Author: MV Kamath
Publication: Organiser
Date: October 19, 2008
URL: http://organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=259&page=6
No decent Hindu would ever harm or damage
any church or masjid, that they have a glorious record of tolerance in this
regard and any effort by minority leaders to damage Hindu reputation would
be unacceptable. It is in this connection that one is forced to look back
into history and examine the role of the Catholic Church in centuries past.
There are times in the history of the world
when all life seems still and there is peace in the land. Then, all of a sudden,
life seems to be exploding all around making one wonder what it is all about.
Presently, at least in India, tectonic changes seen to be occurring in the
religious field, with Islamic terrorists under various guises spreading terror
with serial bombing in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Delhi, and supposed Hindu
fundamentalists attacking churches in Orissa and Karnataka.
Charges and counter-charges are flying thick
and fast and Hindus in general are being loaded with an immense sense of guilt.
Being ashamed of dishonorable acts is an essential part of the Hindu psyche
and the pain is furthere deepened not only by minority leaders but also by
so-called 'secularists' ignorant of history.
It is against this background that one must
demand a White Paper on the role of missionaries in India. Parliament must
demand information on the number of Christian missionaries functioning in
India, the number of churches that have sprung up in every state, especially
in tribal and other backward regions and the amount of money received from
abroad by missionary organisations in the last quarter of a century. A full
account should be submitted by the central government and each state on the
number of schools, clinics, hospitals etc raised throughout the country and
the number of conversions-if any-that have taken place.
Meanwhile, Church leaders should be told in
clear terms that no decent Hindu would ever harm or damage any church or masjid,
that they have a glorious record of tolerance in this regard and any effort
by minority leaders to damage Hindu reputation would be unacceptable. It is
in this connection that one is forced to look back into history and examine
the role of the Catholic Church in centuries past. This is not the place to
recollect that Vasco da Gama, a brute if their ever was one, did when he landed
in Calicut and became the first Christian terrorist. That is another beastly
story. The Portuguese established their presence in Goa in 1510. By 1543 they
were able to extend their control over Salcette, Marmagoa and Bardez. Within
decades they had occupied many parts of the west coast.
According to their own records. Fransiscan
friars destroyed 300 Hindu temples in Bardez and Jesuits destroyed 280 in
Salcette. In all 601 temples in 131 villages were destroyed. St Xavier, after
whom many schools and colleges are named in India, came to the country with
the firm resolve to uproot 'paganism'. He wrote back home: "As soon as
I arrived in any heathen village, when all are baptized, I order all the temples
of their false gods to be destroyed and all the idols to the broken into pieces.
I can give you no idea of the joy I feel in seeing this done".
According to a Christian historian, Dr T.F.de
Souza (Portuguese Studies, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp 205-212, Modern Humanities Research
Association) "at least from 1540 onwards and in the island of Goa before
that year, all the Hindu idols had been annihilated or had disappeared, all
the temples had been destroyed and their sites and building material was in
most cases utilised to erect new Christian churches and chapels. Various Vicergal
and Church Council decrees banished the Hindu priests from the Portuguese
territories. The public practice of Hindu rites, including marriage rites,
were banned". There is more of the same. Mass baptisms were held. Hindus
innocently walking down the streets would be seized, their lips would besmeared
with a piece of beef that would turn them automatically into "untouchables",
thereafter to be converted to Christianity.
To make matters worse, the Catholic Church
in Goa took resort to Inquisition which lasted from 1560 to 1812 with a short
break when Hindus would be caught, brutally interrogated, flogged and slowly
dismembered in front of their relatives. Eyelids would be sliced off and extremities
would be amputated carefully. The record of what happened during two centuries
and a half of murderous Inquisition needs to be opened up for public consumption.
So also should the story be recounted on how Hindus were treated as worse
than animals.
According to the rules laid down by the Roman
Catholic Church, the instruments for Hindu songs shall not be played on a
day prior to a wedding, rice must not be husked, spices must not be pounded,
grains must not be ground, ceremonial meals must not be served for the peace
of the dead, there should not be any fasting on Ekaadashi day, no rituals
should be performed on the twelfth day after a person's death etc. etc. It
is a long list. There were orders not to plant the tulsi in the house compounds
and Goa is the only place in all of India where a cross is planted in the
designated place meant for the tulsi. An order was issued in June 1684 criminating
Konkani language from every day life with insistence that all communication
be done in Portuguese. The law provided for dealing toughly with anyone using
their mother tongue.
So vicious was the order imposed that many
Hindus, converted to Roman Catholicity felt it unbearable to live in Goa and
went down south as far as Mangalore and beyond. To this day the Catholics
are proud of their mother tongues. The then Archbishop living on the banks
of the Ethora described the post of the Inquiry Commission in Goa as "holy",
thus giving a religious imprint on terrorism.
The women who opposed the assistants of the
Commission were put behind bars and were used by them to satisfy their animal
instincts. Then they were burnt alive, as opponents of the established tenets
of the Catholic Church, no doubt in full knowledge of the Pope. Those Hindus-especially
the Gowd Saraswat Brahmins who had to leave Goa bag and baggage, taking with
them their family gods-and their descendants remembered the past as they do
even at the present times. There is much more to the terrorism practiced in
Goa of the most indescribable kind than is stated here but can be accessed
in the most dependable documents of the period. It was largely thanks to the
British that the Portuguese missionaries in Goa ended the Inquisition. The
British were more sophisticated in their encouragement of the Christian Church
to indulge in conversion, especially of tribal in the north east, soft targets
to say the least.
This does not justify the current attacks
on churches which desecration deserves to be condemned in the strongest terms.
But sometimes it becomes necessary to remember the past in order to understand
the present. History and historical studies have their relevance in broadening
our vision and help shape positive action. Desecration of any place of worship
is an act of barbarism even as is insulting Hindu gods and Hinduism that is
routine among evangelists.
