USCIRF and India - By Radha Rajan

[Guest guest]

The Italian Christian-led Congress-led UPA government has taken the

unprecedented step of inviting the USCIRF to visit Gujarat and Orissa to

write their officious reports on religious freedom. The padre from

Gujarat Cedric Prakash has made the fooliosh remark that Narendra Modi

must win the approval of western nations (read US) if he has to become

the Prime Minister of India and that the visit by the USCIRF has been

welcomed by Gujaratis in the US who want the US State Department to

remove Modi from their anti-Christ list and give Modi a visa to the US.

I have been brought up in a middle-class brahmin family and much as I am

tempted to give expression to what I think of such officiousness, I will

confine myself to sending you all what I wrote about the USCIRF in 2002.

Like many things I said and wrote several years ago, nothing has

changed. RR

THE U.S AND THE USCIRF - THERE IS NO END TO THEIR IMPERTINENCE

<http://www.hinduonnet.com/2002/11/23/stories/2002112307061100.htm>

Sridhar Krishnaswami files a news report, featured on the front page of

The Hindu dated 2nd October, 2002, titled " Designate India, Pakistan

as countries of particular concern "

<http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/10/02/stories/2002100205270100.\

htm> . The opening paragraph reads thus:

 

" The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

(USCIRF) has recommended that the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell,

designate India, along with others, as `Countries of Particular

Concern' under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 " .

 

According to this news report, the Commission is reacting to

`periodic violence' against the religious minorities of the

country, violence which has been on the increase because of the

" rise in political influence of groups associated with the Sangh

Parivar, a collection of Hindu extremist nationalist organizations that

views non-Hindus as foreign to India and hence deserving of attack " .

 

My first thought was, this description of the RSS must have been given

to these busybodies by Arundhati Roy or Shabana Azmi or by Sahmat or

Communalism Combat or all of them `together separately'; and my

first impulse was to consign this report to the `Garbage Bin'.

And I would have, had this been the ranting of some American Southern

Baptist group or some disgruntled Christian or Marxist NGO in one of

their periodic diatribes against the RSS and the rising religious and

political consciousness of the Hindus of this country; or the ranting of

the blatantly biased American and European human rights industry. But

this is the ranting of a statutory body of the U.S government, a

Commission that has been constituted by law, a Commission (which is

however allegedly non-governmental), whose members work closely with the

American State Department. The Commission is headed by the Ambassador-at

Large and he is the Special Adviser to the U.S President and to the U.S

Secretary of State on International Religious Freedom. And so, the very

least that a native of a developing third world nation, whose country

has been stood in the dock by this " damning indictment " can do,

when faced by the impertinence of foreign busybodies, is to respond to

this nonsense with a modicum of seriousness.

 

THE HITLIST

In the first three years of its existence, from 1998 to 2001, the entire

focus of the Commission is on China, Vietnam, Laos, Sudan and Burma. And

these countries continue to remain on the hit list of this Commission

not only because these countries are ruled either by Communist

governments or by the military as in the case of Burma, but more

interestingly, these countries have a marked antipathy towards

Christianity and Christian missionaries. Contrary to the pious

statements of this Commission that it is concerned about the lack of

freedom of religion in these countries, and that their heart bleeds for

the Buddhists and the Falun Gong, it is the refusal to allow Christian

missionaries to operate in these countries that has incurred the wrath

of this Commission.

 

The list then expands to include Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, and now

Pakistan and India. Please note all of you, there is this deafening

silence on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 1998, despite strong

protests from women's groups in the USA about the Taliban's

treatment of the women in Afghanistan. Of course let us all succumb to a

`willing suspension of disbelief' and believe instead that this

silence had nothing to do with the fact that major American oil and gas

companies were talking to the Taliban for rights to build pipelines

across Afghanistan to transport oil and gas from the Central Asian

republics. The alternative was Iran but then Iran would have laughed the

Americans out of town. So that was ruled out. The U.S needed Afghanistan

and the Taliban came as a package deal. Religious freedom? What

religious freedom? (Laughter please).

 

THE USCIRF AND ITS RATIONALE

Now let us first look at this USCIRF. It was constituted in 1998 because

the U.S had no international agenda then to project its super power

status. The WTO had become a reality, the Taliban were around but the

USA needed pipelines across Afghanistan more than it wanted freedom of

religion from the Taliban. And September 11 was still three years down

the line. The Soviet Union had disappeared, the people of Iraq were

being subjected to slow and unexciting genocide by continuing U.S

harassment and the U.S had no excitement that real cloak and dagger

stuff can give to its national life. It was spoiling for a fight and so

it discovered International Religious Freedom. The U.S passed the

International Religious Freedom Act in 1998 and soon thereafter, in 1998

it also constituted the Commission for IRF by law. The rationale for the

Act is best expressed by the Act itself –

 

" SEC. 2. FINDINGS; POLICY.

(a) FINDINGS- Congress makes the following findings:

 

(1) The right to freedom of religion undergirds the very origin and

existence of the United States. Many of our Nation's founders fled

religious persecution abroad, cherishing in their hearts and minds the

ideal of religious freedom. They established in law, as a fundamental

right and as a pillar of our Nation, the right to freedom of religion.

From its birth to this day, the United States has prized this legacy of

religious freedom and honored this heritage by standing for religious

freedom and offering refuge to those suffering religious persecution.

 

I will come to this hilarious self-description of " pillar of our

nation " in just a while but it will be interesting to see what

triggered this pious decision to monitor international religious

freedom. There are two major causes for the U.S' sudden love for

religious freedom.

 

First – religion was coming back in a big way in the former Soviet

Union and in Russia, Belarus, and the Ukraine, in Georgia and Armenia

the Church was once again becoming a force and an influence to contend

with. While all these republics were catholic, none of them acknowledged

the supremacy of the Vatican. Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Serbia,

Armenia and Georgia were all components of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

They all had their own national churches and the Hierarchy too was

national. Most of these republics refused to allow the Vatican or the

American and European churches to open shop in their territories.

Indeed, the climate was distinctly hostile to the expansionist designs

of the Vatican and the American and European churches in the vulnerable

soil of these fledgling nation-states. This of course incensed the U.S

and the Vatican.

 

Second – rapidly declining numbers of their flock in the West had

the Vatican and the American and European churches looking for new

territories to conquer, new peoples to evangelise and convert. They all

turned their attention on Asia. On Easter's eve in 1996, Pope John

Paul II led 20,000 Roman Catholics in an Easter vigil at St.Peter's

basilica. " In his homily John Paul II spoke specifically of Asia

after having previously denounced discrimination against Catholics in

Vietnam and China. He spoke of " the great desire of Christ and the

Church to meet the populations and cultures of that immense continent,

rich in history and noble traditions. `You constitute in a certain

way the answer of nations to the new evangelization', he said " .

 

THE VATICAN AND ASIA

The Vatican had decided that in the third millenium the Church would

plant the cross in Asia and harvest the souls of the non-Christian and

non-Muslim peoples of Asia – the Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and

peoples of other non-proselytizing faiths that originated in India. To

this end, a Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for Asia was held

in April/May of 1998 in the Vatican. The Vietnam government as early as

in January 1998 had refused permission to its Bishops to attend the

Synod. By April, China too had refused permission to the Bishops in

China and Taiwan to attend the Synod. On May 14th, a Mass in Saint

Peter's basilica brought to a close the work of the Special Assembly

for Asia of the Synod of Bishops. According to `Fides' the

Vatican news agency, " At the end of his homily, the Holy Father

voiced his intention to visit Asia in the near future to present the

post-synodal exhortation. " This led to excited discussion among the

Synod Fathers about possible places for the visit. In the end they

suggested a journey with three laps: Bombay, Manila, Hong Kong. Others

suggested Jerusalem, Beijing, Calcutta, Ho Chi Minh city, Tokyo or

Baghdad " .

 

The intentions of the Vatican was clear. It intended for the Pope to

make a high profile visit to deliver the post-synodal exhortation in one

of the Asian countries – China, Vietnam, India or Japan –

countries where the majority of the population is non-Christian - Hindus

or Buddhists. China of course and Vietnam too promptly refused to allow

the Pope to come visiting them. In India too there was growing awareness

and unease about the intentions of the churches of the world to

aggressively convert the Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs to the Christian

religion and the Hindus were organizing themselves not only to expose

the intentions of the Vatican and the American and European churches but

also to resist, militantly if need be, any and all attempts at religious

conversion.

 

THE DUPLICITY OF THE VATICAN AND THE U.S

One must see the U.S' sudden love for international religious

freedom against this background – against the background of

Asia's growing hostility to Western trade war through globalization

and Christian missionary activities, both of which historically have

always acted in tandem. Pope John Paul II succeeded to the papacy

precisely because he was polish and Poland was the weakest link in the

Soviet bloc – Roman Catholics like the people of Croatia and not

Eastern Orthodox like Serbia or Russia. The polish Pope John Paul II

succeeded to the papacy because his mandate was clear – to exert

pressure on the weakest link – on Poland and bring about the

collapse of communism and consequently the Soviet Union. And the

calculation was, when communism fails, the west can step in with its IMF

and the World bank and capitalism and free market and when the Soviet

Union disappeared it would also signal the end of the already weakened

and debilitated Eastern Orthodox Church and the Vatican can step in to

open shop. A dream that the West and the Vatican had nurtured and

pursued unceasingly for more than five decades. They succeeded only

partially. Communism failed, the Soviet Union disintegrated but the

Eastern Orthodox Church rose like the phoenix and reacted ferociously to

the Vatican and other western churches attempting to open their industry

in these territories.

 

One must also see the antipathy of the USA and the West and the Vatican

to China, Vietnam, and Serbia in this context. While the USA passed the

International Religious Freedom Act in 1998, the seeds of the Act were

sown cleverly in 1995 itself, to coincide with the creation of the WTO,

when Pope John Paul II was invited to address the UN General Assembly on

the 5th of October, 1995 to mark the 50th year of the UN. And he devoted

his entire talk to the rights of people to freedom, to human rights, to

the rights of nations to come into being and to exist (the call for

enabling the fructifying of movements for self-determination, the

forewarning of the creation of Croatia, E.Timor). It is one of the

cleverest, most cunning speeches ever made. Every sentence should be

read to mean that he is talking only of Christian interests, Christian

political and religious rights. Wherever he appeals for diversity, he is

appealing to those nations and peoples who are non-Christian to allow

the Christian faith with its missionary agenda, to exist, to grow. And

for the first time, the Church and immediately thereafter, American

think tanks begin to make a distinction between `patriotism'

which is in their view, positive and `nationalism' which in

their view is negative because it is synonymous with protectionism and

shuts its doors on the face of religious and economic invaders. One of

the reasons cited by the U.S for constituting the USCIRF is:

 

" Though not confined to a particular region or regime, religious

persecution is often particularly widespread, systematic, and heinous

under totalitarian governments and in countries with militant,

politicized religious majorities " .

 

This is an accurate paraphrase of the Pope's UNGA address in 1995

where he invents his own definition of nationalism and patriotism thus:

 

" We need to clarify the essential difference between an unhealthy

form of nationalism, which teaches contempt for other nations or

cultures, and patriotism, which is a proper love of one's country.

True patriotism never seeks to advance the well-being of one's own

nation at the expense of others. For in the end, this would harm

one's own nation as well. Doing wrong damages both aggressor and

victim. Nationalism, in its most radical form, is thus the antithesis of

true patriotism, and today we must ensure that extreme nationalism does

not continue to give rise to new forms of the aberrations of

totalitarianism " .

 

PATRIOTISM, NATIONALISM AND ALL THAT CRAP

Now let us apply the pope's yardstick of `true patriotism'

and `extreme nationalism' to religion, to Christianity and the

Church specifically. If the pope were indeed sincere about his call for

allowing diversity to exist, about his devout respect for all cultures

and traditions, he will acknowledge that all cultural values and

traditions derive from the religion and faith of the people. Then he

owes us all an explanation about the basis for religious conversion and

the determination of the Vatican to convert all peoples of the world to

the Christian faith. Will this allow for diversity, will this express

respect for other cultures and traditions? Is this not an agenda for

homogenization and does this not violate the principle of the right to

existence of other religions and faiths? Has the pope not learnt

anything from the destruction and the total annihilation of the

religions of the native Americans and the Africans by the Church?

 

The west of course is rediscovering `nationalism' and is now

beginning to understand the need for protectionism when globalization

opened the borders of their countries to immigration. Now they realise

how important it is to preserve their culture and their way of life from

the onslaught of third world natives. So while the USA and the West want

Asians to open their borders to their capital and goods, and throw open

the doors of our societies and homes to Christian missionaries, they

frown upon religious and economic nationalism a.k.a. protectionism. They

however want to clamp down on immigration shut their borders to Asians

and Africans and rediscover what it is to be American, British, German

and French.

 

" Our respect for the culture of others is therefore rooted in our

respect for each community's attempt to answer the question of human

life. And here we can see how important it is to safeguard the

fundamental right to freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, as

the cornerstones of the structure of human rights and the foundation of

every truly free society, No one is permitted to suppress those rights

by using coercive power to impose an answer to the mystery of man " .

 

Right, right!! The irony or shall I say, the black humour of it all! The

last line can be understood better if we know that the Vatican believes

that the catholic faith alone is the repository of all Truth and it

alone has the answer to the mystery of man. So when the Pope talks of

coercive power and the use of coercive power to impose an answer, he is

referring to regimes and governments, which have refused the Vatican and

Christianity even a toe-hold in their countries – China, Vietnam,

Japan, and Burma and of course the Asian Islamic nations of Malaysia and

Indonesia where to proselytize and distribute Christian propaganda

material is a crime. What the pope is in fact demanding is the Christian

right to propagate, evangelise and carry out individual and mass

conversions in Asian countries with very large non-Christian

populations.

 

THE DEEP POCKET OF HUMAN RIGHTS

So, the seeds for an intrusive and aggressive foreign policy eroding

national sovereignty are being sown as early as in the late 1980s and in

the 1990s with the USA, the West, the Vatican and the European churches

acting in tandem. Concrete shape for renewed aggression by the USA

against the nations of Asia is given through the inequitable WTO and the

designing of the deep pocket called `human rights'. It is a

pocket deep enough to yield several agendas demanding unilateral or

multilateral interference into domestic national affairs. Human rights

can accommodate right to freedom of conscience, freedom of religion,

women's rights, children's rights, rights of labour, right to

self-determination, right to….the list can be made as endless as the

U.S wants. But the striking absence of right to freedom from racial

discrimination, and the right to participatory democracy has not been

noticed it would seem. The U.S is yet to begin the process of

participatory democracy. The highest offices of this land of the brave

and the free is reserved for the white/christian(protestant)/male. As

long as women, African-American Christians and Muslims, native Americans

and Jews and the minorities do not qualify to be elected to the White

House, the USCIRF should deny itself the luxury of pointing fingers at

India. By this single act of commission alone, the U.S is guilty of

several counts of human rights abuse.

 

The U.S owes us an explanation now. Is the USCIRF empowered to monitor

religious freedom only in the rest of the world or is it empowered to

monitor systemic denial of religious rights which includes right to

practice of rituals, within the USA too? Because there are enough

documents to prove denial of the right to practice the rituals of their

faith by native American students in the universities of the USA. The

U.S also owes the world an explanation on its silence and its polite

looking the other way when the Taliban incarcerated the women and the

children of Afghanistan in their homes. Now is the time to deal with the

" pillar of our nation " joke. All of you, who are not averse to

waging this intellectual war against our adversaries, must read without

fail two books – " A Little Matter of Genocide – Holocaust

and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present " by Ward Churchill

and " American Holocaust – The Conquest of the New World " by

David E. Stannard. Once you have read these two books, it is difficult

to listen to or read anything the Pope or the USA is saying about

freedom and human rights and democracy and pluralism without rolling on

the ground, clutching your stomachs in laughter.

 

" RELIGIOUS FREEDOM – THE PILLAR OF OUR NATION "

What was that again? " The right to freedom of religion undergirds

the very origin and existence of the United States. Many of our Nation's

founders fled religious persecution abroad, cherishing in their hearts

and minds the ideal of religious freedom. They established in law, as a

fundamental right and as a pillar of our Nation, the right to freedom of

religion " . Yeah right! Now just see what these noble nation's

founders, `who fled religious persecution abroad', did to the

native Americans in the name of the Church and Christianity, in the name

of religion. There is an encyclical by the Pope in the 15th century

severely condemning the genocide of native Americans. The pope says,

that as long as these barbaric natives are fit to receive the message of

Christ, their lives should be spared and should be elevated into the

service of Christ. From then on begins the savage christianising of the

native Americans. They are driven like so much cattle into Christian

missions and there they are put to hard labour by the priests who think

hard labour is good for the soul of the native Americans. They thought

the same thing about the Africans whom they transported into North

America later. Hard labour is always good for the non-white,

non-Christian peoples of the world particularly if the labour is for

furthering the trade and economy of the white Christian nations. In the

words of Ward Churchill:

 

" In actuality, the missions were deathmills in which Indians, often

delivered en masse by the military, were allotted an average of seven

feet by two feet of living space in what one observer described as

`specially constructed cattle pens'. Although forced to perform

arduous agricultural labour by the priests from morning to night, six

days a week, the captives were provided no more than 1400 calories per

day in low nutrient foods, with missions like San Antonio and San Miguel

supplying as little as 715 calories per day.

 

Probably most remarkable in this regard is Fray Junipero Serra in charge

of the northern California mission complex during its peak period and a

man whose personal brutality was noteworthy even by those standards (he

appears to have delighted in the direct torture of victims, had to be

restrained from hanging Indians in lots, a la Columbus, and is quoted as

asserting that the entire race of Indians should be out to the knife).

Proposed for canonization as a saint by the catholic Church, Serra's

visage, forty feet tall, today peers serenely down upon motorists

driving south from San Francisco along Highway 101 from its vantage

point on a prominent bluff. Another statue of Serra, a much smaller

bronze which has stood for decades before San Francisco's city hall

is being moved to a park. Officials denied requests from local Indians

that it be placed in storage, out of public view, however offering the

compromise of affixing a new plaque to address native concerns about the

incipient saint's legacy. (Hindus of India and Jews of the world

please note, `Mother' Teresa and `Hitler's pope' are

both all set to be canonized as the new saints of the twentieth century

in the catholic pantheon, a gesture of gratitude for services rendered

in the cause of furthering the catholic Church in difficult times and in

difficult climes). Church lobbyists however have undermined even that

paltry gesture preventing the inclusion of wording which might have

revealed something of the true nature of the mass murder and cultural

demolition over which Serra presided. Both man and mission, the Vatican

insisted, were devoted to '`mercy and compassion " .

 

In passing this Act on International religious Freedom the U.S is basing

its case on the noble founders of the nation, on `the pillars of our

nation' - a nation that was built on the blood and sweat of genocide

and slavery – both of which were practiced in the name of the

Christian faith!!

 

WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU, IS RIGHT FOR ME

The U.S has set several precedents post September 11 – precedents

worthy of emulation. The right to revenge, the right to pre-emptive

strikes when faced with threats to national security, the right to

demonstartive nationalism/protectionism. The U.S must ask itself why

other religious minorities in India, the Parsis, the Sikhs, the

Buddhists and Jains never face the problems that Christians and Muslims

in India face at the hands of `Hindu extremists? Why did the

normally gentle Hindus take to extremism? Why did the U.S carpet bomb

Iraq and Afghanistan? National security is threatened not only when our

borders are threatened by foreign invaders in conventional war but when

our homes, communities and societies are threatened by religious

invaders and terrorists. Christian missionaries and Islamic terrorists

threaten Hindus and Hindu society. The right to revenge is as much the

prerogative of Hindus as it is of the U.S. So USCIRF or ABCDEF, the U.S

cannot preach to India what it has never practiced. Enough of this

impertinence USCIRF. Care for your backyard before you venture into

other nations.

 

And one more thing, this constant harping on rising Hindu extremism

threatening the secular, democratic fibre of the country and all that

crap. The Indian State is democratic and secular. The Indian nation is

not. The Indian nation like most nations of the world, is religious. And

the rich diversity and pluralism which you keep harping about, it has

existed for over two thousand years, when the first Christian and Muslim

missionaries/traders/invaders begin to appear in our country, not

because of the USCIRF or the U.N or the Indian Constitution or the Human

rights industry. It has existed for centuries because the nation was

Hindu. The Hindu thought is assimilatory not exclusivist like the

Abrahamic faiths. And it is this nation which is being threatened by the

missionary activities of the Christian fundamentalists and the

secessionist activities of Islamic fundamentalists. The Hindus have

survived 600 years of Muslim barbarism, 200 years of savage colonialism.

We survived violent partition in 1947, and we are living through the

problems in J & K and the North-east. Hindus have the right to exist, the

right to protect their faith, the right to territory, the right to

protect and defend their women and children, the right to revenge and

the right to pre-emptive strikes against their aggressors.

 

(Written in October 2002)