US
religious monitoring upsets Indians
By Jane Lampman
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/10/19/fp14s1-csm.shtml
America's initiative to monitor religious persecution
abroad is making waves in other countries, but not always the kind it intended.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom -
created to advise the president and Congress - recently held hearings in
Washington on violence against religious minorities in India and Pakistan, and
what their governments are doing to protect religious practice.
These hearings often get more play in the nations
examined than in the US, and can stir resentment.
This isn't surprising in cases where governments are cracking down on religious
groups. But in this case, resentment comes from those the commission aims to
help.
Christian churches in India have objected
vehemently, questioning the appropriateness of conducting hearings on the
affairs of another country, particularly another democracy.
"We are a democratic country, and we have ...
an interreligious platform to assert and protect our rights," Chandran Paul
Martin of the National Council of Churches in India told Ecumenical News
International. "We do not expect the US [to act] as an international court.
Will the US accept an Indian hearing on racism there?"
And a spokesman of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of
India says, "We believe this problem could be solved within the country,
even if it is with difficulty and delay."
Attacks against Christians and Muslims have risen
dramatically in some areas in the two years since the Hindu-based Bharatiya
Janata Party came to power.
While some Indians turned down an invitation to
testify, John Dayal, a leader in an ecumenical movement to halt the violence,
did speak at the Sept. 18 hearing. Making a sharp distinction between Hinduism
as a religion and Hindutva, the political philosophy of Hindu nationalists,
Dayal described the hate campaign of nationalist groups against Christians and
Muslims, the effort to rewrite history texts, to pack police and government with
supporters, and to pass state laws to dilute India's constitutional guarantees
of religious freedom.
Since the hearing, the leader of the nationalist group,
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has proposed that Christian churches in India be
treated similarly to those in China, putting them under government control and
cutting off foreign ties.
The main charge against Christians, Dayal testified,
has been the use of foreign funds to convert Hindus by force, although not one
allegation of forced conversion has been authenticated.
While Hindu nationalists are the provocateurs behind
these acts, differing concepts of religious freedom between Western and Eastern
cultures are also a factor in the tension, according to Arvind
Sharma, professor of religion at McGill
University.
In the West, where an individual only professes one
religion at a time, he testified, it's natural to think of freedom as the right
to change one's faith. In the East,
participation in more than one religion is not uncommon. Most Hindus are opposed
to the idea of conversion, he says, because they feel one should not have to
give up one faith to pursue another. Hindu nationalists also see conversion as
involving "cultural violence," separating one from one's Hindu
cultural roots.
Christians in Pakistan, which has a military government
and a constitution favoring Islam, tended to support the hearing. Non-Muslim
religions there are restricted and minorities can be threatened with the death
penalty for blasphemy against Islam.
|