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ASSOCIATION FOR COMMUNAL HARMONY IN ASIA (ACHA) ACHA is an non-profit, non-political organization, which is dedicated to promote peace and harmony among South Asians regardless of where they live. Current Board Members are Pritam Rohila (President), Jagdish Grewal (Secretary), Dr. Abdul Qayum (Treasurer), Dr. Kanak R. Ravel, Gulzar Ahmed, Ishvar Patel and Susheela Hoefer. Dharam Yadav is the Honorary Financial Advisor. For more information about ACHA and comments about ACHA Bulletin, please
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This Bulletin is being relayed as a part of ACHA's South Asian community service program. Currently, it is being sent out every other Wednesday to about 400 individuals in Africa, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, U.K., and USA. Please let us know (pritamr@open.org), if you want to have your name removed from our email distribution list. Also, please let us know if someone should be added to the list. Comments, letters to editor, and short articles are also welcome and can be sent to the same address. ACHA BULLETIN 1/27/99 Special Issue on Violence Against Christian in India. (Next issue due on 2/10/99) CONTENTS ACHA Chapter News
ACHA CHAPTER NEWS Father Cassian Parichha, President of ACHA-India and of its Orissa State Chapter, and Mr. Gul Firoze Khan, President of Bihar State Chapter of ACHA-India participated in Sarva Dharma Sammelan 1998 (National Interfaith Assembly 1998) held on November 28-30, 1998, at Bangalore, India. "Religious Harmony and Cooperative Action" was the theme of this Assembly, organized by the Commission for Inter-Religious Dialogue of the Catholic Bishops' Conference on India. Inaugurating the event, Governor Khurshed Alam pointed out that communal fundamentalism is against all religions. About 300 participants included leaders of Bahai, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Muslim, and Zoroastrian faiths. Some people from Germany and the Vatican also attended the Assembly. EDITORIAL *The violence against Christians in India must stop by Pritam K. Rohila, Ph.D. As human beings, the crown of God's creation, we may have lost our tail, but we have not yet lost some characteristics of our evolutionary forefathers. We may have learnt to walk straight, but some of us are so affected by the rhetoric of hate that we are unable to think straight. Yugoslavs against. Albanians in Kosovo, Catholics against Protestants in ome parts of Mexico, Christian Coalition against Blacks and gays in some parts of USA, Sunnis against Shias in Pakistani Punjab, Muslims vs. Christians in eastern Indonesia, and in India upper castes Hindus against the lower castes in Bihar, Muslims against Hindus in Jammu & Kashmir - ately, lines have been drawn between neighbors on account of religion, caste, ethnicity, sexual orientation or some other similar excuse. Human beings are wreaking their anger on other human beings. Now, in India, some insecure Hindus have made Christians the targets of their wrath. In Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and now in Orissa Christians have been singled out for persecution by them. As a policy we do not comment in ACHA Bulletin on such incidents. Instead, we carry a column on Peace and Communal Harmony News. But our outrage at some of the recent incidents in India forces us to register our protest against this systematic persecution of a minority. Also, we want the world to know that these self-appointed defenders of Hindu faith do not speak or act for our Hindu members. Some people say, only a few Christians have been hurt and that most Christians are not affected by what is happening. We ask them, "Rapes of how many women, burning alive of how many missionaries and their children, destruction of how many houses of worship, infliction of fear in how many hearts, will be enough before the persecution of a minority should be stopped?" If providing literacy, health services, or better treatment to our outcastes and down trodden can be called "inducement to conversion" or "forcible conversion," then why the members of the majority who have access to more means don't use the same ways to induce them away from the missionaries? Why do we have to resort to violence and threats of violence instead? It boils to the matter of how we go about resolving our disagreements with others. To win the argument civilized and cultured people use dialog, not violence. Rape, murder, and destruction of property, initiated either by the majority or the minority, is just not acceptable. It is true a minority, in any country, should be aware of the cultural heritage of the majority. They should appreciate those aspects of the majority culture that do not conflict with their own faith. They should not deliberately offend the sensibilities of the majority community. But, the majority also must do the same towards the minority. It should appreciate the insecurities experienced by the minority, and go an extra mile to assuage their fears and to respects the basic human right of the minority to practice, preserve and propagate its own culture and religion. Just like sexual "advances" by a girl-child is not acceptable in any court of law as a defense by an adult male, initiation of conflict by a minority is not an adequate excuse by the majority's attempt tp subjugate the former by force. PEACE & HARMONY NEWS * Pakistan to play cricket matches in India: In spite of threats and terrorist acts by some Hindu militants, Pakistan cricket team, led by skipper Wasim Akram, arrived in New Delhi January 21 evening amid unprecedented security. "We are here to honour your invitation and to promote good relations between the two countries," said Pakistan team manager Shaharyar Khan, a former top diplomat, at an overcrowded press conference at the Taj Palace hotel. * Pakistan-India bus from Lahore arrived in New Delhi on January 14, with a 19-member Pakistani delegation, despite threats by Shiv Sainiks in India and the Jamat-i-Islami in Pakistan. The delegation is in the capital for the dry run of the proposed bus service between Delhi and Lahore. Leader of the Pakistani delegation Tajul Islam Yusufzai, a general manager in the Pakistan communication ministry, said they were aware of the threats. But that would not deter them from carrying out the ''noble mission'' of uniting the people of the two nations. Expressing satisfaction over the security arrangements, he said that if one paid attention to such threats, the process of normalization would not progress at all. ''This is an initiative taken by the prime ministers of two countries in New York in September. Such initiatives should be carried forward,'' he said. The delegates were all praise for the Indian hospitality, especially the food served en route. Friday night, the delegates, accompanied by Pakistan High Commissioner to India Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, joined the prime minister's iftaar party at Hyderabad house. The much-awaited bus service between New Delhi and Lahore will start in the first week of February, Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation Managing Director Imtiaz Syed has said. OPINION *A case for conversion by Vir Sanghvi (From Rediff on the NeT 1/19/99) Why have those of us who pride ourselves on our secular instincts been so slow to react to the violence against the Christian community? Christians have been complaining of attacks for four months now. And yet, it is only recently that we have paid any attention to their complaints. There are two answers to this question. The first is the pat response. The attacks struck us as being isolated instances and it wasn't till sections of the extended Sangh Parivar stepped up the pace of assaults in the aftermath of the assembly election that we realized that there was a pattern or a conspiracy behind the attacks. But there is also a second, deeper answer to the question. To see the attacks as part of a campaign against Christians would be to miss the point. Of course, Indian Christians are the ultimate target but as of now, the campaign has been packaged not so much as an anti-Christian movement but as a campaign against foreign missionaries who engaged in conversions. This is why it has failed to generate the kind of secular outrage that it should have. Because the truth is that most Hindus, no matter how secular, are ambivalent about missionaries and hostile to the concept of conversions. Our relationship with Christian missionaries is the most complex. Many of us have been educated at convent and Jesuit schools and continue to send our children to such schools. But, at some subliminal level, we resent the fact that such schools require children to sing Christian hymns, say Christian prayers and - at least in the case of the Jesus school I attended as a child - make the sign of the cross every morning. We resent also that many such schools (again judging by my own experience) refuse to seriously entertain the possibility that Jesus Christ's way is not the only one or to confer Indian faiths with any respect. Some even require children to spend their lunch breaks raising money for missionary activities. For many years, the Indian middle class - both Hindu and Muslim - has coped uneasily with the more Christian aspects of education such schools provide. A friend of mine, the daughter of a prominent (and entirely secular) Bharatiya Janata Party leader recalls going to a temple when she was a child. "Beti, prarthana karo (daughter, say your prayers)," said the pujari . At this, the poor girl launched into the only prayer she knew: "Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..." Needless to say, there were embarrassed faces all around. But even those Hindus who have minded the overtly Christian nature of education have not dared withdraw their children because they know that, whatever their drawbacks, such schools provide an education that is generally superior to that offered elsewhere. And once you choose to let your children remain in a Jesuit or a convent school, then you lose the right to complain. (In my own case, my father withdrew me after two years when he wearied of my making the sign of the cross each time I was upset and objected to my saying "Amen" at the end of every sentence). Nevertheless, though Hindus accept that those who voluntarily choose to send their kids to such schools must accept the whole package (hymns and all), they remain resentful. This is why Kalyan Singh touched a chord in the heart of a many parents when he asked whether Muslims who objected to Vande Mataram would now withdraw their children from Catholic schools as well. When it comes to conversions, Hindus are even more resentful. Try arguing with any secular Hindu about conversions and after five minutes of political correctness, you end up against a stone wall. Try explaining that our Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and that this must include the right to preach your faith as well as the right to change your religion, and you will get nowhere. Point out that most liberal democracies - including Christian countries - allow conversions, and you will be met with disbelief. Explain that nobody in England penalized the mullahs who converted Cat Stevens to Islam or that the US allows the Hare Krishna movement to convert hristians at will, and these examples will be dismissed as being of no consequence. Worse still, such is the arrogance of most Hindus that we seem to actually believe that no Hindu ever converts of his own volition. The conversions, we decide, are either forcible or achieved through inducements. The reality is that there are many people at the margins of Hindu society - dalits, tribals, lower castes and so on - who have no reason to cling to a faith that oppresses them. But even when such persons convert, this is seen as a conspiracy by fiendish foreign missionaries. (One measure of the resentment was available when dalit Christians asked for reservations. Almost to a man Hindu society jumped up and blew a raspberry in their direction. "Now that you've converted, why should you get the benefits we give our dalits?" was the refrain. When the hapless Christian pointed out that there was caste prejudice within the Christian community, the Hindu delight was palpable: "Serves you right! Serves you right! And you thought you'd be better off! Ha!") The brilliance of the Sangh Parivar's campaign is that it taps into these Hindu resentments. If the Parivar said that it wanted to beat up poor Mr Gomes down the road because he was a Christian, most Hindus would be outraged. Instead it says: we are targeting Father Fat Cat and the foreign funds he uses for conversion. And while Hindus do not exactly cheer the Parivar along, they are less outraged. The modus operandi is familiar. The Parivar pulled exactly the same routine during the Ayodhya agitation. The attack was directed at the Muslim eadership which refused to abandon a discussed mosque even though it marked the birthplace of Lord Rama. Why, asked the likes of L K Advani, should Muslims bother to compromise when they have been so pampered by the secular establishment? The Shahi Imam wants the Shah Bano judgment reversed; he gets his way. Syed Shahbuddin wants The Satanic Verses banned; he gets his way. If the attack had been framed in terms of ordinary Muslim, it would have been less attractive. Had the Parivar said it was targeting Ali, the peon in your office, Hindus would have had nothing to get agitated about. But once the attack tapped into existing resentments and targeted Shahbuddin and the Shahi Imam, it found many supporters. Of course, as the Ayodhya agitation demonstrated, once the movement gets under way, it is never the ostensible targets who get hurt. The Shahi Imam is as well off today as he was 10 years ago. It is poor Ali the peon whose house has been burnt. And with relations between the communities set back 20 years, Hindus have suffered nearly as much as Muslims. The anti-Christian agitation will probably go the same way. Father Fat Cat will take a plane out. Poor Mr Gomes will get stabbed. If we are to avoid a repetition of the trauma of the Ram movement, then three things are necessary. One: Hindus must recognize that their resentments against missionaries and conversions are basically irrational. Two: Indian Christians should not be carried away into making common cause with foreign missionaries. And three: the State must act to nip the violence in the bud. Otherwise, we can expect more Toyota raths, more madness, more mayhem and more murder. *Figure this out: The truth about Hindus and Christians by Amberish K Diwanji (The Rediff Special 1/22/99) There are three kinds of untruths: lies, damned lies and statistics! Statistics is the primary weapon employed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) to buttress its version on the conversions controversy - the faster growth rate of the Christian (and Muslim, though the focus at present is not on them) population as opposed to that of the Hindus. The VHP points to the census undertaken in 1991 as its reference, and the growth in the period between 1981 and 1991 (the next census is due only in 2001). There is no denying that some of the figures are incredible. In Arunachal Pradesh, the Christian population in the decade in question registered a growth of 225.98 per cent! The Muslim growth rate was at 135.01 per cent, while the Hindu growth rate was 73.34 per cent. The VHP says it is in the North-East that the maximum conversion has taken place and that is the region where missionaries are the most active. To back its statement, it cites the 1991 census. But John Dayal, convenor of the United Christian Forum for Human Rights, accuses the VHP of quoting figures out of context. "Statistics are the Devil's instrument," he says. "At the time of Independence, the Christian population in the Dangs district [in Gujarat] was slightly less than 500 and today it is around 7,500. Is an increase of 7,000 people in 50 years really too much?" Dayal also points out that Christianity in India has grown much slower than in the rest of the world. The 1991 census states that there were 7,824 Christians in the Dangs, up from 1,514 in 1981. This works out to a percentage increase of almost 500. In the same period, the state of Gujarat registered a population growth of 21.19 per cent. While the Hindu population grew by 21.12, Christians grew by 36.96 and Muslims by 24.05. But statistics tell just half a story. Perhaps this is why the VHP depends wholly on percentages (it gave absolute numbers only when Rediff On The NeT asked for them specifically) while the Christian groups prefer to highlight numbers rather than percentages. Explains Dr Ashish Bose, a leading demographer: "As any statistician will tell you, when the figures are small, percentages appear huge; and when the figures are huge, the percentages appear small." An example: Adding 2 to 10 is a 20 per cent increase, adding 2 to 100 is just a 2 per cent increase. Thus, for Uttar Pradesh today to register a 10 per cent growth in population needs 10 million people, more than the population of the entire North-East excluding Assam! Yet, is this five-fold increase in the Christian population in the Dangs possible? Says Bose, "Growth is caused by births, deaths and migration. In the Dangs, and in other tribal areas, the birth rate is going down. The death rate remains high and hence these two cannot explain the high growth. Regarding migration, Dangs is a poor and backward district that few would want to migrate to. In these circumstances, the only possible explanation left for the five-fold increase will be conversion." But he hastens to add that the conversions are just a drop in the ocean. "Even in the Dangs, Christians comprise only 5.4 per cent of the total population of about 150,000 and hence the recent controversy is totally uncalled for. Such a small figure should really not be a reason for the national ripples it is causing." It may be pointed out here that the VHP claims that of a total population of 250,000 today, there are 60,000 Christians, or almost 25 per cent, in the Dangs. But these figures are not backed by any independent studies. Actually, the North-East is the only area where the Christian population has grown. The states of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland have a Christian majority while Arunachal Pradesh has a Buddhist majority. The only other states in the Union where Hindus are in a minority are Punjab (where Sikhs are in a majority) and Jammu & Kashmir (where Muslims are in a majority). Nevertheless, despite the figures in the table above that the VHP has been highlighting, here are some more. The 1991 census for India reveals the following growth rates: country -- 23.79; Hindus -- 22.78; Christians -- 16.89; Muslims -- 32.76. Thus, throughout India, the growth rate of the Christian population was lower than that of Hindus. And as Christian groups never tire of pointing out, the total percentage of Christians in India has actually gone down from 2.36 to 2.24 per cent during 1981-91. Another fact is that the provinces where the population bomb is exploding - Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan - are states where Christians have negligible presence. And most of the growth here is of Hindus, not Christians. It is these factors that sociologists and demographers seek to highlight to interpret the statistics "Christians, except for those from among the tribals, are really middle-class, educated people. Hence, they tend to have small families with one or two children. This applies even to Catholics who many mistakenly believe have large families. On the other hand, Muslims are among the poor and backward class and hence have larger families," says Bose, adding, "All growth rates right now are coming down." It must also be noted that the population growth rate in the North-East has been much higher than the all-India average, a major reason being immigration. For instance, Nagaland's growth rate is 56.1 per cent. Ditto for the other states in the region as well as Sikkim. "There has been massive migration to the North-East from the other parts of India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Burma and Bhutan. These are people of all faiths - Hindus, Christians and Muslims, and this is part of the reason for the high growth." Well-known sociologist Ashis Nandy believes religious denomination is often used as a political tool: "Sometimes tribes split up and often the split group will embrace a particular faith as a part of the bargaining involved. Similarly, many Naga tribals today claim Christianity as part of the Naga national identity." Also, being Christian-dominated, the North-East could be a magnet for Christians in other parts of the country. "It is very likely that many Christians from other parts of India have migrated to the North-East in search of better prospects, and many Hindus may have moved out. At least one group known to have moved in huge numbers to the North-East are the Kerala Christians," says Bose. In fact, the Malayalis are one of the largest, non-native ethnic groups in the North-East today, though exact figures are not available. (The Nepalis are the other large non-native ethnic group in the region.) And interestingly, the Christian population in Kerala, around 20 per cent, has decreased. Nandy also believes the massive growth in terms of percentages could be a problem of classification. "Often during periods of strife, people don't give their correct religious denominations. In the 1980s, many peace accords were signed in the North-East and after that people would have openly stated their faith in the 1991 census. So the increase really is a question of statement," he says. Not just statement but the insistence of seeing religions in the singular. "You will never hear of riots between Shintos and Buddhists in Japan, because most people there are Shintos AND Buddhists," points out Nandy. "Similarly, in the North-East, in earlier years, people often quoted two or more faiths during the census enumeration. Unfortunately, this practice has stopped in recent years." According to the Anthropological Survey of India 1994, 15 communities in the North-East were stated to be practising more than one faith. "But most Indians elsewhere simply do not understand this," says Nandy. *To convert or not is an individual's right by Saisuresh Sivaswamy (Rediff on the NeT 1/12/99) There's an old saying in Tamil, that translates loosely as: even brothers are not as effective as a round of thrashing. The Bharatiya Janata Party, for long identified as a north Indian party with pro-Hindi leanings, has made some gains in the south in the recent past, and possibly its exposure to Dravidian culture has led it to imbibe this particular idiom well. Its brutal tactic in dealing with the Christian community, with brute force right up front, has helped it in one respect, in a way its earlier, comparatively pacifist demands could not: that is to bring the whole issue of religious conversions to the center stage of Indian politics. With the national agenda for governance imposing on the BJP government at the Center a code of do's and don'ts, which has clearly miffed the traditional vote bank of the Sangh Parivar, pressure was on the saffron brigade to demonstrate clearly that it had not bid goodbye to its core agenda. This reassurance was essential, since even the die-hard Sanghi does not expect the alliance government to complete its term. Actually, with Prime Minister A B Vajpayee taking on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the party organization and emerging victor at the recent Bangalore conclave, the die-hard Sanghi, who has been put in his place in Nagpur, will not want this government to go anywhere near completing its five-year term, since he believes that the longer Vajpayee and Co continue in office, the more difficult it will be for the RSS to ensure a BJP victory in the next election. So, he needed to send a clear message to the rank and file, that the NAG notwithstanding, the organization was mindful of its core agenda, and that there has been no abandonment of the same. This is where the Christian tribals in the countryside came in as cannon-fodder. Conversions, however few, always have the potential to inflame passions, and it is probably true that relations between tribals and neo-converts in hamlets to Christianity may have soured. What the RSS's agents have done is to take up the same and blow it up as a national issue, which it clearly is not. Even the prime minister, ever a stickler for discipline otherwise, has been unable to counter this onslaught. He knows that the right thing to do would be to send the Keshubhai Patel in Gujarat packing, and not have a party bigwig come on television and waffle about not one person being killed, just some makeshift churches were destroyed, but that would have ensured a head-on collision with the gerontocrats in Nagpur, something he is not keen on at the moment, at least not so soon after he has pushed them to the wall over the issue of the government's primacy over the party. What this has resulted in, is that the issue of conversions, on which the national agenda for governance is ominously silent, has been raised, and is being debated, even if the main Opposition party, the Congress, is not all that keen on doing so, for reasons of its own. The BJP's strange bedfellows, ever willing to swear by the NAG otherwise, have also been caught in two minds over this issue, with even Chandrababu Naidu, who has always maintained that his support to the government is issue-based, saying that conversions should be discussed, so presumably in his eyes this is a valid issue. Which is all fine. Conversions are not a modern phenomenon, they have been around since the day of Gautama Buddha, if not earlier, and I daresay they will be around well into the next millennium as well, so the government needs to lay it on the table what its intentions are on this issue. Does it want a constitutional ban on conversions, is the first point that the government needs to clarify, and if yes, how it intends going about converting this into legislation, given that even comparatively innocuous legislations tabled by the BJP have floundered on the rocks of its parliamentary inadequacy. A constitutional ban on conversions sounds fine, but where does it fit in, especially since the Constitution of India is categorical about the right to religious freedom? Inherent in this right, is the individual's right to choose his faith, so does this government believe that this is a suspendable right? I believe that the issue of conversions cannot be discussed logically, rationally and sensibly so long as it is the BJP government that is initiating the dialogue, Vajpayee or no Vajpayee. For, this party, and its parent organization, have succeeded in creating the impression among a large number of Hindus that their numbers are under threat because of religious conversions. Thus, 50 years after Independence, even with Hindus numbering more than 80 per cent of the population, the impression is growing that the community is dwindling. In fact, this must be the only community which, despite such large numbers, believes that its days are numbered. Talk of paranoid millions! To revert to the issue of conversions, the debate, such as it is, needs to consider not only who is converting to which religion, but also why. Since the Sangh Parivar has grown phenomenally in the countryside in the last decade, it must have found out the reasons why tribals are becoming Christians. I use the phrase 'becoming Christians' and not 'converting', since the communities that are in the pale of civilizations, do not conform to what you and I consider Hinduism. For the Sangh Parivar, it becomes convenient to brand them as Hindus, since the whole issue is about numbers, votes, but ask the tribals if they consider themselves to be Hindus, and the answer should be illuminating. I come from an urban centre, from an upper caste background, and I know the realities of caste, the extent of its hold, and how it skews perceptions. I have seen families treat human beings as chattel, and worse, only because they come from a lower stratum. Attitudes have not changed much, despite progress, despite urbanization. If anything, the estrangement that results from social advancement, push in the roots of orthodoxy deeper, rather like how the NRI is more gung-ho about India than the poor desi who has to put up with the national drudgery. So, even conceding the Sangh Parivar's basic premise that the native population, including the tribals and other dispossessed, of this land was, is Hindu, the key question still remains unanswered: why are the numbers leaving the Hindu fold? The answer is not difficult to divine: it is that the Hindu superstructure is highly discriminatory, terribly iniquitous on the underdog, and has become fossilized into customs and rituals. The core of the faith may be splendid, but the ugly exterior, which is all the underprivileged get to see, does nothing for them. The imagery is rather like the rath of Lord Jagannath. The chariot with the idol on top may be glorious, but what if those pulling it have decided that there is no glory for them in throwing themselves under the giant wheels so that the gods may continue their perambulations? Since the Sangh Parivar claims that it is a Hindu revivalist organization, that it stands for defending the Hindu faith, let me offer a piece of advice, as a Hindu Indian. I too believe that the faith is under enormous threat today, but unlike the Sanghis, I don't believe that my faith is being challenged by Semitic or other faiths. Hinduism's biggest danger today is from its practitioners, its refusal to adapt to a changing environment, its steadfastness in believing that rituals and superstitions constitute the central message of the faith, its reluctance to accept that the caste system is iniquitous in the extreme, that it condemns millions to a fate worse than anything imaginable for no other reason than that they were not born as forward castes. Even Gandhiji, with his affection for the Harijan, could not cleanse the Hindu psyche of the evil of caste, but then he did not have the overt dedication to the Hindu cause that the Sangh Parivar does. Let these self-styled defenders of the faith usher in a genuine renaissance and not focus on breaking masjids and chapels, and they will find that there is no need to ban conversions. Nobody will want to convert from a faith that treats them as equal human beings, regardless of caste, community, creed or color. If the Parivar is unable to do this, its motives in hyping Hindu causes will always remain suspect.
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