THERE MUST BE SOME­THING about the ad­vent of any new year that peo­ple as di­verse as the res­i­dents of this planet think it im­per­a­tive to wish each other a Happy New Year. All that re­ally hap­pens is that our planet cir­cum-am­bu­lates the sun, just as it has been do­ing for al­most 4.543 bil­lion years! They did it again in 2023 and told every­one they knew, even strangers, Happy New Year.

What gives you hope for the new year? What scares a per­son about the new year? How do you say Happy New Year in a world where Trump or Trumpian thought con­tin­ues to have sway?

How do you say Happy New Year to those in Ja­land­har’s Lat­if­pura, the one’s wag­ing an un­even bat­tle in Pun­jab’s Zira, or to farm work­ers, mar­ginal farm­ers, heav­ily ex­ploited in­dus­trial work­ers or those whose lives are ruled by eco­nomic pol­icy for­mu­la­tions hap­pen­ing in in­sti­tu­tions sit­u­ated in far-flung coun­tries?

The good peo­ple of Ukraine would also be wish­ing for a Happy New Year. We know we are liv­ing through a Black Swan mo­ment in his­tory. That Putin is in Ukraine, that China is in In­dia, that war hangs over Eu­rope, that spik­ing food and fuel prices are killing mil­lions, that Covid is back, that we have a very un­cer­tain post-pan­demic path, that global re­ces­sion seems im­mi­nent.

We know that the world is talk­ing about a dark­en­ing global out­look, that 2022 saw the high­est global in­fla­tion in 50 years, that we are liv­ing in the most ag­gres­sive mon­e­tary tight­en­ing cy­cle in nearly 40 years, that we have the strongest US dol­lar in 20 years, that the US Fed will con­tinue rais­ing pol­icy rates.

We are wish­ing each other a Happy New Year at a time when the coun­try has made peace with reg­u­lar news head­lines about whether or not a Mus­lim can say his prayer in the open. We are liv­ing in times of wors­en­ing ide­o­log­i­cal di­vi­sions, deep­en­ing so­cial and com­mu­nal cleav­ages, and a widen­ing po­lit­i­cal chasm.

What is it about this mo­ment in the pas­sage of time and chang­ing of the cal­en­dar that we are so hope­ful and say: Happy New Year?

Watch this de­bate with rather a lot of guests: Prof Apoor­vanand, Prof Lal­lan Baghel, Prof Ak­shay Ku­mar, Prof Mohd Khalid, Prof Man­jit Singh, Prof BS Ghu­man, Prof Ronki Ram, Ac­tivists Soumya Thakur, Dr PyaraLal­Garg, Sr Jour­nal­ist Hamir Singh, Prof Har­jesh­war Pal Singh, Po­lit­i­cal Ac­tivists Ra­jeev Go­dara, Kan­waljit Singh, Sandeep Ku­mar, Ideas’ His­to­rian & Pun­jabi Lan­guage & Cul­ture Ac­tivist Dr Sumail Singh Sidhu, Dr Suman­deep Kaur, and some oth­ers.

The de­bate was cu­rated by se­nior jour­nal­ist SP Singh.