Author: S. Aravindan Neelakandan
Publication: Sulekha.com
Date: May 2, 2002
URL: www.sulekha.com/articlede...cid=195857
I came to bring not peace but a
sword - Jesus Christ
For seven-year-old Shreema, 13th
Jan 2002 was a special Sunday. All through the year, the girl had awaited
the dawn of this day. For, that was the day one goes out and purchases
new clothes, new toys and sweets, as the next day would be Makar Sankranthi
-- the harvest festival celebrated throughout India. The Singicherra Bazar
was bustling with activity. Like Shreema's family there were many people
looking forward to a happy Makar Sankranthi. But they didn't realise that
they were violating a fatwa issued by the Baptist Church-created Christian
Al-Qaeda, the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT). Nor did they
know that they would pay with their lives for celebrating a heathen festival
of their motherland.
Shreema would never again celebrate
Makar Sankranthi. She died, along with sixteen others, on the spot as 13
terrorists of the NLFT encircled the people shopping for the festival and
fired indiscriminately1. The soldiers of Christ have done again in Tripura
what they have been doing for centuries to heathens throughout the world.
The Baptist Church of Tripura is
not just the ideological mentor of the NLFT; it also supplies the NLFT
with arms and ammunition for the soldiers of the holy crusade2. Never mind
that the holy war involves killing infants and torching the huts of 'heathen
Hindoos'. The NLFT does all these to bring to the infidels the peace and
love of Christ. So, when Nagmanlal Halam, secretary of the Noapara Baptist
Church in Tripura, was arrested by the Tripura police he had rather curious
tools for evangelisation, which included along with the gospel 50 gelatin
sticks, 5 kg of potassium and 2 kg of sulphur and other ingredients for
making explosives. Mr. Halam confessed that his activities for the saving
the heathen souls involved buying and supplying explosives to the NLFT
over the past two years. Another church official, Jatna Koloi, who was
also arrested, admitted that he received training in guerrilla warfare
at an NLFT base last year. Surely, gelatin and AK-47s have more efficiency
when it comes to bringing the light of the only revealed truth to the disbelievers
suffering in 'spiritual darkness'. Those who are in doubt can check it
out with another great light-bearer of the other 'only true book', Osama
bin Laden (that is, when and if the prophet of terror is captured).
The Baptist Church of Tripura was
initially set up by proselytizers from New Zealand 60 years ago. Despite
their efforts, even until 1980, only a few thousand people in Tripura had
converted to Christianity. Then the Church used one of its most efficient
and time-tested weapons of evangelisation -- creating racial and ethnic
divide among the people. In the aftermath of one of the worst ethnic riots,
engineered by the Church3, the NLFT was born -- but not without the midwife
role of the Baptist Church. From its very inception, the NLFT has been
advancing the cause of Christianity through armed persuasion. Every trace
of indigenous culture is being eliminated through violent means. Every
resisting group is made to bleed its way to extinction.
The case of Jamatya tribals provides
a telling example. These tribals have strong spiritual leaders and a network
of social service organisations headed by their religious leaders. These
indigenous sects are neither exclusive nor expansionist. The Baptist Church
has always failed miserably in its conversion efforts with regard to this
well-knit community. Hence, it is no wonder that the NLFT has made Jamatya
institutions and their religious leaders the targets of their attacks.
In the August of 2000, religious leaders of the Jamatya community like
Jaulushmoni Jamatya and Shanti Kumar Tripura were killed by the NLFT, and
Jamatya families were uprooted from their homelands and made refugees.
The death threats issued by the NLFT to the inmates of these institutions
have already forced the closure of 11 Jamatya institutions like schools
and orphanages, set up by the slain religious leaders in various parts
of Tripura4. Interestingly, these tribals are not close-minded fanatics.
For one thing, they do not mind teaching the theory of evolution in their
schools.
The greatest challenge to the Bible
inspired mission of the NLFT comes from the Sangh Parivar's Banbasi Kalyan
Kendra. The dedicated life workers of RSS have started empowering the tribals
by running many educational institutions which while empowering them through
imparting secular technical education also retain their tribal cultural
and spiritual identity. Rather than making them disown their roots, the
Kendra made the tribals feel proud of their culture. It even conducts national
level tribal sports festivals. If the NLFT is to carve out a kingdom for
Christ out of the secular republic of India, it has to make sure that the
Kendra activities are stopped at all costs. In July 2000, armed NLFT militants
torched a residential school and students hostel run by the Seva Mission
in the remote Ananda Bazar area of North Tripura5. They had also taken
hostage four RSS life workers. These RSS workers were all in their sixties.
The crime committed by these old men was that they had dared to run educational
institutions for tribals while preserving the tribals' culture. Later,
all four were killed by the NLFT.
The NLFT has been an active partner
of the Baptist Church in winning converts to the Christian creed. They
have killed tribal priests to threaten communities and effect mass conversions.
But those tactics have obviously backfired. In 2001 alone, the NLFT killed
more than 20 Hindus who refused to 'accept the love of Christ'. They also
torched to death a Hindu family sleeping in a hut6. In 2001, community
chiefs and religious heads of 19 tribes formed the 'Tribal Culture Protection
Committee' to counter the threat posed by the NLFT7. Despite the NLFT taking
all possible steps to enforce conversions, the conversions are still slow.
Frustrated, the NLFT has now begun an all out war against Hindu tribals.
They have issued fatwas against infidel activities. These fatwas prohibit
people from celebrating festivals like Durga Pooja and Makar Sankranthi,
listening to Indian music, watching Indian TV channels and films, and prohibit
women from wearing bangles or sporting bindis, etc. Just a year before
the NLFT started all these atrocities in India, the Southern Baptist Church
of the United States of America had given a clarion call to bring the light
of the gospel to "millions of Hindus and Jews lost in the darkness" of
their religions8.
Shreema, the seven-year-old girl
from Tripura, died with bullets pumped into her tender body. Her crime
was that she violated the Christian fatwa which prohibited her from celebrating
an Indian festival. She was not just a victim of barbaric terrorism but
she is also a martyr for Indian culture, a culture that has preserved thousands
of tribal customs from barbaric persecution. Yet, she will not make it
to the glossy covers of the weekly magazines of English speaking Indian
media. Unsubstantiated, fabricated stories of Hindu fundamentalists (an
oxymoron) killing Christian priests have been making their headlines. However,
these fabrications have their use. They do help in the covering up of such
acts of Christian love like killing in cold blood a seven- year-old girl
or burning a family to death.
References:
1. 16 shot dead by NLFT in Tripura
- PTI, January 13, 2002.
2. Church backing Tripura rebels
- BBC, April 18, 2000.
3. India's North-East Resurgence:
Ethnicity, Insurgency and Governance, Development by B.G. Vargheese, 1996,
p.175.
4. Militants raid Hindu Ashram
- The Telegraph, December 5, 2000.
5. NLFT curb on Hindu institutions
- The Telegraph, September 14, 2000.
6. Three killed by Tripura rebels
- BBC, April 14, 2000.
7. Tribals unite against conversions
in Tripura, Syed Zarir Hussain, www.rediff.com/ news/2001/aug/02trip.htm
8. Southern Baptists target Hindus,
Julia Lieblich, The Associated Press, October 21, 1999.
