Thursday, December 18, 2014

Vajpayee-mas or Christmas: A Public Interrogation

Vajpayee-mas[1] or Christmas
A Public Interrogation

1.      The Brewing of the Public Controversy
As the Christians globally geared up to celebrate the season of Advent preparing in hope for the birth of Jesus Christ, and as they have begun singing carols for the season, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi announced that 25th December 2014 needs to be observed as “National Good Governance Day” (NGGD) celebrating the birthday of Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the former BJP Prime Minister of India and also the birthday of the veteran Hindu Maha Sabha Leader Mr. Madan Mohan Malavyia. He further calls on the BJP leaders to pay rich tribute to these leaders and propagate the schemes and good governance modes of the BJP. It has been further reported that “The PM said all lawmakers must, on December 25, lead efforts to remove litter in their constituencies as part of the Clean India mission that he launched on Independence Day. The PM said he will be in his constituency, Varanasi, to lead by example.”[2]

This news of the celebration became a matter of public controversy because this has been announced when there have been an annual vacation for students and all public enterprise workers during these days on the occasion of Christmas. I don’t bring this issue in to the public space just because, Christmas has been a Christian festival. It is a fact to say that to observe NGGD on a Christmas day and to work on that day hurts the deep sentiments of several Indian Christians across the length and breadth of India. Taking into cognizance all those deep hurts of Christians, affirming on the deep theological and spiritual implications this festival have, celebrating Christmas in India is an expression of the well-knit secular fabric of India, and it is a celebration of right to religion as ensured in the Constitution of India, and therefore eclipsing & evading such a celebratory Constitutional spirit by celebrating the birth anniversaries of one particular ruling party leaders, becomes and evolves to be a public issue of public interest for the public space in India.

To capture the intention of the right-wing ideologues in bringing this issue, Sitaram Yechury from the Leftist party while speaking the Parliament on the issue was quoted telling, "On Gandhi Jayanti, you have a programme of Swacch Bharat (Clean India); on Christmas, you want a programme for good governance; then, there is an entire campaign on religious conversions that's going on. All this is a whole package that we think is very dangerous to the very constitutional guarantees that have been given."[3] On the other hand, the political context of the country has been filled with the air on re-conversion and conversion of religious minorities into Hindu-fold, with methods of allurement and force, which again is very much against the very ethos of secularism in India.  

The joy of the BJP was further invigorated when they announced that the Central Board Schools (CBSE) run by Union government of India would remain open to observe the NGGD, by partaking in a nationwide essay competition. However with the pressure coming from the four corners of the nation, the Union Education Minister today declared that schools would remain closed on Christmas day, and the essay completion would be conducted online and will be voluntary. But the law makers need to work on NGGD to ensure propagating good governance, which had fallen from heaven with the present rule for the last six months by this present government!!!

2.      The Implications of Observing NGGD on Christmas Day:
On the Christmas Day, now it has almost became a law that most government officials, and all public workers will have be on duty to promote efficient governance among the citizens of the country. The colleges in Delhi have been sent a circular from Union Human Resources Development Ministry that they wanted colleges to hold two events on Christmas - a seminar on the topic 'Use of Technology and Innovations in promoting Good Governance' and an oratory competition[4].Therefore there are several sociological, political and religious implications in making Christmas day a working day, an in observing the NGGD. Allow me to share in brief those implications to set our discussion in perspective.

i.                    Violence & Violation: From the recent history, we have observed, how intentionally the fundamentalist groups target the religious minority groups on their festivals, and Odisha’s Kandhamal is one such good example to convey the attacks on Dalit & Tribal Christians in Kandhamal by the fundamental groups in 2007. Eventually there have always been attacks on Christians during the season of Christmas at places like Mangalore, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh etc. Now this observance of NGGD can be used by the fundamentalist groups to attack Christians on their festival day for no government machinery, the police or any other public worker would come in rescue of those attacked as they would be busy attending in propagating efficient governance. There are all chances for the fundamentalist groups to take advantage of this NGGD on a Christmas working day and lest the stains don’t remain on the central government for their observance.

ii.                  Nationalism (Patriotism) & Churches: The fundamentalist groups can also barge into the Dalit & Tribal churches who form the majority of the Indian Church and force them to cancel the Christmas payers and can even force them to partake in the NGGD, for this has been a call given the Prime Minister himself and so they can always take law and order into their hands, as has been done in the past.

iii.                Spirituality & Forcibility: The Christian law makers and public workers who are forced to work on NGGD would lose a time of prayer & fellowship on an important occasion like Christmas, which experience they can never replace with. It distorts and curtails the right to religion in this secular India, for no one can force someone not to participate or practice one’s own faith. NGGD’s intention is to rub on the wrong shoulders of the Christian brothers and sisters  

iv.                 Politics & Religion: Today it is on a Christmas day they have announced to celebrate a birthday of their leader, it can tomorrow be the celebration of another leader of their party on Ramdan, or on any other religious festivals. There can be no ending to it. This is only mere imposing of political & communal ideology on the religious identities and to keep up their communal majoritarian domination.

3.      A Subaltern Counter Public Interrogation:
On reading the implications, though in brief, there are several adverse effects on the lives of the subaltern Christians especially and on Christians in general. In such a context, the calling of the civil society is to voice out against such un-public announcements made by the government.  “Eclipsing Christmas by Vajpayee-mas” is a public issue to be addressed collectively and creatively by the members of our public sphere, and by all responsible people of faith. Leaving this issue to the Church alone to fight it over doesn’t come in good taste, as the creative public space in India is gearing up to voice and counter the powers of hegemony and empire to its best.

I do understand the limitation of the Indian Public sphere, as it is mostly dominated by the dominant caste, dominant classes, elitist groups and those exposed to the global realities have taken the front rows and high chairs in leading the Indian civil society. In such a time like this, the subaltern counter public spaces will evolve from among the Dalit & Tribal communities for whom their local congregations are their counter-public spaces, for these counter-spaces are bold in speaking back to the empire, and will advocate for the justice to Christians in affirming their faith. Counter- spaces of the subalterns don’t get into the centres in expressing their protest, but will ground their resilience in the local groundings and congregations. Two subversive practical ways of action these counter spaces can engage in expressing their dissent to the “Eclipsing Christmas by Vajpayee-mas” with are as follows:

a.      Ringing uninterruptedly the Church bells for one hour or more on Christmas day – as a sign of protest against the eclipse: Ringing of the bell for Subaltern communities is very significant especially in rural areas, for they are rung three times in three equal intervals before the Church service, be it on Sunday or on any other day, to gather people for worship on time. The other four occasions the bells are rung in our local community are, when someone in the community dies, they ring the bells in equilibrium to the age of the person dead. This ring gathers the community to the bereaved family’s house. The other occasion the bell is rung is on the wedding day, when the groom ties knot of the thread in coherence with the wedding vows, these are called auspicious rings of the bell. The other occasion I know is thirty three bells are rung on the Good Friday day at 3pm, during the worship service to commemorate the death of a 33 year old young Jesus on the Cross. The last occasion is on the mid-night of the 31st December, when the old year is crossed when the congregation which is at worship during that time, welcomes the new-year with the ringing of Church bells.

Therefore to counter the fundamentalist forces and to express the dissent of the subaltern communities, the call is to ring the Church bells uninterruptedly on Christmas day, so that it would gather the communities to express their protest. The ringing the church bells in the local community for quite a long period of time will catch the attention of the public around us, and the resilience is communicated.

b.      Christmas Worship Services to be conducted on the Public streets:  Since the NGGD will be observed at the public schools and public areas, those areas must be already used by the congregations to conduct the services on the streets. Take the congregational worship onto streets. The local congregation is in the public and is the public. Thus a subservient subaltern counter public space evolves with ’occupying the centres’ of public space. The law makers and politicians need to find it difficult in cleaning India and in propagating efficient governance. Theologically speaking, after all Christmas is all about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, who inaugurated the alternative good governance (Isaiah 9:6, 11:1-9) unlike these fundamental politicians, who do it for selfish motives.

When Christmas worships are conducted on the public streets in the villages and towns, the message of protest, the message of ‘just angst’ is given back to those in the power. They would see the subaltern counter-public space rising like a wave.


Closing:
“Eclipsing Christmas by Vajpayee-mas” has been of concern of the public today, and there are many other traditional ways of making delegations to the Prime Minister and the Ministers in exempting the Christians to work on the NGGD which is the Christmas day, submitting memorandums to local government officers etc. to express our protest. However occasions such as this, should bring together the creative and responsible public sphere in India to voice out and advocate for justice to those on the margins. Public issues of controversy in a way impact those on the margins adversely than on any others, and therefore being bold in expressing our dissent and being collective in mobilising dissent is the need of the hour in responding to the sings of our times. These are the times for the margins to create and contribute for transformation of the entire society, and allow that process to progress.

This has been a small public outcry made out of concern for one’s home land and therefore this is not an end in itself. This is making a public interrogation on a public issue that affects those on the margins. I only pray that peace & justice would prevail in India, those in the margins can affirm and live life with dignity, lest the religious fundamentalists dare not to get into the cribs at the Churches destroying baby Jesus and placing the pictures of Vajpayee in the hands of mother Mary!!!! I am sure public just-sense would prevail, and the eclipse of Vajpayee-mas would soon get over to see the bright new dawn of hope, peace, equality and justice.





Rajbharat Patta,
17th December 2014



[1] A satirical usage to express about the celebration of Mr. Vajpayee’s birthday on December 25th.
[2] http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/no-school-on-christmas-clarifies-smriti-irani-amid-anger-over-government-circular-634786
[3] Ibid…
[4] http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/pm-modi-please-intervene-says-st-stephen-s-principal-635421

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