Scared elephants, royal paintings, and Sivakasi factories: The pre and post-Diwali history of firecrackers in India

Use of firecrackers have led to debates on every Diwali. However, bursting firecrackers in India is not a phenomenon that just started with the Hindu festival. Instead, there have been diverse occasions and rulers that kicked off the tradition of firecrackers in the subcontinent, as art and literary sources suggest. 

“One cannot without entering into great detail mention all the various kinds of pyrotechny and squibs and various other arrangements which were exhibited,” wrote Persian traveller Abdur Razzaq as he observed the Dussehra festivities in the court of King Devaraya II of Karnataka’s Vijayanagar Empire in 1446. 

Similarly, Italian writer Ludovici Di Varthema observed that the elephants of Vijayanagar would panic quite a lot and had to be calmed down during the fireworks display. 

As the Chinese introduced gunpowder to the rest of the world, historian PK Gode holds the view that Chinese pyrotechnic formulae were brought to India by the 15th century. These were then modified with Indian substitutes, and often used by medieval rulers for royal entertainment events. 

It was not just rulers, even upper-class citizens began investing in fireworks for their marriages, a practice that continues till date. As Portuguese traveller Duarte Barbosa described in his writings, a wedding in Gujarat from 1518 that involved people firing “rockets and bombs”. 

Several schools of painting, chiefly Mughal, Pahari, and Rajasthani, depict couples bursting firecrackers. The muse in most of these paintings are the Hindu god Krishna and his first wife Rukhmini, or the patron ruler and his wife. 

Going beyond the paintings, the Mughals often indulged in firework shows, for marriages and crowning ceremonies. In the year 1665, the sixth ruler Aurangzeb banned fireworks, much like music, dance and other forms of entertainment in his court. 

The precursor to modern Diwali can be viewed as the grand celebrations of the Peshwas in 18th century Maharashtra. Legend has it that Peshwa Savai Madhavrao heard about a celebration in Kota, Rajasthan when the local Scindia ruler sponsored a “Lanka of fireworks”. Inspired by this, the Peshwa himself ordered a grandiose display of pyrotechnics at his Pune home. 

Around this time, Muhammad Shah was sitting on the Mughal throne in Delhi. Although he was inefficient at administration, he indulged in and sponsored the arts, nicknamed as Muhammad “Rangeela” (joyous) for the same reason. Several paintings from Shah’s reign show the ruler enjoying fireworks irrespective of the occasion. 

Once the British Raj established itself in the country, Chinese and British fireworks began to be imported at cheaper rates. Indian fireworks manufacturers (who also dealt with gunpowder and artillery) suffered a commercial setback. 

Soon, the first Indian fireworks factory was set up in Kolkata by Das Gupta in the early 19th century. The products sold were mostly colour matches and light fountains (also known as flower pots or “anaar” in today’s times). 

It was in the post-Independence era that Tamil Nadu’s Sivakasi town grew into India’s firecracker hub ever since the Nadar Brothers set up a fireworks factory in 1940. Initially, the Nadars had set up a match factory as production of fireworks was still illegal but in its final years, the colonial government amended the Explosives Act making certain classes of fireworks legal. This is when the Nadars set up their factory under the company National Fireworks (this later turned into the famous Ayyan Fireworks).  

A similar case was that of the fireworks giant Standard Fireworks (that continues to dominate sales even today) which was started in Sivakasi in 1942 as a matchstick company by N .R .K. Rajarathnam only to evolve further into a full-fledged firecrcaker establishment. The vintage advertisements and painted box designs of Standard have indeed set a precedent for several other Sivakasi-based firework companies. 

Sivakasi's popularity eventually made fireworks more affordable for all socio-economic classes. The consumption has only grown ever since.The town contributes to more than 90% of India's fireworks, making the country the second largest producer of fireworks in the world, second only to China. Today, Sivakasi houses more than 700 factories.

The settlement has its own Fireworks Research and Development Centre that was started to set quality and safety standards for the entire industry. They take on the responsibility of testing the raw materials, monitoring the hazardous manufacturing process and safety of the personnel among others. 

Still, as multiple reports suggest every year, the situation in Sivakasi is far from perfect with annual accidents, deaths, explosions, and instances of child labour. As of 2019, the daily wage of Sivakasi workers was estimated at around 230-400 rupees. 

In the end, what was once a royal hobby has now turned into an environment-harming activity of the masses every year but this amusement comes at the cost of underpaid and overexploited labourers.