“The best one in four years” Celebration for Deepavali (Diwali) the festival of lights – Dr Mugali, Chairman of Rotherham Hindu Community

I had the pleasure of sitting down with the Chairman of Rotherham Hindu Community, Dr Mugali (Vijay). It’s last thing on a dreary Wednesday in February, but he has a contagiously positive personality which cheers the whole room.

Vijay has been living in and around Rotherham since 2010. A big part of Hindu culture is coming together to celebrate a series of festivals across the year. All have their own unique meaning and story, which Vijay delves into during our conversation. After Covid he was encouraged to get involved with organising one of these celebrations, a simple task of “booking a hall” and, as they say, the rest is history.

Later, with the help of Rotherham Ethnic Minority Alliance (REMA), a committee came together to create a written constitution officially at the end of 2021. Vijay has now become one of the cornerstones of this group, and one of the core nine committee members of Rotherham’s Hindu Community.  

I wonder how many are in the Community now – he tells me it is nearing 300 adults and, of course all their children; they connect and keep in touch through annual celebrations and an active WhatsApp group where they can share information and support each other in a range of ways; from event organisation to recommending local tradespeople.

These celebrations are a great way of bringing the whole family together, keeping their culture alive, and as Vijay summarises: “Letting kids know what we do and why we do it.”

The group applied for some of the Miss Penlington funding to put towards a large celebration for Deepavali (Diwali) in November last year. This is the Hindu festival of lights, which is celebrated for five days, and symbolises the victory of light over darkness and good over evil, I asked how it went, and he simply said: “Brilliant, the best one in 4 years.”

The Community has grown tremendously since their origin and are currently going through the process of becoming a charity, which will make applying for funding easier. They have branched out in their events with free cricket coaching sessions, Basic life support training, badminton competitions, hiking, a Women’s Mental Health Day and Indian Street Food Festival further down the line.

I ask him why he does it and straight away there is a big smile; “It makes me happy and we want a place of worship.” The Community is so big that they have struggled to find a space suitable for them in Rotherham: “Nothing is big enough for us!” he says. On average, community members meet once a month at hired venues in various locations around Rotherham, as there is no permanent place or venue available. The ambition to worship together runs very deep, and I sense the central desire of the Community going forward.

If you would like to find out more about Rotherham Hindu Community, you can do via their website.

Commitee Members

Dr Vijaykumar Mugali - Chairman

Mr Amar Yarlagadda - Treasurer

Dr Venkata Ramana Vakamallu

Mr Kiran Tata

Mr Kalyan Ram Kota

Mr Praveen Sreenivasan

Dr Sushama Chintala

Mrs Aparna Maruvada

Mr Raju Mantena

Event Support Group

Mrs Jhansi Devineni

Mrs Swetha Kammili

Mrs Meena Buditi

Mrs Savarni Satuluri

Dr Sreedhar Reddy

Dr Arun Viswanath

Dr Prasanna Nagineni