Thursday, October 29, 2009

Conversion and jihad are two sides of the same coin

The new Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity (which was made notorious by Mother Teresa), Sister Mary Prema, made two revelations - that religious conversion "is God's work" and that - if she received divine inspiration, she would go to Kandhamal. The first statement, of describing conversions as God's work, is the usual cliche, handy to all those involved in conversion. Conversion is to Christianity what jihad is to Islam.

Sister Prema explained, "Every human being has the right to believe. Each person is born with dignity. Religious conversion is God's work". The contradictions galore within these 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, 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? This is actually what conversion is all about. Why this rupturing of the person from what he/she was?

God of invasions

What Sister Prema really means is that every person has a need to be converted and hence the right of the person to believe is conditioned and restricted to only believing in the God in whom Sister Prema and her church believes. This is what Sister 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? Sister Prema, the Superior General of the MoC (Missionaries of Charity), and the whole armies of Christian missionaries involved in conversion, have 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.

It is the simple unarmed, poverty-stricken tribals and passive Hindus that this God and his divine inspired missionaries target. Yet it is not so easy; despite the enormous funds that flow and the armies at the disposal of this God, he had to give divine inspiration to massacre an unarmed poor Swamiji whom he found a great hurdle to the spread of his kingdom.

Conversion is violence

Sister Prema has unwittingly exposed the bluff of the Congress and 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 given to this violent conversion. Yes, conversion is violence wrought on a person - to deprive the person of his/her dignity, which according to Sister Prema, every person is born with - to tear the person off his affinity, his religious heritage and make him/her an alien; a psychological bleeding to death.

Christianity and conversion are two sides of the same coin. Wherever Christianity went, it was bloodshed-destruction, and a hidden agenda of political power, economic aggrandizement, and pauperization of the victims. In the words of Jomo Kenyatta (of Kenya), "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 the Vatican became progressive - like Canada, Australia, England. But those colonized by 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, educational institutions etc.

Perhaps Sister Prema is too naïve to understand and she and 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, especially in India, to be courageous and pull out. They become voices in the wilderness and the church is too powerful for ordinary innocent and truthful persons to fight against.

Kandhamal – wither justice?

This brings me to Sister Prema's pious wish - that she would visit Kandhamal if she receives 'divine inspiration' and would definitely intervene. One wonder what intervention is she talking about - intervene for whom and with whom? Sister 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 physically to priests.

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 happening within the confines of the convents and the church compounds. Only when a nun is raped outside these confines, then all hell breaks loose. Sister Prema could direct her divine inspired mission to empathize with Sister Jesmy and many like her, and intervene with the church authorities. The Superior General of the MoC (Missionaries of Charity) 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 of altar 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 of 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 Sister Prema is no exception. I suggest she first visit the ashram of Swami Laxmanananda and soothe the terror-stricken children in whose presence the 84-year old Swamiji was brutally butchered. Three sanyasis present were also killed. Will Sister Prema intervene with those murderers and see that justice is done?

Why Income Tax exemption?

One last request, Sister Prema and her MoC (Missionaries of Charity) work for the poor, she claims. Then why should the money meant for the poor of this country find its way to the coffers of Rome? It is very difficult to divest conversion and money. Are the accounts of the MoC (Missionaries of Charity) being audited? If not, why?

Why should the lands and 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 UGC pay scales are Income tax assesses, but 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, and hold individual bank accounts and draw pensions till death, all from tax-payer monies. Why should they be exempted from paying Income Tax? This is just one area to show that the workings of Sister Prema and all missionaries are a big money-spinning business.

Power to hurt

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 despite 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, missionaries are not able to diminish poverty, to reduce hunger and assetlessness, then is it not time to pause and 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 plunder of this country and its poor. Should we wait for Sister 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 and has now assigned the Archbishop of Guwahati 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.

The author, Prof. Mrs. Hilda Raja, is a retired Professor from Stella Maris College, Chennai, and lives in Vadodara.



Visit the following websites to see articles published on Secularism Combat magazine:

(1) http://www.votebankpolitics.com

(2) http://www.drthchowdary.net

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

China claims Arunachal Pradesh - the present and imminent danger

1. China's threat of punitive war on India is ominously imminent and present. Its claims to Arunachal Pradesh are being stridently and openly voiced. They have by now completely ignored the McMohan line separating Tibet from India on the north-east. When an IAS officer of Arunachal Pradesh origin was to go to China on official business, the Chinese refused to give him a visa saying that Arunachal Pradesh is part of China and so he does not require any visa! When the Prime Minister of India was to visit the area, they raised objections. When the Asian Development Bank was giving a loan to India, for some development works in Arunachal Pradesh, China (ineffectively) opposed the loan, saying Arunachal is disputed territory; it is China's, not India's! They are now claiming the whole of Arunachal Pradesh in contrast to only some parts earlier. They have built airports and extended roads to the border. Our populations are within striking range of the Chinese bombers and missiles. All newspapers in China are owned by the government. One respected columnist has written in one of the popular journals that China would like to see India dismembered into several sovereign independent states just like the former USSR.

2. Of late, their incursions into Indian territory have increased both in Laddakh as well as in Arunachal Pradesh. When these facts are being reported in the press and the attention of the Government of India is drawn, while the Prime Minister is silent, the ministers for Home and Foreign Affairs are saying that there are adequate mechanisms for addressing such violations between the two governments. Some have even said that the events are exaggerated and there is no cause for concern. This is exactly like what Jawaharlal Nehru and his Foreign Minister, Krishna Menon used to say about the Chinese incursions into India in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Then the government was even criminally unaware that China built a highway across the Aksai Chin area of Laddakh to connect western Tibet with Xing Xiang. Now all the area to the north-east of this high way, about 40,000 sq km of our territory is as good as gone to China. Nobody talks about it any longer. Defence analysts in the US and Europe who closely follow the military build- up of China, are of the definite view that by 2012 there is going to be a big incursion of China into India just as in 1962. The surmise is that in one fell swoop China would occupy the whole of Arunachal Pradesh and declare a ceasefire. To distract our attention Pakistan would be encouraged to swoop into Kashmir Valley under the protection of China poised to pounce on India from Aksai Chin. India would thus be subjected to a pincer move.

3. The UPA II government under the leadership of the Nehru Dynasty appears to be Finlandised; that is, terrorised into silence by China. It is rationalising the Chinese incursions as normal happenings on a border not delineated on the ground. Jawaharlal Nehru tried to nationalise his infatuation and later delusion, with China by telling the Parliament that "We were misled ...". Sri Minoo Masani, the Swatantra Party leader stood up to interrupt him and said that Nehru should not use the word, we but use I, because the Parliament and especially the Opposition had all along been saying that Nehru was deluding himself in regard to China. But now after the Chinese had taught a lesson, Nehru was trying to say that not he but the whole nation was misled and deluded. This is the record of the Nehruvian dispensation with regard to China. It is of course not different with regard to Pakistan either, because Indira Gandhi believed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's words and let go 90,000 prisoners of war in 1972 without any written undertaking that Pakistan would not raise the Kashmir issue again.

4. The questions are: Are the Indian Armed Forces equipped and alerted to withstand a Chinese onslaught, with a flanking threat from Pakistan with its nuclear weapons and missiles. Are we having any friends who will either call China an aggressor and get the Security Council to act against it or if China uses its veto in the Security Council, is there any power which will stand by us and help us resist the Chinese aggression?

5. The Chief of our Airforce has said that Chaina has three times more warplanes than India. Instead of rapidly building up our defence forces, we are squandering precious tax and debt monies on vote-catching populist schemes like loan waivers (Rs.1,00,000 Crores) NREG (Rs.39,000 Crores in 2009-10), Pavala Vaddi (3% interest) non-recoverable loans, Urdu Universities, Rs 2 per kg rice "feed and greed" programs, scholarships for "minorities" and memorials (Rs.2600 Crores in UP) to "heros". None paid for the humiliation of defeat and loss of territory when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister. Would history repeat now? In 1962, the Communist leader E M S Namboodripad equivocated and absolved China of aggression. Some ministers in the UPA government are themselves now equivocating. Our communists are dead silent about the Chinese claims on and incursions into Arunachal Pradesh and even into Laddakh. The Chinese desire for the dismemberment of India is likely to be facilitated by the UPA government, by implementation of the Sachar Committee Report and the Muslim First programs of the Prime Minister according to which 15% of the 11th Five Year Plan funds would be utilised to develop 90 districts where Muslims are in considerable numbers. These will become 90 Pakistans in India. These 90 exclude Assam and West Bengal where perhaps more or less all the districts are heading for Muslim majority.

6. I cannot but once again refer to Dr B R Ambedkar's warning that with politicians what they are now, India may once again lose its independence. If it thus loses it would be the last time and it would be for ever. Will the somnambulent countrymen wake up to this imminent and present danger?


More articles by Dr. Tripuraneni Hanuman Chowdary are available at the following two websites:

(1) http://www.votebankpolitics.com

(2) http://www.drthchowdary.net

Will Sri L K Advani talk about these truths?

On the 7th September 2009, a note on issues that Sri L K Advani as the tall leader of the BJP must educate Bharatiyas during the Bharat Yatra he planned to commence on the 15th September, was submitted. Now that yatra is restyled as "visits to States".

These issues ought to be talked out not only by Sri Advani but by every BJP leader and party worker in the States, if they are sincerely committed to the preservation of Bharat's integrity building upon our heritage and fashioning a prosperous, powerful, intellectual and ethical India.

Here is the text of my note:

Bharat and Sanaatana Dharma are under relentless, strident attack and so these are under peril.

  • If BJP wants to be "secular" and out-bid Congress and the regional parties to please minorities and ignore the injustices to Hindus, then Hindus should be advised to form a Hindu Party (like the Indian Union Moslem League and Majlis Ittehadul Muslameen – MIM) and not look to BJP to protect Hindutva and Bharat.
  • Can't the BJP governments (eg. Karnataka) get out of the management of Hindu temples in their states and entrust them to Dharmacharya Sabhas?
  • Can't the BJP have cells in each state to file PILs (public interest litigations) like for example against Andhra Pradesh government funding construction of churches and mosques and subsidising pilgrimage to Jerusalem and providing marriage assistance to Christians and Moslems [and not to Hindus]?
  • Why can't the BJP have TV Channels and language dailies (like DMK, AIDMK, CPM, Congress in Andhra Pradesh – (Saakshi daily)?
  • Why don't BJP governments in states found Nationalistic Universities and staff them with nationalist scholars to counter the de-Indianising Jawaharlal Nehru University (the Marxist Madrassa) and the Central Universities which are colonised by JNU-origin teachers?
  • Can't the BJP units in the states launch a movement to identify Bangladeshi infiltrators and report on them to Police? Launch Swadeshi movement to urge Hindus not to employ these illegals and boycott their employers and their shelterers and defenders?

  • Can't the BJP launch a movement to separate Jammu & Ladakh, constitute them into state(s) with the same autonomy as Kashmir and thereby save those areas from eventually becoming Moslem majority?

During your Yatra, please ask:

  • Why districts like Malabar and Gurgaon are divided to carve out Muslim majority districts?
  • Why 90 "Sachar-Moslem First" districts should be specially funded and developed to become Pakistans?
Prof. Samar Abbas wrote in December 2000 in the Economic and Political Weekly that India should be divided again to create Mogulistan comprising northern parts. Bihar & UP with a corridor to Pakistan and Bangladesh. Is this not like the Rahmatulla proposal of 1930 for Pakistan and 22nd March 1940 Lahore resolution for Pakistan?

Hindus feel betrayed by BJP. That is why they, seeing some virtues like corruption and easy money-making in the Congress, are veering round to Congress or regional, casteist, proprietorship parties like TDP, DMK/AIDMK, Trinamool, Biju Lok Dal etc.

Why talk of Hindutva when your governments do nothing for it and provoke Muslims and Christians to unite [as in Andhra Pradesh] and contrive to divide Hindus by caste and rule over them [eg. AP: 12% Christian, 15% Moslem, 8% Adivasi and 5% dominant Reddi caste – 40% vote for Congress]. We have the christianizing government using budget and temple funds, and with Moslem muscle build churches and mosques and pay the fees of all minority students from primary to graduate level.

Please think over.

Please be truthful.

Please don't mislead Hindus into complacency and rationalization of the creeping dhimmitude.


Dr. Tripuraneni Hanuman Chowdary is the editor of two monthly magazines on Indian politics, published from Hyderabad, India. They are (1) Secularism Combat and (2) Bharatiya Pragna.

Visit the following two websites:

(1) http://www.votebankpolitics.com

(2) http://www.drthchowdary.net