Author: M.V. Kamath
Publication: Organiser
Date: October 26, 2008
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=260&page=15
This is silent invasion of India, invasion
not by armies but by hard cash, less obvious but more invidious and therefore
worthy of condemnation. God is sold like a piece of cake to the hungry multitude.
This is not saving souls. This is stealing stealthily, like thieves in the
night and thieves the evangelists are.
Let us first admit that Christian churches
have of late been attacked and Christ's statue disfigured, that Christians
have been killed in Orissa with the police looking away. Let us admit without
any apologies whatsoever the charges made against breakers of law and order
in the states of Orissa, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. And unlike
as in the case of Afzal Guru, let us ask that anyone guilty of murder is given
his just due, so that all killers get the message. Let there be no equivocation
in such matters. Having said that, may one ask just one short question? What
is the need to plan for conversion? Can't the Christian Church leave India
alone? Should India constantly be target for evangelists of all kinds?
Hindus do not go round the world attempting
to coerce poor Europeans or Americans (if there are any such) to become Hindus.
Hinduism respects other religions. They make no claims to uniqueness. There
are pure atheists among Hindus, but they are respected. Has there been any
occasion of Hindu monarchs sending armies to Portugal or Spain to destroy
churches and additionally impose Inquisition of the most brutal kind on the
people as these two wretched countries have done in Goa for several centuries?
Have Hindus gone to Peru to destroy an entire Inca civilization? Has any Hindu
naval force gone to Lisbon, to name one city, as Vasco Da Gama's ships did
to Calicut only to indulge in the most bestial cruelty?
Can any historian give an example of a Hindu
king going to Ghazni to indulge in rape and plunder and destruction of masjids?
Has any Hindu religious leader-say a Swami Vivekananda-gone abroad to insult
Jesus or Virgin Mary as some of the Christian missionaries have done in India,
in showering insults to Hindu gods? Haven't the evangelists any sense of shame
or decency let alone guilt? Besides, what do Christian evangelists do? They
are cowards. They dare not preach in cities. They go into the Indian countryside,
especially to tribal areas to hit Hinduism below the belt.
A recent report in The Times of India by one
Amrita Singh tells it all. According to her planting agencies, as they are
called, have taken over the evangelical role. They ensure that growth targets
are set and new churches built. In the four years from 2003, apparently 22
new International Churches of Christ have been built. The Adventists, another
Christian sect reportedly has plans to build 300 new churches.
The Presbyterian Church of South India which
is funded by the US-based Mission to the World also apparently has set a goal
of 500 new churches in the next decade. According to Amrita Singh (she has
not mentioned her sources), one of the most effective church planting agencies
working in India is the US-based AD 2000 and Beyond Movement. Writes Amrita
Singh: "It is impressively organised, having mapped the whole of India
by caste and identifying those most likely to be receptive to their message".
Nine tribes have been identified as good targets: Bhilala, Binhwari, Chero,
Kawar/Kamari, Lhobha, Majhwar, Panika, Shin or Sina and Sikkimese Bhotia.
AD 2000 has also identified thickly populated, politically important and moderately
poor Northern India as "the core of the core of the core".
How clever. Do Christians think that such
activities do not offend sensitive Hindus? This is silent invasion of India,
invasion not by armies but by hard cash, less obvious but more invidious and
therefore worthy of condemnation. God is sold like a piece of cake to the
hungry multitude. This is not saving souls. This is stealing stealthily, like
thieves in the night and thieves the evangelists are. Besides, they work behind
the scenes. India has long been a field for missionary activities which Hindus
have put up with because they were ruled by alien powers. And our secularists
have been supporting conversion, as Dr Manmohan Singh has in a recent statement.
It is clear that Dr Manmohan Singh has no
understanding of the Hindu sentiments which, starved of state support, is
increasingly resorting to violence to make its point, and this is further
taken as a weapon to damn Hindus and to support conversion as that is entirely
within the Constitution. Conversion is not allowed in China. It is frowned
upon in France, a very liberal country. We permit abuse of Hindu gods on the
grounds that freedom of expression is sanctioned under the Constitution. We
are making a mockery of our Constitution and the evangelists are taking us
for a ride.
Driven to desperation, many Hindus-and may
it be said here and now, that it is not only the VHP or the Bajrang Dal that
is up in arms. Substantial segments of Hindus belonging to the Congress, the
JD(S) and all other parties are equally furious, only they dare not open their
minds in public, lest they are accused of being fundamentalists and Hindutva-wadis.
This writer is a ware of what people think having currently his roots in the
countryside. The Constitution has to be changed drastically. Foreign money
should not be allowed to trickle in various guises. The world has no idea
how persistent the Church is. It is imposing an alien cultural value on Indian
Christians. Christians are not permitted to study astrology, or practice yoga
and pranayaam is not looked at with favour and one Mumbai priest who was teaching
both was given his come-uppance.
And all the while Hindus are made to feel
guilty of intolerance which only adds to their subdued fury. Conversions do
not take place overnight. The evangelists are smart enough not to commit that
folly. The poor are given all kinds of assistance, medical help, education
for their children and other services free of cost for two to three years
and then asked whether they wouldn't want to have their souls saved. It is
all done subtly and calculatedly. The gratitude of those helped in many ways
is exploited fully. And who cannot succumb to such pressures?
What is more at stake is not demographic changes
but the slow disappearance of cultural values. But the citizens of India must
demand a White Paper giving access to information on the role of evangelists
and missionaries in the last three decades, and how billions of dollars are
spent in India. The truth must be out. Let the people decide. Importantly
let no alien force attempt to use our liberalism and sense of values and fairness
to our disadvantage. It is being recklessly exploited. The Constitution was
not intended to be misused. We cannot permit foreign forces to corrode our
culture, and the values which have sustained us down the centuries. Dr Manmohan
Singh should think again.