There was an article on Christmas in the Bharatiya English daily The Times of India a couple of days back. On the face of it, it seems like an innocuous article talking about the vibrant multiculturalism in Bharat as the festival of Christmas assimilated the local cultures and flavors of Bharat. The article talks about the increasing trend of writing, singing, and presenting Christmas carols and hymns in the style of tappe-boliyan, bhangra beats, etc. It further argues that this is a glorious example of Christianity assimilating local traditions and beliefs as it evolves in Bharat. To your typical English-educated liberal-minded Bharatiya ( which is the readership The Times of India caters to), the article would seem an interesting piece on the exciting confluence of Bharatiya culture and Christian traditions. The horrific undertext of the brutal reality of Christian conversions in Bharat that this so-called cultural confluence camouflages is lost on this readership.
Appropriation of elements of folk culture and traditions and even superimposition of traits and characteristics of Hindu Gods and Goddesses has been a classic tactic of the industry of Christian conversions in Bharat. When you can’t get them through the English hymns and western pulls of the Abrahamic faith, use their own culture to draw them into the fold of Christianity. This seems to be the modus operandi of missionaries in Bharat as their current target is the northern part of Bharat. Punjab has undergone large- scale evangelization over the past couple of years and the missionaries are now targeting states like Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. In their quest to bolster conversions, the evangelists are increasingly weaponizing regional languages, and folk cultures and traditions that are an intrinsic part of Hindu Dharma.
A lot has been written about the systematic anti-Hindu propaganda of Christian missionaries in the southern part of Bharat since the colonial times so much so that Sangam literature and the rich culture and tradition of Tamil Nadu have been deliberately dissociated from Hindu Dharma. The pseudo-Aryan-Dravidian divide between the north and the south based on the now-discredited Aryan Migration Theory was also largely a ploy by the Christian missionaries to create a divide between the north and the south and aid large-scale Christian conversion in the south of Bharat. Renowned scholar, writer, and a pioneer in the research on cvilizations, Rajiv Malhotra has also explained in his book “Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines” how the so-called Dravidian identity was deliberately manufactured to propagate an anti-Bharat and anti-Hindu narrative in the south of Bharat and bolster the conversion of Hindus to Christianity.
Unfortunately, the same tactic of cultural appropriation is being now adopted in the north of Bharat. Take the case of Punjab for instance. Decades later, when Punjab is evangelized beyond recognition, the Hindu or the Sikh history of Punjab will be called fabricated as the evangelists would have created an alternative Christian narrative of the history of Punjab. This sounds dystopian and I sincerely hope this never happens. But we need to keep these possible scenarios in mind to understand the danger of the appropriation of the local culture and traditions of Bharat evangelists are undertaking to boost conversions.
“Jingle bells with ghungroos and Bhangra: Christmas gets a twist and desi soundtrack”, it’s the title of The Times of India article on Christmas I was talking about. “Going beyond mere translations of old hymns and popular yuletide carols, or cover versions, their music seeks to celebrate the birth of Christ in newer, more relatable and locally specific ways whether its singing old Tamil hymns in country music style or adding bhangra beats”, says the article at the beginning itself. Then, the article gives us information on several artistes who do this sort of fusion in the conceptualization and production of Christmas carols. The article goes on to glorify the so-called amalgamation of elements of local culture in the celebration of Christmas and the invocation of Christ.
Such writeups are a shocking testimony to not just the normalization but outright glorification of the Christian conversion industry in Bharat. The cultural amalgamation the article talks about so rapturously is just a tactic to boost conversions. The Christian evangelists are not in awe of Bharatiya culture or anything. The huge popular culture industry that has sprung up around creating and producing Christmas carols and hymns in Bharatiya languages is just a soft propaganda machinery to target the hapless Hindus. The Bharatiya English media that’s full of such articles glorifying this sort of cultural appropriation uncritically is either oblivious to the harsh reality of conversions or is itself involved in this sort of whitewashing.
Just do a YouTube search using the term “Christmas Bhangra” and you’ll be alarmed at seeing the kind of results you get. There are thousands of professional videos out there delivering the “messages of Jesus Christ” in local Bharatiya languages with Bhangra beats, Dandiya beats, and even Garhwali dance style. There are hundreds ( or probably even more) of YouTube channels with an impressive subscriber base focusing solely on the content for Bharatiya Christians. A cursory look at these channels reveals these are potential tools for evangelization as their intent is to appeal to Bharatiya users from different states reaching out to them through local folk music and dance traditions.
One such YouTube channel called CBN India has more than 87k subscribers. The channel is full of all sorts of Christian propaganda videos to evangelize Bharatiyas. There are videos featuring Garhwali Christmas, Malayalam Christmas Song, Gujarati Christmas Song, Chhattisgarhi Christmas, Nepali Christmas Special videos, etc. These are all professionally made videos with local artists from different states of Bharat who are either knowingly or unknowingly becoming agents of Christian conversions in Bharat. It’s a very alarming situation.
CBN India also has a website. Interestingly, they don’t directly call themselves a Christian organization. Their “About us” section says that “CBN India is an organization that builds communities of hope mainly through media by documenting real life stories and messages of hope in the face of adversity. CBN India media content provides a moral compass for those lost in the darkness of despair” According to their website, the organization is headquartered in Gurugram. A further look at their website confirms that it’s indeed a Christian evangelist organization whose agenda seems to be furthering Christian conversions in Bharat. Their “Connect with us” section has a link for Church Choir Registration. Their website also has stories of Bharatiya Christians telling about how their life changed for good when they adopted Christianity. The “Resource Center” section of the website has a podcast section that has a collection of podcasts based on verses from the Bible.
Their mission statement says “We transform communities through stories of hope”. Through their website, they try to give the organization that it’s a motivational and inspirational kind of media stories’ organization. This is a clever tactic, I think to evade government scrutiny when their sole aim seems to be spreading Christian propaganda to boost Christian conversions in Bharat. Their YouTube channel is more direct in terms of showcasing their evangelical roots.
There probably must be hundreds of such organizations with the sole target of evangelizing Hindus running from Bharat. In the absence of an anti-conversion law at the central level, there seems to be no legal basis to challenge their functioning. Also, most of these organizations camouflage themselves as either charities or some kind of inspirational and motivational organization. Therefore, it becomes very difficult to target them through a straightforward approach. As politico-religious observer and anti-conversion campaigner Jerome Anto mentioned in his recent interview with Hindupost the tactics of the evangelists are evolving fast and increasingly getting more sophisticated, therefore, the state needs to collaborate with experts in the field to get an insiders perspective of how the Christian conversion industry functions in Bharat.
The most potent tool of Christian conversions in Bharat is the soft power of Bharatiya culture. Ironically, the soft power of local Bharatiya customs and traditions is being used against them to target Hindus for large-scale conversion.
Needs to be said!! This is the danger of xtianity that people NEED to understand and what they have been doing for centuries! They use your own culture against you. This is why xtianity is a massive conglomeration of traditions from many other people’s because as they grew, to gain converts and make people comfortable with their ‘new’ religion, they absorbed aspects of native cultures. Now they can say see, JC looks like Krishna. Don’t be blind to their tactics or naive to their sweet honeyed words.