Shop for harmony

This Christmas — merry Christmas, by the way — as in so many Christmases past and as on the occasion of major religious festivals of other denominations, there will be a certain amount of griping: religious festivals have become too commercialised, too much an event for marketing managers, who turn all of us into discount shoppers. There are good reasons for this gripe. Christmas shopping, for example, is a vital American economic indicator. In India, Diwali retail sales are big determinants of company balance sheets. But those who gripe also miss a point. Commercialising religious festivals is also a way to secularise them and secularising of religious festivals is a wonderful thing, something to be deeply valued, especially in multi-religious societies and especially at a time when invoking gods for earthly battles has become terribly fashionable.

To see why this is crucial recall times when religious festivals were essentially celebrated in hermetically sealed community chambers. There were ‘our’ festivals and there were ‘their’ festivals and the twain never met in glitzy, crowded shopping malls because there were no glitzy, crowded shopping malls. Diwali, Christmas, Id — these are pan-Indian, in terms of mindspace, festivals now because on these holidays commerce is in top gear, offering hedonistic pursuits for many tastes and many budgets. The ‘other’ becomes a little more familiar in the process.

That is why it is wrong-headed for governments to forcibly secularise religious festivals, as some authorities in Britain tried to do by renaming the Christmas season. Multiculturalism is served more by the profile of year-end shoppers becoming more multicultural. Don’t take Christ out of Christmas, just hope Wal-Mart doesn’t raise prices (it won’t, it’s one of the secular world’s divine certainties). Of course, none of this is to argue against the quiet, orthodox, traditional celebration of religious festivals. That’s a matter choice. But if that’s your choice and you see a crowd of loud and merry shoppers, don’t wince — send out a prayer for the marketing manager.