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ASSEMBLY POLL '98 |
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E-mail from readers the world over
Date sent: Fri, 01 Jan 1999 13:50:24 +0530 Syed Firdaus Ashraf's report from Ahwa is refreshingly free of slant and any apparent bias. Kudos to him and Rediff for a job well done. He has just presented all sides of the story, from the viewpoints of the protagonists involved, refraining from making editorial comments of his own. One wishes that India's so-called mainstream English-language press would discharge its duties with as much dispassion. The press is in a bad shape today, mainly because of journalists' inability to distance themselves from their own biases and prejudices, and confine themselves to factual reporting. The unwritten law that opinions have a place only in edit pages is being violated. Consequently, it's becoming increasingly difficult for the reader to tell who's peddling lies and who's telling the truth, compelling one to believe what one wants to, and disregard what one doesn't want to. That said, now it's my turn, as a reader, to draw my conclusions based on Ashraf's balanced report. The first and foremost truth which emerges from the report is the fact that, contrary to what the Press was telling us, the disturbances in Dangs started with a communal riot. Its genesis (or subsequent evolution) do not lie in unprovoked acts of Hindu extremists on defenceless Christians, but rather in tensions which have been simmering for long and have came out in the open only now. Second, Christian missions are changing the demographics of India's tribal areas, which is leading to social unrest in those places. Strangely enough, the missionaries say if the HJM weren't there, there would be no trouble. But, of course, if the Missionaries weren't there, there would be no HJM either! Obviously, the Missionaries wouldn't accept this logic. Third, it appears that the Missionaries believe that they have a god-given right to convert tribals (even while publicly denying that their focus is on conversions), because, in their warped logic, the tribals are "not" Hindus, but "animists". This distinction between Hindus and "animists" was first made by the British colonial government, an usual ploy amongst the many divide-and-rule stratagems. However, records of the time tell us the officers of the Raj were not at all pleased with such categorisation, because it posed them immense difficulties in census-taking. Some officers -- Christians and white men themselves -- recommended that the classification be scrapped, arguing that the dividing line between non-Vedic Hinduism and "animism" is thin. Yet, the nomenclature continued. Brushing aside all these facts of history, let's accept the Missionary logic at its face value: that the tribals are not Hindus. Apparently, in the Missionary worldview, it makes the tribals game for conversions. But why only to Christianity? Why not to Hinduism? Is Christianity a superior faith than Hinduism? Since there is no empirical evidence to support such a claim, then both the Missionaries and HJM (or VHP) have an equal right to convert the tribals to their respective faiths. End of story, no? No. The Missionaries resent competition. They want the field left all to themselves. When Gandhiji's followers opened Sarvodaya schools in remote areas of Madhya Pradesh, the Missionaries already entrenched there raised Cain. When the Nehru government initiated tribal welfare schemes in MP, the missionaries objected. Activities by religious organisations of all faiths are disallowed in Arunachal Pradesh, but it is only the Christian Missions which complain about it. Despite all their protestations to the contrary, and claims of "selfless service" apart, the fact remains that the Missionaries' main thrust is on conversions. The alert reader can visit literally scores of Christian websites on the Internet, which have an India focus. They openly claim that their goal is to evangelise all of India in the coming millennium. Some websites put, in their statistical summaries of India, the country's Hindu population at 65%. Very good example of counting the chickens before the eggs are hatched. Finally, it must be mentioned that a running theme of many of these websites abuse Hinduism. As much as the Missionaries have a right to converting Hindus or animists or whoever, so do the Hindus have a right to prevent those conversions happening. Hindus have a painful historical memory of what happens to them when they are reduced to a minority, not necessarily in all of India, but even within tiny regions of the country. Conversions by Missions and opposition to them is the root cause of the problem. India's English-language and upmarket media are presenting the distorted picture that it all started with the advent of Hindu organisations. What these propagandists don't realize is the fact that even if they succeed in checkmating the VHP, some other organisation will emerge to take its place, simply because there's a groundswell of support from the people up, to the causes these organisations are espousing. If the "intellectuals" do not disabuse themselves of the notion that the VHP is "brainwashing" innocent people, they would only be fooling themselves.
Date sent: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 22:05:57 -0800 Rediff has done everyone a service by publishing the Admiral Menon interview on sacked chief Bhagwat. It is a candid, honest portrait of Admiral Bhagwat, who is a great patriot.
Ravi Velloor
Date sent: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 23:52:13 -0500 The author certainly has the right to publish his tell all memoirs and make a buck, but this is a bad precedence for other retirees from high government offices to follow. I think people who hold high official positions of public trust should retire with dignified silence and keep things confidential. The credibility of critical institutions like CBI, which must remain neutral and apolitical, will take a beating if every official were to tell juicy stories after leaving office. Tarun Seam
Date sent: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 09:15:20 -0500 America? Laughable, Kewat has to know more. Most Americans do not have any religious faith and the percentage of Christians is low in America. Unlike India, a person in America does not automatically belong to a religion (something of a surprise to Indians who come here) but most of the time stay away from anything religious, especially churches. So Kewat, again, educate yourself. By the way, Kewat has to know again that among the limited number of American Christians, most are not Roman Catholics and so pay no allegiance to the Pope.
Date sent: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 10:01:14 -0700 What Mahesh Bhatt has said is 100% true. I have a question for Mr Bhatt, assuming that his father was a Muslim and mother was a Hindu and if she had desired her burial to be done according to Hindu custom, would he would have done it. I know this is the most insensitive question, but I had to know his answer to clear the confusion which I have as far as Hindu-Muslim relations are concerned. Venkat
Date sent: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 10:25:57 -0800 Ve.....rry Good. Keep going. Prakash
Date sent: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 16:20:30 -0500 I don't understand why Indians feel proud of Shekhar Kapur. Bandit Queen was a piece of garbage, which he put on the international market. The only reason for his success in Western cinema is the negativity he showed about Hindus and India in Bandit Queen. I am ashamed of people like Shekhar Kapur who for their own interest and advancement degrade their motherland. Jai Hind.
Date sent: Sun, 3 Jan 1999 13:56:38 EST You guys don' t have the mental capacity to understand Dil Se. Quit badmouthing it and start badmouthing films that really are terrible. Dil Se is a classic film and 10 years from now you guys will be sorry when people will regard it as one. You say it has no script. In order to say that, you must not have a brain. The script was there and so was the screenplay. You say Pardesi Babu is watchable and Dil Se is not? What a whole bunch of crap!
Date: Thursday, December 31, 1998 11:51 AM So was the Simpson camp a public relations exercise? Because in reality, despite all that emphasis on fielding, India's fielding is still the worst in the world. After all, how can you expect millionaires to dive?
Date: Thursday, December 31, 1998 1:41 AM There is so much noise about bribery charges and matchfixing against players, so much demand for an enquiry. What about our great selectors? The amount of time they have persisted with players like Laxman, Dravid in spite of their continuous failures is beyond any reason. They have destroyed morale and confidence of many other hopefuls. No other Indian player has been ever selected for so many ODI tournaments in spite of such a dismal performance. It is well beyond the favour and quota system now.
Date: Thursday, December 31, 1998 2:52 AM For a change the BCCI is sending in the right players and taking out the woefully out-of-form Sidhu. I wish Harbhajan Singh had been used more. I just cannot believe how our Indian team could lose after being in such a good position at the end of day 4. High hopes of Indian fans are shattered by the incompetent display of our team. Sainath Suryanarayanan How Readers responded to Dilip D'Souza's columns
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