Europe’s civilian revolt against the stranglehold of the Catholic Church was won by resurrecting its Pagan heritage as exemplified in Greek philosophy and Roman law. The resultant duality of religious and secular authority provided space for individual liberty, science, and material progress. Hindu society, despite civilizational stresses from hostile invasions, managed to preserve its cosmic worldview and to resist imposition of a mono-source of political and religious power. Islam has been consistent in its advocacy of a single religio-political authority.
Of the three traditions, I consider the White Christian the most treacherous because the First World, despite wrestling personal freedom from the pulpit, uses the Church as an instrument of imperialism. Secularism placed Church aspirations for dominion under non-religious leadership, which is why Western regimes aggressively promote proselytization and the decimation of non-Christian faiths and cultures. The US State Department, as the Vigil public forum rightly points out, views religious freedom an integral part of its foreign policy, which makes evangelization a political agenda.
As Europe’s secularization went hand-in-hand with successful colonial conquests, the West’s post-Second World War thrust for perpetual sales and profits naturally accompanies the evangelization drive. In my view, Western secularism resulted, not in separation of religion and politics, but in Church subordination to politics. As senior partner in the new equation, the secular polity assumed responsibility for facilitating the twin evils of Christian conversion and market domination (through cultural subversion of traditional lifestyles) upon the world. Unlike Islam, the naked sword was hidden by wooing and co-opting academic, political and economic elites in a grand alliance for “progress” from traditional moorings. The White Christian world is thus far more lethal than Islam, which is openly against non-Muslims.
From this perspective, the All India Christian Council’s agitation at the rising stature of the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram in the tribal belt spanning Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa, makes perfect sense. Mr. John Dayal, general secretary, typically rants against VKA social service activities amongst tribals and shows disrespect for tribal resentment against missionary activities and the loss of cultural identity caused by loss of faith. In an article posted on the www.pakistanchristainpost.com website, Dayal alleges coercion and violence in VKA’s Ghar Vapsi (return to roots) programme. He claims that the RSS distributes arms and that this has polarized tribals, stimulating the violence witnessed against Muslims in Gujarat’s tribal areas after the Godhra conflagration.
Ghar Wapsi is essentially the brainchild of former Union Minister Dilip Singh Judeo, erstwhile ruler of Jashpur in Raigarh (Chattishgarh) and hereditary royal guardian of the Korwa tribals of Sarguja. Apart from resisting the tide of conversions, what rankles with missionaries is Judeo’s determination that village communities regain land appropriated by missionaries for schools, hospitals and churches. Judeo, who is well acquainted with missionary tactics through several decades of hard work, wittily advises tribals to accept the services offered by missionaries, but on no account discard their traditional faith and culture in lieu of these services.
Irritated at the success of this advice, Mr. Dayal is further enraged that Ghar Wapsi has succeeded to the extent that conversions have virtually stopped and the ‘homecoming’ movement is gathering momentum. No doubt Judeo’s impressive personality and colourful language have contributed to his substantial success. He first came to national attention in 1992, when he told a popular magazine that he had issued a “manifesto to the missionaries” which stated that “we” (tribals) would eat up anyone who ate a cow, and would clip two throats for every choti (tuft of hair on a shaven head) clipped. It bears mention that though evangelists routinely quote this statement, not a single incident has occurred under Judeo’s jurisdiction.
The All India Christian Council has also picked up a quarrel with the Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, Mr. Tarlochan Singh, for having asked Delhi Archbishop Vincent Concessao to refrain from evangelization among the Sikh community. The Archbishop sent Mr. Singh a loaded missive on Christian theology, individual freedom of conscience, and the power of the Holy Spirit, adding sharply: “We certainly want inter-religious harmony and peace….But this harmony cannot be achieved at the cost of the individual citizen’s freedom of conscience, which every other citizen has to respect.” The Archbishop smugly reiterated the Church’s old ideological deceits that conversion is an adult choice of a chosen way of life; that nobody can convert another person; one can only present a way of life to another person, who is then free to decide his response.
If this is indeed true, conversions to Christianity should normally occur in driblets of one and two, and not in the form of the mass conversions that accompany sustained pressure from evangelists. More often than not, the neo-converts have little idea of Christian theology and its anti-Jewish bias, the schisms and purges caused by fanatical Popes and Bishops, and the myriad changes wrought in the Holy Bible due to the political exigencies of prevailing elites. Conversion of the illiterate and uninformed does not meet my standard of a “free interaction between God and man in the sanctuary of an individual’s conscience,” as the Archbishop so loftily claims.
That tribals on their own have little time for Christ or the pious missionary can be seen from the fact that the merciful exit of Mrs. Gladys Staines (widow of Australian missionary Graham Staines) from India led to a massive homecoming of converted tribals. In Orissa’s Mayurbhanj district, seventy-five Christians returned to the Hindu fold last month and more are slated to re-embrace their native faith. The cognoscenti would be aware that acute resentment at Graham Staines’ conversion activities had resulted in his sensational murder some years ago.
Of course, Christian activists do not believe in a level playing field. Hence the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, which merely facilitates tribals wishing to live according to their traditional mores, received unexpected flak when it observed its golden jubilee in the capital’s Mandoli village recently. Even as delegates debated problems of the country’s eight crore tribal population, leaders of the minority communities raised Cain on the ground that VKA was bringing tribal hamlets back to the Hindu fold (The Telegraph, 3 October 2004).
Objectively, VKA is by no means as pervasive as its critics aver. Organizing secretary Gunwant Singh Kothari claims that out of the 698 tribes in the country, VKA has established contact with 380 only. From humble beginnings in Jashpur (royal estate of the Judeo family) in 1952, VKA today has a presence in twenty-seven States and Union Territories, including all States of the sensitive north-east; but it does not have even a toe-hold in areas like Goa, Lakshadweep, Ladakh and Pondicherry.
The VKA operates on the premise that loss of culture is loss of identity, and strives to help the myriad tribes to preserve their distinct identities. This is also the keynote of the first ever Draft National Policy on Tribals prepared by the NDA Government to bring tribals into the national mainstream, which is currently being debated nation-wide. The Draft National Policy was prepared as it was felt that despite pious statements of intent made in the Constitution in 1952, the majority of Scheduled Tribes even today live below the poverty line, have poor literacy rates, are prone to malnutrition and disease, and are vulnerable to displacement.
The Pioneer, 19 October 2004
