golden background radiating festive warmth.
Except for one decisive difference.
Punjab Government’s Diwali ad in The Tribune, Punjabi Tribune, and Dainik Tribune.
In The Tribune, Punjabi Tribune, Dainik Tribune, Punjabi Jagran and other Punjab-based papers, the Chief Minister wished citizens a “Happy Diwali and Bandi Chhor Diwas.”
In The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Hindu, and The Indian Express, the identical advertisement wished only a “Happy Diwali.”
Two audiences. Two versions. One government.
A festival edited by geography
For Punjabis, Bandi Chhor Diwas is not a mere footnote but the very soul of Diwali.
It marks the historic moment when Guru Hargobind Sahib, the sixth Sikh Guru, secured his release from Mughal captivity at Gwalior Fort — alongside 52 imprisoned Hindu kings.
Refusing to leave alone, he insisted all were freed, earning the revered title Bandi Chhor — “The Liberator.”
Sikhs celebrate this liberation by illuminating their homes, a tradition that defines Punjab’s Diwali as a festival of light born from freedom.
Bandi Chhor Diwas celebrations at the Golden Temple, Amritsar.
For Sikhs, this collective liberation remains the spiritual core of Diwali — light not just as festivity, but as freedom itself.
To omit Bandi Chhor Diwas from an official Punjab greeting is to strip Diwali of its liberation story — to remove the light’s very source.
Yet that omission appeared in every national English paper.
Punjab’s regional papers carried both festivals; the national newspapers did not.
The divide was not a printing accident — it was a communication choice.
Not one slip — a spreading pattern
The same selective blindness surfaced elsewhere.
Punjab Today confirmed that a Diwali advertisement by the Municipal Corporation, Jalandhar — published in Punjabi Jagran — also omitted “Bandi Chhor Diwas.”
Diwali advertisement issued by the Municipal Corporation, Jalandhar.
The design and language echoed the official government layout — and the same absence.
Coincidence? Or coordination?
Many insiders in Chandigarh point to a familiar cause — the “expert advisors” imported by the Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) from outside Punjab to handle communication, publicity, and design for various departments and civic bodies.
Are these Delhi-based strategists — fluent in marketing but tone-deaf to Punjab’s spiritual heritage — responsible for deciding which parts of Punjab’s identity travel beyond its borders?
If so, the problem is no longer clerical — it’s cultural.
Micro-targeting or mindless apathy?
If intentional, this reflects micro-targeted messaging through public funds:
a full Punjab version for Sikh-majority audiences, and a pared-down “Diwali-only” version for Hindu-majority readerships across India.
Punjab Government’s Diwali ads in The Times of India and Hindustan Times.
If accidental, it still signals a shocking lack of cultural awareness at the top of the communication chain.
Either way, the Punjab Government must answer:
• Were two versions of the ad officially cleared — one for Punjab and one for national circulation?
• Who approved the change in wording?
• And how did even a Punjab-based municipal ad repeat the same omission?
The silence that speaks
Neither the Punjab Government nor any of the newspapers involved has provided clarification.
No correction. No statement. Just the quiet contrast of two greetings from one State.
Punjab Government’s Diwali ads in The Indian Express and The Hindu — New Delhi and Mumbai editions.
Government greetings are not decorative fillers; they are declarations of belonging.
When a government tailors its message by language or geography, it dims the very light it claims to celebrate.
For now, the record stands unambiguously:
“Bandi Chhor Diwas” exists in print only where Punjab edits its own pages.
Everywhere else — from Delhi to Chennai — Diwali’s lamps glow, but the story of liberation that gave them meaning has been quietly edited out. 
_________
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How Punjab’s Extrajudicial Demolitions Mirror the Madness of Fiction
kanwar manjit singh
punjabtoday@gmail.com
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