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The Christian link
1 We have mentioned some instances of the
Christian link earlier. One relating to the blatantly false allegations of the
All India Christian Council. The other was a statement from a Jesuit priest
associated with a front for the Roman Catholic Church.
2 In today's context, it would be interesting
to view the manner in which the Christian organisations reacted to an invitation
from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom on the issue of
attacks on Christians. The commission held a hearing on September 18, 2000, the
day after Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Prime Minister of India, completed his
visit to the capital of the USA. The commission admitted that the date chosen
was a deliberate one since the media focus would be highlighted on India.
3 The Catholic World News (September 14, 2000)
said,

· "The Catholic Bishops Conference of
India (CBCI) had described as "unwarranted" the proposed hearing on
religious freedom in India scheduled for Monday by a US congressional
committee on international religious freedom. "The CBCI does not believe
that the present situation warrants an international hearing," said
Father Donald d'Souza, CBCI deputy secretary general, when asked about the
Church's reaction to the proposed hearing on religious freedom in India."

4 Yet, the Report deals quite extensively on
the issue of attacks on Christians. It is pertinent to note that the Commission
itself was not exactly above board. In a letter dated September 6, 2000 Chairman
Elliott Abrams had urged President Clinton to "impress on the Prime
Minister (at his meeting on the 15th) that promotion of religious freedom is
indispensable to healthy relations between India and the United States."
Thus the hearing, which was held on September 16 was an eyewash, the conclusions
were arrived at much prior to the whole tamasha. The conclusions were arrived at
even prior to taking on board the comments of the various people.
5 But then, such tactics are quite normal to
those who wish to be economical with the truth, a politically correct phrase for
liars.
6 It is also necessary to discuss the role of
the Christian missionaries in terrorist activities in the North-East. We can do
no better than quote from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom:

· In Christian majority areas,
Christians sometimes are the oppressors. In Tripura, there were several cases
of harassment of non-Christians by Christian members of the National
Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), a militant tribal group with an
evangelical bent. For example, NLFT tribal insurgents have prohibited Hindu
and Muslim festivals in areas that they control, cautioned women not to wear
traditional Hindu tribal attire, and prohibited indigenous forms of worship.
In Assam, where the population is increasing rapidly, the issue of Bangladeshi
migrants (who generally are Muslim) has become very sensitive among the
Assamese (predominantly Hindu) population, which considers itself to be
increasingly outnumbered. ( http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2002/14023.htm)

 
Agenda of the authors of the Report
1 We can give many examples which will more than
amply prove that the authors, and the publishers, of the Report have an agenda.
For example, the Report says that the first Indian act of Hindutva was the
murder of Mahatma Gandhi. What the communists about the Mahatma is well
documented. But these same communists also know very well that even after
serious attempts by a regime that was virulently opposed to the RSS, no evidence
could be found about its involvement or of its members.
2 It is true that Nathuram Godse was a member
of the RSS for about two years in the early 40s. But, then, Godse was also a
member of the Congress Party and assisted it in the independence struggle.
3 The Report talks about rapes of Christian
nuns. The most notorious incident was that of four nuns in Madhya Pradesh. The
Congress government there has confirmed that the dastardly act was done by some
24 tribals, half of whom were converted to Christianity. In another case in
Orissa, the forensic report clearly showed that there was no rape. (In this
latter case, one has to wonder about the state of mind of the persons who asked
the nun to come out in the public and make a false claim of rape.)
4 Of course, people will mention about the
burning of Graham Staines and his two sons. Here too the Sangh organisations
have been cleared of any guilt in the incident by the Wadhwa Commission.
However, it is pertinent to reproduce two of the recommendations of the
Commission:

· Point No. 9: There should be a Code of
Conduct for the political parties when their leaders make statements without
verification in a situation like the present one. Leaders cannot make
statements merely for gaining political mileage. Their statements should be
subdued and not to fan the fire when the atmosphere is communally surcharged.
It is the duty of everyone to have regard to each other's faith and to spread
a message of love, peace and kindness. Murderer is a murderer to whichever
faith he may belong. A criminal is a criminal. Religion need not be brought in
such matters. Allow the police to make independent investigation of the crime
uninfluenced by politics or religion or caste.
· Point No. 10: Media, both print and
electronic, has also to exercise restraint. Screaming headlines should be
avoided which have the effect of misleading the public and creating more
tension and suspicion among different communities. News headlines in the cases
of rape of nun and murder of a Christian boy and girl after rape have been
noticed. One cannot imagine the damage that might have been caused to the
polity by such headlines and reporting. Reporting of communal strife should
not be done without proper verification or an ordinary crime given a communal
twist.

5 The Report also alleges that in the
distribution of the relief after the Gujarat Earthquake of January 2001, the
Sangh was deliberately not making it available to the Muslims and the dalits. In
this respect, it would be worthwhile to quote from an editorial in The Times of
India.

· "The RSS has been very active in
relief and rehabilitation work…..There are, however, unconfirmed reports
from Gujarat that the ideological bias of the RSS towards certain communities
and castes is already evident even in the task of providing relief."
(Editorial, "Political Aftershocks", The Times of India, Feb 6
2001.)

6 Eleven words of praise, based on confirmed
reports. And 29 words of damnation based on unconfirmed reports. Strange seems
to be the manner of professionalism in Indian journalism.
7 Within a couple of days, the RSS spokesman
wrote to The Times of India asking for the details of these unconfirmed reports,
so that the organisation could take the necessary corrective actions. As of this
date no such information has been received. One does guess that it is difficult
to provide details of unconfirmed reports.
8 Moreover, a photo, from a website of the
Times of India group which showed a Muslim family, along with many others, in a
huge tent set up by the VHP, was sent to the editor. A photo of a couple of nuns
of the Missionaries of Charity bringing a patient to a VHP medical camp was also
sent. Was there an acknowledgement of the blatantly false charge by The Times of
India? If there was, at least this section of the Report need not have been
written.
9 When there was a mid-air collusion just
over the village of Charhi Dadri in Haryana, the first group of people to reach
the site were members of the Sangh. That a large number of victims were Muslims
did not deter them in providing the necessary assistance in pulling out the
bodies from the wreckage and helping in undertaking the final rites. This effort
was recognised in the Saudi newspaper Al-Riyad.
10 A couple of other points need to be taken
up. The authors of the Report talk about Hinduism as a religion. Obviously the
level of scholarship of the authors must be quiet low, and their integrity
non-existent, if they stoop to this low level. All serious scholars on Hinduism
would clearly state that referring to it in the same context as Christianity and
Islam would guide the person in a completely wrong direction.
11 The essence of Hinduism can be taken up
from Prof Klaus Klostermaier, who spent quite some time in India before quitting
the Jesuit order, has to say.

· "Hinduism will spread not so much
through the gurus and swamis, who attract certain number of people looking for
a new commitment and a quasi-monastic life-style, but it will spread mainly
through the work of intellectuals and writers, who have found certain Hindu
ideas convincing and who identify them with their personal beliefs. A fair
number of leading physicists and biologists have found parallels between
modern science and Hindu ideas. An increasing number of creative scientists
will come from a Hindu background and will consciously and unconsciously blend
their scientific and their religious ideas. All of us may be already much more
Hindu than we think." (A Survey of Hinduism, p 414. Munshiram Manoharlal
Publishers Pvt Ltd, Delhi, 1990.)

12 A second point needs to be mentioned is about
Friends of India Society International (FISI). This organisation came to be to
co-ordinate the opposition to the Emergency declared by Smt Indira Gandhi
between 1975-77. A large number of persons of Indian origin, living in the UK
and the USA, came together as a spontaneous act to oppose this rape of
democracy. In a very short time, the persons involved came to realise that a
huge majority of them had a Sangh background. Just as in India, where the major
ground level opposition was by Swayamsevaks, the international experience was no
different.
13 The organisers of FISI decided to continue
with the organisation in the post-Emergency period, so that there is a forum
availed to the Indian Diaspora to take up issues which are of concern to the
land of their ancestors, without in any way hurting the interest of the land
where they are now settled. And yet the authors of the Report allege that this
organisation, which worked so hard to help in restoring democracy in India, is
itself an undemocratic organisation. Perhaps they do so because the Communist
Party of India, under instructions of the erstwhile Soviet Union, supported the
Emergency.
14 To fully understand the
agenda of the authors of the Report, we should also take cognisance of what they
have to say on the subject of the Report and has been published after the Report
has been released. At  http://www.stopfundinghate.org/resources/FAQ.htm,
we find the following:

· Q 7. But Hindutva organizations claim that
it is the missionaries and madarsas which initiate the problem. Is this not
true?
· It is mostly not true. There may be
missions which convert. There may be madarsas where hatred is taught.
(Emphasis added.)

15 Obviously the authors of the Report have a
poor opinion of the intelligence of their readers. But, then they do seem to
have proved this right at least in case of those who have come out in their
support!
16 In addition, the authors of
the Report seem to be such experts in identifying the castes of people by merely
looking at the names, and that too even if the first name is provided. They have
created a website called  http://stopfundinghate.org,
where they make the following statement:


· Signatories on a counter-petition
launched by a group called "Let India Develop"  http://www.letindiadevelop.org
are almost exclusively from Hindu upper castes. ( http://stopfundinghate.org/actions/press/120802.htm)


17 In the same spit-and-run tactics, the authors
of the Report say:


· The Rashtriya Swayamsevk Sangh (RSS) and
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), key organizations in the Hindutva movement,
are shadowy organizations which have been banned several times in India for
fomenting communal violence. VHP and RSS workers have been implicated in
murderous activities. ( http://stopfundinghate.org/resources/FAQ.htm)


18 The RSS has been banned three times. The
first time was in the aftermath of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. It has
been more than adequately established that this was a political move, to try and
destroy an organisation which was thought to come in the way of implementing the
political agenda of Nehru. The second time was during the Emergency of 1975-77.
During this period many other organisations were banned for the simple reason
that they all opposed the Congress Party of Indira Gandhi. (Which Congress Party
was approached by Setalvad of Sabrang to finance the anti-BJP campaign at the
time of the last elections.) The third time was after the demolition of the
Babri structure that stood at the Shri Rama Janmabhoomi. This ban was not
confirmed by the commission which went into the legality of the ban.
19 The VHP was banned two times. The first
was along with the third ban on the RSS. The second one was after the statutory
period of this ban was over, and this was summarily overturned by the concerned
commission. Thus, it is clear that yet again the authors of the Report have to
resort to being economical with the truth in trying to take forward their
agenda.
20 The authors claim that their Report has
been 'meticulously researched'. If so, could they list out the cases where the 'VHP
and RSS workers have been implicated in murderous activities'?