The Missionary Position
The Church is often accused of funding missions to convert people to Christianity. It is no secret that funds are openly made available for various proselytizing programs. But this isn't new news to anyone familiar with history. The Great Commission has been going on since the Roman Empire thorough the middle ages. After Islam came into the picture in the 7th Century it was but, only a matter of time before the Crusades began. These bloody religious wars changed the face of human society forever. Crusaders, greedy for power, masked themselves as holy warriors spreading the word of their respective Gods. Though the 13th century marked a calendared end to the Crusades, its consequences are felt even in the contemporary world. One could easily make the case that the Crusades are still going on.
Once America was discovered, the Church found a new zeal to pursue its proselytizing agenda. European powers such as Spain, France and Portugal frequently justified their Colonial efforts as spreading the message of Jesus and doing the work of God (God has been a handy term of abuse since its invention). So, alongside the genocide of the American Indians and the profitable slave trade a rapid and often forceful conversion to Christianity was taking place across the Americas and Africa. The indigenous wild pagan tribes had to be civilized.
Countless histories have been lost, altered or erased in that zeal. It is an immeasurable loss. The richness of ancient cultures and philosophies that have been eradicated might never be fully understood. Those were the days when the Church had Political power. By the end of the 13th century Islam had already completed a round of conquests and conversions. And once the Navies of Europe got their sails right and hit East it was time to give this rabid fervor a Christian spin.
Caught in this whirlpool of insane fanaticism were people who clung on to their traditions, their cultures, and their little rituals. Even those who converted to monotheistic beliefs found new meanings and applied definitions from their own understanding of life as they lived it. Like all Cultural imports Christianity and Islam got localized wherever they went.
Christianity fully arrived en-masse in Goa via the Portuguese sailor Vasco Da Gama in the late 15th century. There were mass forced conversions at gun point. By 1560, the Goa Inquisition was created by the Portuguese to punish those Hindus and Muslims who had "relapsed to their old ways". This period also marked the beginning of Colonization for South Asia. Within the next 300 years of power struggle, between the European colonists, the entire subcontinent was a full-fledged colony of Britain. And with that came aggressive proselytizing by British Christian missionaries.
Much ink has been spilled on the British Raj so I'll talk about what was happening in Europe. While the rest of the world was being colonized, baptized, and proselytized, Europe was undergoing the Age of Enlightenment. Reason instead of Jesus was emerging as the new God. The stronghold of the Church was diminishing. The French Revolution redefined liberty, justice, rights and freedom. The new temple that emerged out of Reason was not the Church but the Nation-State. In fact the separation of Church and State became a foundation for the birth of modern Democracy. The new God of Reason went about its own phase of creating converts and Secularism was born. To maintain its own power, the Nation-State also promoted a fanatical strain of religion-like sentiment called Nationalism. Based on romantic notions of land it sought unity amongst a people not by man-made religion but by man-made borders. With characteristics pretty much like a monotheistic religion, Nationalism was the ticking bomb that soon led to the destruction of Europe in two futile wars. It brought European Hegemony to an end and that was the end of Colonialism as we knew it. An American version would follow.
But the worst was yet to come. Little did they know that Nationalism mixed with Religion would soon become the most explosive dynamite. 1947 brought an end to the British Raj and created many Nation-States pumped to the hilt with monotheistic Nationalism. India was born as one of them. It was poor, with very low literacy rates, endemic diseases and stripped of all its former wealth and glory. But more on that later. Our Missionaries need to get into the picture.
As you've probably noticed these missionaries are beginning to get ignored while all these large ideas are changing the world. The heydays for the crusading missionaries were over. The Great Commission was a pathetically poor reflection of its former self. The brightest minds were not going to the service of Religion. They were attracted to the service of Reason and Science. But these small groups of missionaries were still functioning in the newly created Nation-States. Providing schools, hospitals, basic public services and of course preaching the word of the Lord. Always happy to welcome converts.
Majority of the people in India (83%) are loosely classified as Hindus. Traditionally Hindus have not been monotheistic. In fact all sorts of people call themselves Hindus and worship all kinds of Gods. Similar to many indigenous cultures, some Hindus even build their own Gods. There are various philosophies, the Upanishads, the Vedas, multiple choices to pick from and some people will just find a Guru and follow him or her for the rest of their life. They may choose from a variety of other Gods or just find their God in a tree. It could be pretty cool actually because its so pagan and free. The Supreme Court of India has called Hinduism a way of life and not necessarily a religion in the classic sense of the term.
But underlying this cool fluid paganism is the ugly face of an oppressive rigid caste-system which has been kept alive for centuries. Most upper caste Hindus take pride in the loose nature of Hinduism yet in the same breath claim that it is difficult to break away from a centuries old caste system. It is a case of cherry-picking and the real reason is economics. The caste system ensures cheap and sometimes free labor. There have been many attempts at reforming the caste system but none have helped conclusively, so far, because of unwillingness to let go of this cheap resource. The Indian Government has vociferously opposedinternational attempts to voice concerns on the Caste System as a form of discrimination.
One of the exit points from the clutches of the Caste System, especially for Dalits has been to exit Hinduism and join Buddhism, Christianity or Islam. This has served our Missionary friends quite well since they've been at it since the 1st century. So they offer money and false promises of a better life. While the money is always welcome, the promise of a better life is hollow. In the modern world, anyone who offers you a better life is lying.
In the localized version of Indian Christianity, one of the things the Indian Christians have picked up is the bigoted caste system of Hinduism in the name of retaining social custom! At the root of this is the guarantee of cheap or free labor. But that placates the actual reality of its horror.
In extreme cases of the caste system, a person of lower caste may not look into the eye of an upper caste, if an upper caste person sees someone of lower caste they must immediately bathe because even the sight of a lower caste person can pollute you. If you are a Chamar (leather-worker), Mahar (carcass handler), Bhangi (night scavenger) or Chura (sweeper) you may not drink from the same well or river that Upper Castes drink from.
As cruelty yields more cruelty, even the Dalits have a caste system within themselves which is equally oppressive. It is somewhat comparable to the House Slave vs. the Field Slave in American plantations during the days of slavery. Most Dalits in India work as bonded labor. 70% of India's Christian Population is Dalit and most of them are still treated as lower castes by Hindus, Muslims and Christians.
A rapid fire session of Indian reality: Since India is so fragmented and loose in its social structure, manipulative ways are needed to create that monotheistic delusion: Nationalism. When there was a foreign oppressor it was easier, but with the oppressor gone, it gets tricky to unify a nation. The usual tricks are tried:
| An External Enemy? | Pakistan, the Boogeyman. But that only works on a very small portion of the middle-class which itself is miniscule. Most poor people in India are more scared of their own Government and their richer fellow Indians. |
| Propaganda? | It lamely worked during the Socialism years but not anymore. Today's mind control agenda is more focused on consumption. |
| Language? | Can't work in India. India has over 30 languages. And the only common one which can ever unify the billion plus of us is English, that too in some unforeseeable future. |
| Race? | From Dravidians, Aryans, to people of Mongol descent, that's kind of impossible unless we inter-marry all the time but then there's regionalism and its kind of long-winded. |
| Religion? | With 83% loosely defined as Hindus following their own Gods, you can either rule them by breaking them up into vote banks of religious or caste based identities or unify them under a Hindu umbrella. Hence we get the Congress Party which constantly pits one group against the other using appeasement and a divide and rule policy and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which seeks to merge all Hindus and treat them as a narrowly defined Hindu group. The definition of Hindu group of course, is theirs. |
For the BJP's strategy to work, these Christian Missionaries are a threat. They offer money and lure people away from the planned Hindu homogenization project. The Philosophy of Hindutva is ready. The middle-class and most upper-caste Indians have bought it. But with a large majority of India as Dalits, they have to be on board. But those guys are running away from Hinduism in hordes. The horror of staying back in the caste system hell is so strong that they'll take anything, even a false dream.
How does one stop this? Perhaps stop the injustice towards them? Too difficult. The upper classes will not stand for it. Pay them more than the Christian Missionaries to come back? But why resort to such lowly strategies when we can always pull out a gun and offer Hinduism or death?
This brings us from the Great Commission of the 1st century to the killings in Kandhamal, Orissa happening in the 21st Century. The Hindutva project has been steadily progressing since the 1990's. Selling itself as a tit-for-tat final solution to those seeking to convert, it has found immense support in the upper-caste Hindus. And as seen often in history, the Tit is even more cruel than the Tat. Either fall in line with Hindutva or get out. Get out, generally means out of India or out of life.
Most Dalits live in extreme poverty, so their options of organizing or fighting back are quite limited. They are either let out of their miserable lives by the new Holy Hindu warriors or yanked back into their lowly servile station by reconverting them back to Hinduism. The privileged upper castes go on, feigning innocence, blindly following their daily racist practices and the idea of India is saved. Driven by this vision, the Great Hindu Commission has taken wings. These are among the first Hindu Missionaries starting their chapter in carnage similar to the ones started by the Christian and Muslim Crusaders 20 centuries ago.
A 4000 year old fluid way of life hijacked by a two bit, third rate political party, the BJP, supported by a bigoted upper caste has devised a reconversion process. This is how it works:
Step 1 - Burn the Bible
The first act when Christians reconvert to Hinduism is to set fire to the Bibles and put an end to old beliefs. This is the scene in the clearing of a jungle in Kandhamal
Step 2 - Apply Vermillion
Red is a favored color and the RSS makes a ceremony of applying the tika on a convert’s forehead
Step 3 - Take your vows
The convertee swears that his dynasty will perish if he becomes a Christian again
Now these convertees chant OM followed by the Gayatri Mantra. Now the slogans:
Bharat Mata Ki Jai (Hail Mother India)
Ganga Mata Ki Jai (Hail Mother Ganges)
Gau Mata Ki Jai (Hail Mother Cow)
Sri Ramjanambhoomi Ki Jai (Hail the land of Lord Ram's birth)
Then a final - Jai Sri Ram
A couple of months later these Christian-turned-Hindus will be asked to attend a Yagya (a prayer to the Fire God). In the Yagya, they will wear saffron clothes and a sacred thread, and get their heads shaved. They will offer a few goats and some rice as fee. They will be given Gau Mutra (cow urine) and Tulsi water to drink. They will take Hindu vows. Then, they will share the mutton and rice (cooked from their offerings) in a small feast. This completes their reconversion. From then on, they will have a Tulsi plant in their homes, have pictures of Hindu gods on their walls, and celebrate Hindu festivals. They will pray only to Hindu gods. [src]
The slaves have been returned back to their place. They will still belong to the lower caste.
The architect of this modern enlightenment movement is the VHP International General Secretary Praveen Togadia, may peace be upon him.
Welcome to the new India. We have moved from being primitive to more primitive. We've jumped back 2000 years and are on our way to progress, aping the worst from the West.
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Enlightening and very well written. Have always said that if they have to convert , convert them to Brahmins. They will never agree.
Well written. \nChristianity didn't come to India with Vasco de Gama. The Syrian Christians of Kerala (Nasranis) are Jewish-Christians who have been around for as long as Christianity was.\n\nInfact the Portuguese fought the Nasranis to bring them under their control. Search for "Nasrani" on Amazon.
Thanks Jacob. I'm aware of the rock crosses in Kerala which indicate that Christianity existed in South India much before colonization. But the major forces of proselytyizing and oppressive conversion came with the Portugese.
[...] Post -Â The Missionary Position [...]
Navneet,\nThat, India is fragmented and loose in its social structure is an accepted fact since centuries, no prize for stating the ground realities are obvious,\n even if all the hypothetical manipulative ways & monotheistic Nation’s hallucinations of yours are accepted,(An External Enemy? – Pakistan(as if Indians actually care) , Propaganda? –Socialism?? (ideology of fools) Language? English(don’t you sound similar to the BJPes, unification plan of ‘Hindu Umbrella’? anyways Indians are master communicators, who cares Hindi, English, French, P language) Race? (Huh, Huns, Greek, Persians…) Religion-(Congress appeasers, BJP Hindutatva’s, Leftist Islamist-Terrorists, Communist Evangelist-Inquisitionist …….) \n–Agreed & accepted as you state, that all of these are delusions & of no consequence, hence imaginary, by both-them & you , & so is your sordid claim of monotheistic National’ism’, Which falls flat on it’s face by your own admission,\n---- Any ‘illuminating’ theory for India as it is?
Aam Insaan, welcome to this space. You said:\n\n...so is your sordid claim of monotheistic Nationalism, Which falls flat on it’s face by your own admission\n\nActually if you read this post carefully you might decipher that I am arguing against all attempts at creating monotheistic Nationalism. I'm glad you feel that these attempts are delusional. However, the murderous rampage by the RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal and the Sangh Parivar is not delusional. This is happening as you may see for yourself. The reason it is important to bring this to light is that while most Indians constantly shout against "forceful conversions" by Christianity and Islam, it is perhaps time we hold up a mirror to ourselves and see what is being done in the name of the majority of India's population.\n\nIt is only by acknowledging and condemning this that we can hope to stay united as a people working for each others mutual benefits. And there is a difference between people connected by culture and common sharing vs. the kind of homogenization planned by BJP or the divide and rule propagated by the Congress.
RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal and the Sangh Parivar, The parasites of modern India, \nwhat do they feed on?- their fuel is Islamic & Christian fundamentalism, proselytization, ‘special’ treatments & religious grants…. which is sympathized, appeased,(nothing done) & termed ‘secular’ (whatever that means),for petty gains, overlooked & protected zealously for vote-bank politics, history is distorted just in case it may ‘offend’ some ‘minorities’, - all this works excellently for the horrendous RSS brigade, who are least bothered to tackle these issues constitutionally or intellectually, rather it serves their purpose of spreading suspicions, doubts & indulge false propaganda magnified for ignorant & gullible masses from whom they are supplied fresh blood of psychologically sanity deprived recruits & on the other hand the congress & communist parties, the foreign aided activists gleefully give underhanded tactical support to them for political & personal gains-\nwhere do they derive inspiration from? Is there any “Hindu Icon� they can fall back on? Shivaji? Rana Pratap? NO, simply because even in their wildest dreams they would not have broken mosques, churches or any such religious place or ‘reconverted’(sic) indulged in moral policing etc… \nso what is their source of inspiration?- they derive it from plagiarizing the very religions that they claim to be averse to, there’s nothing remotely ’Hindu’ about them.\nOn what is their ideology based on? - Can they substantiate their actions with the Hindu scriptures? Basically they are a reactionary, self-justifying force of & against Islam & Christian evangelists, they wish to instill the foreign narrow moral values, as you rightly state-homogenization (political, religious & cultural) of the non-existent but generally termed Hindu religion, they wish to destroy the age-old fabric of the sub-continent & establish a ‘Hindu caliphate’, which in reality would only be a pipe dream, but if the masses are not taken into confidence & exposed to historical, political facts & this hypothetical ‘majority-neglected / minority appeasement theories’, the Fascist Advani blunders are not dealt upfront instead of being conveniently pushed under the carpet – the end result could sort of lead to the further Balkanization of India, & in present global scenario, this is detrimental. If you call a spade a spade – these RSS guys will die out of suffocation or else these “Hindu Talibans� shall one day enter our very own houses, kill or corrupt the minds of future generations & we will have no one to blame but ourselves.\nBrahmins by monopolizing education were the main cause of India's historical sufferings & were outright enemies of India, SC/ST are an oppressed class since centuries in India, their main drawback is illiteracy & lack of Dignity, presently, even though there are opportunities abundantly available to them, thanks to Ambedkar, what is overlooked is that their circumstances & social ambience alongwith gross unawareness of their constitutional rights & means, is the one & only cause of their poor present state of affairs, worst still, those who claim to champion their cause in modern times are actually doing more harm to them than what they have already gone thru throughout the centuries, they are unguarded, illiterate, ignorant, ready fodder for religious scavengers(evangelists, Islamists, VHP)(no one works in Maoland without the permission & without giving ‘salami’ to the Maoists) prey on them with baits & violent means, they are gleefully treated as ‘Dalit Commodities’ by politicians, activists & intelligensia alike, the few amongst them who do benefit from the reservations & special grants-turn their backs upon them & merge with the general masses, or worst, use them for fame & some extra bucks, everyone has their own agendas to push, no one really wants to better their cause genuinely nor sub-consciously wish them to come out of their miseries, the tribes infact I believe were better off contently living in jungles than having their simple lives invaded by haphazard modernism & superficial modernists, Not mere lipservice, symphathies or some ‘holy word’ would be of any benefit to them, Political Dignity (as instilled by the laloos & mulayams in the actual OBC’s),social tools such as guidance, support & logistics enabling them to make the best of educational & Job reservations, (historically, socially & constitutionally which is theirs deservingly & rightly so, not as the favour giving sickening attitude of upper castes) encouraging or through political & social pressures making state administrations & admistrators to obtain results or be accountable for not fulfilling their constitutional obligations,opening all avenues for them to practically in the near future merge with the mainstream, is the need of the hour. \nTill that time of Dalit assertiveness- term all ‘Profitable Dalit Services’ such as conversions, reconversions etc. - as Dalit atrocities.