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All Skeletons In The Church Cupboard!
The 'cat' is out of the 'bag', at last. The reason for the much publicized conversion of 250 village youths in a Seventh Day Adventist School in Madurai on August 24 was made out to be "poverty" and not the usual "untouchability". And thereby hangs a tale:
About 1,000 Dalit Christians armed with lethal weapons had barged into the "Conversion Victory Mela" on July 13, 2002 at the Chengalput St. Joseph's Church shouting slogans such as "Down with untouchability among Christians!" and "Don't dupe Dalit Hindus by promising equal treatment!", etc. That conversion mela ended in a fiasco. This incident had been covered by section of the media, exposing the pseudo - catholicity of the Church thoroughly, It is common knowledge that segregation of Dalits inside churches is going on in Tamilnadu.
Hindus are amused at this turn of events. All along, the Hindu society was berated by all and sundry for practising the despicable untouchability, which, they claimed, justified the quitting of Harijan brethren, over the years from the Hindu fold. But that is all old and stale by now. Now it is "poverty"! Comparable to the "Whiteman's Burden" humbug, Church forces have now switched to playing the poverty card as a cover for their proselytization activities.
The sudden Christian "large - heartedness" towards those hapless Madurai youths was itself by no means voluntary. A couple of weeks back, yet another Church in Tamilnadu, the Tanjore Bishop Devados Ambrose to be precise, was in the news. Complaints that he indulged in caste-based partiality, denying benefits like school and dispensary to Christians of one particular caste, resulted in the Pope sending a high level probe team styled the 'Apostolic Visitation', headed by Ashold, the Bishop of Agra. That sent a chill down the spines of church managers of all denominations of Christians everywhere. That explains why the Seventh Day Adventists of Madurai hurriedly choose to tom-tom about poverty alleviation of the targeted converts, ostensibly to prove to their overseas paymasters that money is promptly spent on conversion of Hindus! (It will be of interest to note that on both occasions, in Tanjore as well as Chengalput, the affected Christians threatened to reconvert into Hinduism by way of forcing their argument).
In the process, they stand exposed on yet another count. August 24 conversion, could invite penal action as it amounted to allurement to change religion. Penal action on the Madurai offenders was demanded by Shri V. Vaithialingam, Spokes person, BJP, Tamilnadu.
Meanwhile, the proselytisers tried to wriggle out by describing the August 24 episode as 'baptism' of Christian youngsters and not conversion of Hindus-when law enforcements authorities questioned them, following announcement by Hindu Munnani that it would picket the Seventh Day Adventist School, where the conversions were carried out.
The entire incident emphasises the
need for an immediate ban on conversion by force, fraud or allurement in
Tamilnadu - a long standing demand of Hindu organizations.
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