It has been a worrying
trend for the culturally cautious to spot surreptitious means of converting
Hindus, denigrating their religious and cultural practices and building a
global narrative of global Anti Hindu sentiments. Most of the supposedly
moderate Hindus are too moderate to look at it with a critical eye, the others
too ignorant of their own faith to mount a credible argument. A sense of
inferiority has been drilled into urban Hindus who have never invested in
exploring their own religion, leading them to be malleable against purported
excesses of their faith. They have no arguments, no information, no time for
research and not enough roots to look the danger in the eye. This series of articles
is by no means an original research on the subject. They are composed of
extracts of information from various sources, websites, books and discussions
and presented as a Situation Report
of a CLEAR and PRESENT DANGER. It is also condensed in a nugget to share the
explorations of serious research. We would urge the readers to use the
information contained as a catalyst for their own research in the given
contexts. The sources are mentioned at the end of the article.
A typical example of the
images of Hinduism being fed worldwide can be found in a documentary featuring
PAT ROBERTSON, executive chairman, and former Southern Baptist minister who
advocates Conservative Christian ideals, mocking early morning prayers of
Hindus. Referring to Ganga as ‘Shiva’s sperm and that ‘Hindus wash away their
sins in the sperm of God’, says “Shiva is the God of destruction and His
consort, Goddess of death, that black ugly statue with those fierce eyes”, says
that evil tendencies of death and destruction are found in those who worship
Hindu Deities, “I mean these people are out to kill in the name of God”.
Converting Hindus into
Christianity is popularly marketed in America as an act of saving the heathens
from a lifetime of demonic oppression. These extremely mainstream views are a
result of well-funded and planned movement. US evangelical organizations pull
the strings of US based Dalit lobbies; these organizations depend on a section
of academicians and activists from India, affiliated with the Indian
subsidiaries of US evangelical organizations.
*AMERICAN CHRISTIAN
INTERVENTIONS
DALIT FREEDOM NETWORK (DFN)
based in Colorado USA, (affiliated to AICC) uses a Dalit face to hide the
hardcore operational American right-wing designs on India and a social status
to intervene in Indian causes. It brings speakers and activists from India to
testify before US government, policy think tanks, churches to prompt US
intervention in India.
DFN channels fund for ‘Dalit empowerment’, OMCC
(Operation Mercy Charitable Company) aims to establish Christian ‘Good Shepard
Schools’, plans to create 1,000 Dalit Education and Emancipation Centers.
PIFRAS(Policy Institute for
Religion and State) A powerful advocacy
group whose board member belong to Abrahamic religions and many members represent
evangelic institutions. JOHN PRABHUDOSS, its executive director represents
FIACONA (Federation of Indian American Christian Organization of North America)
FREEDOM HOUSE is another
powerful institution, which relies on the testimonies from Christian sponsored
Dalit activists. It has an entity called ‘Centre for Religious Freedom’, its
report on ‘the rise of Hindu extremism’ (2003), had contributions from Rev
CEDRIC PRAKASH, TIMOTHY SHAH, VINAY SAMUEL, JOHN PRABHUDOSS, JOHN DAYAL AND
JOSEPH D’SOUZA of the AICC, representatives of DFN
ASIA SOCIETY IN NEW YORK
Funded by the ROCKFELLER family and former CIA director WILLIAM COLBY. It
provided negative images of India to influential Americans, CELIA DUGGER, who
served as co-bureau chief of New York Times in Delhi 1998-2002, took the stand
that India was becoming a fascist state. Recently in new US-India climate, Asia
Society has recognized India as a rising economic power that offers potential
for US policy.
RAND CORPORATION An American
global policy think tank financed by the U.S. government and private endowment,
corporations, universities and private individuals.
It clubbed RSS and Al-Qaeda
as examples of violent ‘new religious movements’
FORD FOUNDATION (The sixth-wealthiest charitable foundation by endowment $11.7
billion USD) New York-headquartered,
globally oriented private foundation (with the mission of advancing human
welfare) provides transnational monitoring of Indian policies. It sponsored an
Australian conference on India that entirely focused on BJP as if no other
aspect of India existed. The whole program consisted of several papers on BJP
economics, rural governance, BJP and textbooks, BJP and media, BJP and southern
states.
WORLD VISION One of the
largest Christian multinationals with an aggressive appetite to convert. Its
Indian website projects a humanitarian image, while its US website (from where
most of its money is raised), is more forthright about its vision.
GFA GOSPEL FOR ASIA is a
well-funded Texas based Christian missionary organization with a vast
infrastructural network in India, works closely with DFN .
EPPC (the Ethics and Public
Policy Centre)
Founded in 1976 by Dr. Ernest W. LEFEVER, EPPC is Washington,
DC’s premier institute dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral
tradition to critical issues of public policy.
EPPC has strong links with other
funding groups and evangelical organisations. A priest, Cedric Prakash, a human
rights activist, spokesperson for United Christian Forum for Human Rights,
liaison for local capacities for peace project at Harvard University, is
invited for strategic visits. Besides facilitating these visits, EPPC holds
events for lobbying political leaders concerning alleged Hindu atrocities, one
such conference was titled, ‘Hindu Nationalism vs. Islamic Jihad’ and was
convened by an Indian Christian TIMOTHY SHAH, Director of South Asia Affairs at
EPPC. EPPC sponsored a conference, co sponsored by INFEMIT-a network of third –
world theologians and activists led by Dr. VINAY SAMUEL, in which 6 ‘experts’
on South Asia discussed ‘the impact of increasing religious militancy’, ‘Hindu
problems- caste, sati, dowry, weird Gods, primitiveness, irrationality’ etc.
were projected.
For the US, which was in desperate need to show the
Arab world that the Afghan and Iraq invasion were not a crusade against Islam,
the 2002 Gujarat riots came as an opportunity, which was used to reinforce the
savage imagery of India. Many Human Rights activists, for whom it was more
important to promote US intervention than to support on ground relief, since
the rewards included foreign trips, contacts in high places, chance to build a
reputation, used this frenzy to its best.
USAID (US Government Agency
for International Development)
A
principle vehicle that is directly from the Government, USAID, has a deliberate
strategy to allow funding of Indian projects to be controlled by evangelical organizations.
It supports many organizations, to name a few, SHARAN, YWCA, World Vision, Salvation
Army, Catholic relief services, St Mary’s Hospital.
WORLD BANK’S program
called, ‘Development Dialogue on Development Ethics, which maintains
partnership with faith based organizations, is also sponsored by US.
*BRITISH INTERVENTION Christian groups have established Dalit
front organizations with support networks in the UK and Continental Europe;
they cultivate government bureaucrats, officials of United Nations, radical
politicians and supply them with atrocity literature and controversial studies
that undermine Indians.
CSW (Christian Solidarity
Worldwide)
An International Christian activist group based in UK, runs European
organizations with a Dalit front, which collaborate with similar evangelical
groups in the US. Since 1998, CSW has strategically collaborated with AICC. In
2007, it launched a documentary, co-produced by DFN called, ‘India’s Hidden
Slavery’. Its lobbying activities like the UN Human Rights Councils have been
used to undermine India’s unity.
DALIT SOLIDARITY NETWORK- UK
affiliated
with CSW, it cultivates radical politicians, powerful civil servants,
administrators of financial aid and investments in India. DSN funded from
Christian Aid, an evangelical group notorious for its predatory practices among
the poor, is also funded by other major organizations including Anglican
USPG.
In 2007, in a meeting on Dalits, conducted by DSN-UK and Christian
Solidarity Worldwide, MOSES PARMAR of DNF said, “Only Christianity offered
freedom for Dalits” and Rev DAVID HASLAM said, “Dalit problems should be internationalized”.
LISA (London Institute for South
Asia) a fanatically anti-India institution, whose website supports violent
separatist movements in three regions within India. It alleges, “Indian Armed
Forces are brutally suppressing freedom movements, killing hundreds of
thousands in J&K, Punjab and Assam.
INTERNATIONAL DALIT
SOLIDARITY NETWORK Formed in 2000 headquarter in Copenhagen, IDSN has strong
ties with Indian evangelical organizations, works across continental Europe
collaborating with NGOs, International Church bodies-LWF (Lutheran World Federation)
and WCC (World Council of Churches) amongst others, politicians and academics
in South Asian studies, taking them to Europe for lecture tours for providing
testimonies before European parliamentary bodies.
Indian Based Dalit
Institutions and individuals with Church Links- the European Christian groups
advocate European intervention by championing Indian Dalit fronts like National
Dalit Human Rights Commission, National Dalit Women’s Forum and individual
scholars.
The persistent advocacy of
IDSN and its Indian affiliates resulted in the UN Commission on Human Rights
adopting a resolution in 2005 to appoint 2 special (fundamental Christian)
Rapporteurs to study caste based discrimination.
In 2006, the European
parliament convened a hearing by its committee on development in which Dalit
issue was discussed. The India government did not send its delegates, stating
that ‘the problem of Dalits is strictly internal and a private matter’. However
two Dalit NGOs attended, PAUL DIVAKAR, representing the Indian based affiliates
of IDSN and an Indian based activist, RUTH MANORAMA (nurtured by foreign nexus)
of National Federation of Dalit Women.
In 2007, pressured by
sustained anti-India campaigning, the UN selected India as ‘the first country
to be reviewed for Human rights violations’.
OCRPL The Oxford Centre for
Religion and Public Life was built on twenty five years of research and
education by INFEMIT (International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission
Theologians is active in publishing for Global Christian expansionism) lends support
to US evangelical groups and publishes atrocity literature on India by bringing
together a select group of activists and journalists.
The inflow of foreign money has enabled churches and
related missions to mushroom; foreign scholarships have been used to manipulate
Indian identities, international intervention has been strengthening separatist
groups. Organizations such as WORLD VISION have partnered with Western
intelligence agencies, have invested huge amount to create large infrastructure
networks across India with government assistance from the West such as USAID.
*INDIAN AFFILIATES
The term ‘Development’ is used by the evangelicals in
ways that mean, ‘destroying spiritual diversity by collapsing all religiosity
into monotheism’. Elliston explains, “Development is the process by which men
and women are brought in a committed relationship with the living God through
the faith in Jesus Christ”,
In exchange for the international travel, career
opportunities, prestige provided by the foreign churches, many Indians have
dished out whatever the Western funding sources wanted to hear.
NCDHR National campaign for
Dalit Human Rights, centered in Delhi with offices in fourteen states, is very
aggressive internationally in urging all nations to exert pressure on India.
NFDW National Federation of
Dalit Women was set up in 1995 under the leadership of RUTH MANORAMA, who has
been granted an honorary doctorate by the Academy of Ecumenical Indian Theology
and Church Administration for ‘the distinguished contribution made to church
and society’.
At the 2001 Durban conference, she was a prominent
voice against the Indian delegates, her advocacy earned her a place among the
one thousand women nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 and she was awarded
a ‘Right Livelihood Award’.
DALIT PANCHAYAT + DALITILOGY
+ DALIT THEOLOGY DALITSTAN
Indian Dalit activist DR.JYOTHI
RAJ and her husband run an organization called REDS (Rural Education for
Development Society). Dalitology, developed by them uses the same fabrications
as Dravidian race theories; ‘Dalitstan’ is a plan to break India into several
parts with a separate Dalit nation-state.
*NETWORK OF ACADEMIC DALIT
STUDIES
IDSN (INTERNATIONAL DALIT
SOLIDARITY NETWORK) sponsors and coordinates Dalit studies across a network of
foreign and Indian institutions.
IIDS The Indian Institute of
Dalit studied was created in New Delhi with initial grant of USD 30,000 from
Ford Foundation. The Indian founding director, MARTIN MACWAN of NCDHR runs
three of the nine institutes comprising the network.
SASNet (Swedish South Asian
Studies Network, an IDSNs organ, SARI (Stockholm Anthropological Research on
India)is a part of SASNet’s program to construct framework for exploiting conflicts
within India. EVA-MARIA HARDTMANN, listed as one of the academicians at IIDS,
is also one of the researchers of the well funded program.
TAMIL NADU THEOLOGICAL
SEMINARY
Tamil Nadu Theological
Seminary conducts workshops to stir up passion among students, channeling them
into various groups working for spreading Christianity in India, sponsored by
WCC serves as an agency to coordinate various evangelical organizations and
uses its database to map Dalit issues on to a Christian framework.
GURUKUL LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL
COLLEGE AND RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Founded in 1931, upgraded in
1953, affiliated to the notorious SERAMPORE COLLEGE, which was once used to
facilitate British Colonial rule, Gurukul acts as a center for gathering
intelligence for evangelical programs against Indian traditions.
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF
CHURCH MANAGEMENT
One of the most aggressive
solicitations of grants for spreading Indian Christianity is illustrated by the
Indian based INOCM, which sends out solicitation letters to American organizations.
*God, in Vedic tradition is
all inclusive, ‘ALL’ are His own manifestations.
*God of ‘chosen people’ is
the ‘jealous God’ who has chosen enemies.
*The ‘exclusive, ‘No other
God’ reveals himself, not directly but through a messenger.
The God of both, with
striking similarities;
one tries to ‘sneak in’ Jesus
in a Hindu garb;
the pattern of the other has
been persistent, forcibly augmentative over the last fourteen hundred years!
The long Hindu struggle to
reclaim their religion and culture from these ‘alien invaders’ must be at the
center stage of Hindu religious consciousness standing united to the ancient
pride of the Aryavarta.
Har Har Mahadev!
Sources:
The Indian War of
Independence of 1857: Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
Breaking India: Rajiv
Malhotra, Aravindan Neelkandan
3. Malabar and the Portuguese: K.M. Panikkar
4: History of the Syrian Nation and the Old
Evangelical-apostolic Church of the East: George David Malech
5: The Armies of God: Iain Buchanan
6: Pseudo Secularism: Sita Ram Goyal
