HVK Archives: Mr Prabhu, wait. Every word of mine is based on judicial findings
Mr Prabhu, wait. Every word of mine is based on judicial findings - The Observer
Gurumurthy
()
January 28, 1999
Title: Mr Prabhu, wait. Every word of mine is based on judicial findings
Author: Gurumurthy
Publication: The Observer
Date: January 28, 1999
IT is obvious that the issue of conversions is vertically
dividing the Indian society and creating fissures in the hitherto
harmonious relations between Indian Christians and Hindus. The
issue has assumed so much significance that the Prime Minister,
Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has rightly called for a 'national
debate' on conversions. Hopefully, the debate will result in a
mutually acceptable solution to the problem.
The Observer has been carrying a series of articles reflecting
diverse opinions. Earlier, use carried the views of Mr S
Gurumurthy, Mr Rajendra Prabhu and Mr Virendra Parekh. Following
is a reply to Mr Rajendra Prabhu's article 'Christians are also
patriots' (27 January) by Mr Gurumurthy.
I was surprised to read Shri Rajendra Prabhu's response to my
article. He has founded his entire response on the unqualified
assumption that, in my article, I have attacked the Christians.
Once Prabhu assumes that, to him, I am like McCarthy, my views
remind Mm of McCarthyism, I consider the Indian Christians as
traitors and so on.
He even says, Mr Gurumurthy, it is the Hindus - from Jaychand of
the yesteryears to Romesh Sharma of modern times - who have
betrayed India, not the Christian.
But, Mr Prabhu show me one line in my article against Indian
Christians. In fact it is the other way round; I have said that
it is a pity that Christians, who are a 'highly indigenised
community', are led by foreign Churches who have their own
agenda.
This is far, too far from questioning their patriotism. Mr
Prabhu, if you feel like abusing me, do it for what I have said
and not for what I have not. Now I can legitimately dismiss most
part of your response, which is built entirely the false
assumption that I have 'attacked the Christians.'
Yes, I confess I have questioned the Christian missionaries; and
yes I have criticised the Church in India as not being an Indian
institute but controlled by foreign churches. I do not equate the
Indian Christians with the foreign, and foreign controlled
churches - they are, according to me, not the followers, but the
prisoners of them. For that, I am willing to stand any amount of
abuse and mud-slinging from you; for, here I will be abused for
being influenced by some of the tallest sons and daughters of
modern India.
Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Sister Nivedita - to mention
only a few. They have all spoken out against the Church and the
missionaries in a language, which you would regard as utterly
unsecular, given the meaning and norms of secularism. Well known
as their views are, I need not have to quote them here.
Mr Prabhu, you must have read the Neogi Committee Report on
Christian Missionary activities in India. If you have not, you
must. It is a meticulous, factual document. It demonstrably
brings out the national dangers inherent in the functioning of
the foreign-controlled Christian establishment in India.
The Committee was constituted by the Congress government of
Madhya Pradesh, during the totally secular times of Pundit Nehru
when all Hindutva forces had been completely vanquished. It
consisted of many eminent men including Dr B S Neogi who was the
Chief Justice of the High Court at Nagpur.
Though it is not strictly relevant in the context of a public
inquiry, it also had a Christian member, S K George, a professor
from Wardha College. So, no one could even remotely doubt the
impartiality of the Committee or the fairness of its conclusions.
Nor can any one question the motive of those who caused the Neogi
inquiry.
Mr Prabhu, can we first look at what the Neogi Committee had to
say about the Christian missionaries and conversions?
The Committee concludes (in Part II of the Report) that the aim
of the Christian Missions' activities in India "is an integral
part of the post-war Christian world policy" (para I).
The report further affirms that the aim of that policy is "to
resist the progress of national unity in the colonial countries
after their independence" and "to take advantage of the freedom
accorded by the Constitution of India to the propagation of
religion and to create a Christian Party in the Indian democracy
on the lines of the Muslim League ultimately to make out a claim
for a separate State or at least to create a 'militant
minority'".
How prophetic the Neogi Committee has been Mr Prabhu? The Neogi
Report was submitted in the year 1956. Every subsequent move of
the Christian church and the Missionaries in India - whether it
was the formation of the Church-led Kerala Congress in Kerala, or
the Jharkhand movement, or the Naga or Mizo movements, or, the
militancy which took shape in the North East - is a vindication
of the findings of the Neogi Report.
That is not all. Let us go on further with the Neogi Report and
see how devastating are its other conclusions and
recommendations. The Committee concludes (in Part IV Chapter I):
* that conversions are mostly brought about by undue influence or
inducements, not by conviction; that as conversions muddle the
convert's sense of unity and solidarity with his society, there
is a danger of his loyalty to his country and State being
undermined;
* that enormous sums of foreign money flowing into the country
for missionary work is aimed at conversions, and schools,
hospitals and orphanages are used as means to facilitate
conversion;
* that a vile propaganda against the religion of the majority
community is deliberately and systematically carried on to create
an apprehension of breach of peace;
* that since the Constitution came into force there has been an
appreciable increase in the American personnel in the Missionary
organisations in India; and this is due to the deliberate policy
of the International Missionary Council to take advantage of the
religious freedom granted under the Constitution;
* that evangelisation in India appears to be part of the uniform
world policy to revive Christendom for establishing Western
supremacy and is not prompted by spiritual motives;
* that the objective is to create Christian minority pockets with
the view to disrupt non-Christian societies, and the mass
conversions of Adivasis with this motive is fraught with danger
to the security of the State; that the Christian missionaries
keep making untrue allegations of harassment by the government as
part of the old established policy of the Missions to overawe
local authority and to carry on propaganda in foreign countries.
Mr Prabhu would you now question my views on the activities of
the foreign-controlled Church and missionaries in India? The
conclusions of the Neogi Committee, or. the facts established in
it, have not been questioned by any one. Not even the
blindfolded pseudo-secularists have doubted it.
In fact, long before the 'communal' BJP ever became a power to
reckon with the Government of Madhya Pradesh had accepted the
Report in its entirely and also began implementing its
recommendations.
The MP government even passed a law in the year 1968 prohibiting
conversions by inducements and fraud, as recommended by the Neogi
report. This law was challenged by the missionaries, but, the
Supreme Court overruled the challenge and held that to convert is
not a fundamental right.
Do you notice one thing Mr Prabhu? The methods of the
missionaries established in the Neogi Report are in practice even
today. That is, what was true of the missionaries in MP in 1956
is true of the missionaries in Gujarat in 1998?
Does not what the Neogi Committee had said some 42 years back in
the year 1956 - that it is the "old established policy of the
Missions" to complain, make untrue complaints of harassment by
the government "to overawe the local authority and to carry on
propaganda in foreign countries" - been vindicated by how the
Christians internationalised the bloodless incidents in Gujarat
when actually it was a reaction to the aggressive conversion
activities of the missionaries in that state? Would you agree
that internationalising what is essentially a local issue is a
traditional strategy of the missionaries?
Mr Prabhu, do you still stand by your apologetic defence that the
missionaries internationalising the Gujarat issue is like how
those who fought the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi
campaigned abroad against the violation of basic rights in India?
Don's you think that the campaign against Emergency abroad was
itself justified only by the deprivation of democratic rights in
India including freedom of the press, not otherwise?
Have the Christians lost all rights in India now for them to
petition on the Gujarat matter to the Vatican actually the Indian
missionaries first sent a telegram to the Pope - and to Bill
Clinton's Christian America?
In 1975 the Indira government had jailed thousands of people
without any judicial inquiry; but has something like that
happened now for the Christian missionaries to look to the
Christian nations for support?
Do you think that the Indian Christians will be secure if the
Christian nations turn sentinel for Christianity and Christians
in India? Look at what the Neogi Report says on what is the best
safeguard for them. It says "the best safeguard any minority
could have is the goodwill of the majority community and the
right attitude of the minority is one of trust and confidence in
the fair sense of the majority."
Do you, think that deliberately projecting at the global level
the local clashes between the converted and the unconverted as
the persecution of the minority by the Hindus and inviting the
intervention of the Christian powers in to the internal affairs
of the nation is the best way to promote goodwill with the
majority community?
I do not think, Mr Prabhu, you would have written in defence of
the Christian missionaries internationalising the Gujarat issue
on the parallel of the underground workers during the Emergency
had you reflected on that even once?
Your defence can be dangerous. What if the Hindus start thinking
that these missionaries are doing this only because they feel
that they have other nations - Christian nations - to look to,
unlike we, the Hindus, who have only one nation, and that is
India? You realise the deeper implications of endorsing all that
the foreign-controlled church and missionary speak and do?
Mr Prabhu, would you like to know what the Neogi Committee had
recommended to thwart the designs of the foreign-controlled
Church and missionary activities? I will cite just three of
them: That the best course for the Indian Churches to follow is
to establish a United Independent Christian Church in India
without being dependent on foreign support;, that an amendment of
the Constitution may be sought first to clarify that the right of
propagation is given only to the citizens of India and second,
that it does not include conversion by force, fraud or illicit
means and suitable control on such conversions be brought about
by' legal measures; and that no non-official agency should be
allowed to accept foreign assistance except through the
government. (Part IV Chapter III).
Don't you think that the views of Neogi Committee and Arch Bishop
Dr J S Williams on the need to form a national church are
identical?
As a nationalist should you not support such a view, rather than
blindly endorsing the views of the missionaries whose masters are
outside of India?
Mr Prabhu, you have repeatedly questioned whether I believe that
the missionaries from Kerala who work in the North East and
elsewhere are traitors? Obviously, you have treated my remarks
superficially.
My reference to the contrast of the growing militancy in the
North East in spite of the presence of a large number of
missionaries is to hedge the explanation often given by the
church that the problem of militancy is pee to tribal areas.
My remarks only imply that the local missionaries could not sell
the Gospel to 80 per cent of the Nagas and Mizos, without a hate
India agenda; so they are not independent agents, as they can
only carry out the larger design of the foreign-controlled church
in India.
In fact, in the North East, more the Gospel, it meant more
separatism, more insurgency. This is precisely what the Neogi
Committee also concludes and that is why it cans for a national
church.
Here I should refer to what the Committee says about the charge
of denationalisation of the converts to Christianity. In para 36
(ibid) titled 'Attempt to alienate the Indian Christian Community
from their nation,' the Committee concludes that the Missionary
strategy is to create 'extra-territoriality' and 'detach the
Christian Indian from his nation.'
The remarks of the Committee (at para 90 of Part IV Chapter II)
are also very revealing.
It says that the suspicion about the Indian Christian exists
because of the "subservience to foreign influence, unfortunately
Indian Christianity is under the grip of the West; if the Indian
Christianity does not accept the cooperation of the best in
India, it will have to face the opposition of the worst; we wish
Christianity in India become truly India." So I need not have to
labour this point any further.
If you read the Neogi Report, Mr Prabhu, you will find that it
had virtually foreseen, at least 10 years ahead, what was to
happen - and did happen - in the North East. But even after the
kind of extremism and anti-national terrorism witnessed in this
sensitive area, if persons like you virtually condone the role of
the foreign missionaries who fuelled unending secessionist
movements in the area, then there is some thing seriously wrong
about the secular intellectualism in India.
Such secularism and intellectualism has already damaged and will
damage the country enormously. No one can deny - and in fact no
one has attempted to deny that guns began booming in the North
East only after the missionaries improved the number of converts
to envelop the whole of some of the tribal groups. It is the
impotency demonstrated by the secular governments in handling the
foreign-missionary inspired terrorism and separatism in the North
East and compromising with it at every stage, to create new
states, that has put a premium on the on going divisive and
separatist movements.
The logic is that if the government surrenders to the tribals
following foreign-controlled Christianity and they can get
separate states, why not other tribal groups, though they are not
Christians, also have a try. This psychology is what, Mr Prabhu,
has manifested as ULFAs and BODOs today.
Mr Prabhu, let us face it. The basic problem between the Church
and the Hindus is the issue of conversions. The more the secular
establishment tries to side step this issue, the more it is going
to harm the relationship between the two communities. Swami
Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi are not ordinary men - they had
foreseen far enough when they had regarded conversion as
perversion and as evil, the country can ignore their advice only
at its great cost.
In fact, the propaganda might of the Christian establishment is
even going to the extent of extolling conversions as progress
from a 'lower' to a 'higher' consciousness (read civilization).
What was regarded as an evil before independence - and is an evil
even now has become legitimate in the secular regime. This is
the effect of vote-bank politics and self-neglected myopia.
So conversions are perversions; they should be banned. This is
not just the view of only the Neogi Committee in 1956.
It is precisely the conclusion of Justice Venugopal Commission of
inquiry constituted by the Tamil Nadu government led by a
Dravidian Party - AIADMK - in 1983.
So long as the. foreigners operate the national Christian
establishment, they will never allow the Christian community or
the secular establishment to recognise the harmful effects of
conversions. They will project it as good for the converted.
For, if they allow, they will be the losers; after all the global
Christian establishment is a multi-billion dollar commerce in
religion and India is a great market.
They shall not lose it. They do not bother about the Christian
Community in India. They do not bother about what happens to
India. Because they lose nothing if India loses.
For them the Christians in India are a pawn in their larger
international plan.
Mr Prabhu, are you clear now? My complaint is, like that of the
Neogi Committee, about foreign influence on the church in India
which has not allowed the Indian Christians to develop as a
healthy section of the nation.
One day or the other the church in India will have to become
national and indigenous. Then only the lack of harmony between
the indigenised mind of the Christian community and the foreign-
controlled Church will end.
Till then the dilemma of the Christian community will continue,
and cause further breach between the Christians and the majority.
They secularists will never be able to bridge this gulf. India
and the Hindus will have no problems with a religion or group
which has no remote control from out of India. The responsible
nationalist members of the Christian Community will have to do
considerable soul-searching.
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