Religious Violence in Orissa

As usual, an article written with little knowledge....

example-->

"Eleven Churches have been razed to ground following a reported attack on Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, a political party leader"

Could have also been written as

"It has been REPORTED that Eleven Churches have been razed to ground following a REPORTED attack on Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, a political party leader.

The fact that the razing of churches was considered as DEFINITE while the attack on a VHP leader was somewhat unproven is itself an indication of your bias.

I call your article uninformed because, none of those burnt were churches. The IMAGE OF church in the minds of most readers is a building with a sphire and what have you.................the reality is there are no churches in this region. The so called 'churches' are small thatched dwellings of 'missionaries' who use these dwellings to entertain the local villagers with 'tales' of jesus as well as 'PC Sorcar' type magic.

The liberal media might as well stay away from analysing and reporting on the basis of half baked knowledge. The locals are fighting enorous exploitation by christian missionaries which is why you often hear of conflict with missionaries in Orissa on a regular basis (Staines for example). Of course this enormous exploitation is not a part of your analysis.

rgds

Chandra,

You perhaps meant 'alleged' in place of 'reported'.

The worded 'reported' does not diminish the value of act, fact.

Thanks for your comment.

do you feel what one believes should be regulated? What one eats, drinks should alos be regulated?

Mike

drinks should be regulated

you should know that sir --

age and time!

drinking age - time bars close

and

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE?

good job chandra:)

we ought to guard the word usage;)

Mike

I think i have made my point quite clearly. I have nowhere suggested regulation one way or the other. I suggest that you spend some more time reading about why tribals in Orissa are fighting back against missionaries and then write something. Please read about land grabbing and exploitation. Try evaluating why after 40 years of continuous conversion tribals in orissa still have gained nothing from missionaries while these missionaries have been busy setting up St. this and St. that schools for the elite in India's urban areas (Most students being hindus).....

rgds

Temporal,

Common Temporal !
We are talking about its applicability. Drinking and driving is prohibited to all. If Alcohol is sold to one, it should be sold to one and all... except the restriction on age, which is applicable to all.

Mike

Chandra,

What is your real loss if some one choses to become a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Zen?

What is my problem if you want to be an atheist or a Zoroastrian?

Mike Ghouse

Dear Sir,
It is not that one should not bother about a loss. Agreed, but why should one always look at GAINS!! as people from the west always do.
Leave things alone. Why look for Gains! If you do not want to gain then one is not bothered about LOSS!
Keep your nose clean. As the man who is "Supposed to have been Crucified and died on the Cross" has rightly said, "remove the beam in your eye and then look for the mote in the other persons eye"
The Christian West has enough to look after its Aborgines and Indegenous people, we can take care of ourselves.
"Do unto others as others would would to DO UNTO YOU" Comprendez?
Sir,Remember the Indians in the US, the Mayans in South Africa, The Zulu's of Africa and a host of others Vis- a- Vis the Christians. Please then comment on "Indian Atrocities"!
Regards,
vck

Mike..

A strong case can be made that conversions that are organized and sponsored by religious busy-bodies disturb peace and communal harmony and they should be banned. They create ill-will among religions and sows seeds of religious warfare. The only exception we should make is when an individual who out of change in religious convictions opt out of his or her faith. Legitimate conversion should be at individual level, should be out of religious convictions and not material, economic, social or political considerations, because otherwise, they would arouse suspicion and viewed as hostile and opportunistic acts. Missionary-led conversions are viewed as opportunistic and exploitation of human conditions precisely because conversion are not done out of theological deliberations but out of situational social, economic or political considerations.

We have seen how entire families and communities get torn apart and get engulfed in conflicts once religious conversions enter into equations. Most of the time, it is such conflicts within families and communities that get projected as persecution of christians. That makes for nice emotive propaganda in christian churches around the world and help them collect funds in the name of helping their christian brethens in India and for carrying on the good work of lord in heathen India. Good way to stop this racket is to get missionaries to be registered with state authorities and have them submit audit for their funds as to how they receive their funds and how they spend them.

Mike

Kindly research and rewrite this article and then we will debate the larger issue of conversions.

BTW '4 major towns of orissa' is inaccurate....

rgds

Mike..
"What is your real loss if some one choses to become a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Zen?"

You are asking this? It is YOU who follow ISLAM asking this?

"The animal instinct within him wanted to pounce on any one who became an attractive nuisance to his people."

Wow, sitting that far you could gauge the animal instinct in him, that's commendable, Mike!

"One needs to grow up and let people eat, dress, and believe what they want without any fear."

I mean seriously, get a life, go tell the Muslim world this.

It is natural people of different religions to think that their faith has something to offer. That is why we see people of different religion preach and proclaim their religion. If VHP is interested in hindu relgion, they also can preach religion. Instead of that, they indulge in violence rioting etc.

Kumar

Another comment without an understanding of the facts of the ground.

rgds

Krishnan #7

I am a moderator, and not on either side, I want to aks every one to make sense and drop this score keeping and hating. It is not productive.

What is your loss does not mean, someone's gain. Simply put, if I were to become a Jews, Christian, Hindu, Muslim or whatever, what is your problem?

If I eat camel meat, horse meat, beef, fish, goat or chicken, what is your problem?

mike

Krishnan #7

I am a moderator, and on neither side, I want to aks every one to make sense.

What is your loss does not mean, someone's gain. Simply put, if I were to become a Jews, Christian, Hindu, Muslim or whatever, what is your problem?

If I eat camel meat, horse meat, beef, fish, goat or chicken, what is your problem?

mike

Kerty #8

Are you suggesting we should regulate what one believes? If I become a Buddhist, how is it going to affect you?

Mike

Razor Image #10

Are you making an assumption that all Muslims think alike?

Whether you or I follow Islam, Bahai, Zoroastrian, Hinduism or whatever faith, . why shouldn't we ask about conversion? And why shouldn't we respond?

Yes, as a Muslim, I have no problem if some one convert to any faith they choose. My daughter is Baptist and my son is wavering between being a Hindu or Buddhist or Bahai... that is their choice- I have given them values to be good citizens and my organization does not believe in conversions, even though people come to me about how to... I ask them to spend their time studying what they have learnt; there is wealth in each faith. No one needs to change, but I would not regulate that, that is their freedom.

Mike Ghouse

Being 11:

"I mean seriously, get a life, go tell the Muslim world this." - yes, indeed, and we have.
check out www.ApostasyandIslam.com

What is your response?

Mike

Kumar #12

Kumar, you hit the nail!

Religion has become a business, who gets the most converts out of selling their religion.

Agree with you, let VHP, Islamists, Evangelists, Bahais sell their faith, if someone buys it, let them. What is any one's problem?

Preaching hate and disturbing peace must be guarded by one and all, as it hurts and affects the public at large.

Mike Ghouse

Chandra # 13

Please present the realities of the ground.

Mike Ghouse

Mike Ghouse

First you write a poorly researched article. When I point out to the obvious flaws, you choose not to respond. Now you want me to provide facts? I will not do that unless you correct flaws in your research. Let me reiterate them again

a. The towns in which the 'violence' has occurred are not major towns

b. The violence is in response to beating of a VHP leader by christian missionaries and related thugs. Therefore, if you wish to blame anybody, you should blame christian misisonaries and Hindu right wing nuts equally for the violence

c. No churches were burnt. Hay/thatched Dwellings that were used for prayer and hocus pocus were burnt. Review media sources and show me churches that were burnt

d. There is no discussion on the larger issue of tribal exploitation. How come that after 40 years of continued conversion, tribals in orissa continue to be at the lowest levels of the social ladder? Answer: Thats because missionaries use all their funds to increase tally, grab land and educate the urban rich

e. There is no mention of missionary thugs in your article, only an attack on Hindu right wing nuts. Why?


Read this, research this, dispute me if you want, but please correct whatever you can in your article before we get into a deep discussion.

Chandra:

>> missionaries use all their funds to increase tally, grab land and educate the urban rich

Can you provide any links to substantiate the point? (about "grabbing land and educating the urban rich")

Chandra - Reference # 21

Chandra "a. The towns in which the 'violence' has occurred are not major towns"

Phulbani, December 26: Curfew has been imposed in four major towns of Orissa's Kandhamala district on Tuesday after .. Check the Indian Express - http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Church-Attack-Indefinite-curfew-in-Orissa/254439/ Indian Express is a national news paper and not a small town paper, please write to them to withdraw. That is what the Indians are reading. It does not alleviate the issue.

Chandra: The violence is in response to beating of a VHP leader by Christian missionaries and related thugs. Therefore, if you wish to blame anybody, you should blame Christian missionaries and Hindu right wing nuts equally for the violence

Chandra: Your probably did not read this line - I have put quotations around it - Eleven Churches have been razed to ground "following" a reported attack on Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, a political party leader.

The highlighted word is "following" meaning first the leader was attacked which led to the eventual razing of the churches.

Chandra: c. No churches were burnt. Hay/thatched Dwellings that were used for prayer and hocus pocus were burnt. Review media sources and show me churches that were burnt

That is a place of worship. Many a temples, churches and Mosques are in that shape - being hay/thatched does no diminish its significance to the worshipper.

Chandra: d. there is no discussion on the larger issue of tribal exploitation. How come that after 40 years of continued conversion, tribal in Orissa continue to be at the lowest levels of the social ladder? Answer: That's because missionaries use all their funds to increase tally, grab land and educate the urban rich"

That was not the issue on hand. If that is the issue, we can go back and argue the origins of man... irrelevant. Besides you are making an accusation about them that they grab lands.... They may purchase the land legally, like you and I can do it, where did this grab come from? Does Grab means purchasing in your dictionary?

Chandra: e. There is no mention of missionary thugs in your article, only an attack on Hindu right wing nuts. Why?

Because they picked up the arguments between the Swami and the hoodlums, as you have said. Instead of quelling it, they resorted to making the issue a communal one leading to burning of the churches.

Chandra, all of us have our points, the arguments should be was that the right thing? Should we not work to prevent this?

Mike Ghouse

Mission schools try to be elite schools in order to attract cream of Indian society. They have also set up exclusive schools that only NRI can afford - the fees there can range in several lakhs Rupees per year - One of my close relative's 3 kids from UK attended one such school in Panchgini (I have heard horror stories how christian staff extorted money from rich kids there).

There is more interesting stuff at

http://www.crusadewatch.org/

Kerty #24

It is a shame to learn that staff extorted money from rich kids. Is it just those schools or the medical and engineering schools in India do the same? Is it just the Christian schools or Schools of all faiths?

Mike Ghouse

"Where is christianity famed human rights, love and justice. As I mentioned it is all a put on. Do not commit genocide on tribals and them put on a facade on love and kindness."

Two different issues;

What the missionaries did in the name of religion in the Americas was wrong; annihilation of their cultures.

What the missionaries are doing in India, perhaps with a few exceptions is love and kindness. Uplifting the down trodden, giving them hope that they are human beings and are equal in the eyes of God, that they are not cursed to live a life like that. They are raising the level of consciousness.

As Indians we should admire the missionaries, and perhaps thank those who are giving their monies to do the work.

As Indians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and others who are not Christians, did not care to go to the tribal areas, we did not want to help them out. Let the missionaries do their work, they are all Indians. What is the problem?

There are plenty of ignored people on the streets of India, let the missionaries go to them and uplift their spirits. If some people don't like it and simply gripe, get them are do the work. People are cryuing out loud to be cared.

Let's Compete in serving humanity. My hat off to those who serve, be it RSS or Missionaries pr any group.

Mike Ghouse

Mike:"As Indians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and others who are not Christians, did not care to go to the tribal areas, we did not want to help them out. Let the missionaries do their work, they are all Indians. What is the problem?"

As an Human Being and an Indian i dont give a hoot on what religion my neighbor is. As long as he does not care me making fun of Allah Jesus or Rama, or watching Da Vinci Code, or reading Satanic Verses or paint saraswati nude. If there is a religious person who does not CARE what my beliefs are, No matter HOW outrageous they are to whatever he is following.

My guarentee is that i wont impose my beliefs on him no matter how outrageous his beliefs are on me or what i follow.

I am not sure if missionaries do that kind of work. A lot of converts might end up being fundamentalists. And this would go on and on. I would have to worry about the already thin secular fabric of my nation. If the missionaries are teaching secularism to all the people converts or not, i believe they have failed miserably. And i believe its mainly because of the condescending attitude of most of the missionaries towards traditional Indian culture. (Equalling to the colonial "masters" that ruled india).

I was educated in a rural convent school. I know what it feels to be under the influence of missionaries.

And you seem to support a recent statement from some mad missionary that i heard "India is a place of 900 billion people living their lives in darkness". If you support that statement (which u seem to lean on) I pity you.

Mike..

Scope of educational and welfare out-reach projects by Sangh Parivar outfits can dwarf work done by entire missionary network in India. Unlike missionaries, they take education where no government has a reach and they try to inculcate respect for India's culture and patriotism for India. And yet, RSS work is rarely acknowledged or appreciated, because their work is judged by larger political and ideological context. Missionary work has to be judged in similar vain - by larger context of their agenda and consequences.

Kerty #28

RSS does a lot of good things and I am pleased to have acknowledged them in #26 above. Any work for others is good. They can be a great model organization of our country, if those few heads in that group can drop the hatred for other Indians who do not agree with them. If they can practice - I live my way, you do yours, then much of the conflicts will fade. Do you see the meaning in this?

Mike Ghouse

Lakshmikanth # 27

I am pleased to read your notes, thank you.

I do not support that 900 Million people statement. In fact, I had protested and wrote to the Atlanta Baptist convention some 5 years ago, when they made that statement and I have also condemned Nut Pat Robertson for saying that. You missed my comment in #17.

Then in Lisbon a Hindu couple married in a Church, the priest had let them. They set the Ganesha on the altar... the priest got fired and I raised cane about it... and I received a few nasty calls from California(?),telling me to f..king shut up, I stood up. And I hope enough of us can take a principle stand - what is good for goose has got to be good for the gander.

Amen to your statement ´As long as he does not care me making fun of Allah Jesus or Rama, or watching Da Vinci Code, or reading Satanic Verses or paint saraswati nude.' . That would be an ideal society, we need to hope for. You live your life and I live mine. I have written on each one of the items and had asked several people to consider it.

Missionaries do a lot of work, zealots mess it up, and there are those in every group, religious, political, civic of otherwise. We need to separate them out and punish as individuals.

Mike Ghouse

Missionary work is a non-profit organization, when they are working along side politics, it ruins the law application, separation of religion and state. There should be no interference in all religions by any political party. Then in this case, all religions will surely diminish. The problem is that governments are making a certain religion in a state as an alliance so that together they will establish the laws according THEIR politics and religion,then obviously there will be no place for other religions to have their rights and freedom. Possibly, this is the cause for hatred between religions beacuse one religion will go to an extent in forming a "political party" that sets rules in their villages and at the same time they do not provide freedom of speech, religion etc... and these "dominating by which religion" games are being carried out are mainly the cause of these disputes. There were difference between castes and now difference between religions, and worse politician are using these to further their own agenda, and surley we can only expect india to be a nation of democracy with only the industries and economy flourishing,but not the people.

Manju,

I could not have said it better.
Thanks

Mike

just checking if this link works! I've been having problems...bear with me...

Kumar

Go to the ICSE website and split the schools by urban and rural. You will know what I am talking about.

Land Grab

http://www.freshnews.in/chhattisgarh-to-probe-land-grab-by-missionaries-4888

(Source: IANS)

Now, Can you provide evidence that these missionaries are adding value to Orissa's society?


rgds

Mike 23

a. No difference where or who printed it. Put some effort, search those 4 locations mentioned on census.nic.in. They are not major locations. Only Phulbani is...


b. You continue to say RAZED to the ground but use the WORD REPORTED. Also your subsequent analsysi suggests that beating a Hindu leader is fine. Do you support violence?

c. I reiterate my argument about churches. These are not churches. These are not even places where sunday prayers are held. These are places where mallu preachers carry out hocus pocus.

Donot push your luck with orissa in the same way as you did in Gujrat. So far remarkably the contact has been between missionaries and the right wing nuts. The more you guys and national media push this, the more violent this will become and soon engulf christians. Stay away!!!

The problem is that most people seem to be stuck in a tit-for-tat approach, always willing to justify an act based on "look so and so is doing it hence..." and the sickening blood-letting goes on. Mike is not at all advocating a biased perspective but makes eminent sense, despite all the minor nit-picking by Chandra. At the end of the day, we all want to justify our position, disregarding the fact that innocent people are just pawns in a game that brings political power and other resources, material and symbolic, to a few a the cost of a cycle of hatred, blood and a diminished sense of what it is to be human. It is about time we stopped arguing along the lines "well you are a Hindu/Muslim/Christian, supporter of VHP/Missionaries/Mullahs etc. that's why you are saying such and such..." Sad, but there's still hope as not everyone takes such a partisan approach and we need to build on this positive element.There is enough blame to go around and then some. Why do so many of us allow ourselves to be sucked into ideas and actions that cause nothing but grief all around? Common sense, as goes the saying, is not at all common. Apologies for sounding so self-righteous.

Mike Ghouse

If you accept what Manju says , time to ask the christian Andhra Govt to sop funding churches in AP. Please google.....

rgds

Chandra get a grip and try to see the larger picture...

Common sense

I am not nit picking. I see this as a biased article written from some place 20000 miles away. This article has been written with the assumption that it is OK to be violent and attack Hindus. Why should it be that way? Why is it that anybody should be attacked at all???? There are no answers. It plays on the victimisaton of christians. This is not true at all......

here are Mike's quotes

"reported attack on Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, a political party leader"

"Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, an individual and a leader, did not want to see anyone convert from Hinduism to other faiths"


In other words, because he did not like conversions he should be beaten?????

Chandra,

Absolutely: why should anybody be attacked at all? As for Mike, sure he is using whatever sources he has at hand that are no doubt the last word on this complex issue. My point is that he is ïntentionally" being biased nor is he at all writing to score points against Hindus/Christians/atheists/Muslims whatever! I don't see any such motivation on his part. The spirit that motivates him is to reduce this seemingly hysteria of hate. As long as politicians and their hangers-on benefit, it will be an uphill battle, but one has to press on, trying to argue against madness and cynical manipulation. Sorry again if I sound like a starry eyed utopian, but that's what seems to be the only ethical option. (As for Mike writing from 2000 miles away, I'm not quite sure if it would make a difference if he were to be only 200 miles away...we all rely on news reporting, books etc. that are inevitably and cannot ever present everything from an Archimedian (sp?) point of view)

Of course I meant that Mike is using sources "that are no doubt NOT the last word on this complex issue"

Mike

Here is a quote from Times of India

Rioters set ablaze at least six thatched prayer halls used as churches in the tribal-dominated Kandhamal district of Orissa on the fourth day of violence on Thursday, with around 700 arsonists, including some suspected MAOISTS, firing inside a police station where people had taken shelter.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/More_churches_burnt_in_Orissa/articleshow/2656686.cms


Can you investigate why Maoists are after missionaries? Maoists in orissa BTW are mostly tribals.

Mike


Here is another quote from TOI

"the situation turned explosive in Brahmanigaon after a Christians took out a rally that was opposed by Hindu organisations. Reports reaching Bhubaneswar said rallyists beat up rival groups forcing them to take refuge at the local police station. When the cops tried to intervene, the rallyists opened fire on them as well. A gunbattle ensued in which casualties were reported from both sides"

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/More_churches_burnt_in_Orissa/articleshow/2656686.cms

Can you explain why christians beat up Hindus? can you explain why they fired at the Police?

This thing made it onto the BBC South Asia front page.

I believe that BBC is a condescending piece of shit still propagating Banal colonial bullshit.

Shows how a partially secular (christian) paper in that country (britain) trying to hype up the news beyond what it deserves (statistical aberation is what i would call it).

However missionaries who are condescending and do not respect a secular attitude should be asked to leave the country. Or else we are going to have a communal mess.

I am still not convinced with the way this article is written. As Chandra mentioned, its the swamis RIGHT to be feeling angry about conversions, due to the constitutional RIGHT to having his opinion and Mike has no right to police what people think, as this article suggests.

I have the right to be scared of the missionaries, because they are in india for the worse... they are destroying the communal fabric in India, by probably creating more fundamentalists in India than there are. Its my constitutional right to worry about missionaries who dont understand the meaning of secularism (that would include MOST of the missionaries operating in India).

India would be better off if most of the missionaries shut up and leave. Because I believe that they are in their for the worse. And the orissa/North East violence is more of a case in point.

Chandra - ref 44

Every one in my family came to my study a few minutes ago to see why I was laughing out so loud. I showed them these two statements:

Can you explain why christians beat up Hindus? can you explain why they fired at the Police?

I am delighted and elated that you think I am a tele-clairvoyant or some such word? I assure you, I have not had the opportunity to find refuge in their minds and see what caused them to do it.

If you were digging for my response, it would be same as any sane person. It is wrong to beat up Hindus or any one and I condemn it.

Second one seems to have come out of the movie Sholay...to fire at the police! It is plain dumb.

Mike

Here is what VHP of America has been circulating about Missionaries in South India. If these are facts, it should shock every Indian

http://www.vhp-america.org/dynamic_includes/downloads/The%20Plight%20of%20Hindu%20Temples%20in%20Bharat.pdf

Lakshmikant #45


You have the freedom to be scared, but also the freedom to find the real reason for it.

How would you feel, if you found the truth, that the Missionaries indeed are doing a good service to the people, who no one wanted to attend to. And what you hear is fabricated - like the WMD's.

Would you give a chance to such possibility? If you do, you then need to find the truth for yourselves, it will bring serenity to your life and others who have misunderstood. On the other hand if that is true beyond a shade of doubt, it is your duty to infom every one of such an impending danger.

Would you do it?

Mike Ghouse

Mike:

I want the missionaries to do this:

Be TRANSPARENT:

Declare who they get the money from and what they spent the money on

Declare what they teach and be transparent about it.

If they do it, and they have nothing to hide. Then i am ready to be open about it :)

Otherwise, the claim that they are good cann be equal to WMD goof up as well :)

Lakshmikanth @49

Brother I am with you, every word of it.

Every charitable organizations should account for its monies, and their literature must be on the web or should be presented to the registrar. There is a need for a national diretory of NGO's where, they renew the information about the board members, funds, and their activivity log as a public record. And I hope the sermons in all places of worship be put on the public archives. Secrecy gives birth to evil me, transparency brings peace.

Take a look at this: Hate sermons from the pulpit
http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2007/06/hate-sermons-from-pulpit.html

Mike Ghouse

Mike Ghouse- 46

Sitting in Dallas you and your family can laugh as much as they wish. My family who live in Orissa have no such privelege. They are constantly harassed by missionaries and now they have to put up with a media onslaught. What can i say?

Your article is quite clear- if muslims or christians get beaten,abused and Killed Mr. Mike Ghouse will cry and write across the Internet. If Hindus get killed or beaten Mr. Ghouse has nothing to write. This article does not mention a single line about his empathy for Hindus who have been hurt.

To conclude- for Mr Ghouse and ilk...minorities are human beings and the rest of us are animals.......Thank you so much Mr. Ghouse...

Jawahara..

Unless diversity is so obvious that I can see it, feel it without having to dissect it from intellectual gymnastics, I prefer to remain a lazy skeptic.

Dear Sir,
Thanks for accepting my comments.
As one of the writers has said leave me alone and I will add here "I do not require salvation". Yes the Indian way of life never interfered in the life of the tribals or vanavasis. We let them live as they pleased. We let them have their way of life. No where did the Indian way of life want to have the same set up everywhere like the west wants.
Yes Sir! go to any Macdonalds, any BurgerKing, any Hilton hotel,the same plastic smile, the same rancid food the same unwanted hello or hi etc.
India was the land of diversity in unity. Each group had its own way of approach. Baisakhi, Tamil new years day, Dussehera, Garba during Diwali vs prayers to the Devi in the south during that period. I can go on listing.
Leave everything alone.
Coming to education. Does education mean trampling on the way of life or destroying a naitve medical practice, a Native wedding rite, a native worship of somethin of what one calls god.
Does education mean acceptance of setting up a commodity available for slavery/sweat shops, call the KPO's BPO's or any "O".
By the way Sir, does GOD have a religion at all?
leave the people alone. leave them towards their way of life. They have lived for milleniums enjoying it.
Nobody needs salvation. They want happiness at the end of it all. If they get it here, let them get it, let them not wait for it!!
The world does not exist for a dead man, so let one enjoy it as he/she pleases. Let us not have salvation at the cost of happiness and peace.
As it is said that some thousands of years ago somebody said to a king, "Let my people go". I now say "let my people free from the clutches of those who wish to the take my soul to salvation"
Regards,
vck

Chandra:

>> Land Grab http://www.freshnews.in/chhattisgarh-to-probe-land-grab-by-missionaries-4888

What the link says is that there are about 300 complaints of land grabs in Chattisgarh and the minister claims that a majority of them are by missionaries, and that they will investigate and take stern action. Considering that it is a BJP minister who have a special interest in implicating missionaries, one would like to see what evidence they are able to present to Courts and the results of the investigation/action. In any case, the issue of land grabs need to be dealt with law regardless of whether done by a missionary or a politician or anyone else (there are black sheep everywhere). The BJP has all the access they need to the main stream media - and given their special interest in missionaries, one would expect to see them transparently presenting the evidence publicly in news papers, TV channels, courts etc. I for one would really like to know the truth behind the allegations of VHP etc. But instead all one finds is just rhetoric, allegations and conspiracy theories.

>> Now, Can you provide evidence that these missionaries are adding value to Orissa's society?

The larger point is not specifically about missionaries alone. The point is about the right of a individual to choose one's religion and express it (the VHP leader seems to have indicated in TV channels that this is the root of the problem he has and not urban/rural issues or land grabs etc). As for missionaries, one can tell with confidence that many people had their first shot at education and health care due to their work (which they never had for generations). This work often comes with a religious message on what inspired them to take up such work and so on. Whether this is a value-add or not is subjective (the right wing even claims that Mother Theresa is an evil missionary).

>> why Maoists are after missionaries? Maoists in orissa BTW are mostly tribals.

If you have information about it, why don't you share it everyone here and bring public awareness in a transparent manner (along with sources of your information)

Chandra:

>> My family who live in Orissa have no such privelege. They are constantly harassed by missionaries and now they have to put up with a media onslaught. What can i say?

Again, you will do everyone a favor by clearly specifying how your family is harassed. The BJP/VHP etc has all the media access they need (and they habe reat spokespersons who can masterfully market their views too). So, why cant the issues be handled legally, transparently, publicly in court rooms, newspapers, TV debates etc? They can put forth their evidences and book the culprits and when people see a genuine case, everyone including the media will support. Going by what is seen in the media and when VHP leaders talk, it just appears as obscure propagandist rhetoric and conspiracy theories without evidence and seeking excuses to vent their agenda through violence, burning houses, burning places of worship (and opposing freedom of religion).

Kumar, well said! Really, it boils down to the issue of taking a legal/consitutional approach. The state has all the resources it needs to stop such communal conflagarations. Sometimes when it is in its interest, it can easily control it. Sometimes it wants to foment further trouble and actually encourages it for electoral gain. As Kumar writes: if there is land grab, harrassment etc. etc. why can't it be taken up in the courts? What is the point of trading insults and websites that "allegedly" prove this or that. This unnecessary "tu tu, main main" approach to a so-called argument? One can trade allegations and insults till the cows come home but it will not solve anything. The state (according to media reports) was expecting trouble but acted sluggishly to prevent the incidents. And now we are trying to justify or criticise this development based on conjectures, wild speculation and plain racist hatred of each other. Communal conflict poisons the atmosphere for generations. Surely the onus is on us to douse rather than fan the flames. Sooner or later, the game ceases to be worth the candle.

Kumar

You have not commented on the issue of missionaries being active in Urban schools for the elite?

Secondly, you are yet to provide evidence to suggest that missionaries are somehow benefitting Orissa...

Kumar- 54

Tell me something. Have I advocated violence? Are hindus in orissa advocating violence?

Who attacked Hindus first 4 days ago? Christian missionaries

Who attacked VHP activist? Christians and missionaries

Who shot at the polic? Christians...

So what is your point? That if missionaries attack Hindus and the Police that we file a PIL?

Kumar


Anybody can choose any religion they wish, i have no problem. The constitution guarantees that.

This is what I have a problem with.


Let us assume you are sick. A heart condition- let us say...

You need medicine X that will cure you....

Let us assume that you donot have money to buy X....

Let us now assume that somebody comes to you and offers you X. They say that they would offer you X if you register yourself has a christian.

Is this exercising of free will?


Now, your next question will be...do you have any evidence to support that?


YES, go back to the Census data. Look at states and districts with high christian populations (exclduing Goa and kerala). Invariably these districts would be tribal and or the poorest districts in the country.

Let us now go back to tablet X. The reality is you were not given tablet X. You were given some tablet made somewhere else. No wonder you will die soon.

Evidence to support this- Look at how these new converts are doing in their lives. They are doing so badly that in many states Governments (congress) are clamoring for reservation for these minorities.....


Laslty comes the issue of spiritual satisfaction.....in my view an individual can attain spiritual satisfaction in many ways (multiple religions)...the whole idea that the poorest in this country who are christian converts are somehow spiritually more satisfied than atheist tribals is somewhat crazy.

In this day and age when only a quarter of Europeans (or lesser) are practising Christians why is it that we are tricking poor tribals and other disenfranchised. If we are really so worried let us do what Pratham and APF are doing....improve the quality of education in India.......

Kumar- 55

I have a counter argument.

If missionaries are being harassed by right wing nuts how come they donot complain to the police and go to the media? How come they beat up Hindu nuts? How come they have attacked the Police long before the violence started?

You explain this to me first.

The problem is that the missionaries were violent. Invariably violence breeds more violence..what did you expect? everybody will discuss this sanely across descritics.org?

Chandra,

Unfortunately you are taking the tit-for-tat approach here that unnecessarily creates the mirage of a homogenous, water-tight communitie ie. Christians vs. Hindus. Yes indeed after the first attack the presumably precipitated the second round, the state authorities should have done everything to prevent it from getting out of control. Violence can be and has been prevented when the authorities seriously want to prevent it. If they have other priorities or are indeed indirect or direct beneficiaries of it. To blame the imagined communities of "Hindus" or the "Christians" just compounds the problem further. Surely there are many "Hindus" and "Christians" in Orissa who are revolted by this. Why take such an "us" versus "them" approach?

In my small village of 50/50 Hindu Christian
community, Christmas was celebrated like a village function and the both religious leaders
took equal share. For 22 years of my solid
memory, the Christmas function was growing big and big every year. We have several Hindus as
Christhu Bhakas; simply following the teachings of Jesus without changing their names.

After a very long time when I happened to be in
our area at the Christmas season, the once great
function was done in fear of attacks by the radical elements. It was not the local Hindus,
but troublemakers from other locations. Whom to
blame? Since the people of our village, both
Hindus are Christians are in friendly terms, we
never had any problem so far.

It is very sad to read the story of Orissa in
several websites, also in the local news papers.
During the 50s, in Kerala there was a massive
change of political party affiliation. The lower
class people, almost 95% of them belong to Hindu
religion though not very solid, joined the
communist party believing an utopia of equality
and prosperity. A few of Dalits are changing
religion to Christianity, Islam and Buddhism:
to have a new identity. If the Hindu leaders are
trying to barricade their freedom of choice, whether it is done for x or y reasons, that
will create more friction and international
condemnation.

Riots and violence. Everywhere. Somebody blows up themselves and a political leader in Pakistan, some others beat and burn each other in Orissa over how to worship, and who to worship.

Sometimes it seems all we can do is weep.

Commonsense 61

Yes. I agree with each word you say.

rgds

Commonsense 61

"If the Hindu leaders are
trying to barricade their freedom of choice, whether it is done for x or y reasons, that
will create more friction and international
condemnation. "


No, nobody prevents others in Orissa from practising their religion. Please google Koraput+ Christmas...not a single event of violence or anything. In Kandhamal, the missionaries and their lackeys attacked Hindus and Police which led to this violence. I think it is extremely foolish for minorities to be attacking others......

rgds

Chandra, you wrote:

"In this day and age when only a quarter of Europeans (or lesser) are practising Christians why is it that we are tricking poor tribals and other disenfranchised."

I may be wrong, but unfortunately this assumes that poor tribals have no brains, are like semi-adults who need to be protected otherwise they can be tricked into believing something for the sake of money or other inducements. Perhaps. But a larger question really is, so what if they are converting? Is there a law somewhere that prevents anyone from believing anything they chose to believe? Alok Rai who teaches in Delhi University and is the grandson of the great Indian writer Munshi Premchand once wrote something to this effect (paraphrasing from memory here, not verbatim!!):

"ït is amusing when the poor tribals are accused of converting for merely monetary gains. If this is indeed the case, the solution for those who are against conversion is simple. Why don't those who make this accusation offer them more money? This way the poor tribals can at least be better off my converting back and forth every week or so and laugh all the way to the bank".

The larger point being that who really cares and why should one care if someone is converting for whatever reason. It really is nobody's business if one day all members of X society were converted to, let's say, to atheism, polytheism, deism, non-theism, anti-theism, total theism, whatever. It is their business as long as their religious ideas do not influence public policy. The issue really is to deny religious fundamentalists of all stripes any role whatsoever in framing public policy and laws. OK, it may be a pie-in-the-sky scenario, but surely we can at least contemplate such a situation and it has been in place, let's say Turkey for quite a while, even though it is under great pressure by the fundamentalists there. Bottom line: who gives two shakes of a rat's ass about what your religion is as long as as public policy and the legal system reflect not religious ideas but deliberative, rational arguments that are in principle open to change as societies and ideas about what is right and wrong, also change...

Commonsense: I may be wrong, but unfortunately this assumes that poor tribals have no brains, are like semi-adults who need to be protected otherwise they can be tricked into believing something for the sake of money or other inducements. Perhaps.

Chandra: POOR TRIBALS ARE POOR....and yes very innocent......often exploited by one and all....

53#

Oops. my #53 comment got posted on wrong thread. My apologies.

Commonsense: "ït is amusing when the poor tribals are accused of converting for merely monetary gains. If this is indeed the case, the solution for those who are against conversion is simple. Why don't those who make this accusation offer them more money? This way the poor tribals can at least be better off my converting back and forth every week or so and laugh all the way to the bank".

Chandra: No wonder we still know him as Munshi Premchand's grandson. If somebody exploits somebody else this man recommends that somebody else outdo that exploitation...brilliant :-)

Chandra, I totally agree with your point here:

"I think it is extremely foolish for minorities to be attacking others......"

Except to modify it by saying that it is extremely foolish for anyone to be attacking anyone else. The state has to take a neutral approach and give hell to anyone, regardless of their religious or non-religious affiliation. But how can the state really do this when their funcionaries clearly benefit from this violence. I'm not relying on media-reports or hearsay. A good book to read on this topic is the political scientist Paul Brass's _Theft of an Idol_ (Princeton University Press..date?). Brass has spent much of his life studying communal violence in UP. He writes about an organized riot-system...trouble fomentors for hire who will stir up trouble regardless of their religious affiliation or beliefs. There is big money to be made, political careers to be created, managed and scores to be settled. This much is pretty obvious after any sustained study of these events. If some reading this post do not trust a "foreigner" such as Paul Brass, try reading Dipankar Gupta who teaches in Delhi on this issue. The point is that these are intellectuals not politicians, painstakingly researching and writing on these issues. Sure they have ideological perspectives and who doesn't, but they are trying to understand what goes on in these communal conflicts. They are not trying to create political capital or settle scores with poltical rivals.

Best wishes!

Commonsense: The larger point being that who really cares and why should one care if someone is converting for whatever reason. It really is nobody's business if one day all members of X society were converted to, let's say, to atheism, polytheism, deism, non-theism, anti-theism, total theism, whatever. It is their business as long as their religious ideas do not influence public policy

Chandra: Agreed. By that argument the Govt should stop funding minority institutions (churches, colleges, schools etc). Should stop having separate laws. Laslty, by arguing in favor or against conversion you are ignoring the larger issue here - Exploitation and Violence by the missionaries. I dont care really which religion you are...what i care for is respect, fairness and rule of law. On all 3 counts missionaries fail...

-> They are unable to provide respect because instead of providing them with skills, they give them hocus pocus about God

-> There is no fairness because while they convert people in rural areas, they donot educate any of these poor in the best missionary schools in the urban areas (a handful, maybe)

-> They donot follow the rule of law because they exploit people who are in dire need of money. Had this been just an issue of ideas the % of people converting to christianity would be higher across all social economic groups. the Fact is it is not....

Chandra, the point Alok Rai was making, tongue-in-cheek of course, was that it is patronizing to assume that inducements of money alone will lead a poor tribal to convert.

Commonsense

The reason why our country is having problems is because many liberals like you and Ghouse are worried about minorities. You are not worried about equality and secularism. In my view religion is nobody's business. You practice religion at your home and at religious places. religion should be kept out of Politics, education, science and other areas. However that is not the case in our country. In our country, if you are from the minority and get hit by a rock, it becomes an attack by fundamentalists. If you are a majority and get hit by a rock, it is an accident.

Where has Mr. Ghouse criticised all the criminals who attacked the hindu leader? He has not...that itslef shows the balance....that is my grouse....had he been balanced and criticised both groups....your above argument would have made sense. This person has no credibility now...he is just another hindu basher in the guise of a secularist...thank you so much....

Chandra: "Agreed. By that argument the Govt should stop funding minority institutions (churches, colleges, schools etc). Should stop having separate laws. Laslty, by arguing in favor or against conversion you are ignoring the larger issue here - Exploitation and Violence by the missionaries. I dont care really which religion you are...what i care for is respect, fairness and rule of law. On all 3 counts missionaries fail..."

Absolutely agreed! But why the government funds religious institutions, separate laws etc., once again goes back to the issue of creating and capitalizing on political capital. They do not do it because they are concerned for any particularly community or non-community. If the missionaries fail, the state fails also in not upholding the law and fairness. But of course why should they? They benefit from it. Instead they arbitrarily select so-called leaders of the community, much like in the colonial days, for advice that will presumably apply to all members of imagined communities. And the cycle of blame, violence continues, creating bigger divides rather than bridges to close that divide.

Commonsense 74

Your analysis is not completely correct. Religious fundamentalism does not provide you votes in the long run. May be 1 or 2 rounds and if you are very lucky 3-4 rounds....in the long run doing good work helps...if only everybody highlights that instead of wasting time on analysisng religion and secularism..

here is my analysis of why the Congress lost Gujarat

http://desicritics.org/2007/12/27/091352.php

The whole media can talk about religious polarisation as much as they want but the reality is most congress MLAs lost because they were unresponsive to their constituents......that simple....

Chandra: "POOR TRIBALS ARE POOR....and yes very innocent......often exploited by one and all...."

Well, the image of tribals that they are "innocent" is surely anachronistic...and not that different from the missionaries who want to convert them or in their words, "rescue" them from innocents.

I am not at all concerned about minorities or majorities (these divisions are irksome and create unnecessary divides), nor am I a liberal, anti-liberal whatever. These are just labels to discredit someone! Ideas, not the brands behind those ideas matter. The label I really adopt is that of an uncompromising secularist. As in, please practise your religon or non-religion any which way you like or don't like, but please stay clear of public policies and the law.

Chandra, not sure why I am being lumped with Ghouse or anyone else! I all for equal critique of all religions masquerading as reason. Sorry but I have to run now! Comes a time when it's later!

Best wishes!

1) Common argument: all religions are same, and therefore conversions is no big deal. Like ideologies, religions too shape contrasting realities and way of life which can be source of conflicts. And they are source of conflicts.

2) Common argument: conversion is a matter of individual choice and nobody else's business. But other people and nations do pay heavy price for conversions. World is littered with nations that got wiped out because of conversions, nations that got enslaved because of conversions, nations that are engulfed in civil wars because of conversions, nations that are torn apart due to terrorism and separatism because of conversions, nations that are turned into despotic dictatorships or colonies due to conversions. Both people and nations have vested interest in banning conversions that can disturb the harmony and way of life of people and nation.

3) Inventing Right to Convert: Right to convert is professed as an implicit aspect of right to choose and right to propagate faith. I do not see right to propagate faith gives missionaries any implicit right to prosleytize, promote or impose it on others. Right to choose belongs to individual - right to convert/impose has to be separated from it - Missionaries can not derive a 'right to convert' from 'right to choose'. Like all other rights, 'right to choose' can never be absolute or unrestricted - state does make laws to restrict what individuals can or can not choose to do. Greater good overrides individual rights and that is the basis of all laws that restrict individual's behaviour.

4) Common argument: all religions are involved in conversions and therefore no qualitative judgment should be made about conversions. That is not true. Not all religions are prosleytizing religions and not all conversions threaten way of life or cultural ethos i.e When Hindu converts to Budhism, or jain converts to Sikhism.

5) Common Justification - Caste system: It is poor justification for conversion. Caste system is incompatible with current ideologies and modern statecraft, and it is such mismatch and transition that has made caste system to be source of insecurities and conflicts. To its credit, it is caste system that allowed christians, Moslems, Jews and Parsis to survive in India for centuries without needing to be assimilated. It is caste system that generated professional specializations that made India envy of world. It is caste system that placed economic security of people on auto-pilot so society could focus on development of highly developed spiritual, cultural and civilizational pursuits. Caste system does stand disenfranchised in India, but functions and roles vacated from caste system have not been fully absorbed by ideologies that have taken over India - and that is what has created abject human condition in India, though they are visible inside caste structures. To prey on such chaos for harvesting conversions is opportunistic and exploitative.

6) Right Approach: To prevent conversions from being perceived as extension of religious war or hostile agenda, there has to be a solid platform of mutual respect and goodwill established among such religions. When conversions take place among hindu, budhist, jain or sikh, hardly any eyebrows get raised because they have worked togather for centuries to develop mutual respect and goodwill. Christians and Moslems have to work towards building similar platform in India. Conversions is not a way to go about it.

7) Media activism: As usual, media seems to be focussed exclusively on Hindu reaction to missionaries while Bodily attack on a swami by missionaries that triggered the subsequent events are played down. Next, it would claim swami was attacked for harassing a christian woman. India media is so predictable.

Government should not fund "missionary" work in building new churches, schools, etcc. in other areas. These missionaries should have their own funds provided by their own organizations and church from their city/state in india or abroad. While in all states, government has to approve the land that missionaries are taking to build institutions, because that is the law not only for missionaries but any one who build a house or anything b/c they have to pay the house tax to the government. Now, if certain districts in orrisa does not want any other religion beside hinduism or the leaders of the district's own version of hinduism, the people of any religion coming to preach their has to simply understand that and leave. Beacuse it is obvious that both groups of people will just not get together. Missionaries obvioulsy has to provide proof of their spending and also where the money comes from and the overall work that they are doing in the area. Afterall, this also applies to everyday citizens to file annual income tax return form, so missionaries have to obey the states laws. In certain districts in orissa, they have their own leaders who rule their people, tribal or their own citizens, its still the leaders land. So even if the leaders do not care about enriching tribals or if they are still living under the caste system, it is obvious the low caste will not be given priveleges even in their own native religion. But, the missionaries cannot provide the people who do not get any priveleges in their own district, because it is forbidden by the leader that other religions or aid worker(not missionary) to interfere with their own government and laws. So, its better left for the government of the state to look into this matter to provide equal opportunities to all its districts, afterall its their citizens regardless of religion.

BJP has to stop placing these one religion VS another religion and all the religions that are bad or evil in their sight. When BJP or any party who belongs to them or congress, pours out only the informations that provoke each religion to pit against each other, the violence will start and will never stop. Because people will listen to whatever political leader is saying because according to each person, if they agree to what the politician says and feel so strongly, then it should be right even without inspecting themselves about the facts provided by the politician.

BJP, congress, left wing, individual parties should all place the agenda for providing all its citizens who are immigrants, who are from other religions and ethnicity,who are from all "classes and castes", senior citizens,poverty stricken people, prostitutes etc.. opportunities to education, health care, and an equal treatment for all these people.

Regarding religious issue, its upto the government of each district in the state to insure peace between all religions. If that district gives permission to missionaries to do their work and the community also approves of them than its okay, when missionaries of any religion or an aid worker who acts like a bussiness men and makes false promises and violates their living, the community can always sew them and take it to the court in that district and with proper evidence can deal with both groups. Then there is no need of violence if simply there is a proper law and order applied in each district to prevent burning each others properties and overall prevent hate violence.

After the graham staines murder, it is known that there are districts in orissa who do not approve of these missionary work, christianity itself, or maybe other religions considering the area consists of extremists. I don't see any reason after that event for the missionaries or even christianity itself to exist in those districts. So the missionaries who are still doing the work even after the murder of staines at that time, has only delayed the inevitable and should leave just for their sake.

Kerty.
Coversion is a choice of an individual and if others don't accept it, they are denying the freedom of choice and personal rights of each citizen. The reason for why the people&nations pays a price in the name of conversion, is that they infuse religion with politics, undermining liberties for each of these nations.

"Both people and nations have vested interest in banning conversions that can disturb the harmony and way of life of people and nation".
-The harmony&way of life of people&nation are already disturbed w/in their own politics and government rule, banning/not banning conversion will not decrease people&nations way of life.

"Caste system is poor justification for conversion".
-Regardless of religion, while india is moving forward in terms of industalization&economy, there are groups of people who are still using the plough and opportunities are not presented to them in terms of providing jobs, education, and health care even from the government itself.

"Caste system is incompatible with current ideologies and modern statecraft, and it is such mismatch and transition that has made caste system to be source of insecurities and conflicts".
-Caste system and the people suffering from it is invisible and dead in the first place among their own society, then how can the system be incompatible or compatible w/current ideologies...Caste system, before the colonization by europeans and regardless of current ideologies&modern statecraft, is already a source of insecurites&conflicts in itself.

"When conversions take place among hindu, budhist, jain or sikh, hardly any eyebrows get raised because they have worked togather for centuries to develop mutual respect and goodwill. Christians and Moslems have to work towards building similar platform in India. Conversions is not a way to go about it"
-I agree with the last two sentences. But,how can xtians-/muslims work towards what your saying, when in the first place they are not provided the rights to lead their own lives, regardless of conversion. As according to extremists in india, xtianity&islam as a religion itself(not people,missionaries,etc..) are a threat to their society from the beginning.

"Hindu reaction to missionaries while Bodily attack on a swami by missionaries that triggered the subsequent events are played down"
-There maybe more events b/f missionaries attacked the swami that could possibly trigger the following events, either xtians attack on hindus or vice versa over a period of time. There might be people who do not belong in both these religions but belong to a political party that caused the hate violence. Afterall, its the same agenda used by BJP since forever to have their say why they should rule india.

Overall, i agree with you on half of the points discussed in your response.

Chandra:

>> You have not commented on the issue of missionaries being active in Urban schools for the elite?

Some schools are intended to be high profile and some are intended more for introducing education where it does not exist (same applies for hospitals). In what ratio to cater to these needs is their choice.

>> Secondly, you are yet to provide evidence to suggest that missionaries are somehow benefitting Orissa...

I did make a general point about education and health care services provided by them to people who never had such things for generations. And that this often comes with baggage of religious teaching as well. So, whether it is good or bad (for Orissa or elsewhere) is an individual judgment (but the individual right of religious choice and expression cannot be denied - we like it or not)

>> Who attacked Hindus first 4 days ago? Christian missionaries. Who attacked VHP activist? Christians and missionaries. Who shot at the polic? Christians...

All this is condemnable without a question. There cannot be two views about it. I need to add though, that in my several years of watching the mainstream news, this is the first time I am hearing about Christian mobs attacking, firing, retaliating etc (please correct me if I am wrong) - while one hears about violence by VHP every other day.

>> So what is your point? That if missionaries attack Hindus and the Police that we file a PIL?

We are discussing the larger question of what the VHP is doing and what objections they have with the work of missionaries. If their objection is that missionaries are indulging in land grabbing, forced conversions, conversion by bribing etc, it is a very easy to take the evidence to courts and media. We have not seen any such thing so far - instead, it seems that such allegations are made as an excuse and justification for their own violence (and to encourage others to indulge in such violence).

>> Let us assume you are sick. A heart condition- let us say...You need medicine X that will cure you.... Let us assume that you donot have money to buy X....Let us now assume that somebody comes to you and offers you X. They say that they would offer you X if you register yourself has a christian. Is this exercising of free will?

The description sounds outlandish and impossible that one has to see it to believe it. If a person so registered as a christian, is he dumb enough not to take up the issue afterwards and question it? If there are people who have undergone such things, why cant VHP/BJP bring them before courts and media?

>> Now, your next question will be...do you have any evidence to support that? YES, go back to the Census data. Look at states and districts with high christian populations (exclduing Goa and kerala). Invariably these districts would be tribal and or the poorest districts in the country.

There are many reasons why this is so. It is the suffering people who is likely to seek for answers. And sometime social and cultural elements also play a role. The blacks in US for example are more likely to consider to look to islam for example.

>> Look at how these new converts are doing in their lives. They are doing so badly that in many states Governments (congress) are clamoring for reservation for these minorities.....

The conversion is supposed to have been done with allurement of lands/houses etc? What happened to them? (This charge of allurement can be easily proven before courts and media by showing that lands/houses etc are given to those who are converted). Coming back to the question that they are doing badly, the more appropriate question to ask is, are they doing more badly than what they were before and if so, what does choice of religious faith has to do with it.


>> Laslty comes the issue of spiritual satisfaction.....in my view an individual can attain spiritual satisfaction in many ways (multiple religions)...the whole idea that the poorest in this country who are christian converts are somehow spiritually more satisfied than atheist tribals is somewhat crazy.

I respect your view, but I would say that each person can decide for himself/herself on where/why they find spiritual satisfaction.

>> If missionaries are being harassed by right wing nuts how come they donot complain to the police and go to the media? How come they beat up Hindu nuts? How come they have attacked the Police long before the violence started?

Absolutely agree with the point that they should go to the courts and the media instead of rioting/violence etc.

Kerty:

>> 1) Common argument: all religions are same, and therefore conversions is no big deal. Like ideologies, religions too shape contrasting realities and way of life which can be source of conflicts. And they are source of conflicts

There are of course some differences in the religious beliefs of different religions. But that need not necessarily be a source of "conflict". The differences just mean that one has a choice to make if one wants to.

>> 2) Common argument: conversion is a matter of individual choice and nobody else's business. But other people and nations do pay heavy price for conversions. World is littered with nations that got wiped out because of conversions ... Both people and nations have vested interest in banning conversions ...

There is no coherence in what you are saying. How can individual freedom of religious belief be suppressed? No secular democracy agrees with what you are saying.

>> 3) Inventing Right to Convert: Right to convert is professed as an implicit aspect of right to choose and right to propagate faith. I do not see right to propagate faith gives missionaries any implicit right to prosleytize, promote or impose it on others.

Again, no coherence. One has a right to express one's religious belief, the listener has the right to accept or reject.

>> 4) Common argument: all religions are involved in conversions and therefore no qualitative judgment should be made about conversions. That is not true. Not all religions are prosleytizing religions

Whether to proclaim/express ones religious beliefs or not is one's choice. There are people of all religions who do so.

>> 5) Common Justification - Caste system: It is poor justification for conversion

Let each person decide for herself/himself their own reasons and justifications for what they choose.

>> 6) Right Approach: To prevent conversions from being perceived as extension of religious war or hostile agenda, there has to be a solid platform of mutual respect and goodwill established among such religions... Christians and Moslems have to work towards building similar platform in India. Conversions is not a way to go about it.


I am all for mutual respect etc. That does not remove the right to one's choice of religious (or non-religious) beliefs.

>> 7) Media activism: As usual, media seems to be focussed exclusively on Hindu reaction to missionaries while Bodily attack on a swami by missionaries that triggered the subsequent events are played down. Next, it would claim swami was attacked for harassing a christian woman. India media is so predictable.

You cannot expect the media in a secular democracy to oppose individual freedom/choice of religious beliefs. The attack on swami needs to be condemned and the people responsible should be booked etc. The VHP which gets involved in violence almost every other day, does not need much of an excuse to burn places of worship etc.

Individuals has any right to choose to exercise their faith and hold places of worship for all religions. Conversion is only between "a" person and the God of christianity/judaism. Its between "a" person and the Allah of islam. Its between "a" person and the individual Gods of hinduism.Its between "a" person and the Buddha of buddhism. Its between "a"person and the gods of the stars,weather, and solar system, and its between "a" person and it principles of atheism/agnostics.

1)Right to convert is professed as an implicit aspect of right to choose and right to propagate faith.
If that what the missionaries are doing or if thats what the missionaries are doin according to your pov. Note: there is no such thing as a "right" to convert as mentioned above from the 2nd sentence and on, its given as a free will by the God or gods, not by mere humans.

2)I do not see right to propagate faith gives missionaries any implicit right to prosleytize, promote or impose it on others.
Again there is no such thing as "right" to propagate a certain faith, its based on each religions teaching and their are rules as to how to spread the teachings and where to go. Ultimiately, the only job of the preachers/teachers is to "preach" or "teach" the words, and the acceptance resulting in conversion is upto the particular person and its acceptance of the teachings and the God of each religions. I don't see any reason for missionaries of any religion to "promote" its religion, afterall before they are born the religions were created by the teachers,prophets, etcc... then. Imposing religion is like a military operation, sorry kerty the missionaries your dealing with are not missionaries in the first place, but rather disguised as business men. Even if its according to your pov, please don't listen to the missionaries, but rather listen to them and then inspect to see what they are saying is true. Why don't you yourself read the quaran, bible, books on buddhism, hinduism from page 1 till the end before going to the "missionaries".

3)When conversions take place among hindu, budhist, jain or sikh, hardly any eyebrows get raised because they have worked togather for centuries to develop mutual respect and goodwill. Christians and Moslems have to work towards building similar platform in India.
If the state is tolerant and respects all religions and its people, then development of mutual respect and goodwill can be accomplishmed, regardless of coverting or not converting. Islam and chrisitianity did not orginiate in india, only buddhism, jainism, sikhism, hinduism is orginiated in india. Some indian states are not recognizing the "foreign" religion that chrisitanity and islam is in itself, then how can the people who are belong to those religions since their ancestoral age can be accepted in those states.

Meenaxshi

Well written. I agree with you.

rgds

Mike: My points are more clearly elaborated by meenaxshi.

I see the missionaries as shrewd businessmen, who are out there the cheat, steal and do whatever it takes to meet their year end target of getting "millions who live in darkness" converted. And leads to communal tensions such as in orrissa. Unless they open up their monetary records and show where they get their money from and what they teach people and what is their modus operandi. I would treat them as pirates, which is more or less what they are.

Its clear that these people do not respect the indian culture and this creates the tension there. I wish the indians were more open and insensitive to the proselytizers. It would have prevented a lot of bloodshed.

And since no one is going to back up on what he would be doing. One can see that more bloodshed will eventually happen, especially with a pseudo secular and inefficient congress govt. at the top.

Lakshimikant

Radhika, Kumar, Meenakshi, Chandra and common sense have contributed much towards developing a comprehensive understanding.

I believe I have said, financial accountability is a must for all Charitable organizations, and government should not fund or support religious activities.

However, cultural centers for the tribal people is much needed, a point of focus to communicate and include them as part of the larger India.

I'm on the road to give a talk, I will respond to the pionts later on this evening.

By the way, I reiterate, this this the best group I have been in and I am in at least 30 groups of every faith and most cultures including the Native Indians. We can debate and exchange here without attacking individuals.(yeah, a little here and there is ok).

Good to be here, hope all of us can take one step forwards towards opening our hearts and minds towards fellow beings - with malice towards none, as Lincoln had said.

Mike Ghouse

Lakshmikanth.
I understand why you see missionaries "as" shrewd businessmen, beacuse they are not a missionary in the first place.

Missionary work is like any other professions, where the people have to go to an instituition(school, college) to get "themselves" educated and trained and get a diploma/degree or certificate, proving they have undergone the training like any other profession. Then it makes sense to only educate others like a school teacher or college professor on a certain subject(s).
**who are out there the cheat, steal and do whatever it takes to meet their year end target of getting "millions who live in darkness" converted.
>Taking christianity into account, this is completly condemned by the bible itslef. These are first, merely human thinking(mission) to feed their own appetities and to somehow prepare a resume before they face the God of christianity, so that they can boast of "their" saving of souls.

**Unless they open up their monetary records and show where they get their money from and what they teach people and what is their modus operandi.
>Even the people of the churches/institutions have to get the receipt of their money that are being donated to the missionaries and weekly/monthly/annual statement of the work that goes on in their area has to be reported to these people too.So that they know that their money is being spent wisely and put into effect for the benefit of that certain community. Otherwise missionary work for merely the purpose of business and achieving their own financial goal like you mentioned is condemned by the bible. Also their modus operandi should be known to already believers of the religion even from pastors, let alone the people who do not know the teachings in the first place.

**Its clear that these people do not respect the indian culture.
Taking christianiy in to account, there is no culture barrier, ethnicity barrier, classes or caste barrier, genders, or youth-old barrier. The "people or missionary" do not respect the india culture according to each ones view, they don't have to follow any religion to respect/not respect people. They have to have that quality in their hearts regardless of religion or law, whether religious or government laws.

**I wish the indians were more open and insensitive to the proselytizers.

>Many Christians consider it their obligation to follow what is often termed the Great Commission of Jesus, recorded in the final verses of the Gospel of Matthew: "Go to all the nations and make disciples. Baptize them and teach them my commands." The early Christians were noted for their evangelizing.

Most self-described Christian groups have organizations devoted to missionary work which in whole or in part includes PROSELYTISM of people of other faiths (including sometimes other variants of Christianity) or none. Groups noted for their extensive PROSELYTISM include:

-Southern Baptist Convention
-Jews for Jesus
-Jehovah's Witnesses
-The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormonism)

-Some Christians make a distinction between PROSELYTISM(illegitimate) and evangelism (legitimate). An Eastern Orthodox writer, Stephen Methodius Hayes has written: "If people talk about the need for evangelism, they meet with the response, 'the Orthodox church does not proselytize' as if evangelizing and proselytism were the same thing." However the boundary varies from group to group. For instance the Moscow Patriarchate has repeatedly strongly condemned what it describes as Catholic proselytism of Orthodox Christians within Russia and has therefore opposed a Catholic construction project in an area of Russia where the Catholic community is small. The Catholic Church claims that it is supporting the existing Catholic community within Russia and is not proselytizing.
OTHER RELIGIONS
-Some religions such as Islam (dawah) may at times hold the belief that conversion is acceptable. Some religions do not accept converts at all (membership is inherited), such as the Druze and Zoroastrians.
-Modern branches of Judaism do not proselytize non-Jews; however, groups such as Chabad will encourage nonobservant Jews (one becomes a Jew by either birth or conversion; see Who is a Jew?) to be observant. Reform Judaism has been known to welcome the non-Jewish spouses of already existing mixed marriages to convert to Judaism. Orthodox Judaism discourages conversion, but persistent and sincere requests for conversion are accepted. See Ger tzedek. In ancient times, there have been periods (especially the Hellenistic) in which Jews were more favorable to proselytizing than they are today and in one case, the people of Idumea, forcibly converted them in 125 BC. Some historians believe that one of the major sources of the Early Christian movements were communities of pagans who had been attracted to Judaism. However, with the dominance of Christianity and Islam, Jews came to avoid proselytism, since that might incite Christians and Muslims to persecute them.
-Hinduism (and to a certain degree, other dharmic religions) are largely pluralistic, drawing their beliefs from a Vedic proclamation which states that "Truth is One, though the sages know it as many". As a result of this acceptance of alternate but valid religious practices, the phenomenon of Some religions such as Islam (see dawah) may at times hold the belief that conversion is acceptable. Some religions do not accept converts at all (membership is inherited), such as the Druze and Zoroastrians.
Modern branches of Judaism do not proselytize non-Jews; however, groups such as Chabad will encourage nonobservant Jews (one becomes a Jew by either birth or conversion; see Who is a Jew?) to be observant. Reform Judaism has been known to welcome the non-Jewish spouses of already existing mixed marriages to convert to Judaism. Orthodox Judaism discourages conversion, but persistent and sincere requests for conversion are accepted. See Ger tzedek. In ancient times, there have been periods (especially the Hellenistic) in which Jews were more favorable to proselytizing than they are today and in one case, the people of Idumea, forcibly converted them in 125 BC. Some historians believe that one of the major sources of the Early Christian movements were communities of pagans who had been attracted to Judaism. However, with the dominance of Christianity and Islam, Jews came to avoid proselytism, since that might incite Christians and Muslims to persecute them.

Hinduism (and to a certain degree, other dharmic religions) are largely pluralistic, drawing their beliefs from a Vedic proclamation which states that "Truth is One, though the sages know it as many". As a result of this acceptance of alternate but valid religious practices, the phenomenon of proselytisation is largely absent in these religions but not unknown. One group that does is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness also known as Hare Krishnas. One group that does is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness also known as Hare Krishnas.

SORRY, in the section OTHER RELIGIONS, the hinduism part after modern branches of judaism para is printed again with hindusim and modern branches of judaism again. Please disregard the 2nd to last para and continue to the last para.
Thanks

**The sources of where i got this information will be printed at the end of this response. Thank you.**
VIEWS on PROSELYTISM.
>>Legitimate versus illegitimate proselytism.
The difference between legitimate proselytism and illegitimate proselytism may not be definable. What one person considers legitimate, another may consider improper or even illegal. Proselytism can include:
-No attempt to convert others unless they specifically ask about one's religion
Preaching
-Providing physical benefits in hopes that recipients will be open to listening
-Providing physical benefits only to those willing to listen
-Providing physical benefits only to proselytes
-Forcing people to become proselytes

Illustrating the problems that can arise from such subjective viewpoints is this extract from an article by Dr. C. Davis, published in Cleveland State University's Journal of Law and Health:
-According to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Jews for Jesus and Hebrew Christians constitute two of the most dangerous cults, and its members are appropriate candidates for deprogramming.
-Anti-cult evangelicals ... protest that "aggressiveness and proselytising ... are basic to authentic Christianity," and that Jews for Jesus and Campus Crusade for Christ are not to be labelled as cults. Furthermore, certain Hassidic groups who physically attacked a meeting of the Hebrew Christian "cult" have themselves been labelled a "cult" and equated with the followers of Reverend Moon, by none other than the President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis(http://www.religioustolerance.org/cult_art.htm)

>>http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Proselytism

Radhika,

I dont have anything against christians of people of any faith as long as they leave me alone and mind their own business.

However i cannot but call a spade a spade.. i.e. a missionary in india who has an year end target and is opaque as far as money is concerned cannot be monotored for their own good. When the missionaries are opaque, i think i would give the benefit of doubt to the people who attack them.

I am not asking the missionaries to respect/follow the traditions of the region, i.e. the traditions they are trying hard to change. I am saying that its obvious that these people DO NOT respect the cultural complexity of the region and hence local people run out of patience and become prey to the other extreme i.e. VHP et al.

I just hope and pray that the stupid and dumb ones among the missionaries who end up creating more fundamentalists as an end product, shut up and leave India. It would be better for India's stability which i care for way more than i care for the religious demographics.

**This is from the same source previously printed at the end of response #89**

>>>>Propriety of proselytism.<<<<

-Views on the propriety of different types of proselytism differ radically. Some feel that freedom of speech should have no limits and that virtually anyone, anywhere should have the right to talk about anything they see fit.

-Others see all sorts of proselytism as a nuisance and an intrusion and would like to see them restricted (either completely or to a limited arena).

-Thus, Prof. Natan Lerner of Tel Aviv University observes that the issue is one of a clash of rights--the right of a person to express his or her views--versus the right of a person not to be exposed to views that he or she does not wish to hear.

-Some don't mind preaching but are concerned if the speech is accompanied by physical benefits (e.g., a soup kitchen that provides food, but only under the condition that the recipients listen to an evangelical discourse) or new converts are given physical benefits not available to those who don't convert.

-Others are concerned if the preaching is aimed at children without the knowledge and consent of the parents.

>>>>>Legal standpoint<<<<<
-From a legal standpoint (international and United States), there do appear to be certain criteria in distinguishing licit from illicit proselytism:

>>The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 18 states:

-Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.

-No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.

-Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

-The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.

Lakshmikanth,
Even without any religion, conversion or no conversion, what the teachers are teaching/doing or not doing both,if they are inivisble, w.out stupid ones among missionary. All these things and regarding each religion in itself too are not going to add or decrease fundamentalism.

It is the hate groups who only have hatred in their heart even if they belong to a religion or no religion, or even if they worship rock,paper,scissors.

These hatred groups are merely there not only to pit a religion against anothr, they are there to stir up anger between freinds, neighbors, relatives in society itself period.

Its all politics in india and worse they are infusing cultrual differences,ethnicities, languages,religious differences etc... to gain power for themselves and to control this and that. I wonder where are the beggars on the street of india fit into BJP, congress, left wings, VHP, ind. parties etcc....

These parties are their only to satisfy their own hunger period.

Just look at how a condescending and in my book a third rate "Christian" paper (BBC) portrays this news:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7162787.stm

Here are the highlights of screwed up reporting (GENERALIZATIONS HIGHLIGHTED):
Police in India's Orissa state shoot dead three people in violence between hard-line Hindus and Christians.

So HARD LINE hindus attacked INNOCENT xtians and they set fire to hindu homes and hence HARDLINE hindus set fire to police station and thus the police attacked back.

Here is another screwed up reporting gem from that fucked up paper:
Christians had retaliated after 19 churches were destroyed in violence that began on Christmas Eve.

So the retaliating xtians are NOT hard line?

This is why i call bbc is a condescending peice of shit bordering bad reporting with no honest moral principle.

This is what moderate and rational people in india should fight again.

Lakshmikanth.
Since you and i are merely common man/woman, we don't have any say let alone we are invisible in front of BJP, congress,left wing, fundamentalist parties along with the above parties etcc..

Its also better not only for stupid and dumb ones among the missionary to shut up and leave, its also better for us to shut up and leave.

Since according to all popular political parties as mentioned above who take turns "running" the country, the quieter we are and as long as we sit the country can "run" itself but will never get the gold, let alone cross the finishing line.

Lakshmikanth,
That is your view of BBC, if you think its shit and condescending. No ones going to argue with you, you argue that with the newspaper itself.

*This is what moderate and rational people in india should fight again.
There is no moderate and rational people in india in the first place, if they are there its very few and if they have placed their rights to say this, the parties that are ruling the country whtr BJP, congress and others never take into account what these moderate people. So they can only try again and again.

We can't fight among ourselves or religion or people of other religion. We have to fight against "extremism in all religions" together, and particularly the hatred groups with no respect to all faiths, democracy, and humanity.

Shruthi/radhika:

Xtian missionaries are only adding fuel to the fire in an already thin communal fabric that we have.

As i have mentioned before. i dont give a damn about religion as long as people dont spoil the chance for economic development. Something that matters way more than what religion people follow.

Now if missionaries do that in a mature way i agree, but if as you indicate if the missionaries belong to the ranks of VHP or any other hatred group.

Missionaries would more often than not add one more hatred group in India.

The only solution that i vouch for is honest, NON RELIGIOUS education.

Lakshmikanth,
Why are you furious whether chrisitan(ity) are hardline or not, if they are innocents or not, if hindus are hard line or not.Its the media who provides with limited evidences, you should not turn on BBC or read it, b/c they are not serving you as press with the right news. You should go to orissa and get the accounts first hand and voice against BBC for false reporting.

In both cases hard line implies extremism on both religions, so both people who retaliated against each religion are extremists period. They do not belong to hinduism nor chrisitanity. They are violent retaliators who protest by means of violence.

Ohh God... now which brigade am i up against :)
radhika, Shruthi, Sumati, angali, vimala, sujatha, soumya:

I am not ATTACKING xtians. I dont care about xtians as long as they mind their own business and let me mind my own.

BBC is NOT reporting on the larger tendency (HARD LINES ON BOTH SIDES) which to me is more disturbing and shows the lopsided approach feeding the bible thumpers of the west. Its just working hard to make the xtians look innocent (they set fire to hindu homes) and hard line hindus (who tried to disrupt the xtians).

All this because there is a swami in hospital. BBC does not care whether to investigate what really happen to the swami.

I call BBC a condescending peice of shit for the same reason.

Lakshmikanth,
I don't see
(..but if as you indicate if the missionaries belong to the ranks of VHP or any other hatred group). indicated by them in their statements.

Please stop attributing your own comments to their indications.

**Missionaries would more often than not add one more hatred group in India**
-Where is solid proof of that are you now impying missionaries to also form hatred group, if they and their people are killed and dead& going to be in the future how can they form hatred group.

**The only solution that i vouch for is honest, NON RELIGIOUS education**
Statment is not specified.
-Again that is upto to certain states and districts to allow religious/non religious etc.. Anyways, that has to be a suject if students are interestd in learning about other religions in philosophy, humanity, world history etc.. and subjects like that

**i dont give a damn about religion as long as people dont spoil the chance for economic development.**
-All religion in itself plays no role whatsoever to "economic development", so the economic develpmnt is solely based on the brains of each individual taking into accoun,t the condition of their state and citizens in all areas to ensure a proper growth to cities.

**Xtian missionaries are only adding fuel to the fire in an already thin communal fabric that we have.**
-The already thin communal fabric is created by politics and goverment itself way back in the past, if xtian missionaries or from any other religion is only adding the fuel to the fire. We could have already have a separation of states which respects and allows all religion from other states that don't respect the above. Then india would be just like africa, with indivudal states as countries.

Again, i agree with the last paragraph in shobana's statement.

Then lakshmikanth, please stop saying the same thing again and again about BBC. This is not a thread about BBC is shit, condescending blah blah blah. Then you won't invite ikas,oumya,aahs cookoos etc..

I doubt that bible thumpers in the west,east,south,north,in poles or even outer space would listen to BBC. Afterall, individual churches are worried about their own people who go out their for their safety.

So they are on your side buddy or lady, that they don't get lured and captivated by the MEDIA.

Vimala, roshni, reshmi, shruthi, shobhana, thomaskutty, raman-chetan, chandy anna or whatever you are:

I have no idea what you are talking about in the first para.

BBC is a lopsided paper, which has reported this issue in a very suspicious manner and i am sure it would be without much understanding of the area. (Commentors like chandra are way better people to consult in these matters). They make it look like Xtians are innocent and ALL hindus are criminals. I dont think u know what generalizations mean. The general idea from that article is that xtians are victims and missionaries are saviours and hindoooos are blood thirsty.


I believe that missionaries have to be transparent as an NGO. If they do not, there is every reason to be suspicious and i would try to investigate them. Our pseudo secular govt does not ivenstigate this. And no one can guarentee that there is NO fundamental element in the missionaries.

All that the people (shruthi, anjali, cherian, thomaskutty) who support the missionaries make blanket statements about how "good" they are. what i need is the objective truth. Which no one seems to care about.

Surya kutty: THis is a thread about how an incident can be misused. And since you are well aware of the bible thumpers in the west who fund missionaries its clear that this paper supports them.

Anyway i dont think you understand logic or the tenets that go with it (not surprising). so cherian chetan or chandy anna talk to you later :) until the surya apparition appears again to disturb the sanity of the commentors.

Meenaxshi #80

1) I make a vital distinction between right to convert and right to be converted - the former vests the right to missionaries/religious bodies, the later vests the right to individuals to choose

2) Your point that people do infuse religion in politics and that is why people and nations have to pay the price and not because of conversions - that is a circular logic - because acquiring strength in numbers do allow people to inject faith in politics that it is all the more reason to discourage conversions rather than encourage conversions - Unconditional support for conversions does not guarantee that what you allege will not be done once a particular religious group acquires a majority thru conversions. Can you go to Kashmir and say to them that they can not cede from secular state and form an Islamic state? Will you be prepared to be accountable to people who had to pay the price with their blood because of wrong kind of demographic balance? No. You will move on to next hot issue and blame this or that religious group for the crimes to maintain lack out accountability for promoting demographic wars among religions. You need to answer concerns raised in #78(2) to convince people that conversion is a good thing and safeguards against such concerns can work.

3) Your point that harmony and people's way of life are already disturbed by their politics and banning or not banning conversions will not have any impact on way of life or harmony among people. That is very indifferent and fatalistic attitude as if banning or not banning have no consequences that people should care about. It is such callous disregard for concerns of people that force people to inject their concerns into politics and you are trying to rationalize the indifference on the ground that people inject their religious concerns into politics - that is circular logic. I view it as a sign of evading accountability so religions can be blamed.

3) You make the same point I made about caste system that modernity has failed to provide alternative model that can meet the needs of people. Under caste system, their was no need for formal education or employment market to gain economic security - caste system guaranteed occupations for generations. As modernity has developed education and employment infra-structure, more and more people have come out of caste legecy, but it is still not enough to absorb all people of India - thus caste system remains a refuge for those who are still left behind by modernity's inadequate or faulty planning.

4) My point about incompatibility of caste system within current ideologies is a valid point. Caste system is not inherently a flawed system but rather represents a different socio-economic paradigm. What is commonly viewed as its flaws is a fall out due to justaposition of opposite socio-economic paragigm and not-so-smooth transition created as a result. If you justaposition communist economic paradigm over capitalist paradigm in a capitalist society, you will see all the capitalist structures go thru deform and begin to do opposite of what they were meant to achieve in society. The transition from capitalist to communist paradigm will not be smooth but rather ad hoc and exploitative and would prove the self-fulfilling prophesy of communism. If you take away economic security that caste-based economics provided and alternative economic model is not developed enough to provide that economic security to those who drop out from caste -based economics, it would engineer massive poverty and exploitation to gain from limited economic pie and most of chaos will manifest within caste system as people still live within it for socio-cultural reasons. This thread is not about caste, so I will not go deep into it here. But brought the subject up because ample evidence exists that missionaries are seeking to profit from human misery created by not-so-smooth transition from caste-based economics to ideology-based economics. I consider that opportunistic exploitation of situational human condition rather than conversions based on religious deliberations.

5) I disagree that xians and moslems are not granted right to lead their own lives or that their religions are seen as a threat. They have been living in India for over 1000 years and their numbers have only grown. There is no excuse for them to maintain the atmophere of disrespect and ill-will. If Parsis, Sikhs, Jews, Budhists, Jain can do it, so can xians and Moslems.

6)There might be any number of motives or justifications for attack on Swami by missionaries. But you have to see the Hindu reaction is a context too. My point is that media coverage only begins with Hindu reaction. Had there been no Hindu reaction, there would have been no coverage of attacks on Swami. By focusing selectively and exclusively on hindu reaction, media tries to project Hindu reaction as the action/cause/news/evidence of hate and any triggering justifications/events for Hindu reaction as non-issue. Kumar in this thread mentioned that why can't Hindus take their case to media or courts - The problem is Indian media is not interested in hearing any facts or hindu side of the story from any Hindu organizations. They have to bypass media to go to people. Only time BJP gets mention is when media needs to attack it. Hindus already know that religious claims based on beliefs can get no hearing in courts either - courts would want to know proof and witnesses to validate beliefs or religious claims. There is no peaceful mechanism to address religious concerns - Secular state shuns them, political process wants no part of it wishing that ignoring them or demonizing them will make them go away. So conflicts are forced to take the shape of mobilization of people and agitations in streets and direct actions. Time and time again, they flare up in streets and people as usual take wrong lessons about why they flare up and what is to blame.

Comment #100, sure looks like a froth in the mouth comment.

This is place to discuss what happened there. An objective report is nowhere to be found. BBC is writing about how the HINDOOOOOOS are at fault.

take this statement:
-Where is solid proof of that are you now impying missionaries to also form hatred group, if they and their people are killed and dead& going to be in the future how can they form hatred group.

its clear from this very incident with the hindu houses burned down that there are radical/hatred groups within missionaries.

This proves that missionaries have failed in making the convert population more assimilated OR tolerant.

One swami has been hurt (no one is investigating how) and we have three deaths. What more of a proof do you guys want :)

Lakshmikanth:

>> BBC is NOT reporting on the larger tendency (HARD LINES ON BOTH SIDES) which to me is more disturbing and shows the lopsided approach ...

I think it you are overreacting. VHP is known to be a hardline organization with some incident or the other almost every other day (they themselves know/agree that they are hardline - just that they justify it by saying that it is merely a reaction). While reporting activities of such organization, it is natural to refer them as hardline.
When they are reporting about christians attacking a swami or retaliating, firing etc, it is self-evident that they are breaking the law, that what they are doing is wrong and they ought not to be doing such things. By not explicitly referring to them as 'hardline', I do not think BBC is trying to say that it is ok to do such things. On the other hand, if there is a clash between VHP and a similar organization (with repeated demonstration of use of violence, denial of rights, religious freedom etc), then I am sure BBC would have called such christian organization or also as a hardline. It is being too hyper-sensitive to assume that everyone is out there to belittle. It is such feelings of that people like Modi/Thackery cash-in to give a "sense of identity".

>> I believe that missionaries have to be transparent as an NGO. If they do not, there is every reason to be suspicious and i would try to investigate them. Our pseudo secular govt does not ivenstigate this

By all means, they need to be investigated about the funds etc. No one will have a problem with VHP if they do such things. Instead, they merely use these rhetorical allegations to justify their violence. It seems VHP/RSS has problem with freedom of religion itself and using such excuses and allegations to justify their violence.

Kumar: After seeing this generalization about Hindus attacking muslims on and on in the western media, i became from a total anti hindu atheist to a hindu supporter atheist.

the thing is no one is caring how the swami landed up in hospital. Just look at BBCs timeline India page or country profile page to see how condescending the whole paper is about india. the articles are written by bigotic idiots themselves (like another colonial news paper of that country "the economist" which has got Indian economy wrong more times than anyone cares to count).

Also i am not sure how deep an investigation has been done on whether these were actually HARDLINE hindus.

In any case there are two points to note:
1) BBC portrays xtians as victims while its clear that they have done minimal ground work. (they have NOT clearly determined who attacked the swami.

2) Missionaries have failed in making their subject peaceful. Adding to my worries about the already thin communal fabric of india.

I read in "MPnewsFlash", a few days back that the
former Jan Sangh MP embraced Christianity.

" The 72-year old Ahirwar, who was elected to Lok Sabha in 1967, has said that he has left
Hinduism due to the practice of untouchability and the daily bias which the lower caste encounter in the society".

Sri. Ram Singh Ahirwar said " I had joined Jan
Sangh and RSS with the hope that the casteism
would end one day but Dalits continue to suffer
exploitation in the entire Madhya Pradesh and
other parts of the country".

I don't believe in a religious conversion through any inducement or allurement. One's
conversion must be through solid convictions.

To all the missioanry bashers, may I ask a simple question? If Mr. Ahirwar started preaching his new found faith in Christ, and
people are changing their religion, is it forced
conversion? And, how he is going to be treated?

A few people convert due to indentity crisis, and
a few other might be converted for material gains, but the majority of the people are converted due to their personal convictions.
It is an irony that the rich and powerful can have their conversion without harassment, whereas
when the poor segment of the society embraces
a new religious faith; then the so called custodians of religion will be at the forefront
to enslave and deter their free will.

Lakshmikanth:

>> Missionaries have failed in making their subject peaceful. Adding to my worries about the already thin communal fabric of india.

I am with you on this. The media reports about christian mobs attacking and retaliating etc is truly shocking. What happenned to the principle of 'turning the other cheek' ?

AS Mathew:

You can whine about the crap that Hinduism has. I can whine about the crap that xtianity undoubtedly has.

What you need to get into that brain of yours is that the so called peaceful xtians have turned violent, which is DANGEROUS.

i.e. there are more monkeys than the VHP for the nation to worry about and one more community for the congress to divide.

In my 18 years of kerala i know how much involved the xtian church can become in the local politics. I would consider this development is really really dangerous.

Nobody has looked at recent missionary flare-ups from Sonia angle. I recall that when Sonia first entered active politics and was seeking legitimacy, there was sudden flurry of missionary propaganda in India and abroad about atrocities on christians by Hindus. It was later established that most of those flare ups were tribal vs tribal-converts in tribal belts, mostly instigated by missionaries and reacted upon by local tribals. It launched Sonia as major power center in Indian politics

After humiliating defeat in Gujarat, impending defeat in HP, UPA going flat over nuke deal, and shadow national elections looming large, Sonia desperately needs to recharge its batteries. Suddenly, we have re-appearence of xian victimology in a big way.

Kerty: That was the time that made me hate the western media, even though i am an atheistic-agnostic person.

The entire media out here was depicting that "Hindoooooo" snake charmers were murdering the good old nuns who were equated to the old grandmas whose cookies everyone in the west has had at some point of time in their lives.

It was a one sided, poorly investigated flawed reporting by the condescending xtian backed media like the BBC which made froth in the mouth reaction to these partly unconfirmed reports.

Expanding on my previous post...

India has 5 different victimology that are politically nurtured

1) Hindu victimology - mainly used by BJP to unite Hindus

2) Moslem victimology - mainly used for appeasement of Jehadism

3) Dalit victimology - mainly used to keep hindus divided on caste lines

4) Feminist victimology - mainly used to atomize socio-cultural institutions of Hindus

5) Christian victimology - mainly used to send signals internationally about threat posed by rise of Hindu nationalism. Used whenever BJP is seen as a challenge to Congress, to get international propaganda machine lined up behind congress.

BJP has cornered hindu victimology, while congress and other left parties vie to champion all other victimology.

Victimology is essential for political aggression, which ever party can make the best case for its pet victomology wins the race. Modi successfully projected himself as a victim of media and anti-Gujarat insults. He won. If some party wants to win on economic plank, it has to create economic victimology against lack of economic development. Communists rely on class and worker victimology. Sonia at personal level relies on xian victimology. Her party uses all sorts of victimology - only problem is that these victimologies have been so over used that they don't pay political dividends to congress while BJP's hindu victimology is still relatively new in political scene and therefore still very effective. So race among victimolgies have begun - let the best victimology win! Jai Victimology!!!

Kerty #112:

"4) Feminist victimology - mainly used to atomize socio-cultural institutions of Hindus"

This is a new one for me! I always thought that Islamic fundies claimed this: ie feminists are destroying the natural order of gender differences!


As well: "Sonia at personal level relies on xian victimology."

Xian?? Last time I checked, Xian is a place in China. Is Sonia from Xian??

Lakshmikanth #106

You have a poor reason to become a Hindutva supporter. I am concerned about the Swami getting hurt and every one is.

After the Swami was attacked, what should have been done after that? Sit down and talk or go after the individuals who have done wrong, or simply go burn the churches where some of those men prayed? BBC is right in portraying Christians in this instance as victims, are they not?

A few individuals have wronged no doubt, but to label it Christians is outrageous. To call those hoodlums who burned the churches to be Hindus is outrageous, is it not? And no Christian has called it. Neither have I.

Deal the conflict as individuals, then it will not flare up. You, me and 1.1 billion Indians want peace, then let's do things that brings peace.

Mike Ghouse

Commonsense...

Victimology of Feminist variety is aimed solely at Hindus in India. Hindu law falls under secular jurisdiction of state and so feminism plays to secular gallery to get its way. Moslems on the other hand are free to have their own personal laws based on shariat or whatever under the writ of Moslem Personal Law Board, Mullahs and Jehadis - minoritism seeks to immunize them against any targetted reform or negative activism by non-moslems.

Sonia is xian. xian is short for christian, like xmas is short for christmas.

Kerty 103

"Because acquiring strength in numbers do allow people to inject faith in politics that it is all the more reason to discourage conversions rather than encourage conversions"

That is indeed the truth, thanks for putting it precisely. It appears that it is the fear of losing the domination causes one to hold the line on conversion. So others remain where they are and not swell.

Meenaxi made an excellent point; it is the infusion or perhaps abuse of religion into politics that causes the problem. That is the precise reason I advance the idea, in this case, when the Swamiji was beaten, the beaters should have been chased for their acts and not go after the religion. We need to be trained to think in that fashion. Once you put a religious flame, people of that religion become a part of it, and they should not.

The Hindus should have treated this as the case of miscreants, and the Swamiji should have joined the celebrations of Christmas rather than worry - how many do we lose to them today?

Mike Ghouse

How much more credibility does Mr. Ghouse have?? ZERO

Mike Ghouse: You have a poor reason to become a Hindutva supporter. I am concerned about the Swami getting hurt and every one is.

Chandra: All who are following this article. Go back to the original post on the top of this page and please search for his concern for the swami. Those who are lazy, let me summarise his concern for the swami being beaten

Concern 1: The individuals who perhaps threatened or attacked him were not defending Christianity; they were simply warding off the Tiger's roar

Concern 2: Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, an individual and a leader, did not want to see anyone convert from Hinduism to other faiths. This happened on the eve of Christmas when Christians were in a celebratory mood

Concern 3: Saraswati is one of those individuals who did not get his religion. He was indeed motivated by fear that his people may switch alliances and cross over to the other group he perceived to be his enemies. The animal instinct within him wanted to pounce on any one who became an attractive nuisance to his people


Chandra: If somebody can detect any concern here, please do tell me. All I can see us criticism of an Individual who was just been beaten by christian fundamentalists.#

All of you note: Orissa is a coming out party for christian missionaries. They have shown their true self - Violent and cunning. However, Orissa is the only state where missionaries have been challenged for spewing their nonsense.

Kerty 103

Caste based economics may appear to offer economic security, but the intent seems to be to keep them down and under, and the system prevents an opportunity to those who are born to them.

If Ambedkar and so many great contributors to Indian economy were kept under that economic security belt, India would have missed a whole lot including a good constitution. The real problem is not the economic security, but the walls that keep them in from achieving and contributing towards nation building through different endeavors.

Mike Ghouse

Mike #114

I would even go further. Why identify religious affiliation of both parties to the conflict unless intent is to demonize one party and draw sympathy for another party? I have seen numerous hindu moslem conflicts reported in media as altercation between two communities without naming their religions (it is a dead give away who those communities are and which community is an aggressor in such conflicts, but it does prevent the local altercation from flaring up on wider scale, hence withholding religious identities about both parties is justified on that ground)

Kerty

I am sorry but I disagree with your attempt to bring feminism here. I can understand some problems with feminism but to suggest it is some sort of consipracy against Hindus is not proven.

rgds

Mike:

You have just blown off the entire point of your post with comment 114.

Chandra: could not have put it better.

The whole article is sounds like a propaganda. WHile i agree with Mike on many issues, I find this article to be partially biased against hindus.

Mike..#118

Expanding the debate on caste would be inappropriate in this thread. So I would take a rain check.

Mike Ghouse 118

Yes, Caste discrimination by Hindus is a contributor for christian conversions. Therefore it is even more critical that we deal with reducing this discrimination. Unfortunately not many agree with this assessment in the first place and even few attempt to fix it.

On the flip side, conversions have not solved the issue of caste based discrimination. No wonder christian missionaries have often asked for reservations for converted tribals and scheduled castes.

I have often referred to schools as aproblem. The credibility of missonaries would have increased manifold if they set up all those 'excellent' schools in areas that they have converted people. However as one reviews ICSE schools data evey few of these schools have been set up in these areas. Instead the only way the convertees benefit is through low paid jobs in urban schools.

Primary education at the end of the day is the way forward to solving these problems. Most of these poor tribals and scheduled caste convertees donot have access to this education.

In my home district in Orissa where most tribals are christians, hindu right wingers have followed a unique approach. Instead of trying to reconvert them, 100s of schools have come up across the district providing genuine education. Unlike in the 1980s where every second tribal was driving a second hand bike provided by the misisonaries and nothing else (no education), the newer set of tribals are picking up skills required to actually move up in life. This in turn has significantly reduced the impact of missionaries who have anyway lost credibility. While I agree that such competitive religious fundamentalism is unhealthy, the positive is that we know very clearly that EDUCATION is the way forward and therefore the MOST important area of focus for all Governments. Please support PRATHAM, AKSHARA and Azim Premji Foundation for their pioneering work. They are the true heroes.

rgds

Here come the patriots :-)....

news from an American newspaper

National Association of Asian Indian Christians in the USA announced a forum to raise awareness about human-rights abuses in its homeland. :-)


reminds me of the days of Khali-stan. We know what happened to that one....

Chandra: Khalistan did not have an economical support base that bible thumpers have.

That makes me very scared about the situation. Because even the least of the evils BBC(banal bullshit corp) is publishing shit about the whole issue.

Making it look like Xtians are the victims. Every article that i see around is clouded and not rigorous, just like this one.

Here Comes Mr. Bhatt...liberal Scion of Bollywood....:-)

Hundreds of protestors held up black flags to condemn the atrocities on the Church and Christians in Orissa on Christmas day.

The group was led by film personality, Mahesh Bhatt, representing various Catholic and Christian denominations, besides community NGOs, like the All India Christian Council and Catholic Secular Forum.

The group demanded a ban on the VHP, whose role in the attacks were explicit and President's Rule in Orissa, as the total collapse of law and order was apparent in the BJP-BJD ruled state.

Maheshji: Swamiji ko marna is fine? Police pe Goli chalana is fine? Attacking Hindus is fine?

" The new missionaries put an emphasis on speed, compelled sometimes by church quotas and a belief in the approach of the world's end.
"Aggressive and unprincipled missionary work that exploits the distress and ignorance of marginalized groups ... can constitute a catalyst to localized violence, particularly when they are brought into confrontation with other" creeds, says Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute of Conflict Management in New Delhi.

Radhika # 87

It is a well written commentary.

I need to do research on "However, with the dominance of Christianity and Islam, Jews came to avoid proselytism, since that might incite Christians and Muslims to persecute them." It makes political sense, but not sure if this is the case. If you have some material on it, please share.

"Orthodox Judaism discourages conversion, but persistent and sincere requests for conversion are accepted." Indeed, they ask enough time to make sure one is sincerely interested rather than doing for some short term gains. I have personally taken the same approach. There is no need for any one to switch from their faith or the birth faith, if they spend the same amount of time in learning what they are familiar with, rather than a whole new idea, they will find value in it. Each faith is beautiful and does offer answers to the fears, doubts and confusion. But I oppose regulating one's freedom to choose what he or she wants to believe.

I fully endorse the pluralistic nature of Hinduism, however, I am finding out other religions are equally pluralistic, but not explored well.

If you were to go to clothing store and find an incredible sale, Banarasi or Kancheevaram Silk Saree for Rs. 500 that would normally sell for Rs. 2500. What do you do? Call as many friends as you can, even taking a few minutes off from work or family time. If there are only 25 Sarees left, you would call your friends immediately. It is a great deal. Could you think proselytizing in those terms?

By the way, the price of Saree is ridiculous.

thanks

Mike

more nonsense................


Missionary events often mix emotional messages of personal salvation, speaking in tongues, shaking in trances, and miraculous healings. Some people come for the spectacle; others take advantage of free food. After these performances, whole families, neighborhoods, and even villages are sometimes converted. The missionary leaders move on to the next village, leaving behind money &#151; but sometimes little other support &#151; for new church constructions and pastor salaries.
Verghese is pastor of the Beersheba Church of God in Jhabua. He shows a recent video CD, produced by Indian Evangelical Team (IET) leader P.G. Varghis, which makes it clear that conversion, not development, is the priority.
For Verghese and others who believe the Apocalypse could come at any moment, there is little time to carry out the kind of slow, development-oriented missionary work that mainstream churches focus on.
In the video, Varghis proudly mentions that the IET's 1,775 missionaries "planted" 2,000 churches in India in just five years, and planned to reach a goal of 7,777 churches by the year 2010.
In recent years, North India has been a key region of focus by informal networks of Christian evangelical groups in the West, with some churches drawing up quotas for new churches built, gospel literature handed out, and new missionaries trained.

Here is some advice for missionaries----


the U.S. National Council of Churches issued a statement warning against the practice by "New Missionaries" of mixing evangelism and aid. "Often lacking sophistication about the lure of gifts and money, and wanting to be generous with their resources, they easily fall prey to the charge of using unethical means to evangelize. This creates a backlash," the February statement read.
"You get this guy out of Texas who has no idea of the local culture, he is out to win souls, and he comes with a lot of money," says Bob Alter, former Presbyterian pastor born and raised in the Indian mountain town of Mussoorie, and former superintendent of a missionary institution, the Woodstock School.
The problem with these newer churches, Alter says, is the tone of their message. "You have Baptists using the Diwali festival [the Hindu festival of lights], but they come to 'spread the light to those in darkness.' That is mighty offensive stuff, when you're out to tear down another religion."

Peaceful Christian missionaries :) hahaha


In the village of Brahmangaon, a group of Christians burned down several Hindu homes!!!!

LakshmiKant 125

You are very scared, aren't you?
You have used that word at least three times on this thread.

The world is still a good place to be, despite the trouble spots. You will be fine.

Mike

Chandra 117

Most of your postings on this thread commencing from # 1 till now are focused on proving me wrong. Whether you believe in it or not is clearly your choice and I have no problem with your comments. It is a process of learning. Only God (pick a name ::Krishna, Allah, Jesus, Yahweh, Ahura Mazda, Wahe Guru, Buddha, Mahavir, Bahaullah) can say the final word.

I was responding to " Lakshmikanth #106 call - the thing is no one is caring how the swami landed up in hospital."

And I said in 114 that "I am concerned about the Swami getting hurt and every one is." and every one should. It is wrong of you to assume that I did not care.

You were trying to find that in my original post. The question was brought up by Lakshmikant and I addressed it.

The real question to you is - was it right to burn the churches?

Chandra at 51

Chandra, my friend, you draw conclusions without checking it out, and the good thing is, you are fairly consistent with it.

No matter who it is, or what religion, my group and I take a principled stand on the issues of mistreatement of minorities anywhere.

We have condemned an endless issues where Hindus (and every faith) have been abused. I believe, I quoted the Lisbon incident on this thread earlier, Indeed, very few Hindu organizations have done any thing about it, at least I have written letters and have condemned acts against Hindus. I have nothing to gain from this, but that is the right thing to do.

In Trinidad, Lahore, Moscow, Kazhakstan, Malaysia, Bangladesh... it is quite a long list. I could pull a few links for you but there are plenty... Indeed, the New Hanuman Temple is coming up in Dallas (Frisco), I will be talking to the Mayor about granting the permit to build, he and I are good friends.

Tell me, have you taken a principled stand and condemned the massacre in Gujarat? Condemned Burning of Graham Staines in your alley. I hope you don't make another assumption.

Here are a few links:

http://mikeghouse.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/08/condemning-the-vandals-for-desecrating-the-temple.htm

Chandra... the system did not allow me to post about 6 links, so only one is coming to you now.
Go to my blog at Sulekha, and do the search, you will find most of them there.

Mike Ghouse

Chandra #120

Sorry to bring in unrelated subject of feminism. I was trying to describe the politics of victimology where feminism got a brief mention which commonsenseforall77 led me to elaborate.

Mike

There is nothing right in violence- burning churches or destroying mosques or killing people.

However, i hope one recognises that in India just because we Hindus are a majority does not mean we are always on the wrong end. This is the message that I and many others seem to gather from your article.

rgds

Mike-134

I draw conclusions on what I read here and I can see that you are not balanced. In order to back what I concluded I have already presented enough evidence from your own analysis.

Why dont you show us your neutral all faith side by condemning the attack on an 80 year old VHP actvist- Swami Saraswati by christian fundamentalists. Please append that in your article, I am sure Aaman can organise that for you.

thanks.

regards

Mike- 134


I condemn the attack on Graham Staines and his little children. The accused must be quickly punished.

I condemn the killing of innocent people in Gujarat. Each individual who participated in the violence must be accounted for thrown into Prison for the rest of their lives.


Nobody who violates the rule of law must be given an inch, we must swiftly apprehend them and punish them according to the law.

rgds

Mike,
If you have really read the news properly (which u shd if u r writing articles like this) it was first the Swami was attacked.
The lone person died was Hindu.
There are equal number of temples burnt as Churches.
You as your cronies in Media ignored all these.

So pls, you foget Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and take care of your community first.

Is all the things written below in wrong....
"http://desicritics.org/mt/mt-comments.php?mode=red&u=http://www.freerepublic.com/~ladyheron/"
??

Chandra and Kerty : why are you guys sooooo brew so much hate for Muslims and Christians in India, I think it has to do something at a personal level. Did your Sis, mother, or aunt ran away with a Muslim or somebody in your family converted to Christianity, or what, what is your problem, share with us, we will def help you solve it.
thanks , GOD BLESS YOU.

Lakshmikant # 109. I have quoted what I read
in the internet about the comment made by the former M.P.

Yes, 20% Christian community of Kerala has great
influence in politics. I am not pleading the
case of Christians or Christianity but pointing out that every human being has the right make their own decision to select their religious faith and political ideology. There should't have a double standard; one for the rich and powerful and another standard for the poor.

When I was growing up in Kerala, I read about
RSS simply as a hardcore Hindu religious party in
North India. They began to penetrate to the south and created problems by misleading a few
Hindus and turned them against Christians and
Muslims. Who lost the peace and harmony in
Kerala? Any radical ideology of hate and discord in a religious package is very dangerous
and that is a radical missionary organization
to convert people to a religion of hate and blood. Again the irony is that the leaders will
never shed blood but the blind followers pay the
price in blood and death. Since I don't know the whole truth about the root cause of Orissa's
problem, but the villain (according to the press
release) Swami Laxmiananananda Saraswathi is safe
without a scar to his body, but the people of
both Hindu and Christian faith, even people of
other faith and no faith are suffering pain and sorrows. When there is discord in a home, village or city, everybody will suffer.

Out of the 12 disciples of Jesus, only one had
a natural death in the island of Patmos (Apostle
John). And the rest had martyrdom through the most atrocious manner like beheading and crucifixion upside etc etc. But the message those disciples
delivered before their death planted seeds of
a spiritual revolution around the world.

I do agree with you, had they (Christians )kept
an attitude of the great martyrs, but it didn't
work out. We can't guide the news agencies, and
now the news agencies are putting the blame on
Swami Laxmianananda Saraaswathi as the instigator
of this problem. When we sow discord, we will
reap discord with multiple interest, likewise
when we sow peace and love, we will reap them with great joy.

Razor Mirage # 139

Did you read the article? I had responded once before, here it is again "Eleven Churches have been razed to ground following a reported attack on Swami Laxminananda Saraswati," If you came with a follow up question, that is also answered.

I am saddened to hear this statement in your note "There are equal number of temples burnt as Churches. You as your cronies in Media ignored all these." Isn't it your responsibility as well? Would you provide the link or put a paragraph together from National News papers?

My Community is Indian and I do not have barriers of religion or language, every one whose heritage is Indian is Indian. Period.

How one worships and what rituals one follows is a personal matter.
What affects the public sphere -it is a public matter, you, me and every Indian or a worldian has a right to question and or find solutions. The whole world is one family.

Neither you, nor I will sit quite and let things happen. You jump when some thing happens to Hindus and I JUMP when something happens to any human being with no distinction. That is my record.

Mike Ghouse

Chandra 139

Speaking in tongues, shaking in trances, miraculous healings... Are you talking about our Gurus? Been to Durga Jagarns? Been to Durgas? (yes Durgas) Heard about a place called White Field? Tirupathi?

What do you expect in a Christian religious event? Salvation is the crux of the conversation as Mukti is embedded in Hindu psyche and same goes with other faiths.

Every human is confronted with choices every moment of the day, that has a consequence, and religion is an alternate guide for understanding those consequences and modifying our behavior - Man is driven to the pleasures, when some of them are not? Religion is nothing more than the distilled wisdom of societies.

Just think of this simple formula called a principled stand: If I accuse Christians of speaking in tongues, does this apply to us? You will find an affirmation.

Mike

Chandra and Lakshimkant.

I just read Vimala's comments and want to add that - Most people who are responding here have a common interest, and most of them are not looking at it from a Hindu, Christian or Muslims perspective... their comments simply reflect their thought on the wrongs of the society and how it can be fixed.(corrected).

I request you to drop a personal perspective for a day, and look to the situation from Mr. Spocks'(Star Trek)point of view. You will find that we are all on the same side. Searching for a solution to the conflict.

Mike Ghouse

Kerty 112.

I missed your take on Victomology - it is worth exploring. Would you write an article on it? I would like to read more in detail.

Mike Ghouse

Even though a few people are get involved in
writing comments, there are thousands of people
around the world read " Desicritics" website.
We all can write the message of harmony and peace
at the wetbsite, not the other way around to create more attacks and frictions. Those people who are caught in the middle of a civil war and
religious inferno, they only know the pain of blood shed and death. We all believe in
different religions but I presume that we all
want to live in peace and we can influence a lot
of people in the way of love and peace.

Mike #145

Victimology is as old as politics. It certainly defines all modern politics. It exposes bricks and mortar of politics, and thus considered too raw and uncomfortable for most activists and pandits. Unfortunately, I have no interest in writing or posting articles - I am content responding to comments in threads, I like the interactiveness little too much.

Mike

Stop all that gyan and please add a condemnation of the attack on a 80 year old man (Mr. Saraswati) in your original post. If you dont do that your credibility is extremely low.

rgds

Mike Ghouse - 144

There are many who truly worried about the violence. I am too. I would never have bothered to respond to your post if you had condemned both sides. The fact is your original post does not condemn the christian missionaries and their followers for attacking a 80 year old Hindu activist. If you speak with Aaman, you can still add that in your original post. Once you do that, I will write here in a neutral manner from a problem solving perspective.

rgds

chandra:

after 37 comments on this board think it is time to sum up and write another article?

Chandra #148

Matthew in 141 writes "Swami Laxmiananananda Saraswathi is safe without a scar to his body"
Unless you found otherwise, there is no need to change that. Besides, when you said he was not doing well, I expressed my sorrow, that is done with.

You wrote "If you dont do that your credibility is extremely low."

Chandra, I am not here to gain credibility or any other benefit, such benefit are delterious and short lived. What happened was wrong and I wrote about it. You don't have to agree, you have your own opinion and it is as valid as mine.

Let's think as humans about other humans. We can make headways.

My regards to you too for speaking up, it is a virtue that I admire.

Mike Ghouse

Mike,

I am with you on MOST of the things you say. I am even prepared to spare some of my money to invest in any ideas you may have. Thats not the point here.

The point here is partial reporting. You reported a story without doing the groundwork. And I HAVE to read it to something close to fear mongering. i.e. when a texas dude who has no idea about the local demographics reads about it, his passions flare up for the victims who are xtians. (This is like the WMD situation in Iraq).

Now if we have a charlie wilson out here (google him) who reads this news and gets his boozy act together and decides: Hey lets give arms to the xtians fighting the HINDOOOOOOOOOOS who are making them victims of crimes against humanity (Humanity according to the ignorant part of the west is xtianity :) ). And then we would have fundu against another fundu, in short Iraq, Afghanistan repeated in orrissa.

Do you see where i am going.

This is why questions are being raised about your credibility.

I will have a neutral attitude to your article if you had done the groundwork and investigated it in a complete manner and then reported it. And then if any ignorant bible thumper from the west reads this he would have a clearer picture of what is happening and may not decide to do a charlie wilsons.

the lesser the number of charlie wilson's in the world the better.

test

test

test

test...

test.. this is a test to see if comments are getting delayed from my end

Editors: There is a SIGNIFICANT delay in my posting of the comment and it appearing here.

Am I being added to some kind of moderation queue?

the result on the web browser that i keep getting is a blank page and with the filename mt-comment-402

Mike Ghouse

Thank you so much. Now it seems we will have to rely on a known christian Mr. Mathews for news on a VHP activitist. So much for credibility

Your repeated denial to correct the facts in this article clearly indicate your bias.

TO ALL WHO ARE READING THIS ARTICLE. PLEASE DONOT BELIEVE THE FACTS OF THE CASE. AS AN EXAMPLE, PLEASE GOOGLE KORAPUT/CHRISTMAS ON GOOGLE.

Koraput in Orissa has a large number of christians and yet no incident of violence was reported. Very clearly the violence in these other towns/villages is due to the large scale violence by christians on poor hindus who refused to convert to christianity.

The truth is out...fundamentalist christians are responsible for all the violence

- They shot at police
- Burnt hindu homes
- Destroyed Hindu temples
- beat up a 80 year old Hindu leader

On the other hand in Koraput (which also BTW has seen large scale conversions) ZERO violence was reported.

Mike Ghouse

Thank you so much. Now it seems we will have to rely on a known christian Mr. Mathews for news on a VHP activitist. So much for credibility

Your repeated denial to correct the facts in this article clearly indicate your bias.

TO ALL WHO ARE READING THIS ARTICLE. PLEASE DONOT BELIEVE THE FACTS OF THE CASE. AS AN EXAMPLE, PLEASE GOOGLE KORAPUT/CHRISTMAS ON GOOGLE.

Koraput in Orissa has a large number of christians and yet no incident of violence was reported. Very clearly the violence in these other towns/villages is due to the large scale violence by christians on poor hindus who refused to convert to christianity.

The truth is out...fundamentalist christians are responsible for all the violence

- They shot at police
- Burnt hindu homes
- Destroyed Hindu temples
- beat up a 80 year old Hindu leader

On the other hand in Koraput (which also BTW has seen large scale conversions) ZERO violence was reported.

#142.
I can give only one example here.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=4051130
some lines I am copying here.
"....When they were prevented from attacking him by his followers the Christians hit someone with an ax and one Hindu died,"

Also, I dont have to show proofs for you to write a reality.
Also, pls dont judge me only on the comments here.
I am equally against any injustice happening anywhere to humanity anywhere.
-I am strongly against Iraq Invasion.
-I am against American hegamony.
-Suprised by how Main Stream Media ignores Hindu plight in India and some other countries.

IF IN ANY CORNER OF THE WORLD SOME INJUSTICE HAPPENS IT IS HINDU WHO 'JUMPS' AND TALKS AGAINST.His preaching supprort that. His upbringing nurture that. I am fist in the list of those Hindus.

Ref: 152

Lakshmikant, I respect what you are saying, and I saw where one could go, as you have. My intention was never to blame a faith or a community, if it came across to you in that fashion, it may have been your pre-disposition. However, I assure you that is not my intention and has never been and I will do my best, Ok, I will do my best to ensure fewer than few will take it in that sense.

This was my last paragraph in the article;

The best possible solution to put an end to the rogue elements is to rope in the individuals who were the cause of the disturbance and peace of the community, and punish them to the limits of the law. I urge the public and the government to refrain from giving a religious label to these miscreants. By giving a label, we are slapping other fellow religionist who had nothing to do with this chaos and shying away from putting an end to this. Hit the target boldly and not the periphery.

Happy new year
Mike Ghouse

Ref: 153

Chandra,

I don't look to you as a Hindu or Mathew as a Christian; I look to you as an Indians sharing their points of view.

This is you 38th post and I urge your next post to include "the facts". I am always open to the facts, most of us moderates are. Given the facts available at the time I wrote the piece, what I felt needed to be written. In between you presented a 'fact' that Swamiji was hurt and no one cared, I said I did. Then Matthew came up with a counter 'fact' that Swamiji is fine without any scars and I was happy to hear that.

Chandra, respectfully I submit, you simply will not be satisfied with any facts or figures, you started out charging that I fabricated the phrase "four major towns" - I presented to you what the national news paper said. That is you and I have no problems with it.

Ref: 155

Razor, please refer to my comment on 134. I compliment you on standing up against injustice any where in the world. I am with you on Iraq, American Hegemony, rather Bush hegemony and other things.

I can count more times I have stood up for the Hindu community than you can count for other communities. I just have another undue advantage over you...

..

I am much older than you.

Mike Ghouse

What is this "Hindu bashing" is fashionable now in India? Strangely it seems that in India it is a "pre-requisite" to be "Anti-Hindu" to be called a "thinker".

I have a question for the great thinker.

Sir, why should we ignore the fact that before missionaries moved into these areas and when everyone was Hindu or practicing indigenous faiths, there were no communal problems. But when under the "Pretext" of helping "Poor" these Christian missionaries moved in all of sudden not only the society but even families are divided and are fighting each other. What "factors" changed for this "communal disharmony" to spread among the same people who lived there in harmony for thousands of years?

I am sorry it say that it is very "Fetish" of you, to even blame Hindus or their resistance against conversions for all this "disharmony".

Why are you ignoring a simple fact that it is the missionaries who are bringing in this "alien" religion, which is distinct from "local" faith, traditions and above all is "non-tolerant" towards their "indigenous" faiths.

It is the Christian Missionaries who are spreading "hatred" towards Hindus. And "neo-christian" converts are "brainwashed" into as the saved ones because they have a "Savior" the Jesus and all his fellow brothers who did not convert are going to burn in hell. It is these kinds of verbal and social abuse from neo-converted and their masters the Christian Missionaries that causes frictions. I and millions like me "appreciate" the work done by such swamis who are at least trying to save harmony by exposing Missionaries.

I wonder why you are afraid to call a "Spade a Spade" and ignore to look at the root cause. May be it is a "ideological" issue for you.

Mike,

I did read your last para, but you yourself did not do the things you preach in that para in this article.

Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, an individual and a leader, did not want to see anyone convert from Hinduism to other faiths. This happened on the eve of Christmas when Christians were in a celebratory mood.

Saraswati is one of those individuals who did not get his religion. He was indeed motivated by fear that his people may switch alliances and cross over to the other group he perceived to be his enemies. The animal instinct within him wanted to pounce on any one who became an attractive nuisance to his people.

What does this mean? are u supporting the action of xtians who attacked him? Are u giving the attackers a motive, a justification to hurt a man?

Remember, the swami who feels bad for conversions is probably as worse as the people who beat him up. or those who used deadly weapons against the nations police.

I can go ahead and frame it this way: "The converted xtians do not respect the law of the land and they fired shots against the police. They do not like other religions disliking them and beat up religious leaders of other religions who do not agree with them"

Do u know how dumb this sounds.

I am scared of xtian conversions, not because of religious reasons, but because we are creating another set of fundus as is clear by what happenened by how the xtians acted (by prolly hurting the swami).

I hope you follow what you preach

Mike Ghouse: I wrote the piece, what I felt needed to be written. In between you presented a 'fact' that Swamiji was hurt and no one cared, I said I did. Then Matthew came up with a counter 'fact' that Swamiji is fine without any scars and I was happy to hear that.


Chandra: Did AS Mathew back up with any evidence? No. Yet you believe him?
Does AS Mathew dispute that the swamiji was not beaten? NO.

Your original post was biased in favor of missionaries. You are willing to believe somebody with adequate evidence. What else can I say!!!

Mike Ghouse: you started out charging that I fabricated the phrase "four major towns" - I presented to you what the national news paper said. That is you and I have no problems with it.

Chandra: Mr. Ghouse, please go back to the same link that you quote. It does not say major towns of Orissa. It says major towns of Kandhamal district. It seems you have not even read the newspaper correctly. The little that i know, the major towns/villages of Kandhamal district are not major towns of Orissa. Sorry!!!


Every post of yours diminishes your credibility. What can I say. All i request is for you to make the change in your original post. Add these lines

a. VIOLENCE BY BOTH SIDES IS CONDEMNABLE.

b. Missionaries are one of those groups who do not get their religion. They are motivated by fear that their people may switch alliances and cross over to the other group they perceived to be their enemies. The animal instinct within them wanted to pounce on any one who became an attractive nuisance to their people. That is the kind of fear taught in some of the centers in India and the only way they can rein in other people is to harass, growl and frighten - and certainly not treating others as equals provided in the nations constitution.

Once you add these lines, all the above comments from me and others will disappear!!

Folks!!!

Here is a link that Mr. Ghouse posted in # 23.

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Church-Attack-Indefinite-curfew-in-Orissa/254439/

This is what he said at the beginning of the post

"Four major towns in the state of Orissa, India are under a curfew to check the communal tensions "

Now go back to the link provided by Mr. Ghouse. This is what it says

"Curfew has been imposed in four major towns of Orissa's Kandhamala district"

The Indian Express aticle says FOUR MAJOR TOWNS OF KANDHAMALA DISTRICT. Mr. Ghouse says FOUR MAJOR TOWNS OF ORISSA!!!

When I had originally pointed this. He did not agree with me. Now, after reading this it is pretty clear that this Gentleman is careless to say the least. The article is written in a careless manner and I would request all of you to request that the article be corrected to ensure

a. Violence by christians on Hindus, including firing on police by christian rallyists be reported

b. Correct issue of 4 major towns

c. Condemn violence by both Hindu activisits and christian missionaries in equal measure

We cannot allow such mis-reporting and analysis to get away. Thanks

rgds

Mr. Ghouse

The truth is that the violence is not related to religion at all. Instead it is related to reservations for dalits in the Scehduled Tribe quota........

Behera, BJD MLA from Phulbani that witnessed violence after he sought Scheduled Tribe status for Panas who are Scheduled Caste, resigned "on moral grounds" shortly after meeting CM Patnaik who had summoned him.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Orissa_minister_quits_over_church_attacks/articleshow/2659650.cms

Mr. Ghouse

The reality is that the congress wants to desperately win in Phulbani. They have a huge deficit. One way to cover the deficit is to ensure more people are christian. This can be done by encouraging conversions. No wonder the BJP and BJD alliance responded with vigour. All this is political nonsense for 2009 elections. The congress party and the local missionaries work very closely to ensure votes- as closely as the right wingers who work closely with the BJP.

As they say...taali kabhi ek haath se nahin bajthi .....

Folks!!!

Here is a link that Mr. Ghouse posted in # 23.

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Church-Attack-Indefinite-curfew-in-Orissa/254439/

This is what he said at the beginning of the post

"Four major towns in the state of Orissa, India are under a curfew to check the communal tensions "

Now go back to the link provided by Mr. Ghouse. This is what it says

"Curfew has been imposed in four major towns of Orissa's Kandhamala district"

The Indian Express aticle says FOUR MAJOR TOWNS OF KANDHAMALA DISTRICT. Mr. Ghouse says FOUR MAJOR TOWNS OF ORISSA!!!

When I had originally pointed this. He did not agree with me. Now, after reading this it is pretty clear that this Gentleman is careless to say the least. The article is written in a careless manner and I would request all of you to request that the article be corrected to ensure

a. Violence by christians on Hindus, including firing on police by christian rallyists be reported

b. Correct issue of 4 major towns

c. Condemn violence by both Hindu activisits and christian missionaries in equal measure

We cannot allow such mis-reporting and analysis to get away. Thanks

rgds

"On Friday, NDTV was the first channel to reach Brahmanigaon, the epicentre of the Kandhmal communal violence and found poor families belonging to both Christian and Hindu communities suffering as a result of the mindless violence"

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070037204

Ref 160

Gill,
You don't get it.
There is a different between Hinduism and Hidutva, if you understand the difference, you wouldn't write. Besides, you did not read the column nor the comments.

Please do so

Mike Ghouse

Mike
Please respond to my comment #166.

Gill # 165 wrote:

"Why are you ignoring a simple fact that it is the missionaries who are bringing in this "alien" religion, which is distinct from "local" faith, traditions and above all is "non-tolerant" towards their "indigenous" faiths."

Alien religion? Is Christianity from Mars, transmitted to planet earth thru UFO's. So is India only open for so-called "local" religions? Do you have a check-list that clearly identifies local from alien traditions? Was there ever a point in history when there was a mythical wall that kept out alien influences? We have always been polycultural, polyethnic, polyreligious. World history has always been a titration, flow of ideas, insitutions, religions, cultures, science etc. across boundaries that never existed until the modern period when the nation-state came into existence. To pretend that there was a modern nation-state called India that had some home-grown traditions that were then presumably contaminated by external influences, is a great story to kid yourself, a nice narrative to induce self-delusions. Gill BTW, this comment is really not for you since you have made up your mind and your mind is certainly not open to any "alien" ideas; this comment is for others who are more open to ideas, as opposed to dogmas set in cement and concrete.

Mike..

Left has a nasty habit of appropriating the right to define labels as its see fit. Look at how it tries to hoodwink:

Socialism: Does it mean empowerment of social sphere? No, it is all about Sarakar-vad, empowerment of state. It is about removing the social sphere and transfering its role and functions to government.

Samajvad: same as Socialism. It is not about empowering Samaj. It is about empowering Sarakar/state. It is about removing the samaj by highlighting its ill.

Communism: It is neither about empowering community or commune - its about creating totalitarian state. Its about abolishing community or commune

Secularism: There are about half a dozen definitions of secularism - anywhere from respect for all religions to disrespect for all religions. It is so hydra-headed one never know which definition is being implied.

Communalism: Name implies it is about religious communes. Again, no definition is provided but it is supposed to be something very dreadful. But its dread is mainly derived from conflicting/competing religious aspirations and expressions. Any religious expression and aspiration is classified as communalism. Since minoritism exempts minorities, this one applies only to majority.

Feminism: The name implies empowering feminine qualities and roles in women. But it is just the opposite. It is about removing feminine qualities and adopting musculine qualities and roles. Its about achieving parity with men, in terms of qualities and roles.

Left has also tried to define what Hindutva is, which is alleged to be Hindu supremacy, hatred of minorities and creation of hindu theocratic state. Left goes to length to make a careful distinction that Hindutva has nothing to do with Hinduism. Never mind, that people who swear by Hindutva have explicitly spelled out what Hindutva is and there is no room for ambiguity about it. But Left does not like Hindus to define what Hinduism is, what their history is, and what hindutva is - left leaves no room for Hindus to define what they are. Such is the insecurity and paronoia Left suffers from.

While Hinduism relates to religious aspects, Hindutva encompasses the essence of being hindu, essence of hindu way of life, civilizational manifestation of Hindus. Hindutva means Hinduness, that which makes a person Hindu, a society to be Hindu. Thus asserting Hindutva means asserting all that is Hindu. Now why would being Hindu be fundamentalist or theocrtaic? If anything, Hindutva represents anti-thesis of fundamentalism and theocracy. Similarly, why would Hindutva be against minorities? Its social and cultural spheres being pluralistic, any number of groups can co-exist side by side and enjoy their religious, social and cultural freedoms. That where is the problem? The problem comes from groups who that are for supremacy, monolith, centralization, theocracy, fundamentalism and against diversity, decentralization, multi-culturalism - ie. Jehadism and missionaries. Thus any assertion of Hindutva implies opposition to Jehadism and missionaries. Thus left has reduced the definition of Hindutva to conflict with minorities, a negative ideology, an intolerant hate ideology. This has forced the Hindutva to establish its legitimacy by championing the basic tenants of Hinduism that HIndus can relate to - Lord Rama, Ayodhya, Rama Setu, Cow protection, conversion of Hindus etc. And so far, Hindutva is succeeding in connecting with Hindus and leftists are at a loss how to redefine Hindutva so that it becomes another dirty world like communalism.

Folks!!!

Here is a link that Mr. Ghouse posted in # 23.

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Church-Attack-Indefinite-curfew-in-Orissa/254439/

This is what he said at the beginning of the post

"Four major towns in the state of Orissa, India are under a curfew to check the communal tensions "

Now go back to the link provided by Mr. Ghouse. This is what it says

"Curfew has been imposed in four major towns of Orissa's Kandhamala district"

The Indian Express aticle says FOUR MAJOR TOWNS OF KANDHAMALA DISTRICT. Mr. Ghouse says FOUR MAJOR TOWNS OF ORISSA!!!

When I had originally pointed this. He did not agree with me. Now, after reading this it is pretty clear that this Gentleman is careless to say the least. The article is written in a careless manner and I would request all of you to request that the article be corrected to ensure

a. Violence by christians on Hindus, including firing on police by christian rallyists be reported

b. Correct issue of 4 major towns

c. Condemn violence by both Hindu activisits and christian missionaries in equal measure

We cannot allow such mis-reporting and analysis to get away. Thanks

rgds

Hi

Here is coverage of the current issue before the current violence and look how the analysis has changed after Dec 25th.....

http://www.hindu.com/2007/09/22/stories/2007092252750300.htm

http://www.hindu.com/2007/10/15/stories/2007101567230300.htm


The fact is that the violence is all about bloody reservations................

Mr. Ghouse

Here is an update of Mr Saraswati's health

Eighty-year-old Saraswati, who led an anti-conversion movement, was shifted to the SCB Medical College Hospital at Cuttack from Darinigibadi Government hospital, told reporters that a group of villagers launched an attack on him at the instruction of the Congress leader. "They attacked to eliminate me," he said adding this was for the seventh time that they failed to kill him. Saraswati, who is a member of the VHP's 'margadarshak mandali', was attacked by a group of villagers while he was on the way to Brahmanigaom yesterday. His driver and personal security guard were seriously injured in the incident and his car badly damaged. While Saraswati was admitted at Darinigibadi government hospital, his security guard was rushed to M K C G Medical College Hospital at Berhampur. Sources said the district administration of Kandhamal preferred to shift Saraswati to Cuttack hospital apprehending more danger in the locality due to presence of the VHP leader in Daringibadi area. VHP sources informed The Pioneer here that Swami's health condition is improving.

VHP leader Laxmanananda Saraswati had been sowing the seeds of communalism in the district where people belonging to different communities had been living peacefully for decades.
It's good to see christians fighting back.Christians should learn from the Godhra incident and arm themselves with guns to defend against trishul yielding hindoo hoodlums

Mike Ghosh

you wrote
""""Gill,
You don't get it.
There is a different between Hinduism and Hidutva,""""

------------

I would have known "hinduvta" , if it wasn't "banned" in "free" India.

My point is very simple. Why are you ignoring "basics". Hinduvta is not even ancient". It is even younger that "deoband Islam".

Why even this ideology "evolved" and today after so many years is being "accepted"?

Like some questioned me calling sematic faiths "alien" to India. Well they are because their conception and evolution is not base in "indian ethos". They were evolved in different culture by different people who had different needs, reality etc.

First Islam came and brought with it "alien" culture and convictions. Forced locals to adhere to this "new" identity and as a result same indigenous people of land of India were divided into two groups converts and non-converts. Results are all out in the open. Chaos is still going on.

Strangely we intentionally ignore to learn from History. Now once again the process of division and chaos is being implemented but this time it is the neo-christian missionaries

Why don't you look at real culprits?

What is "10/40 window" project of Missionaries.

They claim that countries between 10 and 40 degrees north latitude and reaching from western Africa through Asia are the breeding ground.

Sometimes referred to as the "Resistant Belt," it is an area that includes 35% of the world's land mass, 90% of the world's poorest peoples and 95% of those who have yet to hear anything about Christianity.

That's exactly what I meant when I said "call spade a spade". Poor Swamy is in not the "instigators", it is the missionaries and they need to be stopped not supported. Because this conversion crap is a "institutionalized" and are openly propagated to "destroy" the so called "Resistan Belt" and make them christian.

Now are you propagated that Hindus have NO RIGHT to "resist" this "institutionalized" destruction. I am sorry but that is "biased" and "unjust".

Commomsenfo # 175

you wrote
""""your mind is certainly not open to any "alien" ideas; this comment is for others who are more open to ideas, as opposed to dogmas set in cement and concrete.""""

--

Reply

I like that I think you should re-read your own post again keeping this above statement in mind.

---------------

you wrote

"""Alien religion? Is Christianity from Mars""""
--

Reply

Yes it is Alien to India. It did not evolve in India, was not evolved by Indians, it was not evolved based on Indian ethos, reality, traditions, culture etc.

I do not know what definition of a religion you have and according to you what is the purpose of religion in a society.

---------------
you wrote

""India only open for so-called "local" religions?""""

Reply

Everyone is free to practice their faith. But yes there is a problem with the conversion work of neo-missionaries.

If you call yourself an Indian than you would not ignore the results of "Missionary Conversions" in North-eastern states. I do not think that as a peace loving individual I would like all of India suffer like North-east. And to save rest of India from similar situation is very simple stop the "culprits" and they the "neo-missioanries"

--------------------------
you wrote

""""Do you have a check-list that clearly identifies local from alien traditions?"""

Again if you are Indian You would know what Dharmas evolved from India.

---------------
you wrote


""""We have always been polycultural, polyethnic, polyreligious.""""

Reply


That's your own progative. To understand the above in Indian context you need to learn Dharmas and related school of thoughts.

First alien religion that entered India was Islam brought destruction and it continues even today. And the irony is that it is violence between converts and non converts from same group of indigenous people.

And now another alien religion Christanity is repeating the process.

----------------------------

you wrote

"""World history has always been a titration, flow of ideas, insitutions, religions, cultures, science etc. """"

Reply

You do not have to preach that to Hindus. No one has right to preach Hindus tolerance and respect for other faith because except hindus no on has practiced it. And I guess the alien religions first Islam and now neo-christains are taking advantage of this Hindu notion.

Gill wrote 'Again if you are Indian You would know what Dharmas evolved from India.'

Did Hinduism originate in India?
Or did the Aryans brought it from the steppies? Just as the Muslim, Zoroastrians, Christians and Jews came from other lands.

Would a true Hindu talk like that, the one who beleive all paths....? Hinduism is about living like God has created, with all the represenationas and manifestations. It is not an exclusive ideology.

Indians today eat, drink, dance, work and drive like they do in west? Do we need to discard that as it is not indigenous?


Mike

Is Hinduism a thought, an idea of existence a and co-existence OR a dogma that is exclusive?

Mike

Mike has still not responded to my comment #166

Mike wrote #183


"Gill wrote 'Again if you are Indian You would know what Dharmas evolved from India.'

Did Hinduism originate in India?"

Reply

Yes it did! Again is there such thing as "Hinduism". Can you show me one Hindu Scripture that mentions the word "hindu".

It is a western term given to Indian Dharmas. And yes Vedas were written in India. And anyway "Lord Shiva" is the oldest living God because he has been found in Harappa excavations in Yogic posture. As such even Yoga was practiced during Harappa era.

------

Mike wrote

""""Or did the Aryans brought it from the steppies? Just as the Muslim, Zoroastrians, Christians and Jews came from other lands."""""

Reply


Sorry if you would be more aware and up to date on Historical facts than you would know that at academic levels in west especially in USA the AIT (Aryan Invasion theory) has been discredited and its no more valid and is not taken as a "fact" anymore.

There are no "Proofs" let it be genetic, archeological or historical to support it. Recent archeological and scientific studies in the field have disproved AIT.

This theory was based and originated on the works of untrained so called professionals in the field. They were neither Archeologists nor Historians to begin with.

AIT propagators look at the works of following people and justify it through their works

All this started with William Jones, a British judge in India who in a 1786 lecture (published 1788) "The Sanscrit Language"

works and essays of Dane Rasmus Christian Rask in 1814 onwards

And lastly in 1840's onwards Muller's works. If AIT got any acceptance in India initially was because of his closeness and communications with Brahmo Samaj

Also works from Griffith, MonierWilliams and H. H. Wilson are used to justify AIT

----------


Mike wrote

"""""Would a true Hindu talk like that, the one who beleive all paths....? Hinduism is about living like God has created, with all the represenationas and manifestations. It is not an exclusive ideology."""""""

Reply

Once again what is a true Hindu??? What do you mean by that??/

I according to my scriptures believe in all paths of Dharma lead to same God only. But if someones Prophets has taught them that his book and his way is the only way. And every "non-beleiver" is a "Pagan" or "Kafir" than what are you doing "preaching" us Hindus.

You should go and preach them the "Semitic religions" to respect other faiths and learn from Hindu faith that all faiths lead to same god. Teach them to Believe in "assimilation" and not in "Conversions". Teach them that it wrong and unethical to claim that their God is better than mine their Book is the only "correct book" and everything else is "false".

Why are you scared to call a "spade a spade"? And look for scapegoats by attacking Hindus who are the "victims" as a society in this "conversion game".

-------

There have always been "religious wars" among the semitic religions based on My prophet is correct or My book is correct. Leading to death, rape and destruction in the name of religion. Only way out "believe" in my God..

Have you ever seen a religious war among Indian Dharmas????. Were there ever holy wars between Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism etc...........Why because Indian Dharmas know how to tackle differences in a non-violent manner. Unlike Islam and Christainity.

As such Semitic religions are not part of this family of Indian "Dharma". They have been in the cause on "death", "rape", "plunder" and "destruction" since they day they set their foot in the "Sub-continent" of India.

It seems like you want every Hindu to look at his faith, existence, awareness from your prescribed "dogma" and "political correctness" only.

This twisted translations of Vedas and other Hindu scriptures were done by Christian scholars and missionaries in 18th and 19th century. Most prominent of them were Muller, Griffith, Monier Williams and H. H. Wilson. And today you quote them to question my "faith" and ideology. It doesn't make sense.

Sorry as Young Hindu and especially product of todays "information revolution", I do not prescribe to their "industrial revolution" outdated versions, translations and convictions of my religious scriptures and philosophies. I am quite capable of understand and adopting them without any help from "vested interest" translators. Especially from a era when "racial" superiority was the acceptable norm of the day.

----------
you wrote

"""""Indians today eat, drink, dance, work and drive like they do in west? Do we need to discard that as it is not indigenous?""""

What is wrong with that????? What are trying to say??? Are comparing with the followers of "Semitic Faiths". Am I a Muslim and my religion teaches me to imitate a "medival life style" to be a "pure faithful"???. Or I am propagating a life style as prescribed by the Missionaries for "neo-converts".

Or are you suggesting I am some kind of a religious preacher. I am a normal "Hindu" who loves life at the same time if not like the "brainwashed" hindu of 50's to 80's who thought to be a "normal" Hindu is to be "meek" "submissive" and most important "inferior" to "semitic faiths". Sorry this is a different generation I as Hindu is as much "proud" of his heritage, faith and identity as a Muslim or Christian. And no leftists can take it away.

---------

It seems like "Macaulay" from with in you is talking.

Problem seems to be that you do not like the fact that I do not prescribe to the "leftists" translation of my faith, history, tradition and conscious. And as such I am wrong by default. And somehow I always got to prove my position. You talked of AIT You prove it that Aryan Invasion ever happened. And it better not be based on the works of non-professionals I mentioned before. Because they are no more considered any scientific proofs anymore.

By them way let me remind you also the Scientific Gentics tests and studies in India have found that North and South Indians both share the same genes. As such there is not Dravadian or Aryan race they both belong to the one and the same race.

But sir times have change "leftists" are not the only thinking people in India, a "normal man" that "leftists" always thought didn't have the required "intellect" and was not capable of resolving his problems and issues, is very much capable.

I guess I should remind you guys to catch up to the changing times. Leftists versions of history are outdated and are not acceptable anymore. They lack substantial, non-distorted and unbiased proofs to prove their verisions. They are unable to shove their versions down peoples throat is simply because the "censorship" that Hindus in India were living in is gone by the invent of "information" revolution. How many of you know that during 1982 when the textbooks in India were being re-written """it was officially "FORBIDDEN" to portray the medival historical period of India as a "conflict" between Hindus and Muslims""".....

Lakshmikanth # 27
Thanks.
Why ???
"Those who get it, go about living their day to day life" Why these people do not do some thing about it. Is it bacause they are ignorent? May be not. Is it because they do not have courage to go against extrimists in their own religion. We (in USA) have asked these same question for people in Iraq before Iraq war #2. Big question was why punish them innocent Iraqes for the crime commited by few not so innocent Iraqes.
We (in India) asked the same Question after the attack on The Golden Temple.
Back in 80's I never thought of Hindus in same context. But now it is reality.
Please do some thing..

Gill,

No one owns a religion or God, no one is the owner of any scriptures. Religion is not any one's property nor is it copyrighted or patented.

Hinduism is not your religion or mine, any one of us can follow any part of it or whole of it, and follow.

One of the few reasons we have conflicts is because we start owning religions and God, none of them are ownable.

It may not be a new thought for your, but it is coming...

Think about it.

Mike Ghouse

Mike Ghouse # 188:

Right on Mike, I with you on this one ie. the belief that someone owns a particular religion; BJP/VHP/RSS types believe they own Hinduism; Jamaat-e-Islami/ Wahabis etc. believe they own Islam etc. etc. The many varieties of evangelists believe they own the patents to Christianity! The logic of corporate capitalism isn't it? Religon is a private property of these parties, or so they believe!

Ref: 189

Common sense,

Agree with you; the ones who wear their religion on the sleeve are the Jamaat-e-Islami, Wahhabis, Hindutvadis and the Neocons and their likes.

Ordinary Muslims, Hindus, Christians live their day to day life, by the way they are the silent majority. The petty political wars don't mean a thing to them.

Jesus is not owned by Christians, Bhagvan (Brahman, Ishawar or any other name)is not the property of HIndus or Muslims don't own Allah. In fact, it is a gross injustice on the part of Political Hindus, Muslims and Christians to bottle up "their God" into small enclaves.

It is also a darned shame if Bhagvad Gita is limited to Hindus, it belongs to the whole humanity, just as Qur'aan, Bible and other books are. These are the self help book like Dale Carnegie, Napolean Hills, Tony Robbins.. the good can be grasped in all. A few of them boys want to have a monopoly... it will not happen in the coming few decades. Each faith is beautiful.

Mike Ghouse

Mike wrote

"""Hinduism is not your religion or mine; any one of us can follow any part of it or whole of it, and follow.

One of the few reasons we have conflicts is because we start owning religions and God, none of them are ownable."""'

Reply

Sorry Mike I think you got to correct yourself. Why do you keep talking of Hinduism and keep attacking it without any legitimacy. You even went to the extent of attacking my faith and beliefs. You claim my faith is not mine.

It has nothing to do with the issue of "Conversion". Why is it that "leftists" always deviate away from the real issue??

I simply asked you before why don't you call a spade a spade??

Why don't you first attack "institutionalized conversions" by Semitic faiths. Can you explain why it is so important for them to "convert" Hindus????

And it seems you keep ignoring the root of the "conversion issue".

Its very "ironic" you claim to be a "pluralist". Are you?? I think you are more "anti-Hindu" and are justify and legitimate all the "ills" of Semitic faiths at the expense Hindu faith.

In short it seems you and similar people like you are assigned the job of demagoguery. And help consolidate minorities and others as "vote banks".

---------

I usually do not answer deviated question from the issue and topic but since you insist

Hinduism is my "personal" faith. And yes every persons faith belongs to that person.

Just like "Pluralism" is your faith. It is your "ism" you believe in . But believe in a "religion" that is not just a philosophy only but it a full package with ethics, rituals, traditions and convictions.

In short you are trying to "re-invent" the wheel in regards to your "personal" faith I am not. I have one and yes that faith and religion belongs to me as an individual.

I hope you know I do not live in an "anarchist" or "Communist" state.

-------

No the only reason you have conflict is because the "Semitic" faiths "propagate" and "justify" "violence" as a "legitimate" "tool" to spread their prophets and their books.

And for "peaceful" Dharma's of India it is people like you with your twisted ideologies are working as a propaganda "tool" for legitimating the spread of "Semitic faiths" prophets and their book. You are simply justifying their "conversion zeal' and advocating destruction of "Hindus' in disguise.

Mike:

You still have to answer my comment #166. I guess you are ignoring it, would help me a lot to understand the motive behind this article

Lakshmikanth

Mr. Ghouse's credibility on this matter is zero. No wonder he refuses to respond to you :-)

Gill

Who are you talking about leftists?
I am a moderate and most of the people on this thread are moderates. I have not seen any leftist yet, but a few right wingers.

Mike Ghouse

Chandra and Lakshmikant.

You have an insatiable desire to keep repeating the questions, and that is your choice. You don't reflect on what you read, you have another question to advance even before you read the response.

The article was written with the intent of opening peoples mind, that communalism is mindless, and that we should treat this immediately as an issue between individuals and not religions. If you don't get this, any further conversation is meaningless.

Once you understand the difference between the Islamists and Islam, Hindutvadis and Hinduism, political ideologies bent on a destructive path for our nation, you will find relief. Both are dangerous to our society, we need to live and let live.

If you two and a few others think my credibility is zero, so be it. If you are open, I always want to clarify, you are not.

Unless you have a new one, please do not expect me to respond to the same questions. You can find ample answers in the one hundred ninety some comments on this thread.

Mike Ghouse

Mike,

dude did u even read what i wrote on 166.

You contradicted your entire essence of your last para in the entire article :)

Mike


Running away from debate is of no use anyway.

I am yet to hear an apology from you for mis-representing facts.

The Indian Express link that you sent says 4 major towns of Kandhamal, you say it is 4 major towns of orissa

You agreed with AS Mathew that the VHP leader was not hurt. However, the media are now reporting that his driver and assistant were injured and he himself has been admitted in the hospital.

If you mean, opening minds to lies and half truths, the answer is NO. On the other hand one can argue that an apology for printing errors in this article will go a long way in moving things forward.

rgds

Mike,
I gave you the link as a proof to what I said.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=4051130

I appreciate the point that you are good human than me. But how can I?
You din't even acknolodge this..then how can I believe what all you said?

It is amusing to see people getting so worked up when VHP is pointed out for their role. No one (including the Christians) have any problem in saying that it is was criminal/fundamentalist Christians who attacked the swami. It seems, that the VHP/BJP sensed this insecurity and identity crisis and cashed-in (with the likes of Modi, rioters and rapists as saviors and deliverers). VHP is a known fundamentalist organization for many years (which opposes religious freedom, believes in use of violence, unconstitutional means etc). It is natural for the news reports to name the organization and its actions. How does that become an anti-hindu bias (unless one is identifying VHP as representative of the entire hindu community, there is no reason to be angry about it)? The people who attacked the swami can at be described as "christian mobs" because there is no organized/known Christian organization which believes in physical attacks/retaliation which is involved here (and this is the almost the first time we are hearing use of violence/retaliation by "christian mobs"). The feeling of victimhood seems to be at an all time high. Even when the author repeatedly mentioned that he condemns all violence by all fundamentalists, that does not seem to satisfy. The root of the problem, it seems (in general - not this specific case of orissa violence)) is that people are exercising their freedom of religion and some people (VHP and its supporters) are having sleepless nights and looking for some excuse for violence and terrorizing.

Kumar

- Where is the evidence that VHP was involved in the violence?

rgds

Chandra:

>> Where is the evidence that VHP was involved in the violence?

You are diverting the discussion. My post (#199)is about people getting worked up and accusing the news reports as "anti-hindu" bias, when the news reports are mering reporting the alleged role of VHP/fundamentalists and christian mob.

Kumar

Which news report claims that VHP is involved in the violence?

rgds

Chandra:

>> Which news report claims that VHP is involved in the violence?

Still diverting from the original point. But here are example of news reports pointing to VHP
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/vhp-attacks-churches-in-orissa-towns-curfew-imposed/55000-3.html
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14580787

Kumar

None of these are from the police. In both cases the journalist is speculating that it could be the VHP.

Chandra:

>> None of these are from the police. In both cases the journalist is speculating that it could be the VHP.


Of course, everything needs a investigation and conviction by court, that is why the journalists add words like "reportedly" or "allegedly" etc. But certain things can be reasonably estimated by journalists based on the circumstances and accounts they investigate (whether they have VHP memebership or not, one can reasonably bet that the people involved are supporters of VHP ideology and got their instigation from them). For example, if the people were wearing saffron bands and using slogans typically used by RSS/VHP while they burnt the churches, one can estimate where they are from or what organization/ideology is driving their actions. To demand further proof before investigations have taken place is of no use. In any case, it is some fundamentalists/criminals who are involved (on both sides) - who else would burn places of worship, indulge in physical attacks etc. No law abiding citizen need to buy into the rhetoric of victim mentality and get worked up about any biased reporting etc. Let there be CBI enquiry (or whatever) and let truth be determined. While there is no hope of VHP/RSS changing (they must be thirsting to create more Gujarats), one hopes that the leaders of christian community will take these incidents seriously and teach their people to rather show the other cheek and never to retaliate etc.

Mike Ghouse wrote
""""""""Gill

Who are you talking about leftists?
I am a moderate and most of the people on this thread are moderates. I have not seen any leftist yet, but a few right wingers.

Mike Ghouse""""""""""

-----
Reply

Sorry if I sounded personal. What I meant was your approach towards the Issue of conversion is ideologically leftist. Just like you see some right wingers same way as a common Hindu with no affiliation to any ideology or groups I see your ideological lineage more towards the left.

You might see your self as a "moderate" but again your views on the issue of "conversion" do not come out as "moderate". A moderate is to be in the middle but do you think are adopting a middle line on the issue. Your statements do not portray "moderate view". Sorry to day but they seem more biased on one side. Looks like you have already chosen sides.

You are justifying "conversions" and at the same you want to illegitimate any "resolve" against it from the society that is being targeted by the "Conversion Brigades".

I am the kind of person who believes in "Resolve". For that one need to identify cause factors with honesty. That's why I asked you before also why are you afraid to call a "spade a spade"?

If Hindus have retaliated why have they done so. Why after peaceful existence of thousands of years. Were the same indigenous people of the area fighting with each other even before the Missionary conversions?

What is tearing families and societies apart? I look at "Missionaries" and "Conversions" as the main culprit.

Take this "culprit" factor out of the equation and we do not have any "issue". There would be no "recipe" for division and eventual "violence. Problem Solve.

But your resolve is create more "Chaos" by justifying and supporting the "culprit".

This does not portray "moderate" conviction. Its sounds more ideological "fanaticism" , no matter what the consequences the "reality" has to be molded with my ideology only.

Since you are a Moderate, would you support Hindu Missionary work in the same area??? I do not see you propagating equal Missionary Rights to Hindus also. Instead you want to "curtail" the Hindus in the favor of "semitic faith" conversions.

Gill (#206)

>> If Hindus have retaliated why have they done so.

It is unfair to say that "hindus" are involved in the violence, burning of places of worship etc. The involvement is by those who believed in violence/retaliation and opposed freedom of religion.

>> Why after peaceful existence of thousands of years. Were the same indigenous people of the area fighting with each other even before the Missionary conversions? What is tearing families and societies apart? I look at "Missionaries" and "Conversions" as the main culprit.

Even things like inter-caste marriages, dalit entry into temples, women's rights etc also cause 'disruption of peace' by some self-appointed protectors of tradition. That does not mean that what is right should be rejected. The law cannot appease the touble makers. The freedom of religion is a fundamental right and cannot be denied just because some trouble makers are having sleepless nights about it. Ramchandra Guha writes "The opposition to the reform of Hindu personal laws was led by the Jana Sangh (forerunner of today's BJP) and the RSS. The RSS held hundreds of meetings throughout India, where the proposals to outlaw bigamy and to give women property rights were denounced in the strongest language. The Hindu Right claimed that, as one born in a low-caste home, Ambedkar had no business or authority to interpret or override the Hindu shastras. The laws being drafted to allow personal choice in marriage and inheritance rights to daughters were denounced as "an Atom Bomb on Hindu society". ( http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=1530813e-9f26-4d70-bf92-7a5eaff7b257 )

>> Take this "culprit" factor out of the equation and we do not have any "issue".

You cannot take out the fundamental human rights of people (like freedom of religion/speech etc) to appease the religious fundamentalists and trouble makers.

Chandra,
People should wait for a bonafide
document or signed confession.
Click on following links from
some reputed news agencies:

Times OF India:
"11 more churches torched in Orissatowns"

Hindustantimes:
"Activists of VHP and Bajrang Dal blocked traffic in many areas.."

CNN-IBN News:
"VHP attacks churches in Orissa towns"

BBC:
"A curfew has been imposed in parts of the eastern Indian state of Orissa after Hindu hardliners attacked up to a dozen Christian churches, police say."

Chandra,
BBC report quoting Police "Hindu hardliners attacked up to a dozen Christian churches".
Now will you speak up against this sense less act?
In democratic country conflicts should be resolved through justice system.
When law makers (politicians) themselves resort to streets then soon we will be dealing the same problem Like our neighbor Pakistan.

Even things like inter-caste marriages, dalit entry into temples, women's rights etc also cause 'disruption of peace

Once again you can not compare "apples with oranges". Things you mentioned are "local" issues and do not get erupted into statewide violence.

Where as "conversion" is foreign and institutionalized effort. They are dividing existing societies into two camps.

Why was India partitioned? For this very fact a alien ideology and faith converted local indigenous people created two camps and eventual division. Why are you ignoring the North-east and effects of conversion?


You cannot take out the fundamental human rights of people (like freedom of religion/speech etc) to appease the religious fundamentalists and trouble makers.

Sir I am not taking it out. You are nullifying Fundamental rights of "Hindus" by proxy.

Institutionalized Conversions are not part of "Fundamental human Rights". Freedom to choose ones religion is "Fundamental human Right".

-------------

In your post you are bringing in Caste and are attacking Hindus. Which is off the topic?

Anyway why are you only attacking Hindus on caste, Dr Ambedakar attacked Muslims society of India also for prevalent Caste system and mistreatment lower castes for example "Arzal".

Why you do not talk of Bhanar, Halalkhor, Hijra, Kasbi, Lalbegi, Maugta, Mehtar etc in Muslim society? There treatment.

Than you mentioned "women right". I do not see you attacking Islamic Shariat and their Quran. You are OK with a Muslim having 5 wives. Why this hypocrisy? Or you are scared of the "retaliation" from Muslims?

Strange to see how so called "moderates" in India stand for. Because all I have seen is that every self-proclaimed "moderate" is simply "biased" and "anti-Hindu".

In other words it seems if you are biased and attack Hindus and their faith than by default you are "Moderate".


But than again I guess it is India, just like so-called seculars have their own distinct and self created definitions same way self-proclaimed "moderates" have their own distinct twisted version of definition.

I realzed links are not working in # 208
Here are the addresses for links

Times OF India:
"11 more churches torched in Orissatowns"
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Eleven_more_churches_torched_in_Orissa/articleshow/2654765.cms

Kumar wrote #207

>>>>>Even things like inter-caste marriages, dalit entry into temples, women's rights etc also cause 'disruption of peace<<<<<<<

---

Reply

Once again you can not compare "apples with oranges". Things you mentioned are "local" issues and do not get erupted into statewide violence.

Where as "conversion" is foreign and institutionalized effort. They are dividing existing societies into two camps.

Why was India partitioned? For this very fact a alien ideology and faith converted local indigenous people created two camps and eventual division. Why are you ignoring the North-east and effects of conversion?

-----

Kumar Wrote

>>>>You cannot take out the fundamental human rights of people (like freedom of religion/speech etc) to appease the religious fundamentalists and trouble makers.<<<<<

--------
Reply

Sir no one is talking of taking it out. You are nullifying Fundamental rights of "Hindus" by proxy.

Institutionalized Conversions are not part of "Fundamental human Rights". Freedom to choose ones religion is "Fundamental human Right".

-------------

In your post you are bringing in Caste and are attacking Hindus. Which is off the topic?

Anyway why are you only attacking Hindus on caste, Dr Ambedakar attacked Muslims society of India also for prevalent Caste system and mistreatment lower castes for example "Arzal".

Why you do not talk of Bhanar, Halalkhor, Hijra, Kasbi, Lalbegi, Maugta, Mehtar etc in Muslim society? There treatment.

Than you mentioned "women right". I do not see you attacking Islamic Shariat and their Quran. You are OK with a Muslim having 5 wives. Why this hypocrisy? Or you are scared of the "retaliation" from Muslims?

Strange to see how so called "moderates" in India stand for. Because all I have seen is that every self-proclaimed "moderate" is simply "biased" and "anti-Hindu".

In other words it seems if you are biased and attack Hindus and their faith than by default you are "Moderate".


But than again I guess it is India, just like so-called seculars have their own distinct and self created definitions same way self-proclaimed "moderates" have their own distinct twisted version of definition.

I realzed links are not working in # 208
Here are the addresses for links

Hindustantimes:
"Activists of VHP and Bajrang Dal blocked traffic in many areas.."
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=757d4ca6-d233-4912-b37e-4a9beb62f442&ParentID=ccfe296a-4f2f-4f06-8875-a7ddf23743da&&Headline=Curfew+imposed+in+four+Orissa+towns

Another link for # 208

CNN-IBN News:
"VHP attacks churches in Orissa towns"
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/vhp-attacks-churches-in-orissa-towns-curfew-imposed/55000-3.html

Very reputed link for # 208

BBC:
"A curfew has been imposed in parts of the eastern Indian state of Orissa after Hindu hardliners attacked up to a dozen Christian churches, police say."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7160164.stm

Link For # 208 Last one from ABC
ABC News:
"Hindus Attack Churches on Christmas"
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=4051130

Amit Patel

Your links donot prove anything at all. Here is a link that details the reasons for the violence. If only people investigated the real reasons. No VHP activists were involved...

http://www.kalingatimes.com/orissa_news/news1/20071231-reservation-root-cause.htm

Here is thr true story of the riots in orissa

Reservation, not religion, root cause of Orissa riots RSS


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phulbani (Orissa), Dec 31 (IANS): Religion may have been the trigger for this week's riots that killed at least five in Orissa's Kandhamal district, but the root of the conflict lies in reservations for tribals in educational institutions and government jobs.

The district, about 200 km from state capital Bhubaneswar , has a population of over 600,000. Of them, 450,000 are from the Scheduled Tribe (ST) called Kandha. Most of the others are from the Scheduled Caste (SC) called Pana - over 95 percent of them Christian.

The majority of the riot victims in the hill-slope villages surrounded by forests were Christian.

Hindu radical groups such as the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) have a sizeable following among the Kandha tribals, but "most of the attackers were not members of these groups," a district police official told IANS on condition of anonymity.

"Members of the Pana community are financially better off than the tribals. They have been dominating politics and occupy powerful posts in government," Lambodar Kanhar, a tribal leader and secretary of Kui Samaj - the apex body of the Kandha tribe - told IANS. Kui is the mother tongue of the Kandhas.

The region has witnessed numerous clashes in the past over attempts of conversion and re-conversion of tribals and Panas by both Christians and Hindus.

The trouble had escalated in the early 1990s when the Kui, Kuvi and Kuee groups were added to the Kandhas in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) list.

Since then, Panas have been demanding their inclusion in the ST list as well. An ST can continue to get extra benefits as a tribal even after conversion to Christianity, but a SC member cannot.

The Kandhas have been opposing this demand.

Former state steel and mines minister Padmanabha Behera, who resigned Dec 28, and senior congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Radhakanta Naik are both members of the Pana community.

The Kui Samaj has been alleging Behera and Nayak were helping Panas get ST certificates. In August 2006, the group launched a campaign demanding Behera's resignation from his ministerial post.

It organised several rallies across the district and threatened a violent agitation if the demand was not met. However, the state government ignored the Kui Samaj. This frustrated and angered many Kandhas.

It was in this backdrop that Hindu and Christian groups clashed on Christmas Eve in Brahmanigaon, about 150 km from district headquarter Phulbani.

The problem intensified the same day when some people attacked the vehicle of local Hindu leader Swami Laxmananda Saraswati near Daringbadi when he was on his way to perform a yagna in Brahmanigaon.

Then the tribals attacked Panas, damaged their churches and drove them out of their homes.

"Although there are isolated incidents of Panas attacking tribals, by and large it was a collective attack by thousands of tribals on Christian Panas and the main reason was not religion alone," a district police official said.

Real reasons for violence in orissa

The demand for reservation added fuel to the communal fire, which had engulfed Kandhamal district in the last few days. Under the existing rules, people belonging to Scheduled Tribes (ST), who converted to Christianity, continue to enjoy the reservation benefits meant for STs. But the same does not apply to members of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) who converted to Christianity.

After conversion, SCs are deprived of reservation benefits. The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, issued by the President under Article 341 says: "No person who professes a religion different from Hinduism shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste."

Of the more than one lakh Christians in Kandhamal district, 60 per cent have converted from SCs and they are locally called Pana Christians. But the Pana Christians speak the Kui language like tribal Kondhs. Because of this linguistic affinity with tribals, Pana Christians have been demanding ST status. They have based their demands on the Presidential Order of 2002. This has been opposed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) as well as some prominent political leaders of Kandhamal who bank on Hindu tribals to sustain their support base in the area. Of Kandhamal's total 6.48 lakh population, 51.96 per cent are tribals.

The district administration is yet to make an official estimate of the loss caused to particular communities in the clashes. But preliminary reports suggest the Pana Christians have been targeted the most.

In 2002, the President issued an order, which mentioned Kui in the ST category. After the order, Pana Christians are demanding a correction of their Record of Rights (RORs). In the RORs, Pana Christians want their ST status to be mentioned, while the Orissa government is interpreting the presidential order differently.

Taradatt, commissioner-cum-secretary of the ST and SC Development Department, issued a clarification on September 18, 2007 to all district collectors. The clarification said, "It is a well-known fact that Khond/Kond/Kandha tribes in Orissa speak Kui. It will not be permissible to include all Kui language speakers as Scheduled Tribes."

VHP state general secretary Gouri Prasad Rath told Hindustan Times, "If Pana Christians are demanding ST status because they speak Kui, there are people from general castes who speak the language. If speaking Kui is the only yardstick for ST status, it should be uniformly applied."

Former steel and mines minister Padmanav Behera, who resigned from the state cabinet on Friday said: "Under no circumstances, can the Kui-speaking Panas be given ST status

Amit Patel: BBC is one of the most condescending media on India ever.

Read their India Timeline and India Country Profile, and tell me if you can trust them totally. (If you have wet dreams about a leftist india, then this may satisfy you)

Kumar:

Not many out here are arguing because VHP are involved.

There are two things that I am interested in

1) FACTS on the ground, so that an appropriate rational action can be taken, rather than leting some western jingoist do a dumb charlie wilson. This article fails in getting the actual facts on the ground and analyzing it, because its an analysis on an aggregation of what other news media reports, its becoming more and more clear that fingers were being pointed even before evidence was collected. Even if the so called resonably involved VHP(in other words usual suspects) was involved.

2) Mis representation of facts and attacks on the entire Hindu community by the western media. Which is a very bad way to handle the communal situations. But what do the charlie wilsons of the west care anyway, they want to win their wars. i.e. war against xtianity.

3) Portrayal of xtians as victims of crimes against humanity, without doing the appropriate ground work. The victims were the innocent Hhindus and Xtians and the perpetrators were the extremists. So any portrayal of victims existing in only one community is an obvious BS. Thats the music that this article plays.

Do u see why so many people got worked up?

Mike has contradicted his whole article in his concluding para. No one, including himself, even bothers to take a look at it.

Chandra: Thanks for giving some new possible angles. Rather than resorting to the usual 'victim' perpetrator angle :)

Kumar - Ref 199 - Agree with the statement "No one (including the Christians) have any problem in saying that it was criminal/fundamentalist Christians who attacked the swami."

Kumar - Ref 205 - Agree "In any case, it is some fundamentalists/criminals who are involved (on both sides) - who else would burn places of worship, indulge in physical attacks etc."

Gill - Ref 206 - disagree with the statement "Looks like you have already chosen sides." If that were the case

Gill - Ref 206 - "You are justifying "conversions" and at the same you want to illegitimate any "resolve" against it from the society that is being targeted by the "Conversion Brigades"." - My statement was and is that I do not see the need to convert, one can spent time in learning their own faith, there is tremendous wealth and wisdom in each faith, however, I would not want to regulate that, let people choose". That is the most moderate statement you can get.

Gill- Ref 206 - "Since you are a Moderate, would you support Hindu Missionary work in the same area???" Gill, Absolutely! In fact, I have made the statement some where that people are crying out loud for help on the streets, why did not we not go there? And I also gave an example if a store runs Sarees on sale, you would go tell your friends about it. Missionary work is simply that, but if it takes on the form of "increasing their numbers as Kerty had correctly pointed out, then that is not right.

Kumar - Ref 207 - Agree "It is unfair to say that "hindus" are involved in the violence, burning of places of worship etc. The involvement is by those who believed in violence/retaliation and opposed freedom of religion." And I have asked repeatedly to treat this as individuals and understand the difference between Hinduism, which is about peace, purity and spirituality v. Hindutva, founded on the ideology of hate towards others, which is not Hindu in character.

Kumar - Ref 207. Fully endorse this sentence "You cannot take out the fundamental human rights of people (like freedom of religion/speech etc) to appease the religious fundamentalists and trouble makers."

Amit - Ref 208 - Thanks for sharing those links.

Amit - Ref 209 - Well said It is "Hindu hardliners" not the average peace loving Hindu.

Amit - Ref 208 - Thanks for sharing those links.

Amit - Ref 209 - Well said It is "Hindu hardliners" not the average peace loving Hindu.

Amit - Ref 208 - Thanks for sharing those links.

Amit - Ref 209 - Well said It is "Hindu hardliners" not the average peace loving Hindu.

Gill - Ref 210 - "Why was India partitioned? For this very fact a alien ideology and faith converted local indigenous people created two camps and eventual division. Why are you ignoring the North-east and effects of conversion?". Precisely because of the darned politicians - the Heads of Muslim institutions were opposed to Partition, they foresaw the problems. It was the political rivalry between Nehru and Jinnah, that the common people paid a price. If there was a referendum, partition would not have happened. It was not the religion, although religion was abused and we, the general public let it happen.

Gill - Ref 210 - An intelligent statement Gill, "Institutionalized Conversions are not part of "Fundamental human Rights". Freedom to choose ones religion is "Fundamental human Right".

Gill - Ref 210 - The article was not a treatise about everything Indian, and it is not 5000 Page treatise to include every thing. The topic we are focusing on was the incident in four major towns in "Kandhamal" . All those ills of the society needs to be addressed, one at a time.

Chandra - Ref 218 - "Reservation, not religion, root cause of Orissa riots RSS". That issue needs to be addressed. The downtrodden do not have the resources to uplift themselves, we have to give them a break and put them on a level playing field, those who can be competitive will advance further. Full article if you wish to read. http://mikeghouse.sulekha.com/blog/post/2006/05/each-community-each-nation-is-a-bus.htm

Chandra - Ref 219 - It is an issue, that needs to be resolved by a dialogue and understanding and not through violence. One of the best ways to stop violence would be to punish the disruptors as individuals and not tag them with a religion, as it would attract a lot more rogue elements in to it.

Chandra - Ref: 197 - I stand corrected- indeed, it was 4 major towns of Kandhamal and not Orissa

Mike Ghouse

Read 218/219 so that you can understand the real issues on the ground better. The whole conflict has nothing to do wuth religion.

Also, please correct the facts that you have misrepresented in your article (4 major towns of Orissa). Your own counter post very clearly indicates your error.

Lastly, please condemn the attack on the VHP leader in your original article. Nobody has the right to be violent with any other person and secondly Hindus are as much human as christians.

Chandra,
#217
So you think root of the problem is reservations.
You may like to know that VP Singh & BJP joint government in 1990 implemented Mandal Commission recomendations increasing original reservation of 22.5% for BC to total 49.5% for BC and OBC.
L K Advani him self supports OBC,
See this link.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/apr/11yatra3.htm

Kumar

What is your point? I also support reservations. Are you suggesting reservations is wrong?

Sorry, the previous post was meant for Amit patel

If any one has problem with reservations.
Goto this site and ask for revision.
The National Commission for Backward Classes.
http://ncbc.nic.in/html/revisionofthe.htm
If you see the list in detail most last names are Hindus.

Chandra, #233
Read your own comments in #218.

You wrote:
"Here is thr true story of the riots in orissa

Reservation, not religion, root cause of Orissa riots RSS ..."

So I do not what what you are thinking.

Chandra, #233 (Let me revise above comment)


Read your own comments in #218.

You wrote:
"Here is thr true story of the riots in orissa

Reservation, not religion, root cause of Orissa riots RSS ..."

So I do not KNOW what you are thinking.

Amit Patel

My question is..what is your point? I am unable to comprehend your point. Sorry!

rgds

Sorry Chandra,
From your comment #218 it sure sounds like you are blaming the riotes in orrissa on "Reservation, not religion"

Amit Patel

Yes I am blaming the riots on a battle for reservation. So what is your point here?

chandra i dont see you condemning the burnng of churches and homes of christians,and your point that churches are huge buildings with sphires is ludicrous.if you support reservations for bacward castes whats your prob with reservation for chrstian dalits ?

Regarding Orissa, the communists and the NGOs with vested interested have arrested liberalisation and economic growth in that state.

Medha Patkar also went there to do hunger strike against setting up of industries or Special Economic Zones.

These fucking morons want people to remain poor and frustrated. That creates ground for other mischievious elements to play their own games and pit one community against the other.

The educated in orissa go for software jobs to Security guard jobs in Bangalore and Hyderabad.

We the intellectuals create breeding ground for screwing the society and civilisation by encouraging all kinds of fucking anti-nationals in the name of "free speech", "Libertarianism" etc etc, and then crib when things go terribly wrong.

The intellectuals acting like arm chair social activists like us are the ones, who are responsible for all the nuisance in the country.

Many bastards have divided the country on the basis or religion and caste. We went with them. When the cost of this division became unbearable, we started preaching harmony and tolerance. Then, we the intellectuals headed to greener pastures like "dividing people on the basis of Gender" by using terms like "diversity", empowerment and used all fucking lies to justify the division.

Tommorow, the gender crimes will increase and children start shooting or raping each other in schools, then like a bunch idiots we will do soul searching and ask,"where did we go wrong?"

Kela

Please read 136 and 138. In the menwhile please condemn christian violence on Hindus.

The Constitution does not consider dalits christians as deserving reservations. Speak with your local MP about this

rgds

Sumanth,

Man/Woman, you really need a breather since you are all wrought up!! Take a deep, deep breath and count upto 10 in English and then in Hindi and while you are doing this, please do not think of Medha Patkar. Trust me, you will be back on track before global warming wrecks planet earth, such that neo-liberalism will be a cruel dream.

Commonsensefo,

Consumerism and breaking of family system is contributing to global warming. Joint families consume the least amount of energy.

India must think of people first, global warming later. In west, they are consuming 10 to 100 times more energy per person. Please preach to Western countries first.

The excuse of global warming is used to deny the growth of the poorest states of the nation.

I will not take a breather till the hypocrites and idiots pose as "individualists" and libertarians.

Chandra the Constitution was amended twice in 1956 and in 1990 to include Sikh and Buddhist Dalits.
the constitution also speaks about a person's right to practice his religion of choice.
i don't see hindus being the target here,that VHP leader who was allegedly attacked(he seemed perfectly fine during interviews with news channels)was creating communal tension in the area.

Kela

Yes, in order to get the constitution amended again.. u will need to speak with your MP (as suggested originally)...

3 Hindus were killed in the attacks...and the hindus were killed by the christians...

were the killings in self defense though ?

Gill (#212)

>> Once again you can not compare "apples with oranges". Things you mentioned are "local" issues and do not get erupted into statewide violence. Where as "conversion" is foreign and institutionalized effort. They are dividing existing societies into two camps.

The so-called "statewide violence" and "dividing existing societies into two camps" is done by fundamentalists/extremists in reaction/opposition to legitimate exercise of freedom of religion/speech (which they cannot tolerate). The law cannot be held at ransom to appease these fundamentalists. One cannot hope to live like a 'frog in the well' for ever. With the passage of time (more so, in a globalized world) it is inevitable that people get in touch with various religions and everyone will have to make a choice. If this gives sleepless nights to some fundamentalists, so be it. Those who believe in open free secular democratic society do not have any problem in freedom to practice/express religion and live in harmony as followers of different religions.

>> Why was India partitioned? For this very fact a alien ideology and faith converted local indigenous people created two camps and eventual division.

India was partitioned because of hardliners who thought they cannot live together in harmony. It is perfectly possible for people of different religions to live together harmoniously. Those of us who believe in secular democracy should work to make it happen. To say that freedom of religion and its expression is the cause of partition (or north east) and hence such freedom needs to be curbed is like saying that freedom of speech needs to be removed because it causes such problems to begin with.

>> Institutionalized Conversions are not part of "Fundamental human Rights". Freedom to choose ones religion is "Fundamental human Right".

There are people of all religions who want to preach their religion all over the world (and hope the listeners will accept the beliefs). Some do it more than others and some are more successful than others. This is perfectly legitimate in a secular democracy. Terminology such as "Institutionalized Conversions" is pure rhetoric with no meaning - you need to clearly explain what you are objecting to and take a legal/constitutional route in getting that point across.

Gill (#212) Contd ..

>> In your post you are bringing in Caste and are attacking Hindus. Which is off the topic?

I quoted Ramachandra Guha on how some 'self-appointed saviors of tradition' oppose good things in the name of religion/tradition. In his article, he explains how the RSS opposed even things like outlawing bigamy, women property rights etc and how they accused Ambedkar as a low caste has no authority to override the Hindu Shastras. I cannot believe that you are saying that it is a attack on hindus? Is this what you understand by hindusim? Is this stand by RSS (on bigamy, women's rights, Amdebkar's caste status etc) fully representative of entire hindu view? No wonder, people like Modi and Thackery are thriving in our country, giving a "sense of identity" to some people.

>> Then you mentioned "women right". I do not see you attacking Islamic Shariat and their Quran. You are OK with a Muslim having 5 wives. Why this hypocrisy? Or you are scared of the "retaliation" from Muslims?

If the topic is on islamic fundamentalism, I will talk about it. It is true that both hindu fundamentalists and islamic fundamentalists are appeased in this country (the Congress does not speak out or take action on any fundamentalists, that is their strange version of secularism). In no other secular democracy do we see religious fanatics being appeased and protected as we see in India.

>> Strange to see how so called "moderates" in India stand for. Because all I have seen is that every self-proclaimed "moderate" is simply "biased" and "anti-Hindu". In other words it seems if you are biased and attack Hindus and their faith than by default you are "Moderate".

Again, this is true only if you consider the fanatic view of hardliners are representative of the view of entire hindu community. If you consider RSS/VHP view as representative of entire hindu view, no one help it. You will not find the media in a secular democracy sympathetic or neutral to the likes of RSS/VHP anywhere in the world. That is like being sympathetic/neutral about Hitler.

Lakshmikanth (#221)

>> Not many out here are arguing because VHP are involved. There are two things that I am interested in
>> 1) FACTS on the ground, so that an appropriate rational action can be taken ...

I agree.

>> 2) Mis representation of facts and attacks on the entire Hindu community by the western media ...

If you equate the terms "hindu hardliners" and "entire Hindu community", then that is the message you will get. No one ever said that "entire Hindu community" is involved in violence (whether in Gujarat or Orissa or else where).

>> 3) Portrayal of xtians as victims of crimes against humanity, without doing the appropriate ground work. The victims were the innocent Hhindus and Xtians and the perpetrators were the extremists. So any portrayal of victims existing in only one community is an obvious BS.

The alleged attacks by Christians mobs on the swami and other attacks are also reported in the media, so where is the question of bias? However the disproportion of the attacks, fanning of violence by organizations such as VHP/RSS (by giving a communal angle to an issue which probably has as much to do with caste/reservation) will have to highlighted. For example, the link given in #217 says: ""Although there are isolated incidents of Panas attacking tribals, by and large it was a collective attack by thousands of tribals on Christian Panas and the main reason was not religion alone," a district police official said".

kala (#180)

>> It's good to see christians fighting back.Christians should learn from the Godhra incident and arm themselves with guns to defend against trishul yielding hindoo hoodlums

I will have to disagree with you on this. Such belief in violence/retaliation, "fighting back" etc makes one no different from the VHP/RSS or the terrorists. Eye-for-an-eye will make the whole world blind. Everyone has an excuse to retaliate or fight back. Even the terrorists think that they are merely fighting back oppression. The VHP has already started the non-sense about how orissa is a "spontaneous reaction" etc as they did in Gujarat, as if such spontaneous violent reaction, murder/rape etc is a virtue! Jesus himself is supposed to have said to love your enemy, to pray for those who persecute you and to show the other cheek?

its Kela not Kala
Those things only sound good in a book.Why,even jesus surrounded himself with tough guys,wasn't it Peter who chopped off a Roman soldier's ear when he dared arrest Jesus ?I think we have a lot to learn from RSS/VHP organisational skills and start our own "shakhas" ,but instead of "danda" we should be trainng alqeda /military style and learn about explosives and stuff.

Kela (#252)

>> its Kela not Kala

I am sorry for the typo mistake.

>> Those things only sound good in a book.Why,even jesus surrounded himself with tough guys,wasn't it Peter who chopped off a Roman soldier's ear when he dared arrest Jesus ?

And what was Jesus' response to that act?

i don't remember,i was captivated by all that blood and gore.But Peter did go on to start the catholic church which went around buring withces on stakes and so on,so much fun

Kela #254

>> i don't remember,i was captivated by all that blood and gore.

If you dont remember, you could have checked it up? Anyway, instead of getting captivated by "blood and gore", you should have been captivated by the response of Jesus to that act. Jesus heals the ear, rebukes the act and says "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword..."

>> But Peter did go on to start the catholic church which went around buring withces on stakes and so on,so much fun

If the people who burned witches etc did a heinous crime (violating the teachings of all religions including the teachings of Jesus) should you also do the same mistake by getting into "alqeda /military style" training etc?

#248 & 249
Kumar said

>>>>If the topic is on islamic fundamentalism, I will talk about it<<<<<

Reply

Well let me remind you the topic is not on Hindu fundamentalism either.

Topic is on "conversions". You talked of "fundamental human rights".

If you do not understand a principle please do not use it "selectively". Under the pretext of "fundamental human rights" a Hindu also has equal right to "protect" their "way of life" and "faith". And you are trying to deny them that basic right despite the fact the in conversion game Hindu community is the "target".

Sorry you or anyone else have no "right" to take that very basic "fundamental right" away from a common "Hindu".

------------------

Kumar said

>>>>In no other secular democracy do we see religious fanatics being appeased and protected as we see in India<<<<<

Reply

You forgot to mention "minority" religious fanatics. If Hindus were "fanatics" than no elected official would dare call "Lord Rama" a "drunkard" and still be "living". No fetish Muslim would "dare" draw Hindu Goddesses "nude" and the Indian Insitutions promote and propagate his works. Even the very existence of Hindu God "Rama" is "nullified" by the very system you are talking of. List can go on and on.

In short in Indian so called "secular democracy" Hindu "Fundamental Rights" are not protected. And now Hindus have started using what ever resources available to them to exercise their "fundamental human rights" of "protecting" their "way of life", "identity" and "faith".

I guess I do not have to mention the "appeasement" on minorities let it be Taslima case, banning books with Mohmads drawing, or recent fatwa on Sania etc. Again the list can on and on.


---

>>>>You will not find the media in a secular democracy sympathetic or neutral to the likes of RSS/VHP anywhere in the world. That is like being sympathetic/neutral about Hitler.<<<

I would request you to stop this absurd nonsense of talking of Hitler. You sound like a typical "leftists" propaganda mouth piece.

What Indian media you are talking of? You think India media has any creditability. You again are living in the "past". It is a new era of "information revolution". Monpoly of Indian I media is gone. Indian media is known as part of "leftists" propaganda machinery. Sorry no credibility. What ever credibility that was left was gone for the Indian media after biased and agenda based coverage of Gujrat elections.

Learn from Gujrat election the Indian leftist media has lost its influence because they are not the only source of information left anymore.

Now on you Hitler issue. I think you really need go back and take some history lessons. Did you know that majority of Indian especially the muslims were with Germans. Persians fought WW from the German side.

Your own leaders like S C Bose etc fought from the german side.
Gandhi supported "Kihalafat" as such congress was on German side also.

----

You are accussing RSS/VHP of fanatic sects.

Well please smell the coffee.

Your own Commies and leftists.

Nandigram - mass murders and cleansing of local people from their lands. By the communist state machinery and carried out by their foot soldiers the "comrades" the modern day "SS" of India.

1984 - massacare of the Sikhs- Congress - Rajiv Gandhi asking "khoon ka badla khoon". Congress "cadres" on the call of their "iconic" leader carried out his will and killed thousands of innocent Sikhs. Again the modern day "SS" force of congress the loyal congress "cadres".

Who is nurturing Naxalites and peoples wars? same leftists and commies. The same media you are talking of.....

And why forget the plight of the displaced "hindu" kashmiris who are living in camps for over decade. What about their ethnic cleansing from their ancestoral home land???

Name any "mass murder" or "ethnic cleanzing" carried out by RSS or VHP. Always support your "biased" and "hate filled" statements with substantial "proof"

---

>>Your statement should be that since Indian media is controlled by ideological leftists (similar to Nazis) you as common Hindus should not expect any voice in it.<<

----

Kumar ;have you heard of the saying -running with wolves ?

Sumanth, (# 241)
Your choice of words (second word in third paragraph) are not appropriate for public forum. I am sure many of us may not mind same words in private seting.

Indian Media is one of the fairest in the world and they fulfill their role to bring to people's attention what is wrong and right. Be it Gujarat, Orissa, Emergency or Babri.

To call them leftist because they defend the rights of the wronged people is wrong. A majority of the media people appeal to the conscience of the people, and make them aware of what is going on.

Mike Ghouse

Sumanth, #241
You sound very frustrated.
You realy do not care for freedom of speach? Your comments in #241 would never reach us without freedom of speach.

uh, mike.. the indian media often cannot string together one coherent sentence. am appalled by the things I read in the deccan herald and the TOI... both of which seem to be edited by 3rdd grade drop-outs.

TV is sometimes, but not always, a bit better. The likes of people like Bharka Dutt are at least giving me hope.

Gill (#256)

>> Well let me remind you the topic is not on Hindu fundamentalism either.

The topic is on violence in Orissa and the involvement of hardline elements, VHP/RSS (and their ideology/instigation). It is definitely a topic on hindu fundamentalism.

>> a Hindu also has equal right to "protect" their "way of life" and "faith".

Absolutely! Everyone has a right to protect/promote their way of life and faith. But that cannot be by using violence and denying freedom of religion and violation of human rights/freedom etc. There are people of all religions trying to protect/promote their faith by articulating it around the world. Nothing wrong in that. But if you think that violence, denial of basic human rights/freedom etc can be used as a means, then you can join the ranks of VHP/RSS. I have nothing to argue with you in that case.

>> You forgot to mention "minority" religious fanatics.

Though that is not the topic, I did mention that all religious fundamentalisms and fanaticism are appeased (as in Taslima case for example, as you rightly point out).

>> If Hindus were "fanatics" than no elected official would dare call "Lord Rama" a "drunkard" and still be "living"...No fetish Muslim would "dare" draw Hindu Goddesses "nude"

Who said that all hindus are fanatics? Again, you are unfairly equating the reference to involvement of hard-line elements in violence/riots etc, as if that criticism applies to all hindus. It will apply to all hindus only if all hindus approve of such acts of violence/murder/rape etc in defense of religion, which is not the case. Now, coming to Karunanidhi's statement on Rama, you are presenting a problem as a virtue? Karunanidhi's hindu followers, actually like to hear such statements (due to caste divisions, regional divisions etc) - this is a fault-line and not a virtue. If karunanidhi is attacked, that will result in exposing the fault-lines all the more, and more hindus will actually end-up supporting Karunanidhi instead. Same is the case when Mayawati used to heap hindu abuses. So the RSS/VHP keeps mum about it. Hussain on the other hand is a soft target and hence he was attacked and driven out of the country.

>> I would request you to stop this absurd nonsense of talking of Hitler.

The reference to Hitler is about the principle of despising/hating a section of law-abiding responsible citizens on the basis of their religion/ethnicity/race etc. There are some hard-line elements who follow such thinking and the reference is to them.

>> Nandigram - mass murders and cleansing of local people from their lands.

What happened in Nandigram and the role of government is obviously wrong (and also the Left's belief in use of political violence) and needs to be condemned in no uncertain terms. I hope they will pay a heavy price for it.

>> 1984 - massacare of the Sikhs- Congress

Again, highly condemnable. The Congress will have to pay a price for it through out its existence (in spite of repeated apologies etc).

>> And why forget the plight of the displaced "hindu" kashmiris who are living in camps for over decade. What about their ethnic cleansing from their ancestoral home land???

The people causing the plight of kashmiri hindus need to be condemned and every govt. effort to improve matters by successive governments needs to be supported.

>> Name any "mass murder" or "ethnic cleanzing" carried out by RSS or VHP.

Firstly, the ideology and beliefs of RSS/VHP and its hate propaganda on communal lines, belief in use of violence, use of violation of human rights/freedom etc needs to be condemned. What happened in Gujarat for example is merely an instance of application of that ideology that they have always held and continue to hold. (In all fairness, Congress, though involved in 1984 riots, does not have a persistent anti-sikh ideology). It is the persistent ideology of RSS/VHP that is the problem as much as the numerous riots/killings/violence it has inspired. As I said, if you want to believe that violence, terrorizing etc can be used as a means to "protect faith" (as VHP/RSS believes), you are free to do so, but you do not have to live in denial of truth about that ideology and its implications.

Ref 256

Gill,

The fundamental rights of Hindus - the right to worship, right to assemble, right to speak and right to pursuit of happiness is seldom violated.

It is the criticism of extreme elements, not the majority of Moderate Hindus that is construed as violation of Hindu's fundamental rights.

The extremists; be it Hindu, Muslim, Christians or whoever, simply have a short-fuse, they do not give respect to anything that is not their copy. They are politically oriented and operate from fear that the others may increase in numbers and thus are a threat to them. Baloney, if we work with our democracy, and not wave the religious flags blatantly, we will be just fine.

American democracy has done well and Indian democracy has done well as well. It is the rise of fundamentalism that is dangerous to India and fundamentalism is simply - excluding others from enjoying the freedom given in our constitution to every one.

In case of orissa, the freedom to preach and the freedom to invite people to join them is threatened. The Reservation may the straw.

Mike

Kela (#257)

>> have you heard of the saying -running with wolves ?

No. Please elaborate your point.

>> If Hindus were "fanatics" than no elected official would dare call "Lord Rama" a "drunkard" and still be "living"..

they were fanatical enough to develop the caste system and demonise black south-indian /dravidians as RAKSHASAS

Amit,

Why are you so frustrated with my comment 241?

What I wrote is much better than painting woman sitting (as shape of India) nude with her vagina located at Bangalore by a guy called "Sexy MF" BHusain, whom so many proponents of free speech are trying to protect.

By the way, terming someone having sex with his mother is very appropriate in Indian society and media. People like you will never open their mouth against it.

Mike:

"Indian Media is the fairest in the world."

Yes. I have to agree if you are comparing Indian Media with biased agencies like BBC or CNN.

Recently, one newspaper reported that an Infosys employee in US has incestuous relations with his mother (just because the innocent guy's father-in-law wanted to defame him).

Tell me, is it fair to defame a person or his mother claiming that the mother and son have sex with each other. Even Indian Supreme Court has warned media against defaming innocent citizens. Now, what should a person insulted and defamed do? Go to court and fight for 20 years? or catch the journalist and break his bones?

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1134237
"according to the girl's father Sebastian Antonysamy, Jenita discovered an incestuous relationship between her husband Christy Danius and his mother Chellam".

Do you think this is fair?

This is not an exception. The editors and mostly drop outs from 3rd rate colleges. Can college drop outs ever produce a fair media?

----------
The people will take law into their hands very soon unless media and the populist politicians and the maffia in police mend themselves.
----------

Indian Parliament sponsers state terrorism. It considers a portion of its citizens "Guilty till proven innocent" and jails them. Indian police extorts more money than any Maffia. Transparency international reports 2600 crores paid as bribes to Judicial officials.

It is not at all surprising if their is complete lawlessness in some district once in a while.

What the prime minister of India trying to prove? What can he do for the people suffering in Kandhamal district? He can not even clean up judiciary or police. He can not stop "legal terrorism" on innocents. People are dying. The suicide rate all over the country has increased 4.5% in just 1 year. That means, 5000 more people commited suicide in just one year. 53% of children are getting abused.

If it continues both India and pakistan will compete to become the best failed states.

Mike..

'In case of orissa, the freedom to preach and the freedom to invite people to join them is threatened.'

Christians have always enjoyed such freedoms for centuries and they still do - what is different now in some places is introduction of extremist elements among christians that seek to convert this freedom into freedom to engage in religious conversion war on other religions. If you take out these missionary element from christianity, you will find same normalcy of enjoying religious freedom that christians have always enjoyed in India.

Kumar: Check out what the media really says,

HARDLINE HINDUS attack xtians who seem to only RESPOND to the hardliners.

The bias is this: NORMAL xtians got irritated by swami and ALLEGEDLY beat him up (which is itself outrageous) and then the HARDLINE hindus reacted violently (not allegedly but in reality) making the NORMAL xtians react. i.e. portrayal of xtians as victims.

Now in that comment I was talking about Mikes article. Which makes it seem that xtians were RIGHT to beat up the swami. I hope that registers in your brain :), i.e. making it look like the swamis mouth was responsible for making the xtians attack him physically. i.e. portrayal of xtians as victims.

The media might be reporting a lot of facts and nonsense (i have been checking it) and the general sense is when referring to attacks on Hindus or the swami, use the word allegedly, and when they refer to attacks on xtians, use the word VHP without allegedly .i.e. portray xtians as victims and hindus as perpetrators. . the fact is.. there are victims on both the sides.

And xtian terrorism is another thing for me to worry about. If you know what i mean

Only Government, Police, Parliament and Judiciary have a RIGHT to violate "Human Rights" of thousands of men, women, children and elders.

All others have no right to violate human rights as it is the job of the above agencies.

The UN, UNICEF, Amnesty International have a right to "safe guard" the violators of human rights provided they work for "vulnerable sections" of society. Thats why Cecilio Adorna, UNICEF chief India had diplomatic immunity, sufficiant to prevent him from being tried for "attempt to rape".

kerty (#267)

>> what is different now in some places is introduction of extremist elements among christians that seek to convert this freedom into freedom to engage in religious conversion war on other religions.

Is there supposed to be a limit on the amount of time/effort one can put in to express/preach religion? If some people are interested, they can dedicate their entire lives for the cause of religious preacing and there are people from all religions who do so.

"The individuals who perhaps threatened or attacked him were not defending Christianity; they were simply warding off the Tiger's roar. The gang who burnt the Churches was not inspired by Hinduism".

Why does one has to be so much politically correct? Religion and violence went hand in hand manytimes in last 3000 years.

The earlier we acknowledge the violent side of religions the better it is. All religions are the same.

So, lets say straight, "those who attacked him were adherents of christianity and those who attacked the churches are hindus."

That way, other Christians and Hindus do not escape from their responsibility to rein in the extremists.

Kumar..

Freedom is a good thing, but your right to extend your hand ends where my nose begins or else be ready for a brawl. When christians confine their religious freedom among christians, it would show they respect other religions, it would establish goodwill as other religions would not feel insecure or threatened. Christians have countless churches and prayer gatherings around India where christians do enjoy all the religious freedoms. The mischief-makers are only few among christians in certain places and because they practice their religion as if they are engaged in religious war, and therefore cause the religious brawl. Unlike hindu-moslem brawls that usually spread far and wide, these tend to be highly localized, do not spread to other christian localities, remain confined only to specific missionary-infected locale. They can easily be put an end to by making a forceful point that they have right to enjoy religious freedoms but no right to engage in religious war with Hindus.

sumanth # 266
"By the way, terming someone having sex with his mother is very appropriate in Indian society and media. People like you will never open their mouth against it."
Well I can not speak for all People like me. But I would be the first one to speak up aginst any one who insults my mother country (India), or any one damages clean image of it.
We all love are proud of our mother land. At least on that subject we must stand united.

Well I can not speak for all People like me. But I would be the first one to speak up aginst any one who insults my mother country (India), or any one damages clean image of it.

Good point Sumanth (#271)!! Most people keep apologizing for religion...

Amit (#274): how do you decide who is damaging the clean image of India? Sometimes it could be the very people claiming to defend India ie. corrupt politicians who hide under the banner of nationalism. Jingoistic, chauvinistic patriotism is the easiest emotion to manipulate by politicians for their own end. The easiest passion to arouse and abuse is blind, chauvinistic nationalism. History is full of countless examples of this. Who draws the line and decides what exactly is an "insult" to a country? Who do we trust? During the Vietnam War, both the supporters and defenders of the war called each other "unpatriotic" and "traitors" etc. etc. Both were convinced that the other party was insulting the nation. Blind devotion to the nation is also the root of many a fascistic movement and not just in Italy, Spain or Germany. (Just my views though!!)

Common Sense,
You do make common sense.

Patriotism is respecting and honoring every Indian, even if they differ from you in color, size, language, culture, faith or any other distinction that God has given them or by default. Treating another Indian, anything less is unpatriotic and UN-Godly.

The biggest shortcoming of BJP is their agenda. An agenda that is Un-Indian and Un-Patriotic. If they can learn to respect India, the Motherland, they need to respect every thing produced by that mother. Demeaning any son or daughter of that great mother is being disloyal and unpatriotic.

Often BJP accuses the Congress Party that they that they are "Buying" the minority vote. The words" Buying" may not describe the act in full perspective. May be the word "Inclusion" would be a better substitute.

Mike Ghouse

Mike..

While you are on a subject of inclusion and patriotism, few corrections are in order.

Nation is not simply a collection of individuals. Individuals come and go, generations come and go, nation remains. You can not reduce nation to collection of individuals and be inclusive. Nation is lot more - it is made up of sum total of institutions, traditions, cultures, way of life, history, geography that has to endure and transcend coming and going of generations. It is allegiance to that sum total that defines people's patriotism and not the other way around. Your definition reduces patriotism to mere allegiance to people, and that too only hostile minorities - to me, that is reductionist and exclusionary.

Common Sense # 275,
Here are the few examples I consider and most people will agree, is insult to the nation.
- Burning of national flag.
- Wearing national flag as underwear.
- Drawing of Mother India (symbolic of Indian union) in nude pose.
"Who is damaging the clean image of India?"
- People who are involved in promoting, planning and executing riots. I am not talking of peace full rely to express their view.
- People who burns women alive.
- People who destroys public property to express their feelings.
And many more. These people may come from any religion, party, state or education level.

Mike,
Well said:
"Patriotism is respecting and honoring every Indian, even if they differ from you in color, size, language, culture, faith or any other distinction that God has given them or by default. Treating another Indian, anything less is unpatriotic and UN-Godly."

Kerty 277

You were looking from an institutional angle and I was looking at a component of it; the political parties.

Your statement is remarkable! "Nation is lot more - it is made up of sum total of institutions, traditions, cultures, way of life, history, geography that has to endure and transcend coming and going of generations"

Mike Ghouse

Nations, as Benedict Anderson in his famous book _Imagined Communities_ has correctly argued, are imaginary constructs that are usually moulded through coercion, violence, destruction of differences be they cultural, linguistic or religious. Let us not assume that there is something real when it comes to nations. Many a war has been justified on the basis of patriotism, "my nation, right or wrong". While pretending to stand up for one nation, community, religion, race, language etc. humans are cabable of committing the most unimaginable atrocities while ironically feeling good about it. Of course, they will always say, "so and so, such and such insulted my nation, religion, language etc. etc. The only allegiance one should have is to better the human condition in a non-violent way; otherwise we will always be doing the dirty work of others, always of course under the guise of bettering my nation, community, language, religion, ummah, maryada etc. etc. etc.

commonsenseforall,
Thanks.
My point exactly

"The only allegiance one should have is to better the human condition in a non-violent way"

I still have faith in non-violent ways, when it comes to conflict resolution. When I talked about "insult to nation" I am also talking about speaking up against it...of course non violent way.

Common..

I would take your logic even one step further. All states, constitutions, laws are imaginary constructs and should not be taken as real. Many a people are punished severely for violating them and for what but imaginary crimes? Even individuals don't have existence beyond few decades, hence no point in their betterment - they are going to die soon anyway. Let people follow whatever they would like to follow or not follow - be it laws, constitution, government or betterment. No need for allegiance, coercion, threat or enforcement. Let it be. Let nature take its course, after all, nature is more intelligent and the engine of governing the creation. Any takers?

common sense 280

God bless you, I was struggling to say this for a while, the right words were not forming...you just completed one of my anguishes..

"The only allegiance one should have is to better the human condition in a non-violent way;"

You are a good man, I love this sentence. Is this yours? If it is in the book, please provide the details, publisher.. availability etc. I want to read that book.

Mike Ghouse

Kerty 282

"No need for allegiance, coercion, threat or enforcement".

I really like that. I have been working on a research paper called "No compulsion" that will challenge a lot of traditional thinking among Muslims. There is a verse in Qur'aan which says " there is no compulsion in the matters of faith - you cannot demand one to beleive that which one does not believe in it". Of course, the history of the practitioners has not had a correlation with it.

To me your phrase epitomizes the ideal of freedom. If you could and common sense can expand on the sentences you have uttered, I would like to quote you to be honored for the quote.

Thanks from the bottom of my heart, we need to encouarge, nourish and promote this idea. "No need for allegiance, coercion, threat or enforcement". Let allegiance come out of free will, and it would be bonded stronger than any other inducements or coercin.

Mike Ghouse

Kerty,

Perhaps you are being sarcastic...my point was that we should not be too hung up about nations, communities etc. Just becuse they are constructs, does not mean that they are not real. However, they are not written in stone nor do they exist, time immemmorial, so to speak. Laws, constitutions etc. etc. serve a specific purpose, come into existence in specific ways at particular points in history and are revised, rejected, modified etc as the social context changes. The same for national or any other community. What appears to be an iron-clad community is riven with many contradictions. Hence the struggles over people claiming to represent this or that community, this or that nation. Many so-called nationalist leaders have no qualms about laughing all the way to Swiss accounts; global capitalism cuts across national lines with mergers, takeovers etc. etc. Nature cannot simply take its course since to be human is to be simultaneously part of nature AND culture. Since culture is humanly created and allows us to deal with existential issues, and it changes as new issues crop up. Nation, language, religion, laws etc represent that attemtp to deal with that fact. Of course one should follow the laws etc, just because there are laws, it does not necessarily follow that they are necessarily just. If that were the case no law would ever change. (Think Socrates). Same with nations. They come and go, they are fought over, they die and new nations or new ways of imagining communities emerge and as society changes, those new communities will also get tranformed. I cannot help but be part of some community, be it national, linguistic, ethnic, sexual, whatever. But I partake in those communities not because I am completely defined by them. We are all polycultural since we partake, simultaneously in many communities that chauvinists try to present as mutually exclusive. Many of us are multi-lingual, have lived in many nations, eat a variety of cuisines, wear different types of clothes, mix and match ideas from different religions and non-religioius philsophies etc. etc. In a word, we arë like those "jugads" found on the outskirts of Delhi, for transporting people. An axle from a car, a tyre from a truck etc. etc., neither a truck nor a car but filling a role. Being polycurtural does not make be an ABCD-desi, but allows me to experience the best of all worlds and ideologies. Life is too unique and wonderful to be confined to this or that community, nation, group etc. We may pretend otherwise, but we are all hybrids now and it's a damn good thing too. Fundamentalisms of all kinds emerge as fundamentalists cannot tolerate hybrids since for them we are half-castes, mongrels, neither fish nor fowl etc. etc. But the days of the so-called pure-breds are limited and that sort of accounts for the fury and vengenceance with which chauvinists try to defend their notions of alleged purity of cultures, nations, religions, race etc. The argument is for a cosmopolitanism of sorts that does not denigrate any other community and is vigilant in its resistance to chauvinism/ racism / exclusionary politics of any kind that would marginalize others. A tall order? For sure? Any other ethical alternative. Probably not. But that's just me with my starry eyed, non-violent, non-murderous, non-chauvinistic thinking.

Christian church in another hot spot, this time in Africa.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080102/ap_on_re_af/kenya_elections

For obvious reason, every tribal conflict in Africa, you will find christian church at the center of it. Tribes that lived amicably for centuries are found in brutal civil wars in africa. In Rawanda, it was hutus vs Tusti - note that most Tutsi's were converts, in minority but ruled Rawanda marginalizing Hutus, when Tusti converts tried to overthrow elected Hutu regime, it triggered a genocide of Tustis and than decimation of Hutus as revenge for genocide. Other than church, nobody stands taller and powerful in Rawanda. You can see same stories in tribal area after tribal area in africa.

Common sense - 285

Good statement...."But the days of the so-called pure-breds are limited and that sort of accounts for the fury and vengenceance with which chauvinists try to defend their notions of alleged purity of cultures, nations, religions, race etc."

The word pure may be replaced with Least exposed, least interacted or least exposed or some such word to give expression to the limitedness of the old word pure.

To me pure is that which embodies most elements of ideas, faiths, philosophies etc. God is pure,as his creation is like sun or moon that shines on the dirtiest puddle as well as the crystal clear mountations. God is universal, hence pure.

When we develop the capability of absorbing all faiths, traditions, cultures, ideas and become immune to the uniqueness, we will become pure and complete.

Wasn't that becoming Brahma is all about? Wasn't that what Krishna meant when he said "surrender to me", Allah said submitt to my will and Jesus said "follow me". Weren't they all alluding to become like the pure - where everything is you like the creator.

In the next 50 years, the old notion of purity would fade away. Nothing would be exclusive, all of us and all things will become interconnected, as we have witnessed it, at least in the last three decades.

Mike

Kumar said

>>>>Who said that all Hindus are fanatics? Again, you are unfairly equating the reference to involvement of hard-line elements in violence/riots etc, as if that criticism applies to all Hindus.

Firstly, the ideology and beliefs of RSS/VHP and its hate propaganda on communal lines, belief in use of violence, use of violation of human rights/freedom etc needs to be condemned <<<<<

Reply

Of Hindus you claim RSS/VHP are fanatics. Fine! I do not know their agenda. I can bet you do not know either. You have never read Hinudvta. I have not because your "free" India had banned it. So I do not know how people are adhering to their ideology of Hinduvata when in reality it was always "banned". But still "common Hindu" is moving more and more towards their camp. Let me give you a little idea.

Well if you understand the meaning of the word "fanatic". Than you can easily see who in Indian context are fanatics.

According to common Hindu (without affiliations) they look at Leftists and self-proclaimed "secular" Hindus as "fanatics". This group is annoying, disrespectful and insensitive towards the sentiments of Hindus. They simply despise common Hindus because they do not prescribe to their "fetish" ideology.

These fanatics always expect Common Hindu to "bend over". This group will always justify appeasing minority at the expense of common Hindu. This group propagates "biased" and "anti-Hindu" attitude and conviction as "norm".

Anytime when common Hindu tries to voice his concerns or perceived threat or fears this very "fanatic" group subdues Hindus. One of the institution that was always used is your and Mikes so called "fair" Indian media.

By default any such Hindu making noise or complaining is branded "fundamentalists". And the tactical game they play is very much evident on this "forum" also.

Why should common Hindu accept this absurd double standard. Why should he only condemn RSS/VHP. When in reality as I have said before also why should common hindu take commie and leftist hate propaganda against Hindus, their way of life, traditions and faith.

I as a common hindu is condemning the exact thing you have said about RSS/VHP but against the "fanatic" Indian instituions that are simply tool of the lefitist to propagate anti-hinduism and disrespect of the "sentiments" and above all convicting violation of human rights/freedom of common hindu as a "norm"

Kerty wrote:

"For obvious reason, every tribal conflict in Africa, you will find christian church at the center of it."

Kerty, you seem pretty sure about this. For "EVERY tribal conflict...christian church...". Have you done a survey or do you rely on a survey that backs this allegedly factual statement? Or are you just angry at Christians in general?

Commonsense

Let us have a good fight. I am sending in $ 500 to VHP today to fund their anti-conversion activities. What are you going to do?

Mike wrote

>>>>>When we develop the capability of absorbing all faiths, traditions, cultures, ideas and become immune to the uniqueness, we will become pure and complete.

Wasn't that what Krishna meant when he said "surrender to me", Allah said submit to my will and Jesus said "follow me". Weren't they all alluding to become like the pure - where everything is you like the creator.

In the next 50 years, the old notion of purity would fade away. Nothing would be exclusive, all of us and all things will become interconnected, as we have witnessed it, at least in the last three decades.<<<<<<

Reply

Are you for real???? What world have you been living in? last thirty years of what inter-connection are you talking of. World has become inter-connected in terms of "information, trade, economy, social etc.

But on faith and religion sorry there is no interconnection. Instead cultural-religious ideological wars have replaced last centuries socio-economic ideological war. This century will be survival of the fittest for various cultures and religions of the world.

That's why I questioned you before Mike. Are you really a "Moderate". You are a "fanatic" on your own terms because you look at the world from your own self-prescribed ideological window only. It looks like you are looking for "converts" too for the new "ism" you are trying to devise and propagate.

Idealism at the expense of ignoring "reality" is very "dangerous" and "counter-productive".

Kerty # 286
Here is one sentence from link in your comment.
"On Tuesday morning, a mob of about 2,000 arrived and started burning the church",
sounds similar to Orissa.
Lots of Gujarati are victim of this violence. They are taking shelter in temples; some Gujarati are taking shelter in churches too.
This is what MOB mentality brings.

Gill,
Which document you are refering to, when you wrot..
"You have never read Hinudvta. I have not because your "free" India had banned it."

I did not know "Hinudvta" is / was any kind of publication! Who wrote it?

Gill # 291
You are mis reading Mike's pro Human thoughts as "anti-hinduism".
This is very common trick used by religious "thekadars" of all religion be it RSS/VHP in India, Muslims in Pakistan or evangelicals in USA.

Amit Patel wrote
>>>>>Gill,
Which document you are refering to, when you wrot..
"You have never read Hinudvta. I have not because your "free" India had banned it."

I did not know "Hinudvta" is / was any kind of publication! Who wrote it?<<<<<
-----

Reply

That's exactly my point!!! "anti-hindu" and "hindu-bashing" seems to have become "political-correctness" in India. Any Hindu who questions it is branded "fundamentalists".

You see people all around crying loud on "Hinduvta" as "evil" and sadly people have no Idea what it is. The "leftist" media and institutions of India has brainwashed people into it. They have set forth a "norm" of "political incorrectness" equals Hinduvta. Since India has always been a "semi" communist state as such there is only one version and that is the "state sponsored" version only.

Hinduvta is a book written by Vir Sarvakar in 1923. He coined the word "Hinduvta". Read it and judge for yourself and than ask yourself what "Hitler" or "fascism" has to do with it at all.

If one look at history it is "leftist" ideology and communism that has killed more innocent people than any other ideology. Look at Soviets and China. Unthinkable Mass Murders of their "own people" by the exact mentors of India's so called "intellectuals" namely Lenin, Stalin, Mao and list can go on.

Problem is very simple that "political correctness" and "norms" in India are being prescribed (since independence) by the very class of people who worship these "Mass murderers" as mentors and heroes.

Leftists need "chaos" to breed and survive. And thats exactly been going on since independence.

Chandra,

Please send the VHP more than that! Surely you an afford it...

Amit,

I love this! So true!

"This is very common trick used by religious "thekadars" of all religion be it RSS/VHP in India, Muslims in Pakistan or evangelicals in USA."

Amit Patel wrote

>>>> Gill # 291
You are mis reading Mike's pro Human thoughts as "anti-hinduism".
This is very common trick used by religious "thekadars" of all religion be it RSS/VHP in India, Muslims in Pakistan or evangelicals in USA<<<<


------

Reply

No I did not misread. You cannot take sides when you are only "pro human". You call spade a spade and Mike refused to call it. He is simply advocating that Hindus should take a back step and let the missionaries do their job.

Sorry that does not sound "unbiased" approach.

A "pro-human" would respect the equilibrium in nature and not let it get disturbed by vested interests.

Mike never questioned the Missionary zeal to convert. What is the reason? Christians are already the biggest religion in the world they number over 2.3 billion of worlds population & spread all over the world.

Hindus who are less than a billion as are being targeted. Why? Under what justification? And more over Hindus are not even spread all over the world. They are only concentrated in a very small area of the world. What is the need of these missionaries to come to Hindu homeland and forcefully try to increase their number?

I am really very sorry to say but it is people like Mike and others who are making way for Missionaries by proxy under the pretext of new "isms" especially "humanism" etc.

But none of these humanists will ever target Missionaries or the Wahbhis or deobandis. Why is that? It seems like they are "softening" up the Hindu Masses before the big "assault". The reason is one and only Hindus are a "soft" target and are never "pro-active" and are "reactionary" they only react when they pushed against he wall.

Gill wrote:

"Hinduvta is a book written by Vir Sarvakar in 1923. He coined the word "Hinduvta". Read it and judge for yourself and than ask yourself what "Hitler" or "fascism" has to do with it at all."

Well, well, well! Talk about self-appointed and self-annointed tekhedaars of religion! Savarkar's _Hindutva_ is replete with the language of a homogenous race and nation ie. no diversity allowed. The language of blood and race harks back to the dominant fascist paradigm of his day. On p. 89 he writes of Hindutva as:

"we are all Hindus and own a common blood"."

p. 100: "They (Hindus) are not only a race-jati...all Hindus claime to have in their veins the blood of the mighty race incorporated with and descended from the vedic fathers".

In 1938, Savarkar in a speech in Delhi, publicly congratulated Hitler for his policies. His newspaper_The Hindu Outlook_ continued to praise Franco, Mussolini and Hitler throughout this period. The next president of Hindu Mahasabha, K.P. Moonje in fact personally met Hitler and Mussolini and after that established a military school in Nasik, modeled directly on the lines of similar fascist school in Italy. (Christophe Jaffrelot, _The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India_ Columbia University Press_1996, p. 336)

Go ahead and explain away whatever you want to explain away, but you cannot deny the connections!

Later, Savarkar's chela, Guru Golwalkar infamously wrote: in _We or Our Nationhood Defined (1938):

"German pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race and culture, Germany has shocked the world by purging the country of the semitic Races - the Jews....Germany has also shown how well nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going back to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by" (p. 43).

What more is needed to draw the parallels here, since the authors in question are drawing it themselves. The same reasoning, or lack thereof is used by the self-appointed Muslim thekedaars of Islam, and of Christians. The application of equal opportunity "crap detectors" (Ernest Hemingway's term!) is the call of the day, in times when someone or the other touts chauvinist exclusivism against diversity.

Gill # 295.
You Wrote,
"If one look at history it is "leftist" ideology and communism that has killed more innocent people than any other ideology."

That is true in recent history only. Communism is fairly new concept. Earliest references found are from late 13th century. But Modern communism came in existence in mid 18th centaury. (Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto, 1848)

If one looks at central message of communism it sounds good (real life implementation is different story). Here is the definition form wikipedia. "Communism is a socioeconomic structure that promotes establishment of a classless, stateless society based on common ownership of the means of production."

But if you look at the larger history religious hate has killed more people.

Jewish killed many Christians during early rise Christianity.

And during "The Christian Crusades: 1095-1291" Christians have killed many non Christians. Link: Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
Hitler's anti Semitism was also based on religious hate.

Killing of Hindus during mogul rule was also religion based.

Lot of recent violence in Middle-east, Kosovo, Africa and south Asia is also blamed on religious hate.

So ideology of Religious Hate has killed more people, by far.

Amit Patel

You are still not able to quote any historical evidence where "Hindus" have mass murdered people of other "faiths" in the name of religion.

Hindus have been "victims" and continue to be "victims at the hands of very "faiths" you protray as "victims". Goa inquisition is relevant to Indian History. It wasn't just the Muslims Christians have induced torture rape and death on Hindus india.

maybe Modi has something to do with the burning of church in kenya

Kela

, sab outsourcing ho gaya aajkal......did u hear about pregnancies being outsourced...when do you think they will outsource sex to india?

Commonsense

Very weak argument and irrelevant references. Even Gandhi supported Khilafat and Germans. Leftist Bose fought on the side of Germans and japanese.

At time every freedom fighter supported germans and japanese because of simple logic your enemies enemy is your friend.

Hindu is a Arab word and tva is sanskrit. Hindutva is identity and is not religious but cultural. It is regardless of religion it is a common cultural unity of all inhabitants of land.

Before you come out you should do some research. Vir Sarvakar was a self-proclaimed "athiest". Not a religious preacher.

You need to come out of leftist dogamistic view of world.

Have you read the book "hinduvta"? if not than you are not qualified to comment on it and cannot distort the facts based on your convictions and ideology.

I am sorry to say but calling "Hinduvta" a religious manifest only shows your ignorance and lack of intellect.

And in the case of Islam and Christianity it is their own Holy books Quran and Bible that proclaims "superirority" of respective believers against non-believers.

So what are you going to do ban them too? It teaches them that Hindus are Kafirs and pagans and such a "lesser" being.

You simply are a "hate monger" and hindus.

Look at your hate filled statement

>>>Talk about self-appointed and self-annointed tekhedaars of religion<<

where does Hindu religion come in from??? What Hindu scripture prescribes to "hinduvta"? Can you please enlighten everyone.........

Stop using arguments from "failed" leftists strategy. Come up with new factual and truth based startegy if you want to make common people believe "Hinduvta" is some kind of "evil".

Go back to drawing board!!!!!!!!!!

Gill, # 301
Yup wrote
"You are still not able to quote any historical evidence where "Hindus" have mass murdered people of other "faiths" in the name of religion."

You are right, Please keep it that way.

Gill 298 - "You cannot take sides when you are only "pro human".

Who is taking the sides? We criticize extremists and it is a recurring theme if you read, Gill, you jumped in the middle, look back.

Gill 298 - "Mike never questioned the Missionary zeal to convert"

You failed to read my comments -

i) the needy on the streets of India are looking to be cared for, where are Hindus, Muslims and others? The market is open Gill, if the missionaries take the step to help the needy, you and I should be happy and not jealous

ii) No one reached the tribals, when the missionaries went out to help them, the Hindutva forces (NOT HINDU) resorted to harassment

iii) You need to understand the difference between the Hindutva groups - they are exclusive groups, if they get the bombs, they will kill all their brothers and sisters who believe in a different path of dharma, where as Hinduism teaches peace and believes all paths are God realization are valid

iv) I have repeated that there is no need for any one to convert, I would rather them spend their time learning their own faith, but I will defend the rights of people to choose what they want to believe.

v) By the way if your remarks were based on the assumption that I was a Christian, you are wrong, I am not a Christian by practice.

Gill 298 - "He is simply advocating that Hindus should take a back step and let the missionaries do their job"

On the other hand I have advocated at least three times on this thread for Hindus to take the lead and get out and help people in distress.

If you can scream against Islamist like LeT, Taliban and others, I will join you and scream louder.

If I scream against Hindutvadis like Bajrang Dal and the others, would you join me?

I am ahead of you in extolling the virtues of all religions, including Hinduism, I am ahead of you in defending Hinduism - Now would you defend the rights of other faiths?

commonsense wrote
"we are all Hindus and own a common blood"."

reply

And you do not see truth in it???? Well maybe you migrated from spain or portugal.

All muslims and hindus of Indian sub-continent over 96% share common blood.

I am Gill you still find large number pakistanis using the same ancestral last name and caste.

Even Bhutto claimed his blood line to a Rajput clan.

Only fetish "leftists" would find anything wrong with that statement. They always want to divide people and create chaos, distrust and hatred with each other. If there is harmony and unity than their "ideology" has not purpose in society.

hinduism is a way of life,hindusim did not start with the bhagwad gita or mahabharata nor did it end there;i can be a hindu and still accept Jesus as my master/teacher :0
-awake you ignorant souls

Mike wrote

>>>If I scream against Hindutvadis like Bajrang Dal and the others, would you join me?<<<

I would be the first one if there is equality and their is no biased against common hindu in the conviction.

As i mentioned before I am totally against institutionalized conversions let it be Hindu or islamic or christian.

Where is the responsiblity of Indian insitutions towards hindus? It is not there, there actions and convictions and gross "anti-hindu" propaganda that stops any criticism of groups you mentioned by common hindus.

Because common hindus looks at them as a lesser evil compared to islamic and christian counterparts. Until that changes and common hindu feels protected by India's insitutions you will keep seeing increasing sympathy and support for such Hindu groups.

lets be realistic and not idealistic.

Gill #304
You Wrote,
<<<<<< Come up with new factual and truth based startegy if you want to make common people believe "Hinduvta" is some kind of "evil". />>>>>

No one here is saying "Hinduvta" is some kind of "evil". Unless it is your guilty conscience reading it that way.
The "evil" here is the destruction of church. And of course you will demand a proof of it.
And you will demand for proof of who destroyed Babri Mosque. May be Christians destroyed their own churches and Muslims destroyed Babri Mosque, The Ultimate in Chanakya neety,

Gill # 309,
"Because common hindus looks at them as a lesser evil compared to islamic and christian counterparts. Until that changes and common hindu feels protected by India's insitutions you will keep seeing increasing sympathy and support for such Hindu groups"
Well as a Hindu I do not think I need to support any evil "lesser evil" or larger evil. Supporting evil is just that, evil always comes back and bites you. Look at Bin Laden or Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

Amit patel wrote

>>>Gill, # 301
Yup wrote
"You are still not able to quote any historical evidence where "Hindus" have mass murdered people of other "faiths" in the name of religion."

You are right, Please keep it that way.<<<

Yes than help in keeping it that way. The billirgent leftists anti-hindu attacks against Hindus, their Gods, faith anf identity are not helping. The Indian insitutions biased and anti-hindu policies are not helping.
Same insitutions kick Taslima out because she offended Islam and bans and recalls books because Mohmads portraite is in it but when it comes to common hindu sentiment than the same system encourages and defends MF Hussain in drawing hindu goddesses nude, officially tries to nullify Lord Rama list can go on and on...

What does a common Hindu feels in India? Disgusted, hurt and angry. And this not helping "keep it that way".

I in USA feel have more rights as a Hindu than I have in India. Why is that? There is something fundamentally wrong with Indian insitutions.
Ant-hindu rhetoric and hindu bashing is only going to make things worse.

----

PS why should i have guilty concious? Read certain people just like leftists they are comparing hinduvta with hitler etc... I do not prescribe to that ideology but i don't blindly critize it either

thats absurd.

They are only using this deviation to silence "common" hindus "voice" "fears" and "concerns". That too when i and majority of the "common hindus" do not prescribe to that ideology. But still they are by default they labelled as being in Hinduvta camp. Fine than what will happen regardless of any convictions common hindu will simply sit in their bandwagon.

Kela, # 308.
Wrote>>
"hinduism is a way of life,hindusim did not start with the bhagwad gita or mahabharata nor did it end there;i can be a hindu and still accept Jesus as my master/teacher :0
-awake you ignorant souls"

Well were did you get your deffination of Hinduism.
Read this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu

The word Hindu is derived from the Persian pronunciation of the Sanskrit word Sindhu. It not the arab word at all.
We all should learn Sanskrit, so we can read all the hindu books in Sanskrit and eliminate middle mans like VHP/RSS.
Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu#Origins_of_the_word_Hindu

Ref - 213

Gill, I am really pleased to hear this "when i and majority of the "common hindus" do not prescribe to that ideology.". That is the truth about people of all faiths - common Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, buddhists, Jains and othere do not subsribe to that idealogy.

An the extremist organization cannot claim that they represent Hindu Interest. Hindutva forces and those guys are for their own personal power and not for Hindus. If they were for Hindus, they would extoll the virtues of all paths lead to good realization, co-existence and evoke the goodness in others.

don't worry, all those extremist rascals in all faiths have the same qualities and cause things like in Orissa and other places.

We the moderates need to speak up and work for in the interest of common man who are 99% of the population, we need to be as passionate about peace and co-existence as they are about chaos and exclusivism.

Blessed are you for speaking up for common man regardless of their beliefs, color, gender, language, culture and what outfits they wear.

Mike Ghouse

Gill # 312,
You wrote >>> "Yes than help in keeping it that way."
I can see the point in your anger. But two wrong do not make one right.
In my young age I grew up between 4 different fighting communities.
Patels vs darbars, Hindu vs Muslims and some times BC vs non-BC. Most of the time I was successful in defusing tension between them (very risky job). When these people were angry, none of them saw me as their friend or their nephew or cousin. Education did not stop them either , some of our teachers were right there on front line.

I can not help like that any more, because I live too far from India. But one day I want to go live in India that looks like gopi's vrindavan and not yadavasthali.

Mike ,

People like you are the most dangerous people for peace and properity of humanity. You are trying to demonise the victim.

You are advocating to allow a gang of robbers to rob the village and if villagers try to defend themselves you are trying to demonise the `victim' villagers.

Swami Laxmanananda is serving tribal community in Orrisa since 1969 selflessly to defend the faith of poor innocent tribals from agression of associates of foreign invaders ir Christian missioneries.

Events occured as the following:

1. In last few years ,In Phholbani Brahmanigaon region village temples of Jalspatta, baliguda, Tumudibanda were attacked and vandalised by Christian fanatics. Hindus remained peaceful in spite of the brutal murder of a hindu youth Dhani malik by Christian fanatics.

2. Dec 17 Kandhmal Baliguda Durga Mandap was was attacked by christian goondas and attempts were made to instal a statue of jesus Villagers opoosed the move.
3. Dec 24 Kandhmal Baliguda swami was attacked by christian goondas and beated badly. His driver somehow managed to take him to hospital and saved his life.

4. Dec 25th a 17 year old young man Bhikhari Chand Sethi, a 10th grade student , was burnt alive by poring diesel by a team of Christian Goondas under leadership of Thomas Naik.

5. Villages were attacked and villagers took shelter in forests to protect themselves from christian goons.

Curfew was imposed by administartion when Hindus started protecting themselves from invading goons.

Things which are clear here :

1. Christian are agressers. They invade other faiths. They interefere in `others' affairs and hence are root of the evil.

2. These agressors are supported by many western groups finacially politically and morally.

3. Hindus have every right to protect their faith from any outside attack and its very genuine for any human being to protect himself from any invaders.

4. Articles like yours Mike try to justify the crimes of agressors against humanity.

Peace will prevail if foreign religions stop interefering with native cultures. Therefore `demonising' the `victims' is a very dangerous trend and it was exactlt done by Hitler.

Foreign invaders and their associates follw the same Hitler type ideology to blame Natives for defending their culture from foreign invaders and their local associates.

Religious conversion leads to social conflicts and then division of countries and humanity suffers. Creation of Pakistan is a visible example of the consequences of `conversion' which Mike is advocating. This conversion caused demand of Pakistan along with death of 3 million innocent lives and destruction of Billions.

If we honestly belive in equality of all religions and that God is one and all religions lead to same one universal God, why conversions should not be banned to avoid such nonsense causing disturbance of peace and progress?

Therefore its is the agressors who need to be copndemned and not the innocent tribal villagers who love their Durga, Hanuman and Shiva as much as Christians love their Jesus.

We need to take a stand on this issue and have to clearly identify teh culprit who is interfereing in others affairs and causing social tensions.

Demonising te victism will further aggravate the problem.

Man Singh
Your sequence goes like a movie, but I did not read it in that order nay where. Can you post some links.
Thanks

On 27th Dec In Hyderbad city , a 12 year old muslim boy name Mohammed Ashrad was kidnapped and tortured to convert to Christianity.

When he denied he was killed.

as in India all foreign gangs of Mao, marx macauley and Mulla have joined hands togather the event was mischeviously supressed.

Minor subjected to atrocities for not embracing Christianity.................

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:s_tv5fyu_nQJ:www.qatarliving.com/node/58980

Mike these agressors are the real culprits and no civilised society should allow such inteference by foreign invaders in their social religious political or cultural life to ensure peace and properity on theis earth.

Therefore please stop advising such freedom to rob others religion by those who are rich and powerful.

Just imagine the pain of Aboriginals of North America, new Zealand and Australia whose land culture religion and culture has been robbed by imperilaists.

Christian misisoneries active in India today are associate of similar invaders and should be banned immediately if India wanst to enjoy its current wave of developement.

We should appreciate the efforts of Hindu majority of India to tolerate such invaders under guise of charity, medical helath and education to the poor. However when situation goes beyong nose, Hindus also have every right to bust out their anger. Let's expose the trouble makes Mike and should stop deminise the victims.

Dear Man Singh;

If what you have provided is the truth, then without any question, the agressors should be condemned.

Please don't make the assumption that others are hounding you, no one is. You live your life and I, mine.

Let people believe in God every which way they want, let people have the freedom to choose what they believe, as all paths lead to the same destination. You and I should have freedom to wear different religions.

India is a democracy, a proven democracy and you need not fear and act from fear. Hinduism has been around for millenniums and will continue, it has its own strenght and will be there for eternity. What difference does it make to you if one worships Shiva, Ganesha, Krishna, Jesus or others?

You may find freedom if you drop your hate for people of other faiths.

Mike Ghouse

Man Singh,

Most of the average people - 99% of our population does not like the extremists. That tiny group of people want to run our lives to their whims.

If you son wants to be a Christian or Buddhist, what do you lose? What do you gain if he remains a Hindu? do you have to beat him up to conform to you? Is that how people keep others in control?

Man Sing, we have to defend the rights of all people including them extremist boys. That is the civility we need to bring forth.

Live and let live.

Man Singh #318,
You Wrote>>>
"On 27th Dec In Hyderbad city , a 12 year old muslim boy name Mohammed Ashrad was kidnapped and tortured to convert to Christianity.

When he denied he was killed."

Did he tell you this before he died?

Am I suppose to get my news from some blog site www.qatarliving.com
Am I suppose to believe it?
Who do you have problem with? Christian, Muslim or all non-Hindus?"