Christian Indians and Sharing Cultures: Key Insights and Lessons in the Context of Indian Nationalism

CHRISTIAN INDIANS AND SHARING CULTURES: KEY INSIGHTS AND LESSONS IN THE CONTEXT OF INDIAN NATIONALISM Joseph DANIEL Abstract Being a Christian Indian in an Indian multi-religious context demands a participatory process. Christian Indians, who make up the church in India, need to take part in the life journey of their wider community in order to attain fullness of life. In this journey, the culture of the community plays a vital role in facilitating the discernment and pursuit of fullness of life. In light of this, this article attempts to examine the challenge of being Christian Indians within the contemporary Indian context of Hindutva – a context that seeks to define all Indian culture in terms of Hindu values at the expense of India’s age-old secular or pluralist values. In this article I attempt to deal with questions such as: How can Christian Indians’ witness, through the life of the church, be a true leaven in a multi- religious and multi-ethnic society, wherein each of the religions has developed its own traditional culture that comprises its distinctive philosophy, morality, ideology, and corporate life? How can Christian Indians facilitate, pursue, and discern “fullness of life” in the Indian context? The trinitarian basis as a model to address these questions is also discussed. Author Rev. Dr Joseph Daniel is a priest of the Mar Thoma Church, a visiting faculty member, Mar Thoma Theological Seminary, India and a habilitation project researcher at the Institüt für Christkatholische Theologie, University of Bern, Switzerland. INTROdUCTION On March 5, 2016 an Indian television channel held a national debate on ‘tolerance is the new intolerance’ with eminent personalities participat- ing – a supreme court judge, Justice Ashok Ganguly; a noted film actor, Anupam Kher; and an eminent journalist, Burhka Dutt.1 The context of 1 See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRDgiPUlEVA. Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 27/2, 77-94 doi: 10.2143/SID.27.2.3269036 © 2017 by Peeters. All rights reserved. 78 Joseph Daniel the topic was the contemporary Indian issue of Hindu nationalism and its intolerance to the other religious faiths and ideologies. Not only intolerance, but also aggressive expressions were made visible, at least in one of the speakers at the debate. Two speakers pointed out the growing intolerance in the country; others were trying to highlight the best in India. The noticeable fact in this debate was that while they preached tolerance and harmony, these speakers demanded that others should follow what the Hindu religious fundamentalists insist upon for the nation, including uniform civil code, dress code, eating and drinking codes. Some of the incidents illustrating the rising intolerance of the contemporary Indian context include repeated statements against religious minorities, attacks on churches, the killing of members of a tribal Chris- tian community in Kandamal, the arrest of a Jawaharlal Nehru Univer- sity (JNU) student on sedition charges simply for organizing a meeting at the University campus, which other students had tried to block, and the suicide of a PhD student whose stipend at Hyderabad University had been withdrawn on the basis of legal charges brought against him for supposedly attacking the student political wing of the the Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP).2 What followed this incident on the campus was also disturbing. Rather than listening to the struggles and aspirations of the students, the manner of involvement and interference of local and national leaders of all political parties in the incident demonstrated the nature of the growing intolerance in this country. It is in respect to the promotion of Hindu nationalism in India that this paper considers key insights and lessons for the Christian community in its life and witness. As elsewhere, Christian life in Indian society is a participatory process – a process in which the church participates in the life journey of the community, in the light of the faith revealed to it by the Triune God. In this community journey, the culture of the community plays a vital role in facilitating the discernment and pursuit of the gospel promise of fullness of life. In this sense, Christian life and witness in India’s multi- religious and diverse cultural context is dialogical, relational, shared and conversational. It exists and takes place within the life and culture of the wider Indian community. By way of explicating a backdrop to this context, I shall look into the question of Indian Christians in the situation of Indian nationalism and particularly in the context of Hindutva. Hindutva is an ideology developed by V.D. Savarker (1883-1966) in 1922 and lately adopted by the BJP as a platform to make India a Hindu nation. Hindutva seeks to define Indian culture in terms of Hindu values 2 Bharateeya Janatha Party is the ruling political party in India. CHRISTIAN INDIANS AND SHARING CULTURES 79 at the expense of India’s age-old secular or pluralist values and milieu. It is highly critical of secular policies and its agenda is to make the Indian state a theocratic Hindu nation. Therefore, gaining some insight into the basis of Christian Indians sharing culture within the Indian context of Hindutva would potentially be of considerable pedagogical and practical benefit for enabling Christian Indians to provide resources for the trans- formation of Indian society toward fullness of life and the peaceful mutual coexistence of different religious communities in India. Thus this paper attempts to deal with the critical question: How can the Christian Indian church be a true leaven within Indian society, which is multi- religious and multi-ethnic, in order to keep India’s diversity and tolerance? Each of these religions and ethnicities has developed its own traditional culture that reflects and expresses the sum total of its philosophy, morality, ideology, and corporate life. How is Indian Christianity to relate to them, and share with them the task of promoting the values of secular- ity and tolerance? The more crucial question is whether the church in India can, through inter-faith rational discourse and dialogue, create at least a basic framework for a culture and scheme of values for people to build together a new life of love and respect? For the Christian, such a vision of inclusive tolerance is revealed in and through Christ. How might the church facilitate, pursue and discern fullness of life in an Indian context dominated by “two competing hegemonies of metropolitan elites and of the Hindutva movement”?3 To address these questions it is imperative to reflect on Hindutva and how it relates to Indian nationalism and its historical roots in India. The metropolitan elites and the Hindutva movement have their roots in Hindu nationalism and in the politics of othering.4 India has long been a multi- religious, multicultural and multi-ethnic society, having been the cradle of some of the world’s great religions, civilizations, cultures, and tradi- tions. Overall, India’s record has been one of enduring peace and harmony. But the rise of Hindutva and its agenda of othering communities has deep implications for the life and witness of Christian Indians within India today.5 3 D.L. Shethi and Ashis Nandi (eds.), The multiverse of democracy, (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1996), 23. 4 Joseph Daniel, “Growing religious fundamentalism and communalism in India today” (Malayalam), in, Spirituality in the Context of Religious Fundamentalism and Communal- ism, Mar Thoma Church Council, (Tiruvalla: Mar Thoma Church, 2017), 29-44. 5 Joseph Daniel, Different expressions, same reality: the Indian religious and culture context as a fertile ground for ecumenism and inter-religiosity, in Internationalle Kirchliche Zeitschrift – Bios (Bern International Oecumenical Studies, vol. 2 (2015), 127-141. 80 Joseph Daniel ROOTS OF INdIAN NATIONALISM The idea of Indian nationalism has its roots in European nationalism, which emerged within the context of the fragmentation of European societies under feudalism and the rise of nation states in the 18th century. However, Indian nationalism differs from the cultural nationalism that emerged in Europe. European nationalism aided its peoples to shift their focus from the local context to that of the wider nation state. Fur- thermore, European industrial society demanded some kind of cultural homogeneity to affirm the feeling of nationalism.6 It prompted Euro- pean nationalists to promote and work through an emotional affiliation to their respective nation. Thus patriotism emerged as a high value of identity and differentiation. Simultaneously another form of nationalism – cultural nationalism, which is interested in certain national cultural expressions through activities such as art, literature, music, dance and so on – also emerged within Europe. In short, nationalism is complex in its nature and manifestation and therefore it is difficult to define precisely what is meant by nation, nationality and nationalism.7 Since a deep study of European nationalism is beyond the scope of this paper, I will turn to how Indian nationalism differs from the European nationalism. Hindutva ideologues seek to promote Hindu culture as the only culture that must be embraced by all those who inhabit or intend to inhabit India as the normative culture that determines the way of life of all Indians. Thus contemporary Indian society is currently in the grip of two ideologies – Indian nationalism and Hindu nationalism. Indian nationalism emerged as a political ideology in the colonial setting of the 19th century. However, this nationalism became mixed with a Hindu renaissance, thus forming Hindu nationalism. Hindu nationalism seeks to keep the interest of the one major religion in India uppermost and, indeed, to make India a Hindu nation.8 6 Ernst Gellner, Nations and nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996) 39-52. 7 Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities (New York: Verso, 1996, 7th edition), 3.

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