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Lurid drama of proselytism after 1947-II

Lurid drama of proselytism after 1947-II

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)


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