ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

'You, sir, have NO idea what Hinduism is all about!'

Response to Saisuresh Sivaswamy's last column

Dear Rediff,

This is a rebuttal to a very offensive, incorrect and misleading article by Saisuresh. I am surprised your editors did not throw it in the dustbin. I will take the article point by point:

"Its brutal tactic in dealing with the Christian community, with brute force right upfront, 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 centre stage of Indian politics."

Even if this allegation is true, there is nothing wrong. If the true demands of a majority (or even a minority) are not heard by the State, the pressure is bound to release through small incidents like this, before the whole pressure-cooker explodes. It must be remembered that Hindus have always been smothered by the MINORITIES, whether it is the issue of banning books that expose Islamic horrors (Rushdie was abusive but Sita Ram Goel has never been abusive), or it is the painting of Hindu deities in naked forms (Sita and Saraswati are not Rambha and Dhritaachi). Why should the majority, a grand old elephant, let the ants eat at its skin forever? Initially, it is a fun itch, but when the ants reach the flesh, the elephant is bound to rise.

I am glad this will bring to the fore issues that have been eating at Bharat's culture, age-old wisdom that has whole universities devoted to research in FOREIGN lands. Ridiculing such old social wisdom (Hinduism is not propagated by a person but is a collective social wisdom, hence it IS bound to be much more time-tested) is not wise as even Rudyard Kipling said to fundamental Christian missionaries:

"Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Hindu brown
For the Christian riles
And the Hindu smiles
And weareth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight
Is a tombstone while with the name of the late deceased and the epitaph drear,
'A fool lies here who tried to hustle the east'".

There is a reason for that. Rudyard was trying to warn the Christians that if they harp on the superiority of Christianity over Hinduism, it is stupidity. It is like a kindergarten student arguing with a college professor.

"...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 now Sai is trying to say that the RSS thinks the longer Vajpayee is in office the difficult it will be for the BJP to win again???? Does he read his own sentences after typing? I think the general feeling in the nation among the educated people like Sai was that the longer Vajpayee keeps with the RSS it will be difficult for the BJP to remain in power. Vajpayee is doing good for the nation, he may be going against the RSS or VHP wishes, but those are the things that will make him stand out to people as a man with self-decision power, one who leads and not is led.

"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."

The VHP also claims that Gujarat's socio-economic review for 1997-98 states that between 1981 and 1991, there has been a 416.78 per cent growth in the Christian population in Dangs district alone whereas in the same period, the Hindu population has grown by just 21 per cent. Do you call this conversion as FEW??? In 10 years 416% increase!!! Even rabbits can't achieve that feat!!

And it is NOT the RSS that has made it a national issue, it is the Congress and the Church who have made it a national cum international issue.

"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."

The PM has categorically denounced the violence. You can't say he has not countered the slaughter. Do you mean he should shoot down the whole village of non-Christians. Will that be a counter to the onslaught? As for sacking the Gujarat government, WHY?? The initial spark of ANY fight are without notice and can't be foreseen by the government. Once the smoke was seen, the Gujarat government has been providing police protection to the churches. Asking for the government to pack up is a purely political motive, which by the way, conversion and attack on it are NOT. So, who is trying to take advantage of this situation?? Congress??

"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."

So why is the Congress not willing to discuss an issue which has resulted in violence in an otherwise peaceful tribal region? Does it not think important to discuss the "disease" -- whether it thinks the conversion is the disease or the violence against it.

"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."

It is true that Buddha was the first missionary. That is one more point which offends any rational thinking human being that the Christian faith of foreign land wants to teach the land of Buddha!! The Hindu faith (correctly Sanatana Dharma) is much older and has strong foundation in "free pursuit of truth". One thing you have to remember or know is the difference between Buddhist missionaries and that between Christian and Islamic. Buddhist missionaries went all the way to Iran, China, Lanka. They never told the local people to give up the local deity they prayed to. This way they did not alienate the follower. S/he continued to practise his earlier rituals, which connect him/her to the local land and people. What Christianity does is to alienate the person by enforcing an exclusive cocoon of faith, in a foreign personality, and demands abandoning one's earlier identity. This is worse than physical rape, it is the rape of the soul, telling someone that I am superior than you. Christianity or anyone has no right to say they are better "religion" than Hinduism. How dare they forget that there is recorded history of 2000 years and Hinduism is forever, at least that is what their own respective books say!!

" 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 legislation."

It is not going to be solved by laws. The matter of faith and truth search can't be quantified in legal terms. It can only be qualified. The inquisition style legal system fails to satisfy anything but the witch hunt of Europe for which it was invented.

"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?"

No. You cannot put the 'ban conversion' in black or white. It is truly the right of a person. If I want to switch telivison cable company I should have the choice, or to change my long distance company. If I want to switch from Visa to Mastercard, I should be free to do so. But do you know (if you are in US you may) that Visa and Mastercard were sued by the American Express stating that the former card companies were threatening, coercing the merchants and retail shops to NOT accept the American Express? What this means is that the Visa and Mastercard used unethical methods to capture the market, by intimidating the merchant.

So what are the Christians doing?

They will offer money for conversion. Can you imagine that in the far remote Andaman Islands the tribals are Christians!! Hinduism doesn't try to label anyone, they say that let the tribal be tribal. How dare we in the city say they have to be made city slickers?? If the tribals want to convert they will find you and come to you. In the Andamans, the government made cement houses for the tribals to live in (they used to live in huts). The tribals moved in. But they didn't flourish there. They were miserable. This is what happens when you bring in sudden change.

If you watch the many Christian cables in US, you will know what missionaries do, and what kind of regard they have for non-Christians.

"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 organisation, have succeeded in creating the impression among a large number of Hindus that their numbers are under threat because of religious conversions."

This is very ridiculous. If the BJP/RSS/VHP etc etc has succeeded in making the MAJORITY believe in something, that must be WRONG. Why?? Why are you always biased? By this statement you are mocking the judgment of the "large number of Hindus". THAT IS THE PROBLEM. The decency of a Hindu has been taken for stupidity by EVERYONE for TOO long, including Hindus like you who is really not a Hindu, since you try not to find or see the truth.

"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!"

Do you have ANY course in statistics? The 80% of Hindus have also been busy marrying ONE at a time and procreating. In the Dang region in 10 years: the increase is 416%. THAT is the number you look at. And now tell me how is it that after 2000 years of Christ his influence all of a sudden increased in this small sleepy tribal area of the Krishna's Dwaraka state??

"...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 civilisations, 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."

You sir, have NO idea what Hinduism is all about!! Sanatan Dharma says that we are all God's children and will be in God's path no matter what. It says that we are in different spiritual stages. It doesn't try to mock any spiritual stage. The Sanatan Dharam include the kindergarten of animists to the elementary of idol worshippers to the high schooler agnostic to the post doc of the Upanishadic seers. Now what does Christianity do? It tries to force the kindergarten to join in the fifth grade.

In this regard, the Hindu's gripe with the conversion is this: Leave the tribal where s/he is spiritually/religiously. If you care about their health, give them treatment, give them food, give them guidance in their LOCAL ISSUES. Don't try to make them wear tie and suit on their deer hunts, or ask them to say Mary and Jesus when they are happy with their local deities, whether it is Bhaironji, or Prajapati. Do NOT forget that Hinduism has been the life breath of the land, and has borrowed and given from and to the folk, local and "pagan" customs. It respects everyone's faith.

It doesn't mean Hindus want the tribals to remain illiterate. That is another issue. Converting them to another religion doesn't achieve anything.

"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."

Here is the MAJOR fallacy of most educated Indians and foreigners. Caste is NOT part of the Hindu religion. It is part of the Hindu society. Khatri (carpenter), Chamar (cobbler), Luhar (ironsmith) etc are trades. As for the Shudra, it is more of a state than a birth thing. Society has wrongly attributed it to birth. That has been already made illegal to discriminate on caste lines. What more do you want? If you say that the general public still doesn't forget it and behaves the same, you should file law suits against offenders. The Hindu "religion" says that castes are by your mental state, you are a truth seeker, warrior, merchant or a manual labourer!! Remember Krishna's best friend was Sudama, and he eats at Vidur's instead of at Duryodhan's palace. Rama was a Kshtriya, Krishna was a Yadav!! What else do you want!! The whole of the high brow Brahmins have been worshipping and drinking the feet-washed-water of a Yadav!!!

The social evil of caste is bad, and should be removed. The government has set up quotas, banned discrimination, banned Sati, banned child marriage, and you still hold grudge against the Hindu RELIGION???

"Attitudes have not changed much, despite progress, despite urbanisation."

So conversion is the answer? The discriminating bullying upper class guy sees the convert the same way after conversion.

"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".

This stinks of ignorance, arrogance and outright stupidity on the part of Sai. Not only does he think nothing of the RSS, BJP or senior politicians like Vajpayee, now he thinks nothing of the NRIs too. For once, may be Hinduism does have something that is making EDUCATED people NRIs to also look at it again. May be they are seeing first hand the horrible way the missionaries SELL the religion. How DARE you ridicule everyone. In a democracy, doesn't the majority count? If the village langot bhai is in the RSS you grimace. If the educated NRI joins you grimace. What do you want?? What do you think about the YMCA, YWCA, Red Cross, Lions Club etc. They are okay, but Bajrang Dal is not. The RSS is not.

"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 fossilised into customs and rituals."

The point remains: Conversion will solve the problem. Discrimination is already banned. So even if they are not converting atrocities against them should be addressed. And if they are addressed only by becoming Christians, then this is hypocrisy on the part of everyone. Why should a Christian be more important than a dalit or shudra?? Why can't the dalit get justice as a dalit??

"Since the Sangh Parivar claims that it is a Hindu revivalist organisation, 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."

While I agree that India has many social problems like poverty and illiteracy, they are NOT related to Hinduism. India is a LARGE country with a lot of population in villages. It has been raped economically and spiritually for more than a millennium. Even today the great wealth of India is outside.

Conversion is NOT the answer to this. Do you think Christian nations are heavens? The USA's Atlanta alone had 40,000 HOMELESS. During the Olympics they were given free ONE WAY bus ticket OUT of Atlanta. Even as late as last year the city council was deciding whether to allow them in the city or not. Why don't the missionaries spend their wealth doing good to THEIR own people first?? With 3 times the land and 1/4th the population USA should have NO social evils left before it starts sending missionaries abroad.

"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."

Which religion doesn't have rituals or superstitions? Here are some for you from the US of A's Christians: The baptism is dipping in the holy water = Ganga dipping?? Reports on Virgin Mary coming to a certain site in Texas, and lot of people gather in the sun to wait and see the cloud "formation" that resembles Mary!! Many priests in the USA say that Y2K problem is one of the "millennium" catastrophe predicted in the Bible. Many buildings don't have the 13th floor.

"Hindu" religion says there are various stages of spiritualism. The one who worships the forms (statues, stones, pictures) is in a starting stage. The mass is always at a lower stage, that is why it is the mass. It gives pleasure to have rituals and worship. People carry pictures of their kids, spouses in wallet. People have rituals of watching a certain television serial, or cricket match. Anything you do regularly is a ritual. If that ritual tries to remind of you the omnipresent, better. So, don't say that Hinduism has rituals and superstitions. It has good ones, and less harmful ones. NO ONE can make the MASS get away from these. It is like fat. If we eat less fat, the body converts the carbo into fat. Similarly with religion. If you give no ritual, no myths, no superstitions, people will create new ones.

What is Superman, Elvis-ghost, Star Trek and Baywatch? These are the modern age myths, superstitions and rituals. What is the WWF (World Wrestling Federation), Rodeo riding, or the American Gladiators? The human mind NEEDS myths, rituals, superstitions. As Krishna says in Gita, one in a million has the capacity to understand, out of which one in a million tries to!

"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 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 colour. If the Parivar is unable to do this, its motives in hyping Hindu causes will always remain suspect."

You want to say that Gandhi, who left his affluent job as a lawyer, who left his comfortable ways like Nehru etc and adopted a simple loin cloth as his dress, who travelled on foot across India, didn't have the dedication for the Hindu cause??

You call the Parivar as self-styled defenders. What about the missionaries? They are self-styled holier than though religious offenders. People like you never understand why Hindus resort to violence. They are neglected always by their own people. This leads to frustration at a very basic level. Hinduism is NOT a religion like others, and thus to say that India should be a "Hindu" nation is not being unsecular. But that is far too heavy for trained literate people like you.

Self-proclaimed defenders!! Is not the Church the self-proclaimed intermediary to God? Isn't the Pope a self-proclaimed religious dictator? The ordinary working class Hindu is too shy, decent or lethargic to do something about the injustice around him in the name of tolerance. When some one raises a voice, they get branded as self-proclaimed defenders. I think you also said that the NRIs and a majority of Hindus think that conversion is attacking Hinduism. So, how is the Parivar a self-proclaimed defender?? It has the backing of a LARGE number of Hindus. How much more illogical can you get, Sai??

India is the cradle of the wonderful social wisdom of Sanatan Dharma. If it will not protect and foster it, who will? Can you imagine Hindus violently demonstrating in Saudi or Israel? Saudi will remain in a true Islamic image and ambience, Christians and Jews can rest assured that there will be no Ram temple in Jerusalam or Mecca. But can a Hindu be assured that in Ayodhya, the whole ambience will be of Lord Rama?? Or in Mathura that of Krishna?? Why not?? The world over people study Ramayan, Sanskrit, Upanishads, and the birth place neglects them. Our ancient wisdom is NOT bookish, and should not be confined to university courses only. It needs to trickle down to the early schooling. Of course, I don't mean social evils like caste to birth.

Hinduism is the ONLY religion that can be "corrected" of its "evils" because it truly allows search for truth. It is self- correcting. Can you imagine making corrections to Koran and deleting the verses that order the Muslim to kill the idolator aka Hindu?? The Church took 2,000 years to give women equal rights as men.

To sum up, Sai, you have no idea what you are talking about. It is a shame that such columns get published in Rediff.

Shashi Joshi

Saisuresh Sivaswamy