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Christian Menace: End scourge of conversions
Conversion is the root cause of social unrest in many parts of India. 

“The writers of Bible had slight concern for the principles of morality. They were more concerned with rape, murder robbery, slavery, licentiousness, brutal ignorance and derogatory superstition. "

"If the ministers of the Gospel are too dense and stupid to realise the moral mischief resulting from the perverse teachings of the Bible, then it is about time to bring them to their senses.”     

Refer to Things they don't tell about Christianity

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Modern day Inquisition against Pagan cultures of Asia

There are half-a-dozen versions of the recent communal clashes in Orissa. First, take the dictates of Pope John Paul II. While visiting India, he talked to all the Evangelic Missionaries to harvest the souls of Asia. He said that in the first millennium, we converted Europe. In the second millennium, we converted Africa and the Americas and now it is Asia 's turn. 

Christianity has not gotten tolerant over the years; it has merely gotten smarter. You catch more flies with sugar than salt, and you get more converts with slick rhetoric and high-tech propaganda than you do with dungeon, fire, and sword. So Christian intolerance no longer wears the mask of the Inquisitor.

Pope John Paul talked to all the Evangelic Missionaries to harvest the souls of Asia and destroy Indic faiths and their ancient cultures. He said that in the first millennium, we converted Europe. In the second millennium, we converted Africa and the Americas and now it is Asia 's turn. 

Pradip N Thomas writes that "Christian fundamentalists", like Islamic fundamentalists, "belong to a global umma and harbour real and perhaps imagined ... longings directed towards making all of god's people Christian".

For more refer to chapter on Conversion and Crusadewatch.org.

***

In Asia, there is no space of conversion from Islam to Christianity. As far as China is concerned, its Government did not allow the Pope to visit the country, which he had planned along with his visit to India. Conversion by missionaries were vigorously stepped up after the Pope left India. In many parts of the country tonnes of money is being spent to lure and convert poor tribals to Christianity.

Of late, there has been a spurt in Evangelist activities. Under the Chief Ministership of Y Rajyashekhar Reddy, Evangelists are so emboldened that they have increased conversions and building of churches. Oscar Fernandes, AK Antony, Margaret Alva and many more are among her chosen ones. Only Antony has the credentials for the top position occupied by him. 

Conversions-related violence has been on the increase in many States, including Orissa, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh. One can recall the unfortunate incident of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons. Some mischief-makers or someone enraged by fraudulent conversions may have done it. Graham Staines was, like many other missionaries, engaged in following the dictum of the Pope for harvesting souls of the Indians. Media, without a confirmation, blamed burning of the Staines family on the Sangh Parivar. Screaming headlines followed for months in the entire Christian world. Students of all Christian schools in India marched on the streets raising slogans against the Sangh Parivar and Bajrang Dal. 

But, in his report, Justice Wadhwa castigated the newspapers and channels for baseless media trials. To cap it all, not only Christian leaders but also the Presidents and Prime Ministers of Christian countries decried the attacks on Staines.  

The chorus of blaming Sangh Parivar has become a habit of the secular brigade and anti-Sangh forces. Take the incident of the Jhabua nun rape case. Tonnes of newsprint and miles of footage blamed the RSS. Ultimately, it was found that the rape had nothing to do with the RSS. But the media punished the Sangh Parivar. Same was the case of Dangs in Gujarat. Christians who destroyed a Hanuman Temple started the entire thing. In retaliation, worshippers of the temple torched a hut that had a cross and was being used as a Church. Not one person was injured but as propaganda was huge, it led people to believe that dozens had been killed.

The recent trouble in Orissa started with the killing of 84-year-old venerated swami Laxmananand, a sadhvi and three other persons. Laxmnanand was a Vedanta scholar. He stood by the Kandha tribe which refused to be converted under pressure of Evangelists as against Panas who succumbed to the allurement. Swamiji was against conversions and sided with the Kandhas. His lectures were attended by a large number of Kandhas. Laxmananad appeared to be a road block to the Evangelists and was, therefore, killed by armed Christians. All the 11 persons arrested are Christians. In the news chorus of the media, the killing of Laxmananad was eclipsed.

Even in Gujarat riots, Godhra's planned burning of the train compartment carrying kar sewaks was eclipsed and the Gujarat riots overshadowed everything. Fact remains that had Godhra not happened, the Gujarat riots would not have happened either. Here also, had Laxmananand not being killed, the Kandhas and Panas would not have fought.  

Conversion is the root cause of social unrest in many parts of India. In Kandhmal itself, the Christian population was just two per cent in 1961. In 1971, the Christian population increased to six per cent and in 2001 it reached 27 per cent. This is the result of harvesting Hindus for Christianity. The secularists tried to put the blame of the killing of of swami on Naxalites but they denied it flatly. It was the ninth attempt on Laxmananand's life by Christian zealots. The swami had filed an FIR on an earlier attack. The 'secular' brigade does not want a debate on conversions. Evangelists are causing more and more social tension. It is evident from the records but who listens to it. The power of media propaganda with 'secular' brigade is enormous.

(source: Christian menace: End scourge of conversions - By Dina Nath Mishra - dailypioneer.com). 

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How Japan effectively dealt with the Christianity's Spiritual Imperialism

When Francis Xavier brought Roman Catholicism to Japan in 1549, most of the inhabitants of Ikitsuki Island left Buddhism and became Christians. 

Francis Xavier and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Recognizing the threat that Christianity posed to Japan and her traditions, Hideyoshi and the other Shogun all but stamped out Christianity. Why are monotheistic traditions (Christianity and Islam) unable to live in peace in pluralist societies?

Refer to The Missionaries: God Against the Indians - By Norman Lewis. Refer to chapters on European Imperialism and Conversion. 

***

Recognizing the threat that Christianity posed to Japan and her traditions, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536 -1598) and the other Shogun all but stamped out Christianity. 

Adopting a complex sham, the Christians of Ikitsuki worshipped publicly at Buddhist temples, and then slipped away at night to hold secret Christian prayer meetings. At home, they prayed overtly before Buddhist and Shinto altars, but their real altar became the nan do garni (closet god), innocuous-looking bundles of cloth in which Christian statues and medallions were hidden. 

Gautam Buddha

***

For two and a half centuries, the Christian faith was transmitted secretly to illiterate peasants. These Janus-faced people came to be known as Kakure Kirishitan (crypto-Christians). 

In 1865, when Japan permitted a Catholic church to open in Nagasaki to serve Western visitors, the Kakure, then numbering around 30,000 in the region, suddenly came out of hiding. To this day, at public ceremonies such as Kakure funerals, a Buddhist priest is always asked to officiate, but the Kakure make sure to make a secret prayer to erase the effect of the Buddhist priest!

(source: Conversion: Faith in the closet - By Dr. Shreerang Godbole - vijayvaani.com).

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How To Defy The West and its Cultural Imperialism - the Japanese Way
Lessons for Indians

The debate whether Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) is as bad as Khomeini's Islam and whether it will isolate India from the World history can be deferred for a while. The superficial interpretation of Japanese and Chinese experience needs to be shown its worth.

Japan , not an imitator, but defier, of the West.  

The central idea of that Western civilisation is a "Universal Paradigm" and even Japan had to imitate this universal civilisation. Nothing is farther from truth. If anything, the Japanese experience is the greatest defiance to the claim of the west that its civilisation is universal.  

In the mid 1850s, Gunboat diplomacy offered Japan the choice of a war in which its defeat was certain as an alternative to opening up the Japanese economy to the west; consequently, Japan was compelled to open up. But, even as it did just that, it decided that it should play the western game and beat them at it, more to preserve the civilisation an nationalism of Japan - not to imitate the west and become its satellite, or become its yellow copy.  

Says Takeshi Hayashi of Daito Bunka University , "The problem with the west" is that it thinks that its prescriptions "are universal" - a view which the Japanese rejected outright. Western universalism was never acceptable to Japan 100 years ago, nor is it acceptable to the Japanese today. The Japanese do not even accept the western view of globalisation of commerce. They see a clear conflict between Globalisation and Nationalism.

Christian Evangelists, NGOs and INGOs hate anyone or anything being nationalistic.

The Meiji Shinto Shrine.

Japaneseness, not Western civilisation, pervades the thought and action of Japan. Japan is not a follower of Western civilisation. Since the war the Japanese have been fascinated by 'Nihonjinron', a field of study that attempts to define the essence of Japaneseness". The only difference between Nihonjinron and Hindutva is that Shintoism is an exclusive concept while Hindutva is not. 

Hindu Nationalism is a threat to Christian Evangelism and Islamic Jehad.

***

When the occupation regime was raining in Japan after World War II, the U.S. led regime, locked the Meiji-Shinto Temple which was the symbol of Japanese nationalism, closed down the Shinto affairs department of the Japanese government, which was the centre of Japanese consciousness, and desanctified the Emperor who was the head of Japanese people. The Japanese acquiesced in what the regime did, but never accepted any of these as final. Within a decade Japan reopened the Meiji-Shinto Temple and reinstated the Shinto affairs department despite the fact that this department was regarded by the west as unsecular, the Japanese government getting mixed up with the religion. Even today three fourth's of the Japanese bend 45 degrees when the so called desanctified Emperor's Car passes them - not when the Prime Minister of Japan goes along the road. So, the Japanese nation does not adhere to the constitution desecrating the monarchy decreet by the U.S. led occupation regime. Its Democracy is vastly different from that of the west - it is not based on the divisive majority-minority rule, but on consensus. In fact, the U.S. lobby in Japan is powerfully advocating the changeover from decision making by consensus to decision making by rule of the majority. Japan regards rule of majority as having a potentiality to fragment the Japanese. Japaneseness, not Western civilisation, pervades the thought and action of Japan . Japan is not a follower of Western civilisation, but its most difficult, defiant enemy. This is how at least the West perceives Japan.

Since the war the Japanese have been fascinated by 'Nihonjinron', a field of study that attempts to define the essence of Japaneseness". Japan is not an imitation of the West; its core Nipponatva if we have to use the Japanese equivalent of Hindutva, excepting that Shintoism is an exclusive concept while Hindutva is not.

Of course, Japan took from the west what it required, but, western culture was not among what Japan took from the west. It never assumed or accepted that western civilisation was universal and worthy of copying. The Japanese grabbed from the west the technology that they needed and reoriented and internalised it. It is no imitation, even in technology. When the Japanese first drew their technology from China , the Japanese slogan was "Chinese technology and Japanese spirit"; when, after China was defeated in the Opium War, the Japanese turned to the west with a modified slogan "Western technology and Japanese spirit". In education, for instance, Japan permitted English words in Japanese language with Japanese Phonetics, but, not the English language in Japanese Schools, colleges and universities. The Meiji regime allowed the Japanese students to go abroad and study, provided they submitted a copy of their thesis in Japanese language in Tokyo university !

They adopted western appearances in offices and roads, not in their homes. The west has no clue as to how Japan achieved this. In fact Japanese did not want the west to know too much about them. As western author, Steve Nisen, observed (in his book Beyond Candlesticks) the Japanese were not very happy when a book on their stock market analytical startegy, known as the candle theory, was to be published in English; they were worried that "So many others (non Japanese) would come to know about it". That is how they play their global game close to their national chest. In the post war period, for the Japanese, business became a war, and the war was with the west, particularly, with America .  

So the way modern Japanese experience has been described in the editorial, that is, Japan as a mere extension of the Western civilisation, is a travesty of truth.

(source:  How To Defy The West - By S Gurumurthy).

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Christian Missionaries: Abusing freedom, falsifying Hindu Gods in India

Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, the famous orator and statesman of U.S.A., who popularized the criticism of the Bible on the basis of a humanistic philosophy and scientific rationalism. He was a Civil War veteran, American political leader, and orator during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism has observed:

“The believers in the Bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of the world, and yet few books have been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of God.”

Thomas Paine, (1737 -1809) was an English pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, inventor, and intellectual. He lived and worked in Britain until age 37, when he emigrated to the British American colonies, in time to participate in the American Revolution. 

His principal contribution was the powerful, widely-read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America 's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain and of The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. He wrote:

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon; than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind,- and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.”

***

Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) was the foremost disciple of Ramakrishna and a world spokesperson for Vedanta. India's first spiritual and cultural ambassador to the West, came to represent the religions of India at the World Parliament of Religions, held at Chicago in connection with the World's Fair (Columbian Exposition) of 1893. His Chicago speech is uniquely Vedantic. Jawaharlal Nehru refers to this universal dimension of Vivekananda in his Discovery of India. “Rooted in the past, and full of pride in India’s heritage, Vivekananda was yet modern in his approach to life’s problems, and was a kind of bridge between the past of India and her present.”

He once told Christian missionaries that their vilification of Hinduism outweighed all the mud in the ocean. 

"If all India stands up, and takes all the mud that is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and throws it up against the Western countries, it will not be doing an infinitesmal part of that which you are doing to us."

Since then, the stream of defamatory mud thrown at Hinduism has only increased. 

(source: Missionaries in India - By Arun Shourie).

***

On Monday, March 20, Assist News Service, based in Lake Forest, California, USA, which circulates news about the work of evangelists around the world, put out a story by Michael Ireland, its chief correspondent, headlined 'India's Prime Minister launches investigation into arrest and persecution of Indian Christians'.

According to this story, "India's Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, has launched an investigation into the arrest of Hopegivers International President - Dr Samuel Thomas. 'Our letter writing campaign is working,' says Hopegivers Executive Director Michael Glenn, 'we must continue to write and fax letters of protest this week.'

Glenn said that because of the campaign, 'The Prime Minister of India has today appointed a four-member commission to investigate the persecution in Kota where our president and top administrative staff have been falsely accused and jailed. This is simply a naked effort to force Emmanuel to shut its doors'."

The story then goes on to urge Christians in the US to petition Senators, Congressmen and the US President against what it portrays as outrageous action by the Government of Rajasthan, prodded by 'Hindu fascists', against Dr Thomas and his fellow evangelists of Emmanuel Mission International that operates five registered societies in that State. These are: Emmanuel Bible Institute Samiti, Emmanuel Anath Ashram, Emmanuel School Society, Emmanuel Chikitsalaya Samiti and Emmanuel Believers Fellowship, all funded by the US-based Hopegivers.

What it does not mention, however, is the reason why Dr Thomas and his associates have been booked for violating Sections 153(a) and 295(a) of the IPC, "which deal with deliberately outraging religious feelings or insulting the religious beliefs of another community." 

And, while choosing not to elaborate on the nature of charges, the report quotes Ms Shelley Thomas, wife of Dr Thomas, who is at present in the US : "Nothing that my husband has done was intended to outrage or insult any other religion... This is a totally false charge and unrelated to the organised violence, threats, and attacks that have been conducted against us for the last six weeks." It also points out that the Government of Rajasthan has "revoked without due process or hearing, all the operating licenses of the Hopegivers-supported bookstores, churches, the hospital and leprosy or HIV-AIDS outreaches, orphanages, printing presses, schools and other institutions."

Since evangelist advocacy groups have willfully refused to tell the full story, it would be in order to place the facts on record.

The immediate provocation that led to the arrest of Dr Thomas and others involved with the Emmanuel mission's work in Kota is born of the contents of a book that he and his associates have been distributing among the people. The book, Haqeeqat, is authored by a Kerala-based evangelist, MG Matthew.

Swami Vivekananda

"If all India stands up, and takes all the mud that is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and throws it up against the Western countries, it will not be doing an infinitesmal part of that which you are doing to us."  

Abusing freedom, falsifying Hindu Gods.

***

Here are some samples of what Haqeeqat, which was being used by the Thomases and their associates to convince Hindus in Kota to abandon their faith and embrace Christianity, has to say:

* "Hindu gods and goddesses are fictitious and were invented to persecute Dalits" (Page 9).

* "To prevent indigenous people from acquiring knowledge, Saraswati invented difficult Vedas (which nobody can understand)". (Page 16)

* "With the progression of time, people all over the world (except India ) were freed of their ignorance and they began to disown wicked and cruel gods and goddesses. But in India , because people are (enveloped) in the darkness of ignorance, imaginary gods and goddesses are still worshipped." (Page 17)

* "Naked sanyasis are worshipped by (Hindu) women. The moment (Hindu) women see naked sanyasis, they fall on the ground and prostrate themselves before the sanyasis. (Hindu) women pour water on the sanyasis' penises and then happily drink that water. Ling Devata is gratified when he sees all these repulsive things and feels empowered... These people are ignorant and do not know the difference between what is right and wrong." (Page 93)

* "Sita was abandoned in the forest as per Ram's wishes... Ram later asked Lakshman to kill Sita. In the end, Ram frustrated with life, drowned himself in Saryu. Such are the teachings of half-naked rishis who are praised by Hindutvawadis." (Page 100)

* "Lord Shiva, to get people to worship him, dropped his penis on Earth (Devi), shaking the ground and the sky! ... . Poor Dharti Devi was shaken by the weight of his penis. Seeing this, all the Gods were scared. It seems Gods would use their penises as bombs! Whenever and wherever they wanted to, they would drop their 'penis bombs' to terrorise the people. Thus, they were able to enslave the people... But compared to foreign bombs, these penis bombs were a damp squib." (Page 106-107)

* "(Ramakrishna) Paramahansa should have known that Ganga is the world's filthiest and dirtiest river. How many dead bodies float down this river every day? How many half-burnt dead bodies are dumped into it every day? And Hindus call it the holy river! In fact, all the rivers of India are dirty and polluted... Hindutvawadis pollute the rivers... and then depend on their false Gods to cleanse them..." (Page 122-123)

* "(For Hindus) men can be Gods, women can be Goddesses... animals are gods, snakes are gods... they (Hindu Gods) fight among themselves, marry among themselves, throw out their wives, run away with others' wives, they steal, get intoxicated, drink blood, are reincarnated as animals, fish and tortoise, some of them can lift mountains... Some Gods are in same-sex relationships and are yet able to produce babies. These Gods and Goddesses are always armed because they believe in killing and plunder. Some Gods think their penises are more powerful than nuclear bombs. Others like animals live naked among their followers. Some of them spend their time in yogic exercises, others are in samadhi and happy to see the number of blind followers swell... You can wash away your sins by worshipping the penises of Gods" (Page 146).

* "How could Arya Hindus bring Aryanisation on this earth. To be Arya, one has to be born of an Arya womb... If Arya Hindus want to bring Aryanisation then they must lend or rent out all Arya wombs to non-Aryans. Non-Aryans should be given Brahmin women so that children are born from Brahmin womb" (Page 182-183).

* "In modern India , many Ramas of this belief are living a carefree life. They marry several times, desert their wives, marry several times, and leave them. Many Ramas kill their Sitas. They are following their God Rama." (Page 269)

* "(Lord) Krishna had a despicable sex life... Shri Krishna is famous because of his love life. He had 16,008 wives. And all Yadav women were his illegitimate lovers. (Hindu) women are drawn towards him because of pornographic and vulgar tales of his sex life." (Page 391)

(source: Abusing freedom, falsifying gods - By Kanchan Gupta - dailypioneer.com). 

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Religulous: A Thought provoking movie about Organized religions

Ponder this: Christians and Muslims embrace two competing, ancient fairy tales that both end with the glorious destruction of the world, except for exclusive alternate endings for believers. And the people who currently have the greatest power to destroy the world are Christians and Muslims, whether by nuclear bomb or environmental neglect. Therefore, prophecy is destined to fulfill itself, unless people come to their senses and recognize religion for the poison it is.

Beginning and ending in Megiddo, Israel, "the spot where the Christians believe the world will end in the book of Revelation," Bill Maher manages a mind-blowing documentary about organized religions. Religulous to be a provocative, brilliant, infuriating documentary. It's one part Bowling for Columbine, one part An Inconvenient Truth, built upon a base of sneering mockery.

Beginning at a trucker's church in Raleigh, N.C., his greatest target is Catholicism, which he notes has been about "abusing little kids and burning people alive." Maher offers a crash course in biblical history, and tackles televangelists, the antigay evangelical movement and the erroneous notion that our founding fathers intended ours to be a Christian nation

With potshots at the likes of Evangelicals,Ted Haggard, Robert Tilton, Jim Baker and Jerry Falwell, Maher travels from Kentucky 's Creation Museum to the Vatican Observatory to the Dome on the Rock, his purpose being to promote "doubt" rather than disdain. "The 10 Commandments are the only beliefs we cleave to from the Bronze Age," he notes, in between getting kicked out of the Vatican and shooed away from Salt Lake City 's MormonTemple. Maher draws parallels between the stories of Jesus, Mithra and Horus. To make his point, Maher spends much of the movie challenging believers. He asks Christian pastors and laypeople why they believe myths that don't appear in the Bible, like the virgin birth, or ignore tenets that do, like Christ's admonishments of the rich. ("God impregnated a virgin with a son who was really also God Himself, and sent him on a suicide mission so he could fly back into space!").

Christianity once justified slavery on the basis that Jesus never condemned it, that it was practiced in the Old Testament, and that the Curse of Ham meant that Africans (the descendants of Ham's son, Canaan ) were destined for eternal servitude, or that the Mark of Cain referred to dark skin. Christians believe that non-Christians are going to be tormented in the afterlife merely because they are not Christians, and that Jesus will someday return to earth and unleash Armageddon, which would cause the death of billions, but since these people would not accept Jesus as the Messiah and God as the one true God, then death and eternal suffering are precisely what they deserve.

(source: Religulous: Movie review from the internet). Watch the movie - Indoctrination in Jesus Camp and Watch the movie Deliver us from Evil

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To propagate is not to convert 

Keith M Parsons author of Why I Am Not a Christian (2000) has observed:  

"The Christian Bible bequeathed a legacy of cruelty; the Church wasted little time in acting on that legacy. Even Christian historians such as Paul Johnson grow eloquent recounting the persecutions, pogroms, crusades, witch-hunts, inquisitions, and religious wars whereby countless persons were burned, butchered, tortured, or thrown into dungeons by God-fearing fanatics (Johnson, 1976). In his recent best-seller Hitler's Willing Executioners, Daniel Goldhagen traces the long disgraceful record of Christian anti-Semitism (Goldhagen, 1996). The hatred sown in Martin Luther's rabid anti-Jewish diatribes was reaped at Auschwitz. Forrest G. Wood's book The Arrogance of Faith details Christian complicity in the genocide of American Indians and the defense of slavery (Wood, 1990)."

(source: Why I am not a Christian - By Keith M Parsons). Refer to Things they don't tell about Christianity and  Harvesting Our Souls - Missionaries, their design, their claims - By Arun Shourie

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Rome Rajya or Ram Rajya?

Astonishing ignorance laces the arguments, proffered by bleeding heart lib-left intellectuals and politicians who insist that secularism means denial of Hindu rights, in defence of religious conversions through deceit, allurement and coercion. "The Constitution guarantees Christian missionaries the right to convert people to Christianity," we are told. "In a secular country, the Constitution reigns supreme," we are reminded. "Violation of rights enshrined in the Constitution will destroy democracy," we are warned. But what does the Constitution say? Ask them this simple question, and the Constitution-thumping saviours of secularism, pluralism and republicanism will be stumped.

This is what Article 25(1) of The Constitution of India says: 

"Subject to public order, morality and health and to other provisions of this part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion."

Read it out to those who pretend great outrage every time there's a hint of protest against conversions, and they will pounce upon you: "See, the Constitution gives Christian missionaries the right to propagate their religion." But the right to 'propagate' does not mean the right to 'convert'

And it is this inability to distinguish between the two that highlights the appalling ignorance of those who see nothing wrong with offensive evangelism.

That the constitutional right to 'propagate' does not mean the right to 'convert' was clarified by the Supreme Court while upholding the validity of anti-conversion laws -- the Freedom of Religion Act 1967 and the Dharma Swatantraya Adhiniyam 1968 -- in Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. Chief Justice A N Ray (1912 - ) in his ruling, left little scope for confusion between propagation and conversion -- the two, he said, were different:

 "What Article 25(1) grants is not the right to convert another person to one's own religion by exposition of its tenets." 

The court also ruled that States, bearing in mind their responsibility to maintain public order, have the right to adopt laws "prohibiting conversion from one religion to another in a manner reprehensible to the conscience of the community".

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati.

It's not for nothing that Mrs Indira Gandhi, incandescent with rage after the mass conversion of Hindus to Islam at Meenakshipuram in February 1981, favoured the idea of States adopting anti-conversion laws and had the Home Ministry prepare a draft Act for circulation among State Governments.

Refer to Christian fundamentalism and the media in South India - By Pradip N. Thomas and Mangalore residents blame forcible conversions for violence

***

Now let's look at what has been happening in Orissa where violence has erupted in impoverished, tribal-majority Kandhamal district. Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, a Hindu monk and anti-conversion activist of the VHP who had spent more than three decades working for the welfare of indigent and illiterate Hindus, setting up schools and shelters for them, was shot dead last Saturday night at his ashram. Four of his associates were also killed in the murderous attack.

Strangely, the administration suggested that the killings were the handiwork of Maoists, who promptly denied any role. Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, who was attacked on several occasions in the past by hoodlums on the payroll of missionaries, had recently received death threats and his associates had sought police protection for him. Two constables were detailed to provide him with 'security cover' -- on the night he was killed, they were nowhere on the scene. The blowback to Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati's murder cannot be seen in isolation. It has to be seen in the context of evangelists 'harvesting souls' by inducing the poor and the illiterate to embrace Christianity. Rice bowl conversions have little to do with faith in the good lord.

Religious conversions can have sinister social implications and destabilising political consequences. It's not for nothing that Mrs Indira Gandhi, incandescent with rage after the mass conversion of Hindus to Islam at Meenakshipuram in February 1981, favoured the idea of States adopting anti-conversion laws and had the Home Ministry prepare a draft Act for circulation among State Governments.

(source: To propagate is not to convert - By Kanchan Gupta - dailypioneer.com).

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Did You Know?

Racist Churchill wanted 'bad man' Gandhi to be 'eliminated'

Winston Churchill and Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts

***

Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wanted to eliminate "bad man" Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of India ’s freedom struggle. Second World War archives reveal a conversation that Churchill had with South African leader Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, (1870 - 1950) which showed the former blaming the latter for Britain ’s troubles in India.

On one occasion, Churchill told Smuts: “You are responsible for all our troubles in India – you had Gandhi for years and did not do away with him.”

According to The Telegraph, Smuts replied: “When I put him in prison – three times – all Gandhi did was to make me a pair of bedroom slippers.”

When Mahatma Gandhi went on hunger strike during the war, Churchill told his Cabinet: 

“Gandhi should not be released on the account of a mere threat of fasting. We should be rid of a bad man and an enemy of the British Empire if he died.”

Churchill was informed by a ministerial colleague Grigg that Gandhi was getting glucose in his orange juice, and another cabinet minister said ''he had oil rubbed into him which was nutritious’, allowing Churchill to claim that ''it is apparently not a fast merely a change of diet.’ According to the Churchill Archives at Cambridge , which are now being used as a reference for a new book on correspondence and conversations that took place during the height of the Second World War, Churchill usually wanted to adopt the most extreme option.

(source: Churchill wanted 'bad man' Gandhi to be 'eliminated' - samachar.com).

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