CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA AND THE INDIGENIZATION OF
Prof Lal Dena
Christmas is
not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to
be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge
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
Mediterannean and the people of south western coast of India bordering the
Arabean 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 doubtingThomas), 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.[i]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.
Christmas is right around the corner, and the holiday spirit is in full gear. If you want to engage employees and have fun at work, Christmas is a perfect time. Here are 10 virtual Christmas celebration ideas for office to have fun at work during Christmas time.
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