[EnlightenedChristians] Christian Fundamentalist Dinesh D'Souza of rediff

[Guest guest]

>Vera Pai

>[EnlightenedChristians] Christian Fundamentalist Dinesh D'Souza >Date:

Mon, 5 Aug 2002 13:27:13 -0700 (PDT) > > >Dear all, > >I come from the same clan

as this fundamentalist Dinesh D'Souza! I have changed my last name from D'Souza

to Pai of my forefathers. I feel it is an insult to our great forefathers who

were tortured in order to accept some foreign ideology. > >I watched this guy

Dinesh D'Souza, who is a disgrace to our clan, giving a talk to the Americans

in order to sell his book. I was watching this show with two American friend of

mine who was shocked by his talk! > >You will be surprized to know the questions

my friends asked because he had read more Hindu texts than Mr. Dinesh D'Souza. >

>The gist of the questions follow: > >1. Are you sure this guy was born in

India? > >2. Why does this guy still have slave mentality? > >3. Has he read

any Indian history at all? > >4. Is this guy an agent of Christian

fundamentalists or Christian missionaries in India or the White supremacists? >

>Mr. Dinesh D'Souza also said that his generation of Indians have benefited with

British rule! And what was that benefit? They know to speak and write Englishand

that is the reason he could give that talk to the men in the hall! Isn't this

absurd? This shocked all three of us sitting and watching the show. > >Then

came the most absurd thing of all and my African American friend was simply

furious. Mr. D'Souza had the cheek to say that it was good for the present

generation African Americans even though their forefathers were slaves! If

there were African Americans in that hall and if they had some rotten eggs and

tomatoes, they would have showered this Moron Dinesh D'Souza with them. > >Read

the following what Alan Machado-Prabhu has to say about the Christians and

Hindus of Goa! > > [sarasvati's Children: A History of the Mangalorean

Christians >By Alan Machado-Prabhu; > > >The West Coast of India is a land of

ancient habitation, a two thousand kilometre stretch of red laterite rising on

its eastern edge into the thickly forested Western Ghats. > >According to

historians, probably sometime around 1000 B.C, an unaccounted number of people

who originally lived on the banks of the river Sarasvati migrated to this

coast, bringing with them the tradition and beliefs of their homeland. > >The

river Sarasvati, together with the Drishtadvati, is mentioned in the Rig Veda

as a 'nourishing stream'. Over hundreds of years, Sarasvati slowly began to dry

up and the people who lived by its banks had no other alternative but to seek

fresh fields and pastures new. > >Large numbers of them followed the ancient

dakshinapatha, the southern route and came all the way to Gomantak and to what

is now called Goa. > >Here they settled, following their ancient ways of life,

making a comfortable living out of the fertile land. They were the Brahmins of

the north (Gaud) who hailed from the banks of the Sarasvati and so came to be

known as the Gaud Sarasvat Brahmins, who were deeply read in the Vedas and

Vedanganas and were justly famous for their scholarship and learning. > >Goa

was to come under a succession of rulers until there appeared on the horizon a

new and alien force, the Portuguese. How the Portuguese conquered Goa, forced

thousands of people to convert to Christianity and ruled with an iron fist has

been recounted by other scholars, but Alan Machado's recounting of that story

adds a fresh poignancy to an ancient tale. > >In their zeal to convert, the

Portuguese missionaries pulled out all stops. Churches were built. Temples were

destroyed. Machado writes that "the overpowering presence of the Church in the

lives of the people of Portuguese India was emphasised by the construction of

grand churches of outstanding architecture all over the country side". > >The

Sarasvat Brahmins understandably resented the activities of the missionaries.

They were destroying the essential cultural and spiritual unity of the people.

> >Severe ostracism was exercised by the Brahmins against the converts. Abbe

Dubois (1816) has written that " in no other country… is a person who becomes a

Christian exposed, by doing so, to the loss of kindred, friends, goods,

possessions, and all that he holds dear" with "a convert to Christianity cast

out as a vagrant from society, proscribed and shunned by all". > >The manner in

which the Church enriched itself was just scandalous. Half the property of a

person found in possession of idols went to the Church. "The Church" Machado

writes, "acquired urban and rural properties on an impressive scale". > >No

wonder. Hindus were prevented from performing their festivals openly. The open

performances of Hindu ceremonies were replaced by great public processions on

Christian feast days. One of the worst criminals was Francis Xavier, later to

be made into a saint. > >Machado quotes him as saying about the Sarasvat

Brahmins: "They are the most perverse people in the world… if there were no

Brahmins, all the pagans would be converted to our faith". > >Sarasvati's

children were not to be so easily trod upon. The result of the Brahmins

resistance was the Grand Inquisition, the kind of which has not been witnessed

elsewhere. > >The chapter on the Inquisition is aptly headed: Horrendum Ac

Tremendum Spectaculem. "In the principal market was raised an Engine of great

height, at top like a Gibbet, with a Pulley… for the Strapado which unhinges a

Man's joints, a cruel Torture…" the historian Fryer has written. > >But, writes

Machado: "Fryrer's (1675) brief reference to the Inquisition barely does justice

to the fearful dread it brought to the people living in Portuguese territories.

> >"Of all the organisations the Portuguese took to her overseas territories,

it was the Inquisition that stalked the land, menacing and seeking all it might

devour". > >In its two-and-a-half centuries of existence at Goa, the Inquisition

burned at the stake 57 alive and 64 in effigy, 105 of them being men and 16

women. Others sentenced to various cruel punishments totalled 4,046, of whom

3,034 were men. > >The people who were converted but still continued

occasionally and secretly to perform Hindu rituals were treated even more

harshly. In the circumstances, many of the Sarasvat families, both Hindu and

Christian, left Goa to settle in Kanara, in Mangalore and surrounding areas,

safe from the long terrorist arm of the Portuguese priests. > >The Sarasvat

(both Brahmin and Christian) migration to Kanara continued even after 1740

because of the Maratha invasion of Goa. This was the beginning of the formation

of what came to be known as the Mangalorean Christian as distinct from the Goan

Christian.] > > > >[Read the following and see for yourself, how American

Christians treat the Hindus: > >WASHINGTON: A major conservative group is

complaining that an invitation to a Hindu priest to give the prayer at the

opening of a House session is another indication of the nation drifting from

its Judeo-Christian roots. > > > >"Our founders expected that Christianity -

and no other religion - would receive support from the government as long as

that support did not violate peoples' consciences and their right to worship,"

said the Family Research Council, a leading advocacy group for conservative

causes. > >"They would have found utterly incredible the idea that all

religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference," the group said

in a comment posted on its Web page. > >Last Thursday, a Hindu priest from

Parma, Ohio, delivered the opening prayer to the House of Representatives in

conjunction with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee addressing a joint

meeting of Congress. > > > >The guest of Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown of Ohio,

Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala was the first Hindu ever to give the House

invocation. > >"As for our Hindu priest friend, the United States is a nation

that has historically honored the One True God," the council said. "Woe be to

us on that day when we relegate Him to being merely one among countless other

deities in the pantheon of theologies." ] > >With disgust, > >Vera Pai > > >

> > > Health - Feel

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