A New, All-Hindu Vision of India

[prasad1]

Share:

Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Email Share Link

This month, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, India’s powerful, male-only Hindu nationalist outfit, finally played a card it has long held in its hand. It announced an intensive conversion program to recover its “lost property” in India, feeding the dream of its cadre and allied organizations of an India that is nothing less than “100 per cent Hindu.”


The RSS has visibly grown in power and ambition in the seven months since the arrival of a new government -- unsurprisingly, as it counts among its past members the current prime minister, Narendra Modi, as well as many old and new chief ministers in the states. With this carefully calculated provocation under a regime sympathetic to its ideology, the nongovernmental organization is seeking victories in many arenas.


In the realm of law, the RSS wants the passage of a stringent nationwide bill that would ban religious conversions. In the public sphere, it has arrogated the right to pronounce not just on the future of minorities in India but that of India’s Hindu majority as well. In the war of the religions, it seeks to spread the news that there is now a Hindu fundamentalism eager to goad and trump well-established Christian and Islamic fundamentals in India and around the world. And among its own vast cadre, it has generated the sense that it, much more than the government of the day or the diverse institutions of civil society and business, holds the keys to India's future.


But let’s consider conversion as a recurring question in Indian history, one that reveals the tensions between a religious society and a secular state, between conservative and liberal adherents of a religion, between majorities and minorities in a multicultural milieu, and between religions that have a history of proselytizing and those that don’t.


The RSS’s new emphasis on conversion actually represents an about-face for the organization, which has for decades condemned missionary activity by Muslims and Christians in India. In so doing, the RSS often points out that Hinduism suffers because it has historically never been a proselytizing religion (its identity is partly based on being born into a pre-existing caste order). Therefore, if religion were to become a sort of free market in a multifaith country such as India, Hinduism could only stand to lose followers, not gain any.

..............................

Perhaps this nongesture reflects Modi’s divided allegiance between the oaths and responsibilities of his present post and the convictions and prejudices of his often murky past. But there's no getting past the truth that the evasion by this allegedly firm and decisive leader -- the holder of the largest majority in India’s parliament in three decades -- of the conversion debate holds profound implications for the freedom and future of all of India’s 1.2 billion people.
A New Vision of India, 100 Percent Hindu - Bloomberg View

 

[prasad1]

[h=1]Religious Intolerance in India[/h]Hope is in danger of crumbling that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would rein in the divisive agenda of his militant Hindu-nationalist supporters and allow India to concentrate on the important work of economic reform, and the blame lies squarely with Mr. Modi.


During the last days of its winter session ending on Tuesday, Parliament was unable to deal with important legislative business because of repeated adjournments and an uproar over attempts by Hindu groups to convert Christians and Muslims. The issue has come to a head following a “homecoming” campaign by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad — groups dedicated to transforming India’s secular democracy into a Hindu state — to “reconvert” Christians and Muslims to Hinduism.


In recent weeks, Hindu militants have engineered conversions of Muslims and Christians in Agra and in the states of Gujarat and Kerala. Police are investigating accusations that people have been induced to participate in mass conversion meetings by a combination of intimidation and bribery, including the promise of food ration cards. Attacks on Christians and their places of worship have intensified in recent weeks. One of New Delhi’s biggest churches burned down on Dec. 1 — arson is being blamed — and Christmas carolers were attacked on their way home in the city of Hyderabad on Dec. 12.


More than 80 percent of Indians are Hindus, but Muslims, Christians and Sikhs form important religious minorities with centuries of history in India. Religious pluralism and freedom are protected by India’s Constitution. The issue of religious conversion is contentious in India. Many Dalits, known formerly as untouchables, and other low-caste Hindus and Tribals admit they convert to Islam or Christianity primarily to escape crushing caste prejudice and oppression. The main architect of the Constitution, Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, born a Dalit, famously converted to Buddhism to escape caste-oppression under Hinduism.


As opposition political leaders are demanding, Mr. Modi must break his silence and issue a stern warning to emboldened Hindu militants before their actions turn further progress on economic reform into a sideshow, with the politics and divisiveness occupying center stage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/26/opinion/religious-intolerance-in-india.html?_r=0

 

[prasad1]

[h=1]Rajnath for law against conversion[/h]Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday advocated framing of an anti-conversion law and urged all political parties to think about it seriously. “I think that to check conversion, an anti-conversion law has to be framed...All political parties should think over it seriously,” he said.


Talking to journalists on the sidelines of an event, Mr. Singh lamented the rigid stand of the Opposition parties on the issue and also their demand for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement on conversion.


“They should understand that statement of any Minister was the government’s side,” he added.


On reports that terrorist Dawood Ibrahim was living in Karachi in Pakistan based on tapes received from western diplomatic sources, Mr. Singh said India had repeatedly asked Pakistan to hand him over to it.


“Wait and watch” was what the Home Minister said when asked what action India was going to take on this latest revelation.
Rajnath for law against conversion - The Hindu

 

[vgane]

Why the New York times or Bloomberg are not raising the issue of conversions by the missionaries..With humongous funds and resources at their disposal they have already converted the North East...With Hindu awakening they are seeking cover..This is bound to happen..Are they willing for status quo and stop on all conversions..Why are they raining a hue and cry on some reconversions to Hinduism happening in some nook of the country?

 

[sarang]

Acche din A gaye.

Secularist have to run for cover. Regulating inflow of foreign funds to ngos is already having effect. If govt is forced to give up control of temples, the funds can be used for promoting hindu causes, fighting conversion, education, building more temples in all villages.

It is amazing the educated folk are completely oblivious to the anti hindu and pro christian views and actions of NYT and economic times.

PDP, NC and congress will join to form a secular government in kashmir with a muslim cm. Will not accept a hindu cm. What kind of secularism?

NYT calls them hindu militants (those engaged in ghar vapasi) while christians are holy missionaries. A new definition for 'militant'.

Anti conversion law or free for all conversion law will provide a level playing field. Western agenda on india is crumbling, hence the angst of NYT.

 

[கால பைரவன்]

Here is a fantastic blog post that dissects the articles, which appeared in Washington post and the newyork times.

The Communal Spin of the Post and the Times | Swarajya

Reproducing the well researched article below as I feel it is important to counter the increasing anti-hindu propaganda one sees nowadays:

It is disturbing that Washington Post and New York Times, two of the most respected news organisations in the world, have carried pieces insinuating that Christians are under attack in India. Thin on facts, these are biases and prejudices dressed up as news and editorials.

Are Christians under widespread threat in India?

If you believe this news report in the Washington Post by Annie Gowen and this unsigned editorial in the New York Times, you’d probably think so.

Yet, both string together a series of truths and half-truths which amount to insinuation rather than evidence or arguments. And both shockingly fail a basic test of journalism, which is to do rigorous fact checking and, if facts are in dispute, present both sides of the contested facts.

Gowen begins her piece by referring to an incident in September in Uttar Pradesh in which a group in Asroi near Aligarh were reconverted to Hinduism from the Seventh Day Adventist sect of Christianity. Gowen doesn’t tell us that the conversions were forced—because there’s no evidence that they were. What she does tell us is that the “Hindu nationalists” who performed the reconversion ceremony tore a cross off the wall and put up a poster of Shiva, thereby turning the church into a temple.

What she doesn’t tell us is that the Adventists investigated this incident and their own news service reports that the church was not disturbed and found no evidence that an attempt was made to convert the church into a temple. The Adventists further say that the reconversions were not forced and reflect a failure of the local church to shepherd its flock.

Both the Post and the Times refer to the burning of St. Sebastian’s Church, a church belonging to the Roman Catholic sect of Christianity, in Delhi in early December. Both insinuate without saying so explicitly that this somehow represents a threat to the Christian community by telling us that arson is suspected. What neither tell us is that nothing has been proved about the cause of the fire, and if it was arson, who’s responsible and with what motive. In fact, India’s Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the incident and reported on this to Parliament. Until the SIT’s report comes in, it’s premature and irresponsible to connect the Delhi church fire to any claim about a larger threat to the Christian community in India.

Finally, both the Post and the Times refer to an incident in Hyderabad in which a pastor leading a group of Christmas carollers was allegedly beaten up by a group of Hindus. Gowen reports speaking to the pastor, Bheemudu Naik, who claims that members of the wedding party objected to the singing of the carols. Presumably, Gowen didn’t feel it necessary to speak to the other group involved and get their take on the incident—at any rate, she doesn’t report on this.

A senior police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told me that police and intelligence officials had ruled out the incident being communal in nature. Rather, what happened, according to my source, was that the two groups crossed a narrow lane, and members of the wedding procession who had been drinking got into an altercation with the pastor and the carollers. Elders of the wedding party wanted to amicably resolve the episode but my source reports the pastor insisted on making this a police matter, which of course was his right. The bottom line, according to this source, is that this was a “stray incident” of violence, not planned, and not communal in character.

Interestingly, the Hyderabad incident, which clearly is contested, has been played up by two foreign newspapers who see it as part of a larger pattern—while it’s been largely ignored in the Indian media, presumably because it is indeed seen as a minor local incident. The Hindu, which reported in brief on the incident, refers to a Hyderabad police official categorically stating that the incident was not communal in nature—which tallies with the account my source reports above.

It’s shocking that Gowen evidently doesn’t think it important to present the competing claims about the Hyderabad incident and reports only what the pastor told her. If she has evidence that the police report isn’t accurate, then surely she should present that to her readers rather than telling only one side of the story.

As for the Times, the Delhi and Hyderabad incidents are referred to, to make the case that religious intolerance is on the rise in India. This is sheer insinuation, since the facts on both incidents are in dispute, and there is no persuasive evidence available at this point to brand either incident as communal. Again, if the Times editorial board in its wisdom has figured out ahead of Indian authorities that these incidents are communal in nature, why don’t they share their evidence and reasoning with us? Perhaps because there’s neither evidence nor reasoning but simply assertion and insinuation?
Predictably, both the Post and the Times go to town on “Ghar Vapsi” or the attempt by Hindu groups to reconvert converted Christians and Muslims back to Hinduism. These are presented without any context, in particular, as I discuss at length here, large scale and heavily funded aggressive proselytization (including denigrating Hindu Gods) by Christian evangelical groups often in the guise of humanitarian work and often targeted at the most vulnerable including orphans.

A reader of the Post or the Times who knows nothing about India might think that Hindu groups—what the Times refers to in derogatory fashion as “militants”, again a term of insinuation—have suddenly and without reason decided to go around reconverting Christians and Muslims, since they wouldn’t have any of the necessary background on decades and even centuries of conversion activity going back to colonial times.

If the Post and Times believe that some Hindu groups’ entirely legitimate attempt to voluntarily reconvert to the Hindu fold represents religious intolerance, do they also then believe then that the equally legitimate, if unsavoury, conversion drives by Christian evangelicals also represent a form of religious intolerance?

What is especially disturbing about these two pieces and no doubt similar ones that are sure to appear in other foreign newspapers is that they come from some of the most respected and respectable news organisations in the world. The fact that they’ve produced pieces that are so thin on facts but high on spin can only lead one to conclude that there’s an agenda at work. That agenda, evidently, is to paint the current government in a communal light and suggest that with its rise to power, religious minorities are under threat in India. They may believe that, but they’re going to have to do much harder than present biases and prejudices thin on facts that are then dressed up as news and editorials

 

[sarang]

It is now established that USA worked hard to stop bjp and modi coming to power. They played dirty tricks through NGOs, pliable po!iticians, anti hindu pro Muslim senators and activists to malign modi and Hindu outfits. Such unfair and biased articles from US media deserve censure and rebuttal. Anyway present mood in India cares a hoot for american and british media and activists.
For the first time media is forced to report conversion to non Hindu religions. Anyway it is only one issue in India's march to a confident future.
Hindus have found a voice to protect their interests. And by democratic means. Soon bjp will get majority votes in rajya sabha too.

 

[krish44]

all religions are now targetting the poor for their selfish ends.

these reverse conversions will help only the politicians

some preachers participating in conversions will also get hurt.

who gains ultimately?