Showing posts with label experts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label experts. Show all posts

Sunday, 4 October 2009

Hindus have the right to celebrate Durga Puja in Rome
03/10/2009 12:00:53 V Sundaram, IAS, Retd. source-haindvakerlam

Last week (21-9-2009) more than Five Lakh Muslims "occupied" the National Highway 8 between New Delhi and Gurgaon in a planned and methodical manner and offered their Eid prayers with supreme contempt for the regular users of this busy National thoroughfare. Many innocent citizens who could not avoid using that NH 8 on that day to reach their respective places of destination felt unduly harassed and persecuted by this exercise of "minority rights" by the Muslims.

This reminds me of a mammoth Islamic meeting addressed by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the and the destroyer of United India, one month before the Direct Action Day in Calcutta in July/August 1946. His main aim on that occasion was to terrorize the Hindus of India into meek submission and acceptance of his Two-Nation Theory which resulted in the birth of Pakistan on August 14, 1947. Thanks to the pseudo-secular policy followed by Pundit Nehru and his Congress successors in Office, the Muslims of India today have been able to gain a blanket unfettered political license to blatantly deny the sacred and time-honoured fundamental religious rights of the majority Hindus in their own homeland today. Today the Muslims in India are flexing their political muscles with uncontrolled fervour to intimidate the peace-loving Hindus of India using the unrequited political support of the Congress government, which derives its transitory political sanction from its commitment to minority vote-bank politics.

All the Hindus of India have now come to understand that the Muslims and Christians are the most favoured children of the Government of India. John Dayal is a known Hindu-baiter in India. When he defended the rights of Muslims to lay siege to the National Highway 8 on the specious plea of saying EID Namaz, Sri R. K Ohri I.P.S (retd) and Secretary General, Patriots Forum in New Delhi gave him a fitting rejoinder in this manner: ". Please tell me is it possible suddenly, improptu, for lakhs of Namazis to suddenly converge at a particular point to lay seige to NH-8 on the plea of saying EID Namaz? You know very well that such large numbers of Muslims (according to Indian Express there were 5 lakhs of them) do not, repeat DO NOT, live in the villages adjacent to that particular spot on NH-8. Still you are trying to defend something totally indefensible. Your flimsy excuse that Muslim demand for an Idgah might have been denied is again a typical "John-type" argument. Was any demand for Idgah in that area ever made, was it refused at all? No, never. Yet you must keep on telling lies ad infinitum. . This "show of force" was a very well organised event to showcase the rising crescendo of jihadi footfalls across India and their booming clout in the ruling political dispensation!

At this rate a day might come, in not-too-distant future, when Namazis will lay seige to all major roads leading to most metropolitan cities. That might as well coincide with the launching of a diabolical war by Pakistan based jihad outfits. Please stop befooling Hindus and let them wake up to the growing threat of India emerging as a global battleground of clash of civilization. That might happen around 2020, or latest by 2030."

On Monday (21-9-2009), the day of Eid, Auxiliary Bishop of Delhi Archdiocese Fr Franco Mulakkal read out the Pope"s message to Muslim leaders, including Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, and Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad"s residence. Nabi Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid Yahya Bukhari said "This has come for the first time. The message talks about Muslim and Christian unity but we should not limit ourselves to that. India has a secular fabric and we are an example of unity". Fr Mulakkal said, "The Pope has invited all of us to work together to remove poverty (Hinduism!)." While the Vatican has sent its greetings to the Muslims by post all these years, for the first time a representative of the Pope personally went to meet Muslim leaders and read out the Pope"s open message. What is the political need for the Pope in Rome to direct his representative in New Delhi to read out a message to the Muslims of India?

In this context I would like to invite the attention of all concerned to the fact of Pope Benedict"s citation (some time ago) of a 14th century Byzantine emperor to the effect that "Mohammad brought things only evil and inhuman and that He spread by the sword the faith he preached." This statement led to world-wide violent protests from the Muslims. The Pope today has completely somersaulted from this antagonistic position and come to terms with the Muslims of India in the same supplicating manner comparable in letter and spirit as the Congress Party in India. No discriminating observer can fail to notice the common bond of political hypocrisy uniting the Pope in Rome with Powers in New Delhi. Perhaps, W. Somerset Maugham(1874-1965) had people like this Pope in mind when he wrote as follows in his famous novel Cakes and Ale (1930): "Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pur¬sue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole time job.".

President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), not belonging to the Sangh Parivar or the RSS or the VHP to the best of my knowledge, declared with Christian authority in 1803: "The Christian God is cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust". The great English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870) wrote with equally Christian conviction (devoid of Indian Christian Hypocrisy!): "Missionaries are perfect nuisances and leave every place worse than they found it"". What do we understand from all this?

In these very columns on 23-5-2006, under the title "Unprovoked, unwarranted Papal assault on India", I had observed as follows: "Pope Benedict XVI had come out with his emotional outburst against the Laws of Conversion in India because of his anger at the passage of the "Anti-Conversion Bill" by the Rajasthan State Legislative Assembly. The Pope has the temerity to declare that the Bill goes against the provisions of the Constitution of India. In declaring thus, Herr Ratzinger is only betraying his Himalayan IGNORANCE of the "LAW OF THE LAND"!! "

HINDUS IN ROME DO NOT HAVE THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM TO CELEBRATE DURGA POOJA DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE CHAIRMAN OF THE UPA CO-ORDINATION COMMITTEE, MRS ANTONIA MAINO GANDHI HAILS FROM ITALY AND STILL HOLDS AN ITALIAN PASSPORT!! Kanchan Gupta, the eminent journalist, has raised the right questions: "What does it mean to celebrate Durga Puja in Rome? It means to be humiliated, harassed and hounded by city officials who happen to be pious Christians."

The Municipal Police authorities of Rome have recently withdrawn permission, granted three weeks ago, to celebrate Durga Puja in Rome. The cancellation came a few hours before the Ambassador of India was scheduled to inaugurate the Puja. No acceptable explanation has been given. I understand that some Italian Officials told the organizers of Durga Puja in Rome that the cancellation of permission at the eleventh hour, both last year and this year, was meant to be "retaliatory action against the persecution of Christians in India". Thus we can see that Governments of Christian countries in the West like Italy, who so often blithely criticize the "lack" of "religious freedom" in India, have no compunctions about trampling on Hindu feelings, emotions and sentiments at home.

I fully endorse the view of Kanchan Gupta: "Let the West look at its own ugly, septic warts. If Christians can celebrate Christmas in New Delhi, Hindus have the right to celebrate Durga Puja in Rome. This is non-negotiable."

I spoke to Dr.Subramanian Swamy, a great Field-Marshall for the deathless cause of survival of Hinduism today. He told me: "I strongly condemn the Italian government for arbitrarily and wilfully disrupting the Durga pooja in Rome organised by the resident Bengalis. The Indian Ambassador was scheduled to appear at the pooja, and the organisers had taken prior permission as in previous years. Yet the Rome police entered the pandal and disrupted the arrangements. Let the Italian government be warned that that there is a limit to the patience even for Hindus. Hindus in India know how to reciprocate such vandalism if the Union Government under the influence of an imposter Indian citizen of Italian descent fails to protect the sacredness of Hindu festivals. I demand an immediate summoning of the Italian Ambassador and a strong protest be lodged."

The Muslims of India can stop Durga Pooja or Ganesh Pooja any time any where depending on when they want it and where they want it. This one-sided capricious assertion of "minority rights" is completely supported and sustained by the pseudo-secular Government of India. The Muslims of Undivided India have got their independence both in Pakistan and India today. The Hindus are still awaiting the dawn of their freedom and independence. WE NEED A SECOND REPUBLIC OF INDIA.

Thursday, 16 July 2009

tale of two kashmirs
source:gurumurthy.net
That China too has its Kashmir and problems with Islamist separatists identical to India’s Kashmir is not widely known. ‘Xinjiang’, actually pronounced as ‘Sinkiang’ for postal purposes, is China’s Kashmir. Xinjiang actually shares borders with Ladakh in India’s Kashmir. But unlike Kashmir it is not a small area. Its size is 1.8 million sq km; almost one-sixth of China; half as much as India. India’s Kashmir measures some 2,65,000 sq km. Of which some 86,000 sq km is under Pakistan; some 37,500 sq km under China; the balance, 1,41,000 sq km, is with India. The disputed part of India’s Kashmir, some 1,45,000 sq km, is less than one hundredth of Xinjiang. So China’s Kashmir is physically 100 times bigger than India’s and therefore its problem too is bigger. Yet many do not know about it.

The reason is that China prevented Xinjiang, its Kashmir, from becoming an international issue like India’s Kashmir. Xinjiang, which had a majority of Turkish Muslims (Uighurs) in 1949, had a short-lived state of East Turkestan. China invaded it, crushed it, and won back its territory. The name Xinjiang literally means ‘old frontier returns to China’. See the contrast. A year earlier, in 1948, India almost won back most of Kashmir from Pakistan which had invaded it, but voluntarily offered and turned it into an international issue. It was India, not Pakistan, which went to the United Nations; made it an international issue. It is struggling to say it is a bilateral one. Now, on to how China handled Xinjiang, its Kashmir, and integrated it with mainland China.

Xinjiang has a population of 20 million plus. The Uighur Muslims constitute 45 per cent, other Muslims 12 per cent and the Han Chinese 41 per cent. What was the Han population in Xinjiang in 1949? Just six per cent. In six decades it has risen by seven times. This change did not occur by itself. China did not just trust army or administrative control of its territory in Xinjiang. It trusted only its people. It ensured that the Han Chinese slowly began populating Xinjiang. The result is self-evident. But the 41 per cent Han Chinese population does not include defence personnel and families, and unregistered migrant Chinese workers.

Xinjiang was once known for a variety of agricultural products, but now, for more. Its GDP rose from $28 billion in 2004 to $60 billion in 2008. Its per capita GDP (2008) is $2,864, almost the same as the national average. It has large deposits of minerals and oil. The oil and gas extraction industry in Xinjiang is booming; it has a pipeline to Shanghai. This sector accounts for 60 per cent of Xinjiang’s economy. With a vast area, huge resources, and sparse population, Xinjiang benefits China more than the other way round. In contrast the economic cost of India’s Kashmir is very high. It receives a per capita Central grant of Rs 8,092, while for other Indian states it is Rs 1,137. If the grant were given directly by money order each Kashmir family of five would receive Rs 40,460 every year.

Still, the Uighur Muslims are unhappy with communist China. The World Uyghur Congress led by Rebiya Kadeer, a businesswoman based in Germany, is fighting for the freedom of Uighurs. There is violence and terror in Xinjiang like in Kashmir but not on that scale thanks to Pakistan’s ISI being friendly to China as common cause against India. The Uighurs are therefore not getting any support from Pakistan. Yet militancy is growing. There were terror strikes in Xinjiang on August 5 last year, just three days ahead of the Beijing Olympics, killing 16 policemen. On August 11, when the Olympics was in progress, attacks took place near Beijing in which 11 people were killed. And just last week, on July 6, there were huge riots between Uighur Muslims and Han Chinese in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, resulting in 184 deaths and over 1,000 people injured. Most of the dead and injured were Han Chinese even though Urumqi is overwhelmingly Han Chinese, nearly three-fourths. See how the Chinese reacted to the July 6 riots.

President Hu Jintao, who was to attend the G8 meeting, flew back in a tacit admission of the depth of the crisis. His government declared war on ‘three forces’, namely — ‘separatism, extremism and terrorism’. It banned Friday prayers in Urumqi mosques and told the Muslims to pray from their homes, something no other country would or could do. China has also pointed to al-Qaeda as inspiration for the trouble.

Yes, China does have problems with Islamist separatists, extremists and terrorists. But it has, by diplomacy and action, ensured that it remains an internal problem, unlike India, which has on its own made Kashmir an international issue. China has also changed the religious and political demography of Xinjiang by ensuring that 41 per cent of the province’s population is non-Muslim.

Instead of working to change the demography in favour of India as China has done, the Indian government could not even prevent the expulsion of Hindus from the Valley. While Xinjiang is half filled by Han Chinese, Kashmir has been cleansed of Hindus. The result is that India has to defend Kashmir with the army instead of the people.

Had India followed the policy the Chinese adopted in Xinjiang, conquering Kashmir back instead of contracting under Article 370, which prevents Indians in other places from migrating to the Valley, today Kashmir would have demographically integrated with India. We would be dealing with internal riots occasionally like China does; but we would not face or fight wars with Pakistan and with terrorists every day.

The lesson for India is: demography — religious demographic balance that is in tune with the national mainstream — is the guarantee for the nation, more so at the borders. China gradually brought Xinjiang, its Kashmir, into the national mainstream through the Han Chinese. But India constitutionally contracted to keep its Kashmir out of the mainstream; it even cleansed it of the mainstream by making the Hindus refugees in their own nation. What a contrast!

QED: Augustus Comte, the 19th century French philosopher, said, “demography is destiny”. Citing him, The Economist (August 24-31, 2002) emphasised the importance of demographic influences on nations and economies. China understood the critical nature of religious demography; India did not. This is the differing tale of two Kashmirs.

Monday, 6 July 2009

Homosexuality is not a virtue
by gurumurthy source-gurumurthy.net

Homosexuals displaced the Economic Survey for the year 2008-09 from the headlines of most media on July 3, 2009. “Historic bench mark”; “Sexual equality”; “Landmark Judgement”. This is how the media had headlined the Delhi High Court judgment holding Sec 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which makes homosexual acts offences in law, partly unconstitutional. Sec 377 of the Indian Penal Code was not Manu's code. It was Macaulay’s. This colonial law made homo sexuality punishable. In Judo-Christian tradition, homosexuality was seen an act against the law of God, punishable even with death. The Islamic rules also prescribed capital punishment for the offence. In all Abrahamic traditions, the hostility to homosexuality originated in the story associated with a city as Sodom (the etymological source of the world ‘sodomy’) where the sexual sin was first committed according to their texts, though the respective accounts varied. This is the philosophy of the law against homosexuals in Abrahamic societies. Macaulay’s law reflected their theological position. Earlier, there was no state law in India to punish homosexuality. Does that mean that the Hindu — read Indian — tradition approved of homosexuality? Read on.

What was the position of the state and state enacted laws in India such matters? The king or the state in India had refrained from handling most issues which the society or families could handle. It is the colonial state, with its laws and courts, that began to intrude the sovereign domain of the family and society. The Indian discipline was always built around unenforced social and family norms; not state laws. Self-restraint and shyness were the tools to regulate the deviants from the norms, not the police or courts. Even today, it is this non-formal moral order — read dharma — not the laws of parliament or state assemblies, that largely governs this society. India is otherwise ungovernable; just some 12000 plus police stations in some 7 lakh towns and villages cannot regulate over 110 crore people. Thanks to this moral order, the Indian society had handled, and even now handles, such sensitive issues with great finesse than does state law. It is in stark contrast to the gross state law and media discourse of today. Historian Devdutt Pattanaik says that in Hindu literature ‘though not part of the mainstream, the existence of homosexuality was recognised, but, not approved’. Narada smiriti prohibited marriage of homo sexual men with women. Manu did suggest mild punishments for homos, but of an extreme type. The Indian tradition therefore neither encouraged nor punished lesbians or gays; nor did it celebrate them or despise them. It regarded them as a small, marginal fact of life, preferring to ignore them; and treating them as not worthy of public discussion for or against that might disturb the rest of the society.

Homosexuals are, in numbers, marginal even in the West. In the US where the gay-lesbians are aggressive in the public discourse, the 2000 US Census data reveals that only 0.42% households are same-sex households. Studies in US or France and Canada show just some 1-2% admit to be gays or lesbians. The deviation from the mainstream behaviour is as marginal as that. Yet it is the geo-Christian hostility to even such marginal groups that turns them into vociferous action groups in the West.

In the Indian — read Hindu — civilisational ethos, humans had never been seen as belonging to one uniform behavioural class. The Indian civilisation had recognised diversity in behaviour and morals. It therefore never imposed one moral value or rule for all. But it believed in a hierarchy of moral principles. It held out right conduct as ideal for the rest to imbibe and follow, but on their own volition. Even as it had evolved normative moral principles for the mainline society, it had subtly ignored, rather than focus on or punish, the deviants. Those who could not follow an ideal were never held as illustration for others to follow.

For example, the Indian society had evo lved one man-one wife as the ideal model for life, but never made it the law. It had indeed celebrated monogamy; but had never prohibited or punished polygamy. It did not even outlaw polyandry. Even today, regardless of the law, polygamy prevails in different parts of India. Even polyandry exists in certain communities in North India. It is neither proscribed nor accepted by others. But even those who did not follow the ideal of monogamy never disputed its virtue; nor did those who followed that virtue look down upon those who did not. Sri Rama was monogamous, but his father, Dasharatha, was polygamous. Yet, Rama revered him; obeyed him totally. Rama is therefore rega rded, besides an ideal being, an ideal son as well. But Prahlada defied his father; he is regarded as an ideal person, though some may not see him as an ideal son like Rama. Likewise, Sita obeyed her husband; but Meera defied hers; and yet both are accepted as great. Obeying one’s husband or one’s father or being monogamous was held as a high virtue. Even the more macro idea of “ahimsa paramo dharma”, namely non- violence as “the highest value”, was regar ded as a virtue of those only who had renounced the world; and not for householders and others. So the society was ruled more by hierarchy of virtues and illustrative conduct than by law. What is correct was never judged by how many people adhered to it; but how virtuous it was and regarded by all as such.

Tolerance for the deviants from generally accepted human conduct is part of the Ind ian ethos. Here, the society would wisely ignore the marginal deviants rather than punish them, even discuss them — a more subtle, sensible social management principle. The society felt, even now feels, shy to discuss them. That is why the traditional religious scholars have refused to be drawn into the current debate on the issue. In the Indian tradition, homosexuals, as elsewhere, were thus regarded as deviants. But, here, unlike in the Abrahamic, the right of these deviants to exist without being punished was never denied; and will never be. Yet no one can argue here or elsewhere that homosexuality is a virtue. No law or court of law can declare it as a virtue. That is the crux of the debate; and that is what is being obfuscated.

QED: The Delhi High Court ruling held only one part of Sec 377 as unconstitutional. But what part is held constitutional — that is, what act of homosexuality is still punishable — cannot be described without allowing the discourse to become shameless; without spilling filth in the discourse. So it is not being described as shamelessness should yield to shyness. But, the media, particularly the visual, has been purveying needless filth using the issue for quite some time now. And growing shamelessness is replacing dignified shyness that marks the public discourse. Is it fair to subject a shy society to a shameless debate?

Sunday, 31 May 2009

Dr Subramanian swamy on EVM fraud
Dangers of trusting them too much Source: http://www.expressbuzz.com/
There is much talk today about electoral rigging in the recent general elections. These doubts have arisen from the unexpected number of seats won by the Congress, and they are accentuated by the spate of articles recently published in reputed computer engineering journals and in the popular international press.
All raise doubts about the EVMs.For example, International Electrical & Electronics Engineering Journal (May 2009, p 23) has published an article by two professors of computer science, titled: Trustworthy Voting. They conclude that while electronic voting machines offer a myriad of benefits, nine suggested safeguards are absolutely essential to protect the integrity of outcomes. None of these safeguards are in place in Indian EVMs.
In India they do not meet the standard of national integrity.Newsweek magazine (June 1) has published an article by Evgeny Morozov, who points out that when Ireland embarked on an ambitious e-voting scheme in 2006, such as fancy touch-screen voting machines, it was widely welcomed: Three years and 51 million euros later, in April, the government scrapped the initiative. What doomed the effort was a lack of trust: the electorate just didn’t like it that the machines would record their votes as mere electronic blips, with no tangible record.A backlash against e-voting is brewing all over Europe.
After almost two years of deliberations, Germany’s Supreme Court ruled last March that e-voting was unconstitutional because the average citizen could not be expected to understand the exact steps involved in the recording and tallying of votes. Political scientist Ulrich Wiesner, a physicist who filed the initial lawsuit said in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel that the Dutch Nedap machines used in Germany were even less secure than mobile phones. The Dutch public-interest group ‘Wij Vertrouwen Stemcomputers Niet’ (We Do Not Trust Voting Machines) produced a video showing how quickly the Nedap machines could be hacked without voters or election officials being aware (the answer: in five minutes).
After the clip was broadcast on national television in October 2006, the Netherlands banned all electronic voting machines.Why are EVMs so vulnerable? Each step in the life cycle of a voting machine — from the time it is developed and installed to when the votes are recorded and the data transferred to a central repository for tallying — involves different people gaining access to the machines, often installing new software.
It wouldn’t be hard for, say, an election official to paint a parallel programme under another password, on one or many voting machines that would ensure one outcome or another pre-determined even before voters arrived at the poll stations.These dangers have been known to the Election Commission since 2000, when M S Gill, then CEC, had arranged at my initiative for professor Sanjay Sarma of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Gitanjali Swamy of Harvard to demonstrate how un-safeguarded the chips in EVMs were.
Some changes in procedures were made by the EC, but not on the fundamental flaws. In 2004, the Supreme Court First Bench, of Chief Justice V N Khare, Justices Babu and Kapadia had directed the election commission to consider the technical flaws in EVMs put forward by Satinath Choudhary, a US-based software engineer in a Public Interest Litigation. But the EC has failed to consider his representation.There are many ways to prevent EVM fraud.
One way to reduce the risk is to have machines print a paper record of each vote, which voters could then deposit into a conventional ballot box. While this procedure would ensure that each vote can be verified, using paper ballots defeats the purpose of electronic voting in the first place. Using two machines produced by different manufacturers would decrease the risk of a security compromise, but wouldn’t eliminate it.A better way, it is argued in the cited International Electrical & Electronics Engineering Journal article, is to expose the software behind electronic voting machines to public scrutiny.
The root problem of electronic machines is that the computer programs that run them are usually closely held trade secrets (it doesn’t help that the software often runs on the Microsoft Windows operating system, which is not the world’s most secure). Having the software closely examined and tested by experts not affiliated with the company would make it easier to close technical loopholes that hackers can exploit. Experience with Web servers has shown that opening software to public scrutiny can uncover potential security breaches.Now the Madras High Court is soon to hear a PIL on the EVMs. This is good news. The time has arrived for a long hard look at these machines. Otherwise elections would soon lose their credibility. All political parties must collect evidence to determine how many constituencies could have been rigged. The number would not exceed 75 in my opinion.We can identify them as follows: Any result in which the main losing candidate of a recognised party finds that more than 10 per cent of the polling booths showed less than five votes per booth, should be taken prima facie as a constituency in which rigging has taken place. This is because the main recognised parties usually have more than five workers per booth, and hence with their families would poll a minimum of 25 votes per booth for their party candidate. Hence if these 25 voters can given affidavits affirming who they had voted for, then the high court can treat it as evidence and order a full inquiry.
(The author is a former Union law minister)

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

Monday, 26 January 2009

Jan 27, 2009
Caste: its perceived nuisance in politics can be mitigated by promoting its economic potential -- S. Gurumurthy

Traditional caste, by reorienting itself, seems to be handling modernity well. It is modernity that appears clueless as to how to handle caste.In his two articles in The Hindu (Jan. 8 and 9, 2009), Justice Markandey Katju has brilliantly articulated what was once the colonial — now, the modern — view on ‘caste.’ He asserts, like most do, that caste is a “social evil,” “divisive,” and “a curse” that must be ‘eradicated’ if India is “to prosper.” Yet he concedes that, despite its suspected racial origin, caste had done good to India by helping in work specialisation, which had made India an economic super power till CE 1700. But, he says, it is an old story, and the British advent has changed all that. Asking “could India have developed like North America and Europe had the British not come?” he answers: “there is no use crying over spilt milk.” He is now relieved that the evil of caste is being destroyed by technology, people’s struggles, and inter-caste marriages.In sum, Justice Katju accepts the western anthropological view of Indian society. But setting out to validate the western view, the Dravidian and Dalit movements actually ended up repudiating it.
For it is the very caste that such movements fought to snuff out that finally became the vehicle for their assertion, surprisingly proving the old saying, “vishasya visham oushadam,” that is, if caste were poison, it is its cure too. Justice Katju, like most scholars — social, economic and political — seems confused about how to handle the ’traditional’ caste in ’modern’ times. While they see it as an evil in politics, here is a different view of caste that brings out its positive role in market economics, that is, caste as ’modern’ development — yes, modern economic development — vehicle.
Popular Indian socio-economic discourse today seems to be not fully familiar with the emerging phenomenon of ‘social capital’ — an area of study where culture and economics confluence. Francis Fukuyama, who authored the first bible of globalisation (The End of History and the Last Man) and made individualism, the free market, and liberal democracy demigods, wrote his next book Trust in which, on rethinking, he captured culture as the “20 per cent missing element” of economics.
As contrasted with individualism-dominated societies, he says, relation-based societies generate culturally defined social capital. Social capital is non-formal networking based on kinship within societies. The emerging view is that social capital expedites the socio-economic development process.
Fukuyama had missed out India, therefore caste, as India was not worth noticing when he wrote the book Trust. But contemporary writers and modern minds like Gurcharan Das and Swaminathan Ankilesaria Aiyar in India did not miss that out what Fukuyama had. They perceive caste as a potential engine of growth and development. Swaminathan Aiyar saw it as the social capital of India. That Justice Katju seems to be unaware of the empirical evidence of caste as a development vehicle in economics is evident from his remark that “a scientific study’ on caste ’is yet to be done.”Caste is a very strong bond. While individuals are related by families, castes link the families.
Castes transcended the local limits and networked the people across. This has prevented the disturbance that industrialism caused to neighbourhood societies in the West, resulting in unbridled individualism and acute atomisation. In independent India, a contradiction has developed between the individualism-centric Constitution and caste collectives. Caste-based politics has actually helped to harmonise this contradiction between the formal Constitution and the non-formal social architecture. In a sense, caste-based politics mediates between traditional society and the modern state in India. Yet it can still be argued that the caste element in politics is not desirable. But caste in economics is a positive drive of development. Read on.
The caste system, which was admittedly savvy with economics over millennia, has in modern times engaged the market in economics and democracy in politics to reinvent itself. It has become a great source of entrepreneurship. Studies show that the castes-based industrial clusters lead the nation’s industrial development. A UNIDO study (1997) shows that out of the 370 small scale industrial clusters and 2600 artisan-based clusters, which generated 70 per cent of India’s industrial output, 66 per cent of exports, and 40 per cent of employment, only 13 were government-sponsored. The rest had evolved out of the caste/community-based network.
Take the case of backward castes. The entrepreneurship generated by the Patel caste today dominates two-thirds of the global diamond trade. The Nadar caste runs over three-fourths of the retail trade, match works, and fireworks in Tamil Nadu. In Tirupur, Goundar caste entrepreneurs, 80 per cent of whom are not even matriculates, compete at the global level, exporting knitwear garments valued at over $2 billion. The World Development Report 2001 found that the social networking within the Goundar caste and the circulation of capital by trust had enabled Tirupur’s rise as a global knitwear hub. In Sankagiri and Namakkal in Tamil Nadu, Goundar caste entrepreneurs own the largest fleet of lorry, tanker, and tipper transport vehicles in the whole of India. Ninety per cent of them were farmers earlier and 20 per cent were just rearing cattle. The list is too long to be captured here.
An empirical study was conducted in some 25 caste-based industrial clusters in different places in India by a team of academics and professionals trained in modern business under the aegis of the Tamil Nadu Swadeshi Academic Council. It showed that whether it is the Jatavs of Agra and Kanpur, or the Nadars, Naidus, or Goundars of Tamil Nadu, or the Patels of Gujarat, or the artisan Ramgadiyas of Punjab, they have risen as competent entrepreneurs – many at the global level – mostly by leveraging on their kinship-based social capital. Most of them have had very little education. It is the community that has acted as the knowledge provider thorough kinship and social network.
More information on the caste-based growth model is available in the book Indian Models of Economy, Business and Management [Prentice-Hall of India 2008] by P. Kanagasabapathi who was part of the Swadeshi Academic Council team. A recent book by Harish Damodaran, India’s New Capitalists: Caste, Business, and Industry in a Modern Nation (Palmgrave Macmillan) also points to the evolution of caste as a development vehicle. A study of unregistered small and tiny enterprises by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in 2005 showed that there were over 42 million such units, out of which 45 per cent were owned by backward castes, scheduled castes, and scheduled tribes. These 42 million units provided the largest employment outside agriculture, engaging 90 million hands, and growing at an annual rate 2.6 per cent during 1990-98. So caste is turning into social capital in the market economy, and emerging as an open air university for entrepreneurship.
To conclude, traditional caste, by reorienting itself, seems to be handling modernity well. It is modernity that appears clueless as to how to handle caste. The modern elites see caste as a political nuisance. But they seem to be unaware that its perceived nuisance in politics can be mitigated by promoting the economic potential of caste. Elite India’s dilemma about caste seems to be outdated.-- S. Gurumurthy

Sunday, 21 December 2008

Many are not fully aware of how the Missionary war against Hinduism is happening, nor how serious it is: Stephen Knapp
From: Stephen Knapp, http://www.blogger.com/www.stephen-knapp.com

The War Against HinduismOver the years we have all heard about the many attempts that have been made in India to convert various sections of society from Hinduism to either Christianity or Islam. But only after one of my trips to India did I really get a much clearer understanding of what has been going on. Furthermore, most people, as well as many Indians, are not fully aware of how the war against Hinduism is happening, nor how serious it is. It is taking place on many levels, and because of this, in some areas the practice of Hinduism is declining rapidly.
When I was traveling in June of 2001, I had gone on a lecture tour, speaking every night at places like Mumbai, Nagpur, Warangal, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Hyderbad, Bangalore, Trivandrum, and Chennai. So I had the chance to meet with many of the intellectuals and some of the spiritual leaders in these areas, and learned how conversion was a very hot issue.
Now I don’t have anything in particular against Christianity itself. I was born and raised a Christian, so I know what it is, but also how they work. My main contention is when the teachings that are said to come from Jesus are twisted and misinterpreted into something that does not spread the genuine love of God and humanity that we are all supposed to develop, but becomes the dog-like barking and criticism against every other religion that is not Christian. This does not only go on toward every religion outside of Christianity, but also within it between Catholics and Protestants and other denominations. It seems that this faith has become not something that promotes our similarities for cooperation, but our differences in that everyone who is of an unrelated Christian denomination are all going to hell.
In regard to India, there is a great number of missionaries of various denominations who are working there right now, all competing for the most number of converts. The Southern Baptists alone are a group that has nearly 100,000 career missionaries in North India, all working to spread the “good word.” We also find that in order to make converts from Hinduism some of the numerous Catholic priests in Southern India dress like sannyasis, and call their organizations ashramas. This is to make Christianity more similar to the Vedic traditions. Bharat Natyam dance is also taught in the Christian schools, but with Christian symbols and meanings replacing the Vedic. This is all in the attempt to actively sway Hindus over to Christianity.
One way they are trying to bring Christianity deep into the culture of India is by superimposing its rituals, symbols, and even types of dress on the Hindu forms of the same. Thus, you will see the cross on the lotus, some priests dress in saffron, and some churches have the ambiance of a Hindu temple. If this keeps up, maybe one day Christianity will be more Hindu than Christian.
While traveling in the far Northeastern states of India I have seen some of the tactics that the Christian missionaries have used to help make converts, such as offering cheap polyester pants to the tribals of the Northeast if they become Christian, or even offer motor bicycles if they help convert their brothers, which also means their wives and family. In other places like Madhya Pradesh, as noted in the Neogy Report, the missionaries give small loans on interest to the tribals, who cannot pay back such loans easily. However, if they become Christian, then such loans and the interest are dismissed. This is what goes on in the democracy of India, and under the tolerance of the Hindus, while if one such incidence would ever occur in a Muslim country, the result would be an immediate expulsion of the missionary from that nation.
Another trick that has been done is that missionaries, while treating the sick, will give medicine of no value and ask the tribal to take it while offering prayers to his local deity. Naturally, no cure of disease is likely to occur with the useless medicine. Then the missionary gives the tribal real medicine and asks the tribal to take it while offering prayers to Jesus. Then when there is a recovery, it is attributed to the power of Christ and not to the medicine. Such conversion activities take place these days more often in the tribal areas under the guise of social service. However, true social service should be done without expecting anything in return, including conversion.
Another thing that takes place is mass healings at meetings similar to revivals. What they do is pay people to attend the healings portraying themselves as being sick, or invalids on crutches, etc., who then get called up and are miraculously cured of their disease. This is attributed to the power of Christ, which then convinces many tribals that they too can benefit in various ways if they become Christian. This has not had much of an effect amongst the Brahmana classes, but the lower classes who attend are more vulnerable and are impressed by such things, and are then swayed toward Christianity. This is why Christian conversion tactics have been focused more toward the tribal areas than other regions of India. So these conversions are not taking place due to pure preaching of the Bible or the message of Jesus, but are accomplished by trickery and the emphasis on material facility. This is, of course, what is being objected to by the general Hindu population. However, when or if people convert for purely spiritual reasons, then there is no objection.
Another way conversions are accomplished is with the promise to the Dalits or the lower caste Hindus that they will not have any more caste recognition by becoming Christians. However, after conversion many find out that this is not true. Even amongst the converted Christians there is found to be a caste mentality, with the lower castes forced to use separate doorways, separate seating, or have marriages performed only among equal caste Christians and in separate facilities, or to even be buried in separate cemeteries. When this becomes obvious to those who are newly converted, some of them want to come back to being Hindus again, which has been facilitated by such organizations as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).
An interesting point is that in spite of these duplicitous ways of converting that the Christians have used, the Christian churches have threatened violence against the process of reconversion back to Hinduism that had been launched by the VHP. It is as if they do not want anyone to have the right to do what they are already doing. It was Rev. V. K. Nuh, secretary of the Nagaland Baptist Convention who said, “If someone tries to impose their faith, Christians in this region will not surrender. There will be a battle and we shall have no option. There will be a physical and religious war if attempts are made to propagate Hinduism by forceful means in the Northeast.” In this same line of thinking, Rev. M.D. Oaugma, head of the Garo Baptist Convention of Meghalaya said, “It could be a threat to Christianity if we remain silent to the VHP’s game plan of mass conversion. We shall have to fight, we shall have to resist.” (Maharashtra Herald, July 11, 1998)
Of course, it is easy for Hindus to be nonchalant toward other religions because they feel that each spiritual path takes you toward God. So in this light, it is alright to be tolerant of them or let them thrive. But the problem is that not all religions feel the same way toward Hinduism. Some feel that Hinduism is a culture that should be removed or destroyed. An example of this is that in Northeast India, in states like Assam, Nagaland, and Manipur, they have witnessed a surge of nearly 200% in their Christian population in the past 25 years due to the wily tactics of foreign missionaries. Their grasp is so strong now that practicing Hinduism is forbidden in some areas. Where is the democratic freedom in that? Hindus can no longer do worship or arati in the open because of the fanaticism in parts of the land. Durga puja has become almost obsolete as deities are destroyed or stolen in broad daylight. This confrontational climate has led to numerous militant outfits sponsored by the Church who are fighting for secession from India. So now the Northeastern portion of India wants to secede from it, and another part of India will be lost if this should happen.
If the Catholic Church in particular is supposed to espouse the message that God is love, and that it is by love of God and neighbor that mankind is saved, it certainly has not shown much of that kind of love toward any other religion. With the Pope’s recent call for conversions in Asia, it certainly shows that it is not a friend of other religions, but still holds the goal that other spiritual paths should be brought down to be replaced by Christianity. This should be clearly understood. This is also the case with the Baptists and other denominations.
While I was in New Delhi, I also met with Mrs. Shanti Reddy, a member of a government agency called the National Committee for Women. She revealed that another thing that missionaries have done was to kidnap young Indian children. What one Christian missionary couple in Chennai was doing before they were arrested was to bribe tribals into giving their young baby girls to them. They would pay the tribals as little as 2000 to 5000 rupees for baby girls, and then turn around and sell the girls to foreigners for as much as $30,000 to $40,000. According to the records that had been confiscated from the missionaries’ home, this had been a thriving business, and nearly 25 of such transactions had already taken place. The Indian authorities said they probably saved 300 baby girls from such a fate from the indications on the records they found. So this has been another one of the forms of activities that such missionaries do for their own benefit and profit against the real interest of India. However, whenever Hindus react with force against such people, they are labeled as fundamentalists, antagonists, communalists, or worse. But how can you expect that Hindus should not display serious and violent reactions when such activities become obvious? It usually takes a lot to make Hindus react, as they are often most pacifistic and tolerant people. This is also why they make lousy terrorists, they just do not see things that way.
Nonetheless, another way that India is slowly losing its Vedic culture is through the process of secular or English and Christian education. Of course, in public schools all Vedic books have been removed from the curriculum. So there are no possibilities to study the ancient Indian literature or art in such institutions. So Vedic values are no longer part of what the children are taught. Furthermore, the Christian schools, often staffed by Christian missionaries, can teach Christian values in their classes, and include a short study of the Bible everyday, or the Koran if it’s an Islamic school. The so-called secular government has even helped them with free land and facilities. Since these schools offer English in their education, along with good discipline, many of the middle classes of Indians are favoring sending their children to these schools. Today, in the Indian cities, many of the parents of children are the graduates of Christian schools, who also send there own children to such schools. As this trend continues, there will be a decreasing number of Hindus in the educated sector. Thus, children in India, with the help of the secular government, are learning Christian values and perceiving their own history and culture as something less than honorable. They are taught that such important books as the Bhagavad-gita, Ramayana, Bhagavata Purana and other Vedic texts are nothing more than mythology, and not a result of one of the most profound civilizations in the world. They are also taught that their own God is but a demon and the only real way to God is through Jesus.
An example of this is that a few devotees from the New Delhi Iskcon (Hare Krishna) temple go out and give presentations to the children’s classes in schools. Some of the questions that are asked by the children are, “Who is your God?” and “hat can your God do for me?” and so on. Obviously, these questions are nothing but a direct result of the Christian and English oriented education that these children are receiving. Now I ask anyone, isn’t this practically a covert form of conversion? This form of education indoctrinates the children to doubt their own culture, and disrespect their own history and traditions. As a result of this form of education, the Hindu population is slowly forgetting the unique history and lofty culture of their homeland.
As I traveled around, it was not unusual to see elementary schools around India with a name something like “Saint Xavier’s School.” People should know that this Francis Xavier, who is now one of the greatest so-called “saints,” feverishly declared, “When I have finished baptizing the people, I order them to destroy the huts in which they keep their idols; and I have them break the statues of their idols into tiny pieces, since they are now Christians. I could never come to an end describing to you the great consolation which fills my soul when I see idols being destroyed by the hands of those who had been idolaters.” (From “The Letters and Instructions of Francis Xavier,” 1993, pp 117-8) This was his goal, to destroy Indian culture and make India a Christian nation. So it is ironic that now India embraces the schools that honor him in this way. How could they not know his true intention?
What is often not recognized is that, up until recently, for the last 50 years the politicians who have been directing the destiny of India are the ones who have an anti-Hindu attitude. They have set the economic direction and the educational policies that the country has been forced to follow. They have also promised the protection of the religious minorities with the hopes of acquiring votes. This has been one of the reasons why the secularists in the Congress party have treated everything that is Hindu with disdain.
Another aspect of the loss of Vedic culture in India is that the younger Indian people, especially ages from 15 to 25, are readily giving up Vedic customs to follow the more decadent so-called freedoms of the West. They see the western movies, they read what the celebrities say in the papers, and they admire them and want to adopt their forms of dress and lifestyles. Thus, in the big cities like Mumbai you have Indian couples living together without marriage, which is something you never would have seen before a few years back. Now the Vedic principles are looked upon as something obsolete, something that restricts the style that those who look to the West want to adopt. Thus, they are leaving Indian traditions behind and losing respect for anything Vedic. In this way, they adopt foreign standards, or lose so much respect for Indian and Vedic values that they become embarrassed to admit their Hindu background and heritage. Furthermore, Sanskrit scholars at the temples are also slowly dying out, and the modern Indians view the Ramayana and Mahabharata as merely myths or gaudy television shows.
Although India has been invaded by outsiders so many times and has always survived, what we are talking about is more than mere property or geography. What is actually being threatened is the basis of Indian culture itself. As younger generations give up their Vedic heritage, even if they return to it later when they are older and looking for more philosophical support, with whatever percentage of loss occurs with each generation, time has shown that it is never fully recovered. A portion of it is lost forever.
Another way of looking at this is that India presently enjoys an 85% Hindu majority in its population. This may sound quite significant, but in actuality this includes 15% Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains. So it is really only a 70% majority. How many more generations will go by before we see a big drop in this percentage due to the process of secular (meaning Christian or English, or even Islamic) education, or with the present rate of conversions by tactless Christians? This percentage could easily drop well below 50% in only a few more generations at the present rate of change.How many more generations will it take before the Hindu majority is no longer a majority, but a minority in its own country? As Hinduism declines, you will see that the demands on the government and those voted into politics will also change, and the laws will also alter more in favor of the increasing minority religions at the expense of declining Hinduism. Then as the years go by there will appear only small clusters of Hindu or Vedic communities, most likely centered around prominent holy places, until the more aggressive religions act in ways to diminish these as well, in the same way that they are presently doing in other countries.
The point of all this information is that it is time for all Hindus and supporters and followers of the Vedic culture, Sanatana-dharma, to realize what is actually happening and give up your timidness or nonchalance and speak out while such freedom still exists. We must become more pro-active for defending this culture. The point is that if you do not take it seriously, I can assure you that there are others who take this inaction and tolerance extremely seriously to promote their own goals and religions in India. It is because of this that India may not always remain the homeland of an active and thriving Vedic culture as it is now. We need to protect whatever is left of it and maintain the present liberties that Hindus or followers of Vedic culture still have in India. Then we all can continue to engage in Vedic traditions without hindrance, and with full freedom. For this, we need to unite ourselves in a concerted effort to make this happen. And it most certainly is possible.Not long ago, as told to me by Professor Subhash Kak, it was noted in a reputable publication that now 1% of the Russian population claim that they are Hindu. The article stated that this was primarily due to the preaching efforts of Iskcon. This shows a major social impact. This shows what is possible if we can work together in a concerted effort. This is why I am convinced that if we all work in a pro-active way under the banner of a united family of Vedic followers, or Global Vedic Community, we can keep and even expand the present freedoms that we now have to practice Vedic and indigenous traditions, and keep India as the homeland of Vedic culture, the most ancient roots of humanity.
India must be protected and kept as the homeland and center of the Vedic heritage, Sanatana-dharma, Hinduism. Without it, what is its value, in spite of whatever else it accomplishes? The value of Hinduism and India are clearly expressed in the words of the famous English theosophist Dr. Annie Besant. She put great emphasis on the value of India, its history, the Vedic culture, and its importance to the world. As written in the cover notes from the book, Hindus, Life-Line of India, by G. M. Jagtiani, she says: “After a study of some forty years and more of the great religions of the world, I find none so perfect, none so scientific, none so philosophic, and none so spiritual as the great religion known by the name of Hinduism. The more you know it, the more you will love it; the more you try to understand it, the more deeply you will value it. Make no mistake; without Hinduism, India has no future. Hinduism is the soil into which India’s roots are struck, and torn of that she will inevitably wither, as a tree torn out from its place. Many are the religions and many are the races flourishing in India, but none of them stretches back into the far dawn of her past, nor are they necessary for her endurance as a nation. Everyone might pass away as they came and India would still remain. But let Hinduism vanish and what is she? A geographical expression of the past, a dim memory of a perished glory, her literature, her art, her monuments, all have Hindudom written across them. And if Hindus do not maintain Hinduism, who shall save it? If India’s own children do not cling to her faith, who shall guard it? India alone can save India, and India and Hinduism are one.”In this light, it is absolutely necessary that as followers of Sanatana-dharma, Vedic culture, we realize that we need to repair whatever differences we have between us regarding whatever issues there may be. This is necessary in order to work with some cooperation with whomever we can if we expect to be a substantial force in defending the Vedic cause. Otherwise, all the issues that invariably come up, although these should not be ignored, should not take so much of our attention that our preaching or sharing or promoting of our culture stops. Otherwise, we will only serve as contributors to the continuing deterioration of all spiritual standards as the age of Kali-yuga progresses. This preaching, of course, means that we must all stay in touch with and practice the Vedic standards, and be ready to let others know of its advantages, and to defend it from those who wish to see its demise.
We cannot allow ourselves to be led into the danger of endless debate that leads to inaction. We all must be pro-active in some way to help defend and spread Vedic culture. Then we can work together to keep the freedom we presently have to practice the Vedic traditions and keep India as the homeland of a thriving, dynamic, and still living tradition. Such freedom does not come without its challenges, and we must be prepared as a society to meet those challenges. To take such freedoms for granted means that it’s only a matter of time before they are lost. And that is exactly what some people want to happen. So we must be willing to work all the harder to prevent such a decline of our Vedic heritage

Sunday, 14 December 2008


"Virat Brihad Hindutva"
First part of Three Part Series, By Subramanian Swamy source:haindavakeralam.com

What does the despicable terror and mayhem in Mumbai on November 26th signify for India? Shorn of the human tragedy, wanton destruction, and obnoxious audacity of the terrorists, it signifies a challenge to the identity of India from radical Islam. Cinema actor Shahrukh Khan may wax eloquent about the "true Islam" on TV, but it is clear that he and other such Muslims have not read any authoritative translations of the Koran, Sira and Hadith which three together constitute Islam as a theology, and which is a complete menu of intolerance of peoples of other faiths derisively labeled as kafirs. Hence instead of talking about the "correct interpretation" of Islam they ought instead be urging for a new Islamic theology consistent with democratic principles.

In 2003, two years after the 9/11 murderous and perfidious Islamic assault on USA, resulting in killing of more than 3000 persons within two hours, and which was perpetrated by leveraging the democratic freedoms in USA, the Saudi Arabian Embassy in the website of its Islamic Affairs Department [http://www.iad.org/] laid down what a "good" Muslim is expected to do. Dr. Steven Stalinsky of the Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI] based in WashingtonDC accessed it and published it in issue No.23, of the Institute newsletter, dated November 26[what irony!] 2003. I have to thank a NRI in US, Dr. Muthuswamy for this reference. In that site it is stated:

" The Muslims are required to raise the banner of Jihad in order to make the Word of Allah supreme in this world, to remove all forms of injustice and oppression, and to defend the Muslims. If Muslims do not take up the sword, the evil tyrants of this earth will be able to continue oppressing the weak and helpless"

Now who is more authoritative- Sharukh Khan or Saudi Arabia ?

Obviously the latter. The above quote is what in substance is being taught in every madrassa in India, and can be traced back to the sayings of Prophet Mohammed. I can quote a plethora of verses from a Saudi Arabian translated Koran[e.g., verses 8:12, 8:60, and 33:26] which verses justify brutal violence against non-believers. If I delved into Sira and Hadith for more quotes, then I could risk generating much hatred, so it will suffice to say that Islam is not only a theology, but it spans a brutal political ideology which we have to combat sooner or later in realm of ideas.

Some may quote back at me verses from Manusmriti about brutality to women and scheduled castes. But as a Hindu I have the liberty to disown these verses [since it is a Smriti] and even to seek to re-write a new smriti as many, for example, Yajnavalkya have done to date. Reform and renaissance is thus inbuilt into Hinduism. But in Islam, the word of the Prophet is final. Sharukh Khan and other gloss artists cannot disown these verses, or say that they would re-write the offensive verses of the Koran. If they do, then they would have to run for their lives as Rushdie and Taslima have had to do. Leave alone re-writing, if anyone draws a cartoon of Prophet Mohammed, there will follow world-wide violent rioting. But if Hussein draws Durga in the most pornographic posture, the Hindus will only groan but not violently rampage.

We Hindus have a long recognized tradition of being religious liberals by nature. We have already proved it enough by welcoming to our country and nurturing Parsis, Jews, Syrian Christians, and Moplah Muslim Arabs who were persecuted elsewhere, when we were 100% Hindu country.

Moreover, despite a 1000 years of most savage brutalization of Hindus by Islamic invaders and self-demeaning brain washing by the Christians, even then, Hindus as a majority have adopted secularism as a creed. We have not asked for an apology and compensation for these atrocities. But the position of Hindus in this land of Bharatmata, where Muslims and Christians locally are in majority, in pockets---such as in Kashmir and Nagaland, or in small enclaves such as town panchayats of Tamil Nadu, is terrible and despicable. Even in Kerala where Hindus are 52% of the population, they have only 25% of all the prime jobs in the state, and are silently suffering their plight at the hands of 48% who vote as a vote bank. .

The 26/11Mumbai slaughter therefore should teach us Hindus that the time has come to wake up and stand up

”it is now or never”.

If we do not stand up now to Islamic terrorism, then India will end up like Beirut, a permanent battlefield of international terrorists, buccaneers, pirates and missionaries.

What does it mean in the 21st century for Hindus to stand up ? I mean by that a mental clarity of the Hindus to defend themselves by effective deterrent retaliation, and also an intelligent co-option of other religious groups into the Hindu cultural continuum.

Mental clarity can only come if we are clear about the identity of the nation.

What is India ?

An ancient but continuing civilization or is it a geographical entity incorporated in 1947 by the Indian Independence Act of the British Parliament ?

What then does it means to say "I am an Indian" ?

A mere passport holder of the Republic of India or a descendent of the great seers and visionaries of more than 10,000 years ?

Obviously our identity should be of a nation of an ancient and continuing Hindu civilization, legatees of great rishis and munis, and a highly sophisticated sanatana philosophy.

If Hindu culture is our defining identity then how can we co-opt non-Hindus, especially Muslims and Christians ? By persuading them by saam, dhaan, bheda and dand that they acknowledge with pride the truth that their ancestors are Hindus. If they do, it means that they accept Hindu culture and enlightened mores. That is, change of religion does not mean change of culture.Then we should treat such Muslims and Christians as part of our Brihad Hindu family.

Noted author and editor M.J. Akbar calls this identity as of "Blood Brothers". It is an undeniable fact that Muslims and Christians in India are descendents of Hindus. In a recent article in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, an analysis of genetic samples[DNA] show that Muslims in north India are overwhelmingly of the same DNA as Hindus proving that Muslims here are descendents of Hindus who had been converted to Islam, rather than repositories of foreign DNA deposited by waves of invaders.

Akbar thus asks rhetorically:

"When have the Muslims of India gone wrong ?"

and answers:

" When they have forgotten their Indian roots".

How apt !

Enlightened Muslims like Akbar therefore must rise to the occasion and challenge the reactionary religious fundamentalists. That is India is not Darul harab to be trifled with. In a conciliatory atmosphere the minorities would willingly accept this. It is also in their interest to accept this reality. Hindus must persuade by the time- honoured methods Muslims and Christians to accept this and its logical consequences.

This identity was not understood by us earlier because of the distorted outlook of Jawarharlal Nehru who occupied the Prime Minister's chair for seventeen formative years after 1947 and for narrow political ends, had fanned a separatist outlook in Muslims and Christians.

The failure to date, to resolve this Nehru-created crisis, has not only confused the majority but confounded the minorities as well in India. This confusion has deepened with winter migratory birds such as Amartya Sen descending on the campus of the India International Centre to preach inane taxonomies such as "multiple identities".


There has to be an overriding identity called national identity, and hence we should not be derailed by pedestrian concepts of multiple or sub-identities.

`````````Without a resolution of the identity crisis today, which requires an explicit clear answer to this question of who we are, the majority will never understand how to relate to the legacy of the nation and in turn to the minorities. Minorities would not understand how to adjust with the majority if this identity crisis is not resolved. In other words, the present dysfunctional perceptional mismatch in understanding who we are as a people, is behind most of the communal tension and inter-community distrust in the country.

`````In India, the majority is the conglomerate or Brihad Hindu community which represents about 81% of the total Indian population, while minorities are constituted by Muslims [13%] and Christians [3%]. Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, and some other microscopic religious groups, represent the remaining three percent. Though also considered minorities, but really are so close to the majority community in culture that they are considered as a part of Hindu society. Unlike Islam and Christianity, these minority religions were founded as dissenting theologies of Hinduism. Even Zoroaster can be traced to leader of Vahikas in Mahabharata who migrated to Persia. Kaikeyi in Ramayana was from Persia when that country was hundred percent Hindu. Thus these religions share the core concepts with Hindus such as re-incarnation, equality of all religions, and ability to meet God in this life. That they feel increasingly alienated from Hindu society nowadays is also the consequence of India's identity crisis caused by British historians and their Indian tutees in JNU.

The India of today would not have been in existence had the attempts to divide Hindus succeeded. In the 20th century, a sinister attempt to divide the Hindu community on caste basis was made in 1932 when the British imperialists offered the scheduled castes a separate electorate. But shrewdly understanding the conspiracy to divide India, Mahatma Gandhi by his fast unto death and Dr. Ambedkar by his visionary rejection of separate electorate, foiled the attempt by signing the Poona Pact.

But the possibility exists that such attempts at dividing India socially may be made again in the future, a possibility that cannot be ruled out . Indian patriots will have to watch against such attempts very carefully. Segmentation, fragmentation, and finally balkanization have been part of the historical process in many countries to destroy national identity and thereby cause the political division of the nation itself. Yugoslavia is a recent example of this, which has now been divided into four countries, largely due to Islamic separatism and Serbian over-reaction.

Virat Hindutva can be achieved in the first stage by Hindu consolidation that is achieved by Hindus holding that they are Hindus first and last, by disowning primacy to their caste and regional loyalties. This would require a renaissance in thinking and outlook, that can be fostered only by patient advocacy and intellectual ferment.

For this we need a new History text, and a proper understanding of the distinction between the four varnas [not birth based but by codes of behavior for devolution of power in society] and jati [which is birth based and mostly for marriages]. Just as Valmiki and Vyasa are regarded as Maharshis despite being of different jati from Parasuram, hence Dr. Ambedkar should be called a Maharishi for his sheer depth of knowledge of Indian history. That he had become bitter because of Nehru systematically sidelining him is no reason not to do so.

India thus needs a Hindu renaissance today that incorporates modern principles, e.g., of the irrelevance of birth antecedents, fostering gender equality, ensuring equality before law, and accountability for all. It is also essential to integrate the entire Indian society on those principles, irrespective of religion. Uniform civil code for example, is something that the vast majority of Muslim women want, but because this demand has been usurped by those who deny the equality of nationality to the Muslims, hence comes the resistance to a eminently reasonable value. The Muslims think that this is the first step in several to subjugate them or wipe out their identity. But Muslims have quietly accepted Uniform Criminal Code [the IPC] despite that it contradicts the Sharia.

In other words, Hindutva has two components---one that Hindus can accept [such as caste abolition, eradication of dowry etc.] without any other religion's interests to consider. The other is the embracing by minorities of the core secular Indian values which have Hindu roots. This would require, particularly Muslims and Christians, to acknowledge that their ancestry is Hindu, and thus own the entire Hindu past as their own legacy, and to thus tailor their outlook on that basis. This would integrate Indian society and make the concept of an inclusive [Brihad] Hindutva and rooted in India's continuing civilization.

Thus, if India has to decide to have or not have good relations with Israel, Pakistan, Iran or US, it cannot be on the basis how it will impact on India's Muslims and Christians, but on what India's national interests require. If India has to dispatch troops to Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka or Nepal to combat terrorism, that policy too has to be decided on what is good for India, and not what any religious or linguistic group identifies as it's interest.

Thus such an Hindutva is positive in outlook, while raw Hindu xenophobia is negative and based on Hindu hegemony which will frighten all. Such an Hindutva will resolve our current energy-sapping identity crisis, which otherwise will completely emasculate India in the long run. The choice for the patriotic Indian is thus clear: We need a clear and positive view of our national identity based on our Hindu past and a Hindu renaissance to unite the Hindus with constructive mind-set as well as persuade the minorities to be co-opted culturally with Hindu society.

Once being Indian means virat brihad Hindutva, we can tackle terrorism by an effective strategy of defence. What are the components of that strategy is the subject matter of my next column here.

Thursday, 4 December 2008

Sonia's presence in Delhi is costing India dearly

December 4, 2008 source:indianexpress

By Francois Gautier

In 1898, the French writer Emile Zola wrote an open letter to the then French president in the newspaper L'Aurore, titled j'accuse ('I accuse'), where he accused the French government of anti- Semitism towards Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer unfairly condemned for treason.


Now it is time for the people of India to say openly that which many, including within the Congress, think secretly and may utter in the privacy of their chambers.

It is not about Manmohan Singh, it is not even about Shivraj Patil, the fall guy; it is about that one person, the Eminence Grise of India. She who pulls all the strings, She whose shadow looms menacingly over so many, She who holds no portfolio, is just a simple elected MP, like 540 others, but rules like an empress.

Sometimes, one's very physical presence at the top is enough to move things, to influence the course of events. One word from Her, a glance, a frown, are enough to put the whole heavy, inert, unwilling machinery of India's bureaucracy and political system in full motion. Sometimes She need not say anything: in the true tradition of Bhakti, Her ministers, Her secretaries, interpret Her silences and rush to cater to Her western and Christian identity.

Nevertheless, she has said and acted enough so that one day she may stand accused on the pages of History for what she must have done to India.

I'accuse Sonia Gandhi as being responsible for the tragedy of Mumbai, having emasculated India's intelligence agencies by stopping them from investigating terror attacks in the last four years, including the Mumbai train blasts. She has also neutralised the ATS by ordering them at all costs to ferret out 'Hindu terrorism', which if it exists, has wrought minuscule damage compared to what Islamic terror has done since 2004. Did the US send a warning to India that there may be an attack on Mumbai and that the Taj would be one of the targets? Were these ignored because the ATS was too busy chasing Hindu 'terrorists' on Sonia's orders? I accuse Sonia and her government of having made the NSG the laughing stock of the world. How many times did the NSG (who took ten hours to reach Mumbai) claim that it had "sanitised the Taj and that the operation was over" and how many times did a bomb go off immediately after? For the last 20 years, the NSG has guarded VIPs and has become soft. See the comments of Israeli terror specialists, who said the NSG should have first sanitised the immediate surroundings of the places of conflict, kept the bystanders and press (who gave terrorists watching TV in the Taj rooms a perfect report of the security forces' whereabouts) out of the place, gathered enough information about the position of the terrorists and hostages before taking action, instead of immediately engaging the terrorists, and ensuring the deaths of so many hostages.

I accuse Sonia of having let her Christian and Western background, in four years, divide India on religious and caste lines in a cynical and methodical manner.

I accuse Sonia of weakening India's spirit of sacrifice and courage, so that 20 terrorists (or less) held at ransom the financial capital of India for more than three days.

I accuse Sonia Gandhi of always pointing the finger at Pakistan, when terrorism in India is now mostly homegrown, even if it takes help, training, refuge and arms from Pakistan; of not warning Indians of the grave dangers of Islamic terror for cynical election purposes.

I accuse Sonia of being an enemy of the Hindus, who always gave refuge to persecuted minorities, and who are the only people in the world to accept that God may manifest under different names, in different epochs, using different scriptures.

I accuse Sonia Gandhi of taking advantage of India's respect for women, its undue fascination with the Gandhi name, and its stupid mania for White Skin.

I'accuse Sonia of exploiting the Indian Press' obsession with her. She hardly ever gave interview in 20 years, except scripted ones to NDTV, yet the Press always protects her, never blames her and keeps silent over her covert role.

I'accuse Sonia and her government of trying to make heroes of subservient and inefficient men to hide the humiliation of Mumbai 26/11. Before going to his death, Hemant Karkare, the ATS chief, was shown on television clumsily handling his helmet, as someone who uses it very rarely. Why did he die of bullet wounds in the chest when he was wearing a bullet-proof vest? Either Indian vests are inferior quality or he was not wearing one.

How did the terrorists who killed him and his fellow officer escape in the same vehicle used by the ATS chief ? Why did he and his officers go into Cama Hospital without ascertaining where the terrorists were? We honour his death, but these facts say a lot about the ATS' battle-readiness.

Will someone in the Congress, someone who feels more Indian than faithful to Sonia, stand up and speak the truth? Who said, "Go after Hindu terrorists"? Who insisted on putting pressure on BJP governments in Karnataka or Orissa for so-called persecution of Christians, when Christians have always practised their faith in total freedom here, while their missionaries are converting hundreds of thousands of innocent tribals and Dalits with the billions of dollars given by gullible westerners? Who said, "Go soft on Islamic terrorism"? Who wants to do away with India's nuclear deterrence in the face of Pakistani and Chinese nuclear threats, by pushing at all costs the one sided Indo-US nuclear deal, which makes no secret of its intention to denuclearise India militarily? I am sure Sonia Gandhi has good qualities: she probably was a good wife to Rajiv, a good daughter in law to Indira and by all accounts, she is a good mother to her children. One also hears first-hand reports about her concern for smaller people, her dignity in the suffering that befell her when her husband was blown to pieces, and her courtesy with visitors.

Nevertheless, she is a danger to India.

Her very presence, both physical and occult, open the doors to forces inimical to India. Even Indian Christians should understand that she is not a gift to them: her presence at the top has emboldened fanatics like John Dayal or Valson Thampu, who practise an orthodox Christianity prevalent in the West in the early 20th century, but no longer, to radicalise their flock. Indian Christians should recognise that they have a much better deal here than Christians or Hindus have in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia or Saudi Arabia.

Under Sonia's rule, Indian Muslims, too, have been used as electoral pawns. They have been encouraged to shun the Sufi streak, a blend of the best of Islam and Vedanta, for a hard-line Sunni brand imported from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

For the good of India, her civilisation, her immense spirituality and culture, Sonia Gandhi has to go and a government that thinks Indian, breathes nationalism and will protect its citizens must be voted to power.

Monday, 6 October 2008

What made Hindus angry in Karnataka
François Gautier :source indian express

I WAS born in a Catholic family. My uncle was a priest, a wonderful man of warmth and compassion and I spent most my early years in Catholic boarding schools. When I was young I wanted to become a missionary and to ‘convert’ pagans in Asia. What I was taught by priests was that Hindus worship false gods and they needed to be brought back to the True Word by Jesus Christ.

Then of course, I came to India and discovered that actually Hindus, far from being the heathens, as had been portrayed in Europe, not only believed God’s diversity, the wonderful concept of avatar, but had given refuge to all persecuted minorities of the world, whether the Syrian Christians, the Parsis, the Jews (India is the only country in the world where Jews were not persecuted), the Armenians, or today the Tibetans.

I am also aghast at the one-sided coverage by the Indian media of the Christian- Hindu problem: blasts after blasts have killed hundreds of innocent Hindus in Varanasi, Delhi, Mumbai train blasts, Jaipur, etc. Yet, neither Manmohan Singh nor Sonia Gandhi have pronounced once the word ‘Islamic terrorism.’ But when furious Hindus, tired of being made fun of, of witnessing their brothers and sisters converted by financials traps, of seeing a 84-year-old swami and his Mataji brutally murdered, of reading blasphemy about their Gods, vent their anger against churches, many of them makeshifts, the Indian government goes after the soft target which the Hindus are. The same thing applies to the United States: they never warned Muslim organisations in India about the killing of Hindus, but when dollars are used to buy new converts and it angers the majority community of India,Washington has the arrogance to issue a warning, and Manmohan Singh does not have the pride to tell the US to mind its own business.

Neither the Indian press nor the western correspondents bothered to write about what made Hindus angry in Karnataka: Newlife, one important westernfunded missionary centre ( http://www.newlifevoice.org), began making conversions in and around Mangalore by accosting poor people in market areas, or in bus stands, befriending them and then taking them to churches to introduce them to the father.
Upon introduction they were paid Rs 2,500 per person and then taken to the Velankanni shrine, in Tamil Nadu, where they would get another Rs. 3,000.
When they finally converted to Christianity by changing the name, they got an incentive of Rs 10,000 onwards.
Newlife would then give them instructions to abandon wearing tilak on forehead, not to visit and offer prayers at the Hindu temples, replacing the photos and idols of Hindu gods and goddesses with a Cross, etc.
But what really angered local Hindus was when Newlife went one step further and published a book in Kannada — Satya Darshini — which was widely distributed by its missionaries.
Here below is the translation of some of the most abusive passages: Urvashi — the daughter of Lord Vishnu — is a prostitute.
Vashistha is the son of this prostitute.
He in turn married his own Mother. Such a degraded person is the Guru of the Hindu God Rama. (page 48).
When Krishna himself is wallowing in darkness of hell, how can he enlighten others? Since Krishna himself is a shady character, there is a need for us to liberate his misled followers (page 50). It was Brahma himself who kidnapped Sita.
“Since Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva were themselves victims of lust, it is a sin to consider them as Gods. (page 39).
When the Trinity of Hinduism (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) are consumed by lust and anger, how can they liberate others? The projection of them as Gods is nothing but a joke. (page 39). God, please liberate the sinful people of India who are worshipping False Gods. (Page 39).”
When blasphemy and much worse is brought against the most sacred Hindu Gods, Hindus are supposed to take it meekly as sheep and let themselves be converted to a foreign religion! There are more than 4,000 foreign Christian missionaries involved in conversion activities across different states.

In Tripura, there were no Christians at the time of independence. There are 1,20,000 today, a 90 per cent increase since 1991. The figures are even more striking in Arunachal Pradesh, where there were only 1,710 Christians in 1961, but 1.2 million today, as well as 780 churches! In Andhra Pradesh, churches are coming up every day in far-flung villages and there was even an attempt to set up one near Tirupati.
Christians throughout the ages have strived on the concept of persecution and as a brought up Catholic, I remember feeling bad about all those martyred saints of Christianity. Christians in India like to say that they are only two per cent and can do no harm. But it is a sham: in the Tamil Nadu coastal belt from Chennai to Kanyakumari, there must be now 10 per cent Christians posttsunami and the same may be true in other parts of south India.
My heart goes out to Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa who took a courageous stand against unethical Christian conversions, but is now under pressure from the Centre.
The BJP, having learnt from bitter experience that the Congress has no qualm in invoking President’s rule under fallacious pretexts in states which are ruled by non-Congress governments is in a quandary: it must show some action against militant Hindu groups while remaining true to itself.
This is why Yeddyurappa took some action against Hindu groups while saying that his government will not tolerate forcible conversions and will take stringent action against missionaries involved in conversions.
And ultimately, the blame must fall on Hindus: they are 800 million in India, the overwhelming majority; they have the brains, they have the money and they have the power. But either their intellectual and political class sides with the minorities, out of fear, inferiority complex imbedded by the British or just sheer crass political opportunism, or the bigger mass is indifferent inert, selfish, un-civic conscious. Every Hindu is the inheritor of the only surviving spiritual knowledge which at the moment is under a concerted attack by Christian missionaries, Americanisation, Marxism and Islamic fundamentalism