Well, since people didn't bother to read (or are pretending that they didn't read) the article, here is the full text :
A little over a month ago, delegates of 19 countries met in the United Nations
on a subject not on the agenda: "slavery". Not medieval slavery but modern
slavery. The country in question, Sudan, where a mere 50 dollars (Rs 2,250)
buys a living human body, who is then subjected to "murderous labour, rape,
hunger, torture and totality of degradation".
"Sudan's slaves come from the south of their country. They are trapped in the
three-decade-long civil war between the Muslim north and the largely
Christian south. Khartoum sends armed raider-trains southwards, to take and
sell slaves, and grab food sent to war victims by international organisations."
(The New York Times, September 3, 1999)
The UN committee met to discuss penalties--not
against Sudan for buying and selling human beings
like meat, but against Christian Solidarity
International (CSI), a foreign organisation trying to
prevent it. One of the 19 nations had complained
that CSI had sponsored a Sudanese rebel to speak
at a committee session in Geneva. The country was
Sudan.
CSI apologised but the vote went 18-1 against it. It
was stripped of its credentials as an NGO. Only the
United States opposed, what NYT columnist Abe
Rosenthal called, "permitting a slave-taking nation
to stifle an organisation that struggles for
slave-freeing." Among the countries which backed
Sudan were Cuba, China, Lebanon, Pakistan,
Russia, Senegal, Algeria.
And INDIA.
It takes little nuggets of news like this one,
unreported by our "patriotic" diplomatic
correspondents, to truly understand how the
visceral hatred against Christians, Christian
organisations and Christian missionaries that has
suddenly gripped our political masters, is assuming
pandemic proportions. And how this great nation is
being ravaged by the hate-mongrels.
With a thriving "slave industry" of our
own--bonded child workers in the jewel, carpet,
bangle, textile, granite, firecracker and sex
industries--India, you would think, would back a
body trying to free the enslaved. But the
saffron-tainted efforts to paint Christians as "Public
Enemy No 1" back home appear to have also
discoloured our collective world-vision.
Supplementary, my dear Watson: When (and why)
did Christians replace Muslims as the pet-hate of the saffron brotherhood?
From the demolition of the Babri masjid in Ayodhya to the blood-curdling
murder of Graham Staines and his two sleeping children in Orissa, from the
pogrom in Bombay to the torching of "churches" in Gujarat and Madhya
Pradesh--it's one long, sad story of Misplaced Majority Machismo, saffron
and otherwise. And the vote against CSI merely underlines our score: 0-5.
In the eyes of the world, "secular" India today perhaps seems only slightly
different from Islamic Pakistan--in its abrasive and aggressive intolerance of
other religions--and that's a real bad state to be in for the land of Gandhi,
Buddha and Teresa. And in opposing the Pope's visit the way we have, we've
gone and killed another guiding light of our philosophy: 'Athithi Devo Bhava'
(the guest is god).
To start with, look at how we talk about our guests: The Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP) general secretary Ashok Singhal says "nobody is happy with
the Pope's visit except a few Catholics and maybe Sonia Gandhi". VHP
national committee member Mohan Joshi calls the Pope a "big dictator". The
Pope is coming here on a religious visit; he should not be given a "state
welcome", pipes in another, because the Shankaracharyas and
Pramukhswamis are not given a state welcome on their visits abroad.
Then, look at what we expect from our guests: The Pope, says the VHP, should
come here as a "Head of State" and not as a head of a religion; and that he
should declare Christianity is not the only way to salvation. The Pope, they say,
should also say sorry for the inquisition during Portuguese rule in Goa 400
years ago, apologise for conversions by missionaries, and promise that the
missionaries will not try and convert any more people.
Calling the leader of the Catholic world a "big dictator" may earn the sangh
parivar and its political patrons a few cheap whistles from its core audience.
But the objections to the Pope's visit are so frivolous that they are laughable:
a. Our swamijis have to "earn" the right to be accorded a "state welcome", like
the Pope, not threaten their way to it.
b. The Pope is the head of a city-state which is also the capital of Catholicism.
How can you cut off one portion from the other?
c. Hinduism preaches that all religions are equal and lead to the same God.
How does it matter if people chose a different vehicle?
d. Organisations like ISKCON preach Hinduism abroad. Will it agree if it is told
what to do like the Pope is being asked to?
e. Since when have goons taken over as the spokespersons of Hindus that they
can hold this country's reputation to ransom?
f. As for the apology, shouldn't Atal Behari Vajpayee apologise for the 3,000
year oppression of dalits, so what if the Congress was in charge for 45 of
those? Shouldn't upper class Hindus say sorry to lower class Hindus? Should
Hindu men say sorry to Hindu women for sati?
And shouldn't we say sorry for the slavery in Sudan which we are encouraging
by voting against CSI?
After the spate of hate from the BJP's blood-brothers, that champion of free
speech, Union Home Minister L K Advani, says the VHP-types are entitled to
their opinions. Which one/s? The one which say the Pope is a "big dictator"?
And if you, suddenly, believe in freedom of speech so much, isn't the Pope --
like the VHP -- also entitled to his opinions? And aren't Hindus and others
who wish to convert to Christianity entitled to theirs in the matter of choosing
the religion they wish to follow?
In depriving people of the Freedom of Religion guaranteed in the Constitution is
Advani guilty of breach of oath of office?
Clearly, all this name-calling will amount to very little because the Pope will
come, kiss the ground upon alighting in Delhi like he does in any part of the
world, complete the tasks that have been lined up for him, and return home. But
the egg that is on India's face with its ceaseless attacks on Christians and
Christian icons will take a long time to remove.
Identifying the right rival is a vital part of battle, and in targetting Muslims all
this while, the "Hindu Nationalist Party" at least had a convergence of interest
with the West as a figleaf. But Christians? Some say that the entry of Sonia
Gandhi into Indian politics had something to do about it. Surely, it can't be
anybody's contention that Sonia is the Pope's moll?
So why are the BJP and its allied organisations deliberately spreading terror
among a small, most peaceable community? Why are they trying to stifle the
extraordinary efforts being made by Christian missionaries and organisations in
rural health and education by allowing/ encouraging/ patronising/ sponsoring
this campaign of hatred? Unless, of course, like the Congress it is in its interests
to keep people poor and unhealthy and illiterate?
The theory that they fear the "overdrive of conversions" to Christianity by the
missionaries will drown Hindus is only likely to convince the Arun Shouries of
the world who floated a similar theory vis-a-vis Muslims and, post-Babri
masjid, has happily forgotten about it. Despite the best efforts of the
missionaries, the overall Christian population, according to the 1991 census,
has actually dipped vis-a-vis the 1981 one.
As Dilip D'Souza rightly points out, for Christians to overtake Hindus, there will
have to be 800 conversions every day for the next 50 years (The Times of
India, October 26). In Orissa, where Christians account for only 2.98 per cent
of the population, there are barely 500 conversions each year. Yet, there were
no less than 30 communal clashes in 10 of the state's 30 districts. (The Sunday
Times of India, October 24)
And, as Archbishop Alan de Lastic put it so succintly in The Hindustan Times
(October 24), the saffron brotherhood's canard of conversions is an insult to
the Indian people, particularly tribals and villagers: "They are the same people
to whom politicians run during elections; they are the same people who are
known for their political maturity. How is it possible that people who are
credited with intelligence, discrimination and discernment in choosing their
leaders will be naive in opting for their religion?"
It's tempting to see a grand electoral design in most things the sangh parivar
does, a design whose ultimate aim is to empower the BJP. If the Babri masjid
controversy -- and the trail of death it left across the country -- polarised the
Hindu-Muslim vote to the benefit of the BJP, it's likely that some wiseheads in
Nagpur and Jhandewalan (or whereever the wiseheads sit) have realised that
tribals can constitute a votebank and have set about encashing it.
Insecurity -- whether among Hindus or Muslims or Christians -- is the BJP's
'vishnu chakra' and after succeeding in the scaring the first two, it's got down
to the third. Is it any surprise that it's done extraordinary well in the tribal belts
of Orissa this time? Or in the tribal belts of Gujarat? Or Madhya Pradesh?
As political theories go, this is probably not earthshakingly prescient, but if
anybody has a better explanation why a party which claims the backing of 600
or 700 or 800 million Hindus feels a threat from a community which is less than
a tenth of its size, I'd like to hear it. Or does India's vote "permitting a
slave-taking nation to stifle an organisation that struggles for slave-freeing"
prove it all?
Any which way you look at it, though, the dangers of the exclusive
sectarianism that the BJP feasts on at an individual level is becoming clearer by
the day. In equating all Indian Muslims as outsiders merely because of their
religion, in objecting to a prime ministerial candidate merely on grounds of her
foreign origin, in opposing Christian missionaries merely because of the work
they do, the party and its allied organisations are playing with fire.
How are you so sure they won't tell you who you should marry and who you
should not, next? |
