How would Jesus Christ have fared amongst contemporary Indian godmen?

Pro-service, anti-ritualism; pro-poor, anti-elitism; pro-women; anti-patriarchalism; pro-freedom, anti-orthodoxy; Yeshu Baba's career as a godman would have ended before it began.

The first time I heard the term ‘Yeshu baba’ was in Tihar jail.

I was not a prisoner – I was visiting along with a group of school-children who were performing a Christmas programme for about a thousand women inmates in Jail No. 6, Central Prison.

The children sang Christmas carols and the prisoners sang along. Afterwards, one of the inmates came up to the microphone and thanked the kids for their programme on the birth of ‘Yeshu Baba’.

The name struck me and stuck with me. I had heard Jesus Christ referred to as ‘Isa Masih’ or ‘Ishu Masih’ in Hindi before, of course. ‘Yeshu Baba’ sounded a lot more human and definitely a lot more familiar.

If you were to put a picture of (a non-crucified) Jesus next to one of a contemporary Indian baba, like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar or Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, a casual observer might see little or no difference (except in height, in the case of Sri Sri, and hair colour in the case of Jaggi Vasudev.)

As I rode back from the jail that Christmas afternoon with a bus full of school kids, a question struck me and then lodged itself in my brain:

How would Yeshu Baba have fared in contemporary India, the very land of babas?

As someone constantly fascinated with the psychology of new religious movements, cults, godmen and their followers, I decided to read through the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament which document the life of Jesus to try and find an answer to my question.

The conclusion I reached was that by contemporary standards, Yeshu Baba would have been a disaster as a contemporary Indian godman. In the following paragraphs I literally quote chapter and verse to undergird my hypothesis.

Relationship with the rich

Patronage by the wealthy is essential for any baba’s career, which is why most successful babas cultivate the rich assiduously. One should not hold it against them when they spend the majority of their time ministering to those with the means to fund their operations. It is good business sense to minister spiritually to those who can support you, and not waste too much time and energy on the poor masses. (The poor can find spiritual sustenance at large satsangs.)

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Christmas story: Arrival of a sweet baby or world-changing political power

Contemporary Christians are divided between those who see their faith as inseparable from their politics and those who'd prefer to keep the two discrete.

Dear tiny Jesus, with your golden fleece diapers, with your tiny little fat balled-up fists … Dear 8 pound 6 ounce newborn infant Jesus, don’t even know a word yet, just a little infant so cuddly …

So goes the now infamous grace prayed by aspiring racing legend Ricky Bobby in the movie Talladega Nights. When his family interrupt to remind him that Jesus grew up, Ricky Bobby says:

Look, I like the baby version the best. I like Christmas Jesus best.

My lowbrow movie tastes aside, this comedic scene makes a powerful point. Christmas Jesus is easier. Christmas Jesus is safe. After all, how challenging can the story of a newborn baby really be? Well, it depends on which story you read.

This year, millions of Christians around the world will read the opening of Luke’s Gospel in their Christmas services. Luke chapter 2 contains the fairly well-known classic version of Jesus’s birth: Mary wraps her infant son in swaddling clothes and lays him in a manger because there was “no room for them in the guest room”.

Only two of the four gospels in the New Testament include the story of Jesus’s birth. And it is Luke’s version of events that has arguably had the most influence over Western art and music when it comes to depicting the birth of Jesus. Without Luke, we would not know the story of the angelic announcement to the unwed Mary that she would have a son. Without Luke, we wouldn’t have the story of shepherds visiting the manger or the heavenly host of angels singing.

Angels, shepherds and a family huddled around an infant seem charming and make excellent fodder for nativity plays and Christmas carols. The problem is that in the ancient world the birth of Jesus was not a safe story nor a domestic one. It was highly political, a product of a time when religion and politics were inseparable.

“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus…”, Luke begins, reminding the reader that Jesus’s birth takes place under Roman Imperial rule in the occupied territory of Judea. Mary, Joseph and their firstborn are displaced from home precisely because of an imperial edict requiring them to travel for a census. As Jews living under Roman rule, they are part of a minority religious group – ordinary people, at the whim of a powerful authoritarian state, with fewer rights than a Roman citizen.

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Soon, app to manage crowds at Jesus's birthplace through reservation system

Palestinian deputy tourism minister Ali Abu Srour said the app would also provide information about the church.

Bethlehem is buzzing, with more tourists expected this Christmas than have visited the Biblical city in years, causing the kind of problem that modern technology was almost born to deal with.

Such are the crowds at the church built on the site where Jesus is believed to have been born that the authorities are planning to introduce an advance reservation system through an app.

The app, which will be introduced early next year, is aimed at ensuring a regular flow of tourists at the Church of the Nativity, where at busy times visitors wait hours to see the underground grotto where Christians believe Jesus was born in a manger.

Details of the app, which will be in English to start, are still being worked out.

One priest said it would only apply to tour groups visiting the site in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but the Palestinian tourism ministry said it would be for everyone.

While there are concerns visits could become unnecessarily complicated, the three churches that share control of the site -- the Catholics, Greek Orthodox and the Armenian Church -- say such an app is needed.

"There are times when for us there are specific prayers, celebrations, or masses, or with all the sects praying," Orthodox priest Issa Thaljieh said outside the church.

"So of course there is a huge squeeze. With the app, everyone will know what time to enter and which groups are there, so it will become more organised." The first church was built on the site in the fourth century, though it was replaced after a fire in the sixth century. Its mosaics were recently restored in a major project.

Palestinian deputy tourism minister Ali Abu Srour said the app would also provide information about the church.

"We are going digital with this issue," he told AFP in his office in Bethlehem.

Barbora Salyova, a 29-year-old tourist visiting Israel and Jordan from Slovakia, said the app could be useful for pilgrims like herself.

"This is a step we definitely planned to make," she said. "We also came for religious reasons so this was an automatic stop." Tourism in Bethlehem is enjoying its best season in years, with hotels reporting especially high occupancy rates for the Christmas period, said Elias Al-Arja, chairman of the Hotels Association Palestine.

"We had occupancy rates of 74 or 72 percent in 2018," he said, adding that it is expected to rise later in December.

In total around 2.8 million tourists have visited the Palestinian territories this year, up from 2.5 million last year, according to the tourism ministry.

Abu Srour said the primary reason is a decrease in violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank this year.

The ministry has reached out to new tourists in locations across the globe, he said.

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