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Having celebrated and enjoyed multiple white Christmases in the US, my big disappointment about Mumbai is that it doesn’t snow here. Nonetheless, we find ways to celebrate Christmas, for what is Christmas, shorn of its religious trappings, but a way to gather family and friends around?
This year, though, for millions of school children across India, the Grinch may finally have stolen Christmas.
In a directive that is as misguided as it is unambiguous, a section of the Human Resources Development ministry has asked schools to organise ‘Good Governance Day’ on December 25 to mark the birthdays of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Madan Mohan Malaviya, both stalwarts of the Sangh Parivar.
Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, of course, has hotly contested the facts, and has taken to Twitter to declare that all schools shall be closed for Christmas. She has even demanded a retraction from the Times of India for publishing what she claims is a mischievous article and has said that the planned school competitions are entirely voluntary. But I suspect the lady doth protest too much. After all, what government office exists in India that is unaware that December 25 is Christmas Day. For crying out loud, it is a national holiday decreed by the Government of India!
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for good governance. I supported – and still do – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development-focused agenda, and I have admired Atalji’s almost benign-patrician approach to running his government that set India on a fairly rapid growth path. I would also commend some of the current government’s initiatives, particularly Modi’s exhortation to mind our boys’ behaviours instead of curtailing our girls’, his Swachh Bharat campaign, and his message of inclusiveness when he says ‘Sabka saath, sabka vikaas’ (With everyone, for everyone’s prosperity).
But this order from Irani’s turf is pretty clear – there shall be no ‘sabka saath’ in the observance of faith, there shall be Christmas no more at government schools. Not this year, not the next, not ever until some new government, or some realisation of what a monumentally pig-headed mistake this is, takes hold.
The BJP may have a brute majority in Parliament, but the true test of that power lies in how it treats it citizens. And those citizens include Christians, Muslims, Hindus and everyone else, alike, irrespective of faith, as our Prime Minister never tires of reminding us. But when you force a dubious government programme down the throats of students on the same day that many of them, Christian or otherwise, are celebrating, you send a clear message: that you can ride roughshod over minority sentiment without guilt.
This sort of thing is not new. In the past couple of months, this government has allowed multiple instances of majority muscle to be put on display. This latest example from the offices of a minister who the PM regards as ‘chhoti behen’ (younger sister) should prod him into taking a closer look at what the members of his sarkaari parivaar are up to. And making it clear that they must stop, starting with Ms Irani. Clarity, too, begins at home.
