The Feast of St John the Baptist on Tuesday, June 24, is drawing celebrations across the State—in hotels, pools, riversides, and most places where there are water bodies. Where there aren’t, artificial ones are being created for those few hours of celebration.
The celebrations are also drawing much censure for having descended from a feast in honour of a Saint who lived an ascetic life, to a riotous splash of music, food, and alcohol.
There has been growing concern among the Catholic clergy about the turn that the celebrations of the Feast of St John the Baptist have taken in recent years, which are not in consonance with the teachings of the Catholic Church. On the Sunday preceding the feast, certain priests even cautioned against the nature of the festivities.
There has been growing concern among the Catholic clergy about the turn that the celebrations of the Feast of St John the Baptist have taken in recent years.
But then, are these festivities really those of the Catholic faithful, for whom the feast is a day of ritual observance by participating in the Eucharist? Almost all the rambunctious festivities that are being advertised—and will take place on the day of the feast; some have already been held on Sunday—are aimed at tourists, with the State Tourism Department promoting certain celebrations weeks in advance on its social media handles.
The feast day is never a holiday, except when it falls on a Sunday, so celebrations have always been subdued and contained within extended families and neighbourhoods.
In years past, what sometimes made us, as children, realise that it was the Feast of St John the Baptist was the iconic song by C Alvares, São João, that was played on the Konkani music programme on All India Radio every June 24 without fail.
The feast day is never a holiday, except when it falls on a Sunday, so celebrations have always been subdued and contained within extended families and neighbourhoods.
To this day, I associate the feast with that song, and unless I hear that melody, it doesn’t feel like the feast has come by. Today, of course, I don’t need to wait for the song on radio—I can play it from the world wide web at any time I choose, which I do and did just before sitting down to write this piece.
In fact, the lyrics of that song tell the story of the feast: that it is of the sons-in-law who gather at the house of the in-laws, where they are feted with the best of food and drinks, and Goa’s yummy seasonal fruits.
Yes, the imbibing of alcohol does find mention in the song—even an exhortation to take a sip—but that’s how the feast was celebrated: at home, and with close ones. There were no parties in hotels or by the poolside in the midst of strangers.
Today’s organised celebrations came in when the government saw the opportunity to promote it on the Goa tourism calendar.
Today’s organised celebrations came in when the government saw the opportunity to promote it on the Goa tourism calendar, which prompted Rev Dr Victor Ferrao to write a long diatribe—and an interesting one too—that popped up on my social media.
He said, “As the festival increasingly becomes a spectacle for tourism, there is growing concern that its surrender to government control and the tourism industry risks diluting its cultural and religious essence, rendering the Church a ‘toothless tiger’ unable to preserve its sanctity.”
Ferrao went further to state that “This shift threatens to commodify São João, turning sacred rituals into photo opportunities and traditional practices into marketable gimmicks.” Against the background of how the feast is being celebrated in the current year, this no longer appears to be merely a threat, but a fait accompli—and therein lies the challenge of how to reverse it.
Ferrao actually suggests a solution when he says that by “staying calm, fostering internal accountability, and asserting control over the festival’s direction, Goa can ensure that São João remains a celebration of faith and community, not a hollow spectacle for profit.”
It is the community that has allowed the feast to be turned into a ‘spectacle for profit’; it is the community that should now get together to turn it around.
It is the community that has allowed the feast to be turned into a ‘spectacle for profit’; it is the community that should now get together to turn it around.
It is the Feast of St John the Baptist, who—as per Biblical accounts—was the Voice in the Wilderness that announced the coming of the Messiah and baptised Jesus in the River Jordan. It is heartening that several messages on social media are calling for a halt to the partying in the Saint’s name.
The current celebrations by people who neither have an idea of the life of the Saint nor the background to the feast do not befit the feast of that Saint, nor are they the manner in which Catholics celebrate it. A start could be made by wishing each other a happy feast, rather than the now-common Viva São João, which means little.
So happy feast—and do celebrate the Feast of St John the Baptist in the manner befitting it.