Author: Kanchan Gupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 16, 2008
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/134662/Vatican-owes-us-an-apology.html
His Majesty the king has ordered that there
shall be no Brahmins in his land and that they should be banished."
"In the name of his Majesty I order that
no Hindu can or shall perform marriages…"
"The marriages of the supplicants are
superstitious acts or functions which include Hindu rites and ceremonies as
well as cult, adoration and prayers of Hindu temples…"
"I order that no Hindu temples be erected
in any of the territories of my king… and that Hindu temples which already
have been erected be not repaired…'
Anybody familiar with the brutalisation of
Hindu customs and practices, indeed Hindu faith and belief, could mistakenly
believe these extracts have been taken from royal decrees issued during Muslim
rule. The harshness with which suppression is prescribed in these decrees,
the callous disregard that is advocated for the other's sentiment, the cruelty
that is so palpable in both thought and action, suggest that these firman
could have been issued by one of the "shadows of god" who ruled
this land, laying to waste Hindu lives and temples.
But these are not extracts from firman issued
by the Mughal court of, say, Aurangzeb. They have been taken from firmans
issued by the Portuguese who ruled Goa and recognised no religion other than
Christianity as the legitimate means of communion with god. It was no secular
rule that they imposed, but a ruthless system of pillage disguised as trade
and a cruel administration for whom Hindus were nothing more than "supplicants"
to be crushed into submission or exiled into oblivion.
The horrors inflicted on Galileo Galilei by
the Inquisition - the Vatican has now admitted that the Church was wrong and
Galileo was right - are well known. Not that well-known, and tragically so,
are the horrors inflicted by the Goa Inquisition. Every child reads about
Galileo's trial and how it is symbolic of the triumph of science over faith.
But there is no reference - indeed, all reference is scrupulously avoided
- to the brutal attempts of the Church to stamp out Hinduism in the territories
controlled by the Portuguese in India.
And this silence is not because there exists
no evidence: There exist, in full text, orders issued by the Portuguese Viceroy
and the Governor. There exist, in written records and travelogues, penned
not by the persecuted but by the persecutors, full details of the horrors
perpetrated in the name of Christ. Hindus who dared oppose the persecution
were punished, swiftly and mercilessly. Those who were fortunate, got away
with being banished. The less fortunate had their property seized and auctioned
- the money was used, in large measures, for furthering proselytisation. The
least fortunate were forced to serve as slave labour on the galleys that transported
loot from Indian shores to Portuguese coffers.
Viceroy D Constantine de Braganca issued an
order on April 2, 1560, instructing that Brahmins should be thrown out of
Goa and other areas under Portuguese control. They had a month's time to sell
their property - it is obvious who gained from such distress sale. Those found
violating the viceregal order, it was declared, would have their properties
seized. Another order was issued, this time by Governor Antonio Morez Barreto,
on February 7, 1575, decreeing that the estates of Brahmins whose "presence
was prejudicial to Christianity" would be confiscated and used for "providing
clothes to the New Christians".
The attitude of the Portuguese administrators
in India and the Church hardened over the years, to a point where each fiat,
each decree, each order, each letter, became an instrument of religious persecution.
The Third Concilio Provincial - a gathering of bishops and other clerics -
met in 1585 to review, among other things, the progress of converting the
"heathens" to the "only faith". The Concilio adopted a
resolution which said, 'His Majesty the king has on occasion ordered the Viceroys
and Governors of India that there should be no Brahmins in his lands, and
that they should be banished therefrom together with the physicians and other
infidels who are prejudicial to Christianity, after taking the opinion of
the Archbishop and other religious persons who have experience in the matter.
As the orders of His Majesty in this regard have not been executed, great
impediments in the way of conversion and the community of New Christians have
followed and continue to follow."
One can quote from many other orders, resolutions
and instructions that resulted in the hideous Vatican-backed Goa Inquisition.
The details are not unknown to most of us; they are definitely well known
to the Vatican. The reason I have raised the issue of the Goa Inquisition
is two-fold. First, Pope Benedict XVI should bear in mind the horrors inflicted
on Hindus in the name of Christianity before he berates them for being intolerant
towards Christians. Second, the Vatican owes an apology for the crimes committed
during the Goa Inquisition; it must apologise and repent for its misdeeds
against Hindus and gross attempts to stamp out Hinduism. Not to do so would
amount to continued endorsement of the crimes and the unfair practices of
missionaries.
Ten years ago, the Vatican issued a 14-page
document, 'apologising' and 'repenting' for not doing enough to save Europe's
Jews from the Holocaust. While it is common knowledge that Pope Pius XII did
not feel particularly appalled by Hitler's 'final solution', the Vatican claimed
in its 1998 document that he was unaware of the concentration camps, the mass
slaughter, the gas chambers and the furnaces. The document, understandably,
failed to impress Jews who have made it clear that Pope Benedict XVI is not
welcome to visit Israel unless he offers an unqualified apology and makes
public documents of that period which are now stored in the Vatican's archives.
The Vatican may have eliminated the phrase "perfidious Jews" from
its liturgy and Pope John Paul II may have made it fashionable for the Pontiff
to refer to Jews as "older brothers", these are seen as no more
than meaningless, insincere gestures.
The purpose of securing an apology for the
Goa Inquisition is not to belittle the Vatican, but to drive home the point
that it cannot seek to occupy the moral high ground till such time it has
apologised and atoned for the sins committed against Hindus. If the Vatican
can say sorry to others, there is no reason why it cannot say sorry to Hindus.
Their faith is no less than those of the Book.
