The indigenization of Christmas celebration

Prof Lal Dena *

Christmas Feast and Lenkhom (Gathering) at Kangpokpi on 25 December 2011 :: Pix by Kamboi

Christian religion is not western religion. Nor is an import from the West. It originated from Middle East which is an integral part of Asia. It can be regarded as one of the indigenous religions of India. The seeds of Christianity in India were sown centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ. There is some evidence that people of southern Mediterranean and the people of south western coast of India bordering the Arabian Sea once had a lively interaction. Historians of the microscopic Jewish community in India believe that their ancestors came to the western coast of South India between 1000 BC and 70 AD.

The first verse of the first chapter of the Book of Esther says: "This is what happened during the time of Xerxes who ruled over 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush". Persian emperor Xerxes, also called Ahasuerus, succeeded his father Darius and ruled between 456 and 465 BC. It was during his reign that some Jews dispersed through the length and breadth of his empire which stretched in the east all the way to India (John Dayal, Dominic Emmanuel, Francis Gonsalves; Christians and India in The Other Side, Redefining Bharat, 2012, p.14 and the Book of Esther,NIV, p.720).

John Dayal, Dominic Emmanuel and Francis Gonsalves have further concluded thus: "There is evidence to show that small Jewish communities lived and prospered in several places along the western Malabar Coast. It therefore becomes easy to trace the font of the folklore on the founding of Christianity in India" (Ibid.p.14).There is also a tradition which centered around St. Thomas (the doubting Thomas), one of the disciples of Jesus Christ, who is believed to have come to the port of Cochin and made a settlement at Cranganore in 52 AD. To quote John Dayal again, "…Thomas had a successful mission in the Chera Empire. In Nirnam near Thiruvalla in Kerala, the local tradition says that the apostle came to the village. Thomas travelled across the Western Ghats and, possibly also by the sea route around Cape Comorin, to the Coromandal coast,…" (Ibid.p.14).

It is said that Thomas planted seven churches at Malabar and its surroundings. St Thomas is said to have died a martyr at Mylapore in what is now Tamil Nadu on 3 July, 72 AD. Several churches in South India now claim to have the relics of St Thomas and some of the most prominent ones are the shrines in Chennai built over the cave where St Thomas once meditated and where he was stabbed to death by lancer of the local king (Ibid.p.15). Deeply aware of all these legends and folk traditions, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister, rightly declared in the Lok Sabha on 3 December, 1955 that Christianity was as old in India as the religion itself and that, as a religion, it found its roots in India even before it went to countries like England, Portugal and Spain. What Nehru tried to convey was that Christianity was as much a religion of the Indian soil as any other religion in India.

It may, however, be noted that Christianity began to lose its indigenous character and gradually came to be regarded as if it were the exclusive religion of the West when the process of colonization of India was started by the middle of the 18th century. Having been used as one of the means for legitimization of colonial rule, Christianity was taken to be the hunting dog of Western imperialism. Where missionary activity was backed up by colonial power, missionary preaching obviously assumed a political colour.

In most cases, the missionary was far ahead of the government and even of the trader. In a backward region where a state of barbarism or savagery existed, the missionary usually ventured to work. The selfless services which he rendered in terms of his expert knowledge and moral influence tended to have a soothing effect on the peoples among whom he worked and lived. This sometimes made the way easier for the exercise or gaining of political control over the native peoples and this happened usually where the missionary and the government belonged to the same nationality.

When such colonial rule was established, the missionary work tended to legitimize the colonial occupation. Unable to distinguish the 'white man who preached' from the 'white man who ruled', for after all both had the same lifestyle and livelihood, the native peoples looked upon colonial rule as beneficial.

With the consolidation of the East India Company's rule in India, there was also an outburst of evangelical enthusiasm in English society which championed the cause of missionaries in India from the last decades of the eighteenth century. As political control advanced, the missionary was prepared to welcome it and to cooperate with the government if he was convinced that its policy was of benefit to the subject people. It should be noted that the missionaries belonged to the epoch of Cecil Rhodes and Bismarck. They were liable to be caught up in the stream of the time and then began to identify their own country's interests with interests of the kingdom of God.

No human motives were entirely pure and even the most blameless of missionaries could be a victim to this. Instances, though few, showed that some missionaries left the service of their missions and enthusiastically entered into the service of their country in its colonial domain. This inevitably made them appear before the eyes of the world and of the subject peoples in particular more in the character of agents of their government than as messengers of the gospel.

It so happened that in North East India, the colonial agents like David Scott and Francis Jenkins initiated the entry of Christian missionaries in the region and in Manipur, the colonial agents strictly regulated as to when and how the missionaries had to carry on their proselytizing works. So the close association between the missionaries and the colonial officials in this part of the country could not but give the impression that Christianity was nothing but a 'Western religion'.

Coming now to the celebration of Christmas, Western Christians usually observe it as a day of "Exchange of Gift" for it is a day when the Merciful God gives His only begotten Son to save the sinful world. It is a day when the rich share what they have with the poor. But why did the tribal Christians in North East India usually celebrate Christmas with feast, sometimes non-stop from 25 December to the New Year. This practice is nothing but an indigenization of the Christmas celebration and it comes out of their culture spontaneously. Is this the best way of celebrating Christmas? I doubt.

On seeing the newly born child with his mother Mary, the wise men from the East bowed down and worshipped him by offering gifts of gold, incense and myrrh. The shepherds too worshipped him and returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen. That is the true spirit of Christmas. Instead of wasting our hard-earned money in investing on unproductive and wasteful feasts, why not we share on this merry occasion whatever we have with our fellow beings, Christian or no Christian. Then and then only, we will enjoy Real Christmas.