Thursday 30 April, 2009

Is ‘Tamil Eelam’ a Christian agenda. B R Haran
courtesy:haindvakeralam,vivekajothi.blogspot.com

The White Christian Church has the unique characteristic of gaining entry into non-White, non-Semitic civilizations, by slow infiltration of important establishments to influence them and create unrest by dividing the local populace along communal or linguistic lines, with the sole objective of Christianising those countries.

Several instances in history confirm this. The Church has been partially successful in India, as evidenced by the Christianisation of north-eastern states such as Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, etc., and a few pockets in other States. While interior states have been able to withstand the Christian onslaught, the southern coastal states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have been vulnerable to the evil designs of the Church. This was made possible only because of the help provided by self-serving political leaders in the guise of secularism.

Influencing politics in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka

The Dravidian Movement of Tamil Nadu comprised only such leaders, who even went to the extent of requesting the British to continue their hegemony over Tamil Nadu. Since then, the unholy ‘Christian-Dravidian’ nexus has worked consistently for the cause of ‘Tamil Nation,’ extending it to the north-east of Sri Lanka as well.

Just as it divided the Tamil people through the bogus ‘Aryan (Brahmin) – Dravidian (Non-Brahmin) Theory,’ to alienate non-Brahmins from the ‘Hindu’ fold along linguistic lines (Aryan Sanskrit – Dravidian Tamil), the Church similarly divided the Sri Lankan people along linguistic (Sinhala-Tamil) lines. On the one hand, it backed the LTTE fully against the government, and on the other, it successfully infiltrated the Sri Lankan establishment and influenced the government through Sinhala Christian leadership.

When Sri Lankan Prime Minister Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike introduced the “Sinhala only Act” in 1956, the Island’s first anti-Tamil riots took place. Prior to Solomon Bandaranaike, the Sri Lankan government was headed by leaders like Don Stephen Senanayake and John Kotelawala, and his successors were Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Dudley Senanayake, Junius Richard Jayewardene, Premadasa, Ranil Wickramasinghe, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge (married a Christian), Percy Mahinda Rajapakse, who were all either Christians, or Buddhist converts, or married to Christian spouses.

The first Sri Lankan Tamil leader who started the demand for separatism was a Christian - Samuel James Velupillai Chelvanayakam; he also called for a “Greater Dravida Nadu” on both sides of the Palk Straits.

It can be said that LTTE just followed his footsteps, backed by the Church and missionaries. Ever since ethnic riots took place in 1983, Anton Balasingham, a Roman Catholic, assumed the mantle of LTTE’s political leadership and was second only to Prabhakaran, also a Christian.

Ironically, the 85% Hindu majority of Sri Lankan Tamils came totally under the control of a Christian minority leadership, thanks to the Machiavellian machinations of the Church and missionaries. It is difficult to swallow this bitter truth, especially when recalling the glorious past of Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus under the leadership of great Shaivite scholars like Arumuga Navalar, great men like Ponnambalam Ramanathan and Ponnambalam Arunachalam, and intellectuals like the Coomaraswamys. All were widely respected by the Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Ponnambalam Ramanathan was the one who pushed for “Wesak” or “Buddha Purnima” to be a public holiday in colonial Sri Lanka.

As for Tamil Nadu, though the Church suffered a slight setback when M.G. Ramachandran left DMK and founded the AIADMK, deviating from “Atheism” to “Theism” (moving closer to Hindu religion), and his successor Jayalalithaa followed his footsteps (at least for a while), it seemed to have cleverly moved its coins to influence AIADMK too. Now we have a host of Dravidian parties changing alliances at the drop of a hat and even at each others’ throats, but remaining perennially close to the Church.

So, whichever party is in power, the Church is able to have its say and continue with its agenda of de-Hinduising the state. Similarly, in Sri Lanka, the Church has been able to influence the leadership of both LTTE and the Sri Lankan government, while causing the death of thousands of Hindus and Buddhists in the decades-long conflict. The Church has also been indulging in blatant conversion activities in both Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka.

Influencing Jayalalithaa for the greatest assault on Hinduism

At one point, the Church found it difficult in Tamil Nadu, due to the enormous influence of Melmaravathur Adiparasakthi Movement and Sabarimala Pilgrimage on Scheduled Caste Hindus, and the various activities undertaken by Kanchi Mutt to reach out to them, besides the enactment of the anti-conversion law by the Jayalalithaa regime.

But the Church finally succeeded in influencing Jayalalithaa after her party’s rout in the 2004 parliament elections, resulting in two telling actions. First, she repealed the anti-conversion law, enacted by her own government, to appease the Christian community; secondly, she went to the extent of denigrating and destroying the sanctity of a 2500-year-old institution established by Adi Sankara and flawlessly maintained by his order of disciples as ‘Jagath Gurus’ for millions of Hindus.

Not surprisingly, in October 2004, she received the ‘Golden Star for Dignity and Honour’ (Thanga Tharakai) award from a Ukraine-based Christian organisation named International Human Rights Defence Committee, controlled by America and funded by ‘US Agency for International Development’ (USAID).

The Indian representative for IHRDC was Mallavarappu Prakash, Bishop of Vijayawada and later Chairman of Tamil Nadu Minorities Welfare Commission! In February 2005, the ‘India International Society’, USA, proposed a tribute for her together with 'Barath Jyothi' award, after which evangelist K.A. Paul came to Tamil Nadu in a private jet to give thousands of crores of rupees for Tsunami relief.

Jaya pursuing Christian agenda

Since then, Jayalalithaa has clearly sided with the Christian clergy. Last year, while terming the spontaneous ‘retaliatory’ attacks on Christians in Kandhamal, Orissa, as a “disgrace” to the nation, she conveniently ignored the dastardly murder of Swami Laxmanananda and his disciples, and the distribution of blasphemous literature and pamphlets denigrating Hindu Gods and Goddesses, by his opponents. When the Rama Sethu Protection Movement was at its peak, she spoke against the Sethusamudram Project, not with true faith in Sri Rama, but with an eye on the votebank. And while protesting against the Sethu Project, she exhibited her 'secular' credentials by pointing out that ‘Adams Bridge’ (Ramar Sethu) was significant to Muslims and Christians as well, a myth which no Christian or Muslim scholar has so far endorsed!

Even the present election manifesto of her party makes only a passing mention of Rama Sethu! Yet it gives exclusive commitments for Christians, such as Reservation for Dalit Christians (unconstitutional), subsidy for Jerusalem pilgrimage, ‘All Souls Day’ to be made a holiday, hostels with all facilities at nominal charges in towns of minority religious significance, and addressing the ‘security’ concerns of minorities.

But she gave no commitments regarding repeal of the DMK government’s ordinance on Tamil New Year or returning the Chidambaram Temple administration to the Dikshidars, or any issue concerning Hindus. As if to confirm allegiance to the Christian agenda, she deviated from her original stand on the Sri Lankan ethnic issue and sat on a day-long fast on 9 March 2009, condemning the Indian government’s alleged inaction on the issue and addressed the LTTE as “fighters” instead of her usual remark of “terrorists”. Now she has openly supported the Christian agenda of creation of a separate Tamil Eelam, which amounts to supporting the LTTE and nothing else. After all, the Church-backed LTTE leadership is also fighting for the same cause!

Sabotaging the legislation on conversion in Sri Lanka

In 2003, Sri Lankan Buddhist and Hindu leaders joined hands to draft a legislation, at the request of Hindu Affairs Minister T. Maheswaran, to legally stop conversion activities by the Church. Despite the pressure applied by this joint committee which worked for six months to draft the new act for parliament, the Church-influenced Sri Lankan government has been reluctant to enact the law.

As the Church foresaw that Buddhist-Hindu unity - unity between majority (Buddhists) and the largest minority (Tamil Hindus) - could lead to permanent peace in the war-struck Island, it sabotaged the process of legislation by favouring the creation of an inter-religious council to hammer out a solution. This so-called inter-religious council is a typical Christian strategy (much like the Church-backed inter-faith dialogues in non-Christian countries) to thwart all attempts to ban conversions by an act of parliament; the same has been adopted by the Vatican to stop such legislations in India as well. Though organizations such as ‘All Ceylon Hindu Congress’ (though pro-LTTE), ‘Hindu Council of Sri Lanka’ and ‘National Council of Buddhist Clergy’ are dead against conversion activities, the Church has been able to influence the political leadership across the spectrum to sabotage the legislation of the anti-conversion law (Ref: http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=20884).

In this context, it must be noted that the former Hindu Affairs Minister in Ranil Wickramasinge’s cabinet T. Maheswaran escaped an assassination attempt in 2004, but was finally assassinated on 1 January 2008 while worshipping in a Shiva Temple. Till date, the government has not completed investigations in to the murder, though it has been blamed for allegedly reducing his security level and for continuing Minister Douglas Devananda, widely alleged to be involved in the assassination. The government put the blame squarely on LTTE and Douglas Devananda also denied the allegation of involvement. The BBC Sinhala.com reported, “The DNA samples taken from the murder suspect of a Tamil legislator matched with the blood samples taken from the gun used for the killing, Sri Lankan judiciary said. The legislator’s security guard managed to shoot the suspect, identified as Johnson Collin Wasanthan Valentine
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Maheswaranand
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sinhala/news/story/2008/02/080201_maheswaran_dna.shtml).

Importance of Hindu-Buddhist relationship

As early as June 1998, ‘Tamilnet’ reported that an International conference on Hinduism condemned attacks on Hindus and the destruction of Hindu places of worship by Sri Lankan security forces, and urged Colombo to halt such attacks. The report said that, the ‘First International Conference on Hindu Solidarity’ was held in Paris on 27-28 June at the UNESCO auditorium and attended by delegates from several countries, including functionaries from BJP and VHP ( http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=1691).

Though this seems like a conflict between Buddhist and Hindu communities, it must be understood that the security forces are controlled by a political leadership owing allegiance to the Church. The centuries-old cultural relationship and largely peaceful existence of both the Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus can be ascertained from two facts.

First, their coming together to draft a legislation against conversion activities of the Church and missionaries, and second, the statement from the Hindu Council of Sri Lanka that the long-standing cordial relationship between the two religious communities in the Island Nation would go a long way in solving the present crisis and creating peace and harmony.

It is pertinent to note that Buddhists worship Hindu Gods and Goddesses and Hindus worship Buddha as an Avatar of Maha Vishnu, and both communities follow the same calendar and celebrate the same day as New Year. While condemning the politicisation of the ethnic conflict by self-serving politicians of Tamil Nadu, the Hindu Council felt that areas of common interests must be identified and along with religious commonality and cordiality, local capacities built for peace. It opined that furthering political interests and fanning Tamil chauvinism must be discouraged as it would complicate the situation and inhibit the capacity of the Indian government to help find a lasting solution by bringing both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamils to the negotiating table.

BJP-led NDA government’s proactive role in the peace process

Journalist M.R. Narayan Swamy (IANS) reported that the Vajpayee government played a secret but vital proactive role in the peace process between Sri Lanka and LTTE, brokered by Norway: “Overseen by New Delhi, a truce document began to be drafted. Norway was deeply involved in the exercise, roping in some of its veteran diplomats. Eventually, this translated into CFA. India also told Norwegian diplomats to let the LTTE know about the Indian involvement in the entire effort. On Feb 21, 2002, LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran signed the CFA. Wickramasinghe put his signature a day later.”

By sheer coincidence, both Ranil Wickramasinghe and A.B. Vajpayee lost power almost at the same time (April-May 2004) and J.N. Dixit, appointed NSA by Sonia-led UPA regime, passed away within a few months of his appointment, with all the details about India’s role in bringing the CFA, which he learnt from Ranil Wickramasinghe, when the later visited India after demitting office. It is natural for a Hindu nationalist party to be deeply concerned about the well-being of a country who’s Buddhist and Hindu people are both tied to Hindu India by an umbilical cord; hence it is no surprise that it tried to bring peace in the interests of both countries. Why did the CFA fail and whether the Sonia-led government pursued the policy of the Vajpayee government with regard to Sri Lanka remain unknown?
( http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=24710).

The present scenario

At present, all Dravidian parties are wreaking havoc in the run-up to the general elections, using the inflammatory Eelam issue as an election talking point. Each party is trying to whip up emotions in Tamil Nadu to bring about a ceasefire in Lanka and thereby save Prabhakaran and the LTTE.

When the Father Jagat Gasper Raj-Kanimozhi combine floated the “Chennai Sangamam” cultural extravaganza in 2007, Jaya TV went to town with investigative reports on the LTTE connections of Gasper Raj; Jayalalithaa wasted no time condemning the government’s association with the project. But last year, both Jayalalithaa and her TV channel kept a conspicuous silence during the Chennai Sangamam festival.

During the last week alone, Father Gasper Raj has been promoted by mainstream electronic media as a representative of Sri Lankan Tamils! Participating in debates on electronic news channels, he blatantly supports LTTE in the guise of voicing human rights concerns, criticizes the Indian government, and in one debate on Times Now Channel had the audacity to call Dr. Subramanian Swamy a “paid agent of Rajapakse”! Yet it is unclear if he is a Sri Lankan refugee or an Indian citizen. His antecedents and present activities in India/Tamil Nadu need thorough investigation.

AIADMK leader Jayalaithaa, who condemned Karunanidhi for saying Prabhakaran was not a terrorist, has not reacted to her ally PMK leader Ramadoss’ identical statement! Why does Jayalalithaa, who questioned Sonia’s silence on Karuna’s statement, remain silent on Ramadoss’ statement?

And what has the Italian-Christian-led UPA done for Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus in the last five years? Why didn’t the Sonia-led regime follow the NDA policy with regard to the Sri Lankan Tamil issue? Why was her government silent when the Geneva round of talks failed despite the presence of a live CFA?

Sad irony and civilisational opportunity

Actually, the West and the Church want to Christianise Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu and form a larger Tamil Christian State. Hence a Sinhala-Tamil divide has been created with the help of the Tamil-Christian leadership of the LTTE and the Sinhala-Christian leadership of Sri Lanka.

Caught in between are the Sinhala Buddhist and Tamil Hindu civil populace. To keep the issue alive without any solution, the Christian leadership of India and the Dravidian, irreligious leadership of Tamil Nadu have been used, just as this diabolic group is using Dravidian politicians and Christian NGOs who have been harvesting souls in both Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. It is a sad irony that the interests of hapless Tamil Hindus of Sri Lanka, who have been persecuted for long by both the Christian leadership of LTTE and the Christian leadership of Sri Lankan government, have been represented by the unholy Christian-Dravidian nexus in Tamil Nadu.

As things stand in Sri Lanka, it looks as though the West might be able to save the LTTE leadership. It will try to send missionaries and NGOs to help the rehabilitation process, so it can clandestinely achieve its evangelical agenda also.

It is said that President Rajapakse instructed setting up of a chapel in the ‘welfare villages’ to look into the spiritual needs of the internally displaced persons and refugees, who number up to 200,000. Sensing the danger of evangelization, the Hindu Council, the Hindu Women’s Society (Saiva Mangaiyar Kazhagam), the Sai Samithi, along with other organizations, swung into action to provide medicines, clothes, soaps, detergents and sanitary napkins and other articles of basic necessity, to augment the shelter, food and water provided by the government. The Hindu Council has also organized singing of Tamil devotional hymns (Thevaram and Thiruvasagam); the Sai Samithi has organized bhajans. These organizations are likely to take care of orphaned children by sending them to orphanages run by the Sri Ramakrishna Mission.

The present situation must be seen as an opportunity to revive Hindu-Buddhist unity and Hindu religious heads from India, especially from Tamil Nadu, would do well to establish contact and communication channels with Buddhist leaders of Sri Lanka. This will go a long way in bringing peace and harmony to the Island Nation. For this to happen, we need a strong “Hindu” political leadership in India. Let us hope it gets ‘elected’ now.

Wednesday 1 April, 2009

A befitting rebuttal to Sister Prema, the Superior General of Missionaries of Charity

Dr Mrs Hilda Raja

AUTHOR IS A SENIOR CHRISTIAN CITIZEN



The new Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity (MoC)Sr.Mary Prema made two revelations-that religious conversion-‘is God’s work. That-if she received divine inspiration she would go to Kandhamal.




The first one of describing conversions as God’s work is the usual cliché which comes handy to all those involved in conversion. Conversion is to Christianity what Jehad is to Islam.




Sr Prema further explained that, ‘Every human being has the right to believe. Each person is born with dignity. Religious conversion is God’s work’. The contradictions galore within the two sentences are glaring. If every person has the right to believe then where is the need to initiate that person to something new and strange and in something in which that person is not born in? Should one god be exorcised out of the person and another god be installed to uphold the dignity with which this person was born with? This is actually what conversion is all about. Why this rupturing of the person from what he/she was .So what Sr Prema really means is that every person has a right to be converted and hence the right of the person to believe is conditioned and restricted to only believing in the god in whom Sr Prema and her whole church believes in. This is what Sr Prema articulated when she so naively asserted that every person has a right to believe and every person is born with dignity. That this god is only 2000 years old and somehow seems to be always in the company of those who invade the land of others is another dimension which needs a longer treatise.




If conversion is God’s work then whose work is re-conversion? Sr Prema-the Superior General of the MoC and the whole armies of Christian missionaries involved in conversion has failed this god miserably-because their god has failed them. If conversion is God’s work he seems to be rather slow and inefficient. The Catholic Church has the biggest army of nuns and priests and the Christian evangelical churches have their own brand of evangelists, the Southern Baptists alone as a group has nearly 100,000 career missionaries in North India. Yet this God seem to be hardly having an impact. This god also seem to be scared-does not direct their efforts to the Islamic countries. Is He afraid of terrorists? It is the simple unarmed, poverty stricken tribals and passive Hindus that this God and his divine inspired missionaries target at. And yet not so easy given the enormous funds that flow and the armies at the disposal of this god he had to give divine inspiration to a Christian agency to massacre an unarmed poor swamiji whom he found a great hurdle to spread his kingdom.





Sr Prema has unwittingly exposed the bluff of the Congress and the UPA leaders. We are told that conversion is not taking place. Conversion takes different forms-globally, it is disguised as a military coup, violence and very often a deception of service and development is the sheen given to this violent conversion. Yes conversion is violence wrought on a person-to deprive the person of his/her dignity which according to Sr Prema every person is born with-to tear the person off his affinity, his religious heritage and made him/her an alien is a psychological bleeding to death. Christianity and conversion are two sides of the same coin. Where ever Christianity went it was bloodshed-destruction, and a hidden agenda of political power, economic aggrandizement, and pauperization of the victims. In the words of the Kenyatta (the Kenyan freedom fighter) ‘when the missionaries came they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, ‘Let us pray,’ We closed our eyes, when we opened them, they had our lands and we had the Bible’. This is true not only in Africa but all over the globe. Those countries which broke away from the stranglehold of Vatican became progressive-like Canada, Australia, England but those colonized by the catholic powers like Spain, Portugal Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, Italy are mired in military rule and church tyranny. Christianity today likes to be seen as a peace loving, compassionate religion of brotherhood. But far from it-the religion was born in blood and grew in bloodshed. Economic and political powers are its hidden agenda covered with service organizations, education institutions etc.





May be Sr Prema is too naïve to understand and she as all nuns and priests are ignorant of church history. These nuns and priests are brainwashed into this service and love of the poor mission. Many soon realize but then it is too late for them especially in India to be courageous to act and pull out. They become like voices in the wilderness and the church is too powerful an organization to fight against by ordinary innocent and truthful persons.





This brings me to Sr Prema’s pious wish-that she would visit Kandhamal if she receives ‘divine inspiration’ and she would definitely intervene. One wonder what intervention is she talking about-intervene for whom and with whom? Sr Prema would do a greater service if she visited the ex nun Jesme in Kerala and listened to her tale of sexual harassment within the convent-how she was betrayed by her own and even had to submit herself to priests to be stripped naked. This is nothing new and not a singular case, but happenings that have been on for ages-these sexual escapades –including rape and murder have been happenings within the confines of the convents and the church compound. Only when a nun is raped outside these confines then all hell breaks loose. Sr Prema could direct her divine inspired mission to empathize with Sr Jesmy and many like her and intervene with the church authorities. Sr Prema the Superior General of the MoC should be aware that nuns are on contraceptives, nuns have begotten children of bishops and priests-whole dioceses have been sold in the USA to pay the compensation for the sexual violation on alter boys by priests.





A Jesuit province in the USA has declared itself insolvent because it cannot garner the huge funds to pay the compensation to the sexual victims by its perpetrators-the priests. Be it in India or in other parts of the world all this pales into nothing- only Kandhamal occupies and covers the whole vision of the pious Christians and Sr Prema is no exception. I suggest that she first visit the Ashram of Swami Lakshmanada and soothe the terror stricken children in whose presence the 84 year Swamiji was brutally butchered. Three nuns who were with him were also killed. Will Sr Prema intervene with those murderers and see that justice is done?





One last request, Sr Prema and her MoC work for the poor, she asaserts-then why should the money meant for the poor of this country find its way to the confers of Rome? It is very difficult to divest conversion and money. Are the accounts of the MoC being audited? If not why? Why should the lands and the church properties be exempted from tax and auditing? This is something anti-national. Money cannot change its value simply because it is held in the hands of a particular community-All monies must be accounted for. Is it not strange that those working in Minority Education institutions and drawing the UGC pay scales are Income tax assesses but the priests and the nuns working in the same institutions are exempted from paying Income tax. They too draw the same salaries-if not more for less work-they too hold individual bank accounts and they too draw their pensions till their death-all from the taxpayers monies. Why should they be exempted from paying the Income tax? This is just one area to show that the workings of the poor of which Sr Prema and all missionaries are engaged and other service organizations are a big money spinning business.





A special vocabulary must be coded to understand the language of the Christians. Power is sugar coated and called service. Forgiveness is easily extended to those who hurt them-to show how compassionate they are. But they refuse to stop hurting others-they refuse to stop dehumanizing the tribals and the poor. Why don’t they leave the poor alone? If in spite of the enormous funds which have flowed and are flowing from abroad combined with the government’s Five Year Plans and a globally powerful God by their side the missionaries are not able to diminish poverty, to reduce hunger and assetlessness, then is it not time to pause take stock of what is fundamentally wrong? Who is swindling whom? Why are the poor kept in poverty? Why should the poor continue to be poor, why should backwardness be ever growing? Account for the work that has been so far carried on and stop the pauperization and the plunder of this country and its poor. Should we wait for Sr Prema and the likes of her for divine inspiration to be just logical and sensible?





Tailpiece-


Even the Pope has lost his ability to pray that he has now assigned the Archbishop of Gawhati to script prayers for him! The Catholic Church needs prayer scripters- for it is unable to turn the hearts and souls of its followers to that spirit within themselves and seek redemption and justice.



Dr Mrs Hilda Raja,
Vadodara