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VI
Christianity and the
Brahmins
One of the standard
church propaganda is that Hinduism is nothing more than what they call
Brahminism. Their objective is to assert that the ills that exist in Hinduism
are a creation of the supposedly elitist Brahmins to keep the people suppressed.
(Perhaps the church hierarchy is projecting its own method on others!)
They have tried to project that the Brahmins are evil and it is in the
interest of the rest of the society to get out of their clutches. And the
only way to do it would be to leave Hinduism and join Christianity.
The respect that Brahmins,
in general, had (and still have) in the Hindu society is a matter for a
separate subject. At the same time, there is no need to deny that there
have been some Brahmins who have not fulfilled their dharma to the
society. Suffice to say here that most of the great reform movements have
been led by Brahmins. Not only in the spiritual field, but also in the
social field, Brahmins have been prominent amongst the reformers.
The fact that the initial
approach of the Christian missionaries was to convert the Brahmins exposes
their game plan. It has been the standard practice of Christianity all
over the world to first convert the influential people, so that they become
their ambassadors to the rest of the society. The first successful experience
was in the case of the Roman Emperor, Constantine. (The political objective
of this Emperor in adopting Christianity has been well documented.) With
the power of the state behind it, terrorising the people to accept Christianity
was an easy task. This was then used to set up an organisation to control
the spiritual lives of the people, while helping the Emperor to control
them politically.
The Brahmins turned
out to be people with a different mettle. Since they were not interested
in temporal power, they had no need to involve politics in spiritual matters.
They saw that there was a lack of spirituality in the Christian ideology.
Being highly respected, the example of the Brahmins was emulated and the
rest of the community concluded that if Christianity has no merit for the
Brahmins, it has no merit for the rest of the society.
Many Christian researchers
have documented the cause of the antipathy of the missionaries towards
the Brahmins. Elizabeth Susan Alexander wrote,
"For the missionaries
Brahmans (sic) had been in the forefront of the staunch Hindu opposition
to missionary endeavours in Madras Presidency. They had also been the vanguard
of the Indian nationalist movement that had taken alarmingly extremist
turns." (The Attitudes of British Protestant Missionaries Towards Nationalism
in India, Konark Publishers, Delhi, 1994, p 67.)
Only when they could not
make a dent with the Brahmins that the missionaries turned to the lower
castes. The conversions were obtained through inducements and not through
any spiritual conviction. They were somewhat successful only when the temporal
power was with the invading Christians and the area was effectively a colony.
The missionaries could project themselves to be the benefactors of the
lower castes, and ensure that government largesse would flow to them. That
it did nothing for them in terms of social upward mobility is clear from
the fact that there is a class of dalit Christians.
A few of the Christian
missionaries did have some success with the Brahmins. But, the change took
place for secular reasons. This was also the experience in Europe.
As Judaism
was strongly fought and persecuted (by the Roman Catholic Church) in a
large part of Europe, many Jews tried to defend themselves by embracing
the religion of the country where they lived, and in this way to keep their
property and prosper in business. (Jorge de Abreu Noronha, A New Dimension
to the Inquisition, Goa Today, Dec 94.)
It was only when a Brahmin
converted to Christianity, would he be employed in the government services.
It was only when a member of the higher caste converted to Christianity,
would he be permitted to continue with his profitable economic activity.
But the success rate in such cases was small, and the rest of the community
did not emulate their example. If anything, the converts were treated as
outcastes at the social level, and endured more than accepted.
Some of the Christian
missionaries noticed that the whole community held the Brahmins in high
esteem in spiritual matters. So they decided to pretend to be Brahmins
to attract the people to come to them. The classic example was that of
Robert de Nobili, a Jesuit from France, who came to India in the early
17th century. He adopted the saffron robe, started to live in a hut, squatted
on the floor for conducting his discourses, became a vegetarian and gave
up liquor, projected that he was a Brahmin from Rome and that the Bible
was one of the lost vedas, and generally tried to pass himself as another
Hindu sanyasi. He was successful, and many Hindus came to him for spiritual
reasons.
But, de Nobili's objective
was not to merge himself with the Hindu culture or civilisation. M N Pearson
wrote:
The career
of the well-born Italian Jesuit Roberto de Nobili seems to illustrate this
change, this decline in cold hard certainty. He is well known for trying
to convert Brahmins by using their own arguments. To this end he studied
Sanskrit texts, and dressed as a Brahmin. While this may be admirable,
as an example of tolerance and open inquiry, it should be remembered first
that de Nobili's aim was still, and always, to make converts, and second
that his methods got him into hot water with his superiors. (The Portuguese
in India, Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 1990, p 123.)
The same was also the conclusion
arrived at by Abbe Dubois, whom we have encountered earlier. The following
comment is relevant:
(T)he chief
cause (of Abbe Dubois' disillusionment with the lack of success of his
missionary effort) undoubtedly was the invincible barrier of what we may
call nowadays intellectual Hinduism, but which the Abbe called Brahmanical
prejudice. He refers regretfully to the collapse of the Church, with its
hundreds of thousands of converts, many of them of high caste, established
by the Jesuits Beschi and de Nobili in Madura; but at the same time he
made no concealment of the real causes of their failure. 'The Hindus soon
found that those missionaries whom their Colour, their talents, and other
qualities had induced them to regard as such extraordinary beings, as men
coming from another world, were in fact nothing else but disguised Feringhis
(Europeans), and that their country, their religion, and original education
were the same as those of the evil, the contemptible Feringhis who had
of late invaded their country. This event proved the last blow to the interests
of the Christian religion. No more conversions were made. Apostasy became
almost general in several quarters, and Christianity became more and more
an object of contempt and aversion in proportion as European manners became
better known to the Hindus.' (Editor's Introduction, Hindu Manners,
Customs and Ceremonies, Abbe Dubois, Translated and Edited by Henry
K Beauchamp, Rupa & Co., New Delhi, 1994, p xxvii.)
In spite of being exposed
for the fraud that he was, de Nobili held as an icon of the so-called inculturation
programme of the Christian churches. An English current affairs magazine,
The Week (Oct 20, 1996), came out with a cover story on the subject of
what are called Roman Catholic Ashrams. I corresponded with one of the
proponent of the programme, a Spaniard priest who has adopted Shilananda
as his name, and asked him if he thought that there is salvation outside
Christianity. In reply I was told that I should repent and believe in Christ.
The present practitioners of inculturation are carrying forward the tradition
set by de Nobili of pretending to be a Brahmin.
While in a rural setting
one sees Roman Catholic Ashrams, in urban areas Christianity is conducted
in pomp and style. In The Week article, a priest in Mumbai, Fr Myron Pereira,
is quoted as saying "(The Ashram) makes sense where Fr Shilananda lives,
but not in Mumbai where I live. If all I Catholic priests were to adopt
the ashram life-style, it would pose practical and emotional problems
in big cities." (Emphasis added) The objective of the Roman Catholic Ashrams
is to try and fool the simple rural folks. This Ashram programme will not
succeed in urban areas where people are more aware of what Christianity
is all about. In his objection to conversions of the poor people, Mahatma
Gandhi challenged the missionaries to convert him first. Of course, they
knew that Gandhiji had made a detailed study of Christianity and there
was no possibility that he could be sold the system. Similar was the case
with the Brahmins in the past.
It is very unfortunate
that the whole concept of the evil Brahmin, propagated by the Christian
missionaries for their own sinister objective, is being authenticated by
the so-called intellectuals in this country. Great Hindu reformers, including
Swami Vivekanand and Mahatma Gandhi, have recognised the role of the Brahmins
in the preservation and propagation of the Hindu culture. Some of the greatest
of the Hindu reformers have been, and are, Brahmins. Their contribution
to the society in all fields is legendary.
As said earlier, it
is not our contention that the Hindu society has no faults. Blame for this
state of affairs has to be with some Brahmins. But to damn the whole class
is doing grave injustice. The missionaries had to project the Brahmins
as evil because they were the ones who were coming in the way of their
proselytisation programme. Today, it suits certain people to damn the community
for their petty political games. But, if they were truly evil, would not
there have been large conversions of the backward castes to both Christianity
and Islam? After all, the clergy of both these systems had the power of
the state in many places in India. If the Brahmins were the cause of the
miseries faced by the lower castes, the latter would have willingly adopted
another system to escape the 'tyranny'.
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