[world-vedic] Mission Impossible - Putting an End to Conversion Activity

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Times of India

13 October 1999

Mission Impossible - Putting an End to Conversion Activity

 

By M V KAMATH

 

ON the night of January 22/23, Christian missionary Graham Stewart Staines

and his two young sons were burnt to death in Manoharpur, a remote village

in Orissa. On September 1, another Christian priest, Fr Arun Doss was killed

at Jambani village, also in Orissa. In the past month, several incidents of

burning of churches have been reported, almost all of them in tribal areas

in Orissa and

Gujarat.

 

Some time ago, church authorities released a long list of atrocities

perpetrated against Christians in different parts of India and at different

times. The cumulative impression sought to be driven home is that minorities

are no longer

safe in India. This is an ominous development. Orissa's director-general of

police Dilip Mahapatra has been quoted as saying that Fr Doss had received a

``number of complaints and evidence'' to the effect that the priest was

involved in ``illegal conversions'' in violation of the Orissa Freedom of

Religions Act, 1967.

 

Under the Orissa law and a similar law passed in Madhya Pradesh,

missionaries are clearly under an obligation to inform the authorities of

their conversion efforts. Incidentally, these laws were upheld by a

five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court [sC] in the Rev Stanilaus

vs State of Madhya Pradesh (AIR 1977 SC 908). The law makes it mandatory for

the concerned religious priest to give a 15-day notice for the "ceremony of

conversion" and intimate the time and place along with the names and

addresses of those intended to be converted.

 

Far from Prying Eyes

 

Christian missionary efforts at conversion under the guise of social work do

not take place in places, say, like the Brahmin-dominated ward of Mylapore

in Chennai. They are conducted in poor, illiterate and innocent tribal areas

and in remote jungles far from the prying eyes of authority. Now a reaction

seems to have set in. Writing in The Statesman (March 12, 1999), Mr B P Saha

made the point that ``growing enlightenment has been provoking them

(tribals) to dislike conversion and look askance at the foreign

missionaries, the so-called benefactors''.

 

Attempts at conversion should be considered a mortal assault on local

cultures and should be totally banned. Conversions are forbidden by law in

China. Here we take a lenient view of conversion and Christian bodies have

been taking advantage of the Hindu sense of tolerance. According to Mr Jon

Stock, New Delhi correspondent of the British paper The Daily Telegraph,

``put simply, the

Indian subcontinent has become the principal target for a wide range of

western Christian missions which are determined to spread the gospel to

India's `unreached' people before the year 2000''.

 

Writing in The Spectator, Mr Stock says: ``There is little doubt that the

current communal tension in India would not be serious if foreign-funded

missionaries had been content with giving Indians the choice of Christianity

and left it at that."

 

According to Mr Stock, ``hundreds of thousands of dollars are being

channelled into India through well-organised, America-based evangelical

missions'', the meticulously researched ethnographic data they are compiling

on the region ensuring that funds are being directed ``with military

precision to the right area, even to specific pin codes in remote tribal

districts''.

 

Mr Stock quoted a statement from a Colorado-based Group of World- wide

Christian Missions calling itself AD 2000 and Beyond as saying: `` `Flashes

of light' seen all around the North India-Hindu belt, particularly among the

tribal groups, are encouraging us to believe that the Sum of Righteousness

is indeed ready to rise upon these unreached peoples."

 

Violence Justified

 

AD 2000 and Beyond described Varanasi, Hinduism's holiest city as full of

temples dedicated to Shiva ``an idol whose symbol is a phallus'', and as a

city whom many (?)consider the ``very seat of Satan''. One Rev R V Paricha

has been described (Observer, March 24, 1999) as having authored a plan, on

behalf of 94 Christian organisations, to target Orissa for conversion

efforts, on the grounds that the caste structure of Orissa lacks the

polarisation of the high-and-low caste characteristics of South India.

 

The Constitution clearly says (Article 25, Freedom of Conscience etc) that

``all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right

freely to profess, practice and propagate religion'' but what is forgotten

is that this right is ``subject to public order, morality and health''. If

conversions or attempts at conversion lead to public disorder, the

government has a duty sternly to deal with guilty missionaries. If the

government does not step in on

liberal pretenses, then violence can be predicted even justified by insulted

citizens. It is time that Christian missionaries understand that India --

and Hinduism -- cannot be taken for granted.

 

It is pertinent to record what Christian missionaries did in Goa during the

Inquisition. All the Inquisition's activities were conducted in strict

secrecy, replete with``impenetrable arcane terminology fiendishly discrepant

logic and autonomous questioning?" Paul William Roberts in Empire of the

Soul, Some Journeys in India (Riverhead Books, New York) says,``Children

were flogged and

slowly dismembered in front of their parents whose eyelids had been sliced

off to make sure they missed nothing. Extremities were amputated carefully,

so that a person could remain conscious even when all that remained was a

torso and a head...Those subjected to diabolical tortures could also be

counted in the thousands and the abominations continued until a brief

respite in 1774...The

evil resumed (four years later) continuing, almost incredibly, until June

16, 1812. At that point British pressure put an end to terror, the presence

of British troops stationed in Goa enforcing it''.

 

Mere Apology

 

The Church had a special way of dealing with converted Hindus who were

suspected of not observing Christian rites with appropriate rigour and

enthusiasm, or even of covertly practising their old faith. They were the

revertidos, the alleged backsliders with their cut-out idols and furtive

cremations. According to Roberts (p.89), ``the culprits would be tracked

down and burnt alive''.

 

The Church archives should be able to produce instances of all the ghastly

atrocities that missionaries perpetrated in Goa in the name of Christ. These

archives should be opened for study -- and publication in full. A mere

apology is not enough. The Pope owes it to Goa, Hindus in general and India

in the larger context to give a full account of what Christianity had

perpetrated in our country. Above all, a total stop must be ordered of

conversion activities.