Creatures of habit

By chhotebhai

Kanpur: Most of us are creatures of habit, and therefore highly predictable. As we grow older we tend to dig in even more, and resist change of any kind. However, security guards or forces, cannot afford to be predictable, because then their opponents will know just how and when to attack them. They have to constantly keep changing tactics, timings and their habits (routine).

The word “habit” is in the news, for an altogether different reason. It is the word used to describe the religious garb that Catholic nuns usually wear, more specifically the medieval European one. The controversy erupted when some idiots attributed the attack on the nuns at Jhansi station to their wearing “habits.” Had they been in some other form of dress more “acceptable” to the “culture warriors,” then the incident would not have occurred. Some commentators have gone to the extent of advising nuns and priests to now junk the “habit.”

This is a knee jerk reaction that merits a dispassionate study. Those of us, who lived in the pre-Vatican II era, will recall what priests and nuns looked like then. Diocesan priests were seen in their cassocks and religious priests and brothers in their habits, often black or dark brown. Franciscans wore a cord with three knots symbolizing the three evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Women religious, in like manner, wore a variety of habits, some looking like butterflies. Only their faces could be seen. Many wore rosaries on their waist bands (in Indian culture a religious symbol below the waist is considered a desecration). They were often spotted walking and praying their rosary or the breviary.

Then came Vatican II (1962-1965) bringing about the tectonic change in the way the Catholic Church perceived itself, and related to the world. Shorn of ecclesiological jargon, what we laity observed was the rapid “secularization” of the priests and religious. It was almost like they were waiting to get out of jail.

Priests switched to “mufti”, usually a loose pant and shirt, with a cross stitched or pinned to their front pocket or lapel. Gradually this symbol also disappeared and the priests were indistinguishable from the laity in their clothing. The only time that they wore their cassocks is when they were celebrating Mass, or when “Father” was sitting on his principal’s chair in school. Who would respect him if he didn’t have his distinct garb?

Some “activist” priests chose to wear a simple kurta pyjama. The only bishop I met who totally identified with the people was Jesuit Bishop George Saupin of Daltonganj. He ALWAYS wore a simple kurta pyjama with an angocha (head cloth). He would sit on his haunches and smoke a bidi like the poor tribals that he worked with. I was alone at Jyotiniketan Ashram, Bareilly, when he came visiting. He insisted on threshing the grain with me, and making rotis on the wood fire. Our ashram had neither electricity, gas nor running water.

I hold no brief for the archaic European garb that priests and nuns then wore. They were totally unsuited to India’s hot and humid weather. With Vatican II’s thrust for a Local Church and Inculturation most women religious switched to saris. Initially they went for the saffron color, but later morphed into a biscuit brown, while some opted for grey or white, with distinguishing borders. It is quite understandable that some elderly sisters remained more comfortable in their old habits.

The two exceptions are Kerala and the North East, for diametrically opposite reasons. The sari is “foreign” to the North East, and reminds them of the cultural domination of “mainland India.” Baptist and Presbyterian missionaries, later followed by the Catholics, also used western music and culture that seemed to gel with the local tribal culture. So the sari was out.

What of Kerala, especially the Syro-Malabar congregations that like to assert their Oriental identity? Why then have they retained the habits of the Occident? The only plausible reason that I see is that the Oriental Churches of Kerala have mistaken tradition for faith. Truly, they are creatures of habit that just don’t want to change. Aggiornamento is Greek to them, though it is actually Italian!

This brings us back to Jhansi. The nuns were in their medieval European habits. They were probably conversing in Malayalam. The postulants were from Odisha and possibly talking in their native tongue. It is possible that all four were not conversant in Hindi. If the aggressors tried to question them there is a distinct possibility of a communication gap that could have aroused suspicions.

This in no way justifies the cowardly act of the aggressors/attackers. My point simply is that, from Mahatma Gandhi onwards, Hindus are not so much against Christianity as they are against its western garb or portrayal. Even Gandhiji was under the mistaken notion that becoming a Christian meant eating beef and drinking whiskey.

Traditional dress like the dhoti was jettisoned for western garb that was too closely associated with the then colonialists. Converts also changed their names, or anglicized them. In his native Gujarat, Makwana became Macwan. Many Gujarati converts have the anglicized surname “Christian.” In other places Jaikishan would become a Jackson.

In Goa the Portuguese ensured that their converts who were Joshi or Prabhu now got Lusitanian names like Fernandes or Pereira. Belgian Jesuits in Chotanagpur gave their converts unpronounceable Latin names like Fulgentious and Hilarious. Kerala bucked the trend. George became Varghese and Anna became Annamma.

It is not my intention to belittle the heroic work of the foreign missionaries. At that time the Church was more Roman than catholic (universal). What they did was in good faith. Yet, we need to learn the lessons of history lest we make the same mistakes.

Let me share my own experience. I was brought up in a totally westernized household and studied in a prestigious boarding school in the hills. I always failed in Hindi and got zero in Sanskrit. We were forbidden to talk in Hindi. Even today some of our Catholic schools have a signage to talk in English only. It is obnoxious. When I experienced Jesus and went to Jyotiniketan Ashram, I renounced my old way of life. On my 25th birthday I took the name chhotebhai. I also opted for a cotton kurta pyjama with a wooden rosary (mala) around my neck, with a wooden crucifix.

Shortly after, I met a priest, a staunch proponent of inculturation, in Varanasi. He was in saffron robes, like a Hindu sadhu. He reprimanded me for openly wearing a crucifix. He told me that it would be stumbling block for me, a barrier with people. Forty five years later I bear witness that my crucifix, far from being a barrier, has been my visiting card, opening doors for me. After seven years in the ashram circumstances forced me to return home to look after my joint family. I then got married (wearing my mala and kurta pyjama) and have subsequently lived a secular (not worldly) life.

There have been umpteen occasions where people have immediately felt at ease, seeing my crucifix. At times total strangers have come up and venerated it. Just last month as I was sitting on a bench after my Covid vaccination in a government hospital, a young man came up and tried to touch my feet (something I never allow). Some years ago when I went to jail on trumped up charges, fellow prisoners who were crypto Christians gathered around me. On three occasions I have single handedly opened up traffic jams on national highways. Far from being a barrier, it was breaking barriers.

A Hindu reformist group has asked me to preside over their annual religious congregation. Muslims and Sikhs are equally at ease with me. When I recently took human rights activist Harsh Mander to visit victims of police firing in a thickly populated Muslim area he could not help but remark on my Christian identity in such circumstances.

I do not wish to boast. My point is that if we have Jesus in our hearts then we should not be afraid of our Christian identity. I am not asking anybody to imitate me, though three of my companions did. One became the great apostle of Arunachal Pradesh, a second was murdered in his ashram in Uttarakhand, and the third attracts thousands to his ashram in Varanasi.

The problem is not our external identity or appearance, but rather our internal disposition. I may here add that if I had retained my earlier western upbringing, language and name I may not have been as acceptable to people of all faiths as I now am. The vision of Vatican II was not to secularize religion but to interiorize it, and adopt the incarnational, not colonial approach. We are followers of Jesus, who spoke the local dialect Aramaic, and wore the same clothes as his contemporaries.

May he continue to be our role model in the exercise of our Christian vocation. Like an alert security agency, we need to change. Merely being creatures of habit will only give our opponents a stick to beat us with.

(The writer believes strongly in the ecclesiastical reforms of Vatican II.)