It would be stimulating to decrypt
how January 1st became the first day of the New Year across the
world. There are perhaps more than 500 calendars across various cultures. Yet
it was the Gregorian calendar that has emerged as the standard calendar across
the world. While the roots of Gregorian calendar is religious, its adoption is
pure geo-political economics.
The calendar was issued as a
correction to the then existing Julian calendar in Europe. The reform was an
answer to solving the ‘Easter’ problem. Easter, as adopted by First Council of
Nicea (325 AD) is celebrated on the Sunday after the ecclesiastical full
moon on or after 21 March, which was adopted as approximation to the March
equinox. The passage of time and the semantics of Julian calendar had led to
divergence between the canonical date of equinox and the observed reality.
Hence by early 16th century, there were calls for reforms in
calendar accompanied by ensuring that dates do not diverge in the future. This
was the age of astronomy and Renaissance and ensued fertile conditions for
adoption of new calendar. Pope Gregory issued the decree on Oct 4, 1582 and the
correction meant skipping of 11 days. Oct 15 was the next day after Oct 4.
The origin of the calendar thus
lay in religion and was backed astronomy too. Papal decrees however, applied to
Catholic countries only. The diffusion of calendar to non-Catholic countries
and the default civil calendar of the world lay in the principles of politics
and economics that perhaps were undiscovered and undocumented.
People move across countries and
continents. Assume each country, region, culture, community have their own
calendars. The question is how to keep track of the date and time as we move
across each of these zones. It would be very difficult. Centuries ago, when
travel was very limited, it did not pose much difficulty. Yet as (wo)men begin
to travel for host of purposes from trade to conquest to adventure, need for
uniform standardised calendar and time began to be felt. There were two ways of
movement towards the same. One was creation of global time and calendar. In
case of time zones, after prolonged negotiations, this method was adopted. The
second is natural movement towards adoption of calendar as standardized one. This
approach is known as network effects. The more and more people begin using a
product or standard, it becomes more and more valuable. Since many are using
the single standard, the laggards or non-adopters would feel isolated and would
have to come around to adopt the existing standard. This is what happened with
Gregorian calendar.
The world was Euro centric and
European conquests of newly discovered America was underway. The movement into
Asia and Africa had begun. Therefore, anything European was likely to have far
reaching impact. Gregorian calendar was adopted by Catholic countries since it
was Papal decree. It was resisted by Protestant countries who continued with
their own calendar systems.
King Philip II, the Catholic
ruler of Spain decreed the adoption of Gregorian calendar in 1582. Given his zenith
of power in Europe in addition to overseas colonies in America, it influenced
the switch to many regions/territories. France followed suit. Portugal and most
of Italy were part of Spanish kingdom. These empires would impose their version
of calendar on their colonies. Protestant countries too slowly fell in line.
The British Empire adopted the calendar in 1752. This was catalyst to this
emerging as global calendar given the reach of British colonial possessions. US
when it became independent in 1776, continued with Gregorian calendar adopted
in 1752.
Few countries resisted, yet the spread
of globalisation in the 19th century, hastened the adoption.
Independent Asian countries like Japan, Korea, and China began to adopt by
1800s and early 1900s though they did co-exist with local calendars. This was
something India did too post-Independence. Russia followed the adoption with
the revolution though they continue to celebrate Christmas according to their
traditional calendar. Islamic countries continue to follow their traditional
calendar yet adopt Gregorian calendar as civilian calendar. Countries like
Nepal etc which do not officially follow Gregorian model, still use it for civilian
purposes.
So European colonialism created
the network effects for adoption of global calendar. It is not about value
judgment on merits or otherwise of the same but broad historical perspective to
its adoption. While this is the official calendar, almost all cultures follow
their own ethnic calendars to mark events of cultural and religious
significance. As noted above, countries like India, Japan etc have their own
national calendars co-existing with Gregorian one. These calendars are sort of
hybrid between ethnic and Christian calendars. Countries like Nepal, Saudi
Arabia etc while continuing to follow their traditional calendar for official
purposes use the Christian calendar for civilian purposes. Rarely is a culture/ community which marks
its own events of ritualistic significance through Gregorian calendar.
Is there a scope for new
calendar, adopted globally? While there is and there are attempts towards that,
there is hardly a pressing need for the same. The calendar calls for reform if
there is significant disruption on scientific grounds. Yet there is hardly a
strong ground on this count that justifies such a change. One does not create a
solution for non-existent or non-pressing problem. Hence there is very little
reason (high marginal cost/ very low marginal benefits) at this stage towards a
unified global calendar away from Gregorian one which has its roots in network
effects brought by colonial project.
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