Author: V Sundaram
Publication: News Today
Date: April 28, 2006
URL: http://www.newstodaynet.com/2006sud/06apr/2804ss1.htm
What is very striking is that the word 'secularism'
cannot be found anywhere in Pundit Nehru's pre-independence writings and utterances.
Nor was this word used by anyone in the Constituent Assembly Debates which
exist in cold print. There is irrefutable documentary evidence to show that
it was solely due to Nehru's dishonest demagogy that this word became not
only the most fashionable but also the most profitable political term for
every enemy of India's age-old indigenous society and culture. There is no
doubt what so ever that he used the might of his office and the Government
of India to put down Hinduism and Hindu culture in India. The first Prime
Minister of independent India thus became the supreme leader of a Muslim-Christian-Communist
combine for forcing Hindus and Hinduism first on the defensive and then on
a run for shelter. Now on everything which Hindus had held sacred for centuries,
they could be questioned, ridiculed, despised and insulted. At the same time,
the darkest dogmas of Islam and Christianity were placed not only beyond the
pale of discussions but also invested with divinity so that any one who asked
inconvenient questions about them invited the attention of draconian laws
which were made more and more punitive. To conclude in the apt words of Sita
Ram Goel: 'It is, therefore, no exaggeration to say that Nehru, the 'architect'
of modern India, was no more than a combined embodiment of all imperialist
ideologies which had flocked to this ancient land in the company of alien
invaders like Islam, Christianity, White Man's Burden, and Communism'.
In view of his known infatuation for things
Islamic and passionate love for Anglo-Saxon culture, Nehru became the greatest
enemy of Hinduism in post-independent India. This will be very clear from
his own command to Chief Ministers of all States in his circular letter dated
October 17, 1952: 'I have sometimes received complaints from Christian missions
and missionaries both foreign and Indian about the differential treatment
accorded to them in certain States. Our policy of religions neutrality and
protection of minorities must not be affected or sullied by discriminatory
treatment or harassment. While Christian missionaries have sometimes behaved
objectionably from the political point of view, they have undoubtedly done
great service to India in the social field and they continue to give that
service. .. We permit, by our Constitution, not only freedom of conscience
and belief but also proselytism. Personally I do not like proselytism and
it is rather opposed to the old Indian outlook which is, in this matter, one
of live and let live. But I do not want to come in other people's ways provided
they are not objectionable in some other sense.. I do not want anyone to come
here who looks upon me as a savage heathen, not that I mind being called a
heathen or a pagan by anybody' Thus Nehru was an embodiment of every form
of self-chosen conceptual confusion in post-independent India in every sphere
of national lifebe it the proselytism issue, or the Kashmir issue, or the
language issue, or the private vs. public sector issue, or the pros and cons
of support-Russia vs. support-America issue or the Tibetan issue or all other
vital national issues. The only thing that mattered to him was the political
survival of his family.
Now it can be asked as to what was the provocation
for Nehru to send the above letter to all the Chief Ministers in India giving
his off-the-cuff vague and confused remarks on the issue of conversion and
proselytism. A foot note to Nehru's above mentioned letter informs us that
on October 15, 1952 , Rajkumari Amrit Kaur (who was a Punjabi Christian),
drew Nehru's attention to complaints of discriminatory treatment of Christian
missionaries in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. If Nehru was interested in being
objective and neutral, he would have referred the matter to the Chief Ministers
of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh for enquiry and report before taking up the matter
himself. I cannot help imagining that he was functioning like a proud coolie
carrying the White Man's Burden on that occasion. I cannot understand how
an allegation from a Cabinet colleague who was a known and powerful mouthpiece
of Christian missions in India was sufficient for Nehru to issue a reprimand
to the Chief Ministers of all the States within a week of his getting a note
from Rajkumari Amrit Kaur. There seems to have been absolutely no complaint
regarding maltreatment of Christian missions from the rest of the States.
Nehru in his above communication to all the Chief Ministers not only anticipated
all possible imaginary objections which he thought could be made against Christian
missions and missionary activities and also went out of his way to blunt those
self-created objections in his usual 'IF' and 'BUT' way. He wanted the Hindus
of India to switch over from the philosophy of 'live and let live' to the
philosophy of 'die and let live'. This approach became the corner-stone of
the overarching umbrella of pseudo-secularismin India brilliantly marketed
by the Congress party after independence.
The bright sunshine in which Christian missions
started basking after August 15, 1947 can be best understood in the words
of Plattner, who was a Jesuit Missionary, in his book 'The Catholic Church
in India: Yesterday and Today' published in 1964: 'The Indian Church has reason
to be glad that the Constitution of the country guarantees her an atmosphere
of freedom and equality with other much stronger religious communities. Under
the protection of this guarantee she is able, ever since independence, not
only to carry on but to increase and develop her activity as never before
without serious hindrance or anxiety'.
Thanks to the overt and covert support given
by Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru and his Government to all the activities of proselytism
undertaken by many Christian missions and missionaries in India, they were
in a position to smoothly tide over serious exposures relating to their anti-national
and nefarious character made during the 1950s. The first jolt they received
was from the publication of a book called 'Asia and Western Dominance' in
1954 which was authored by K.M. Panikkar. His study was primarily aimed at
providing a survey of Western Imperialism in Asia from 1498 to 1945. He said
Christian missions came into the picture simply because they were arrayed
always and everywhere alongside Western gunboats, diplomatic pressures, extra
territorial rights and plain gangsterism. Contemporary records consulted by
him could not but cut to size the inflated images of Christian heroes such
as Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci. They were found to be not much more than
minions employed by European Kings and Princes scheming to carve out Empires
in the East. Panikkar wrote clearly that their methods of trying to convert
Kings and commoners in Asia were through force or fraud or conspiracy and
thus morally questionable in every instance. What hurt the Christian missionaries
in India most was Panikkar's observation that the doctrine of the monopoly
of truth and revelation is alien to the Hindu and Buddhist mind and to them
the claim of any sect that it alone represented the truth and that the other
shall be condemned has always seemed unreasonable. He thus knocked the bottom
out of the missionary enterprise founded on monotheism.
In January 1954 a question was raised in Parliament
as to whether the right to propagate religion was applicable only to Indian
citizens or also to foreigners residing in India, for example, the foreign
missionaries. In March 1954 the Supreme Court of India expressed its opinion
that this right was a fundamental one firmly established in the Constitution
and thus applied to every citizen and non-citizen alike who enjoyed the protection
of India's Laws. With this explanation the missionaries were expressly authorised
to spread the faith, thus fulfilling the task entrusted to them by the Church.
Spiritually and culturally, this was a dark moment of collective national
suicide for Bharath Mata.
After the publication of K.M. Panikkar's book
in 1953, the next development which completely shook the missionaries all
over India was the appointment of a Committee to enquire into the activities
of the Christian Missionaries in Madhya Pradesh on April 16, 1954 by the Government
of Madhya Pradesh. It was headed by Dr. Bavani Shankar Niyogi, a former Chief
Justice of the Nagpur High Court. The Report of the Christian Missionary Activities
Enquiry Committee was published by the Government of Madhya Pradesh (called
Niyogi Committee Report) in 1956. The Niyogi Committee Report completely exposed
the fraudulent conversion activities of Christian missions and missionaries
in Madhya Pradesh in the years immediately preceding and after independence.
For more than 40 years after independence,
the powers that be, the Congress Government at the Centre and in the States,
the political parties, the national press and the intellectual elite either
protected the Christian missions for one reason or the other or shied away
from studying and discussing publicly the exposures of the Niyogi Committee
Report of 1956 for fear of being accused of Hindu Communalism, the ultimate
and strategically chosen swear word in the armoury of Nehruvian secularism
and Communist anti-nationalism.
The Jesuit Missionary Plattner concluded in
his book with pride: The attitude of Nehru and his Government has inspired
the Christians with confidence in the Indian Constitution. Nehru has remained
true to his British upbringing. It is not surprising that the Catholic Bishops'
Conference of India was quite optimistic when it declared in September 1960:
'With the Indian Hierarchy well established and the recruitment of the clergy
fairly assured, it may be said that the Church has reached its maturity and
has achieved the first part of its missionary programme. THE TIME SEEMS TO
HAVE COME TO FACE SQUARELY THE CHURCH'S NEXT AND MORE FORMIDABLE DUTY: THE
CONVERSION OF THE MASSES OF INDIA'.
(To be continued)
(The writer is a retired IAS officer - e-mail
the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com)
