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Background information on Religious Conversion

Conversions by fraud and inducements are the standard practice all over the world. In Mongolia, Alexander Berzin, a research fellow at Columbia University, New York, said in an interview: "The missionaries come in guise of English teachers. They give money, computers to universities, scholarships to children of influential officials. They buy their way in. 

(source: Disrupting the faith?, Newsweek, Jan 13, 1997) Refer to Jesus Christ: Artifice for Aggression - By Sita Ram Goel

Consider the view of a Christian missionary Vishal Mangalwadi, on India's quest for freedom: 

"Many starry-eyed Indians, who are ignorant of Indian history, think that India was free before the British colonized it. The fact is that Hindu India, never, I repeat never, knew what freedom was, until the Evangelical movement began to set us free...India's freedom is a fruit of the Christian Gospel, not a result of Mahatma Gandhi's work." 

(source: The Quest For Freedom And Dignity - By Vishal Mangalwadi). Refer to VINDICATED BY TIME: The Niyogi Committee Report  On Christian Missionary Activities - Christianity Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee 1956 and The Sunshine of Secularism.

The Goa Inquisition

The Inquisition made its way to India under the Portuguese Jesuit, St. Francis Xavier in 1545. The first demand for the establishment of the Inquisition in Goa was made by St. Francis Xavier.  

Scholars are generally agreed that the Inquisition of Goa had earned “a sinister renown as the most pitiless in Christendom.”   

For more on the Goa Inquisition, refer to the chapter on European Imperialism). Also refer to Crisis in the Catholic Church - Pope's Contradictions  - By Hans Kung - Spiegel.de  http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,348471,00.html 

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Anne Sebba author of several books including Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image has noted:

"The great expansion of missionary activity came during the nineteenth century, coinciding with the spread of British colonial rule throughout India and with a variety of efforts by the other governments of Europe to turn India Christian. Bu the end of the century there were at least twenty-two different Protestant Missionary Societies with as many printing establishments to disseminate the vernacular Gospel.  

There is no doubt that, in the fight to deliver Christianity to the heathen, both Protestants and Catholics sent their best brains to India , rather than Africa or China . This implied a recognition of the inherent spirituality of Hinduism, which demanded more than average sophistry and persuasion to win converts. There was a belief that India had a high degree of ancient civilization which by the late eighteenth century, as the Moghul Empire was fading, had allowed decadence to seep in, offering Christianity the chance to fill the gap. Annie Besant, proponent of the philosophy of Theosophy, gave many a lecture in which she aired her views that India was a victim of the mischief wrought by Christian missionaries. A friend of Swami Vivekananda, Mrs. Besant was trying to lead Indians back to their own gods and arouse their sense of self-respect and pride in the greatness of their religions."

(source: Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image - By Anne Sebba   p. 22 - 25).

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Raja Rammohan Roy, (1772-1833) the great scholar and reformer wrote in 1820: "Most Christian converts had been allured to change their faith by other attractions than by a conviction of the truth and reasonableness." Roy referred to the monetary allowances and room and board the Baptists offered people who attended religious classes and to the jobs in the Serampore printing plant and paper mill given to converts.

Rammohan Roy was appalled with an Anglican Bishop who tried to persuade him to declare himself a Christian. To sweeten the prospect, the Anglican assured him that he would enjoy a "grand career" and "his name would descend to posterity as that of the modern Apostle of India." Roy was stunned, that this Englishman had the effrontery to ask him to renounce his faith for the shallowest of reasons.   

(source: What Life Was Like in the Jewel of the Crown: British India AD 1600-1905 - By The Editors of Time-Life Books. p. 132). For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and Christian Aggression. 

Raja Ram Mohan Roy has remarked:

“Most Christian converts had been allured to change their faith by other attractions than by a conviction of the truth and reasonableness."

Guy Sorman, visiting scholar at Hoover Institution at Stanford and the leader of new liberalism in France, author of The Genius of India had difficulty accepting mass conversions of children and dying by Mother Teresa, who was indifferent to the religions of India as the missionaries of the past; she believed in numbers. 

(source: The Genius of India ('Le Genie de l'Inde') Macmillan India Ltd. 2001. ISBN 0333 93600 0 p. 155).

Texas based Gospel for Asia proclaims: "The Indian sub-continent with one billion people, is a living example of what happens when Satan rules the entire culture.....India is one vast purgatory in which millions of people....are literally living a cosmic lie! Could Satan have devised a more perfect system for causing misery?"

(source: Missionaries in India : Continuities, Changes, Dilemmas - By Arun Shourie p. 47). F

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Can Hinduism face the onslaught of Project Thessalonica?

Theodosius I (378 - 395)

The Christian monarch who introduced the world to religious totalitarianism.
"The first Spanish Inquisitor"

       – Hugh Trevor Roper, best known as the author of The Last Days of Hitler (p 36).

The world’s earliest totalitarianism – of Catholic Christianity – was inaugurated by Theodosius. No wonder to Christian scribes he became ‘the Great.’ In short order, the Roman world was compelled to be Christian – on pain of death! The fall of empire in the west was an acceptable price for the triumph of the Church of Christ.

(source: Assault on Paganism - jesusneverexisted.com). 

I was born to Catholic parents and raised by a missionary Catholic mother and an abusive, born-again Christian, who I will refer to only as "my mother's husband". I was raised in an "ideal" Christian environment, and would have followed my parents' footsteps and would have spread hate against other religions, if it weren't for a fortuitous meeting I had with a Chinese friend of my dorm roommate. Little did I realize then that the chance encounter would end up being a turning point in my life.

The Chinese student was Buddhist who talked about meditation and its advantages. Finding it curious I checked with my University library for some books on meditation. After some searching, I found a book on Transcendental Meditation (TM), a meditation technique founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. That book sparked a profound spiritual and emotional transformation in me and I have never looked back. My thirst for knowledge led me to read more about TM and its roots in Hinduism. I started reading every book on Hinduism I could lay my hands on. In the Ramayana, I came across the life of Lord Rama and his only wife Sita. Hindus consider Rama and Sita to be the ideal couple and the path shown by them as the perfect man-woman relationship. It was a refreshing change from the abusive relationship I had witnessed and experienced in my own Christian family.

The wisdom and spirituality that I found in Hinduism has no parallels. There is practically no aspect of life that is not dealt with in detail by the innumerable texts that are a part of Hinduism. There are texts which deal with the mundane aspects of day-to-day living and those which deal with more profound questions such as those about life and death. To me, the most fascinating aspect of Hinduism was that it was inclusive, respectful and tolerant of all people and their various beliefs, in stark contrast to the exclusivity that pervaded my native religion. Unfortunately the adherents of the latter seem to be on a mission to destroy Hinduism.

A Tiny Christian minority - The Church is the Second Largest Land owner in India?

Tens of billions of dollars worth of land in India is owned by the Church, and in Mumbai, the Church is the second largest land owner, the largest being the Indian military. Most of this land was given under land grants by the British to the Church, and by subsequent Indian governments. Such generosity to a minority religion followed by only 2.5% of the Indian population has gone unreported. Given the foreign controlled nexus of the various Churches, this is tantamount to giving billions of dollars to subsidiaries of foreign entities that are engaged in social re-engineering of Indian society. The US government has never contemplated such generosity towards minority religions, especially those controlled from overseas.

(source: The Axis of Neocolonialism - By Rajiv Malhotra - sulekha.com).

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Raghu Rai (1942- ), recognized as India's most distinguished photographer, awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1971, and member of the most prestigious international photographers' cooperative, Magnum Photos, was asked by Mother Teresa: "It is now time for you to embrace the true religion." Rai politely declined. 

(source: Arise O' India - By Francois Gautier p. 112) 

Arun Shourie, a Rajya Sabha member and among India's best known commentators on current and political affairs, He has been an economist with the World Bank, a consultant in the planning commission and the editor of Indian Express. Among the many honours and awards, he has received the Magsaysay Award, the International Editor of the Year, the Dadabhai Naoroji and the Astor Award. A journalist, cabinet minister and author of several books, Missionaries in India, Arun Shourie and His Christian Critics and Harvesting Our Souls - Missionaries, their design, their claims   has said: 

  "To convert us, missionaries have worked for 500 years to undermine our reverence for our gods and scriptures,"  and "a mighty reaction" is building in the country against conversion."

"...few developments have alarmed citizens as the systematic targeting by Christian missionaries of people in the northeast, and in our tribal areas," "Conversion is the main activity of church groups, it is their principal business."

"Till the early 1950s the denunciations used to be open, shrill, abusive. Today the slander is sophisticated, the untruths are spoken rather than written," 

(source: Harvesting souls a sensitive business in Asia - By By John Chalmers - yahoo.com). (Refer to Conversions in India - http://sevabharathi.org/conversionsinindia.doc). For more refer to The War against Hinduism - By Stephen Knapp. Also refer to Crisis in the Catholic Church – Pope's Contradictions – By Hans Kung - Spiegel.de  http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,348471,00.html

How come our secularists insist that conversion is not the aim of the Church when the Church repeatedly and explicitly declares that the singular aim of all its activities is to convert non-Christians to Christianity, and thereby harvest souls for Jesus?  

In Ecelesia on Asia released in Delhi in November 1999, Pope John Paul declares:

" Just as in the first millennium, the Cross was planted on the soil of Europe, and in the second on that of the Americas and Africa, we can pray that in the third Christian millennium a great harvest of faith will be reaped in this vast and vital continent. He fervently endorsed the call of his Bishops, the heart of the Church in Asia will be restless until the whole of Asia finds its rest in the peace of Christ, the Risen Lord."

How does the Church pursue this goal in the face of the Supreme Court's emphatic verdict that the freedom to propagate does not include freedom to convert, that conversion is in fact an assault on the freedom of conscience that our Constitution guarantees to the persons the proselytizers target?

(source: Harvesting Our Souls: Missionaries, their design, their claims - By Arun Shourie ASA pub ISBN:81-900199-9-6).

Christians 'should stop evangelising in India '  

A LEADING Hindu has called for the Christian community to ‘clip back its evangelising activities’ in India or risk straining interfaith relations in the UK.

Jay Lakhani (pictured), Director of the Hindu Council UK (HCUK), accused Christians of committing a ‘crass atrocity’ when they converted members of the Dalit community in India, saying that they were stealing ‘the most precious thing these poor people possess, their souls’.

Speaking during an interview on Christian radio station Premier, Mr Lakhani said Hindus were ‘fed up’ with missionary activity in India .

He said: “Christians should go out and convert their own in this country, making people better Christians, so that instead of crowding the shopping malls on Sundays they go to Church.

“Why do they have to go to the third world and target some destitute, desperate people to spread their good news?

“Mainstream Hindus in the UK are getting fed up with the continued evangelising activities of the church in India and I would like to send on behalf of the HCUK a clear message to the church to clip back its evangelising activities in India or risk straining Hindu-Christian relationships here in the UK.

“It would be wonderful if Christians wanted to give a helping hand to the destitute in any developing country.

“But if they give a piece of bread with one hand and on the other hand steal the most precious thing these poor people possess, their souls, then this is a crass atrocity committed in the name of Christianity.

(source: Christians 'should stop evangelising in India ' - religiousintelligence.co.uk).  Refer to Are Brahmins today's Dalits in India ?, asks Francois Gautier

Writing about how reservations fracture Hindu society, Gautier observed that Anti-Brahminism originated in, and still prospers in anti-Hindu circles. It is particularly welcome among Marxists, missionaries, Muslims, separatists and Christian-backed Dalit movements of different hues. When they attack Brahmins, their target is unmistakably Hinduism.

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India is now 6% Christian
Myth of Christian Persecution? Increase in Population of Christians

The 2005 edition of the World Christian Database (http://www.worldchristiandatabase.org/) says that India is now 6% Christian. The government of India last conducted a census on the Indian population in 2001 said that Hindus were 81.4% of the population followed by Muslims at 12.4% and Christians at 2.3%. However, the more recent data from the World Christian Database states that Hindus are now 74% of the population and Christians are 6% of the population. The new survey claims that Catholics have grown from 1.52% of the population in 1970 to 1.66% in 2005. The recent data suggests that the rampant and aggressive conversion by Christian missionaries is much more widespread than previously acknowledged.

Religious breakdown in India according the World Christian Database:

Hindu: 74%
Muslim: 12%
Other Christian: 4%
Catholic: 2%
Sikh: 2%
All other: 5%
Not religious: 1%

Catholic population:
1970: 8,432,713 (1.52%)
2005: 18,250,000 (1.66%)

(source: India is now 6% Christian - World Christian Database - christianaggression.com).

The pope was another VVIP guest of ours a couple of years ago. Despite the widespread demand of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad that he apologise for the vile Inquisition of old that was, in reality, a shame on Christianity, the pope had the abrasive audacity to advocate a bigger harvest of converted souls in south Asia. The Inquisition a blot on Christianity? Nonsense! Rome didn't think it warranted even a mumbled "sorry".

(source: 'National shame' is not for premiers, Mr Vajpayee - By Arvind Lavakare rediff.com.  For more Information on Goa Inquisition please refer to chapter on European Imperialism).

"If a person is converted by proselytization, he's uprooted from his tradition. There's a need to see we all live in harmony and mutual respect," a saffron-clad Hindu spiritual leader, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, told a conference on preservation of religious diversity. "Conversions are neither advisable nor desirable. The religion into which a person is born is the best for his spiritual upliftment," a Hindu seer from southern India said.  "Forced conversions will never be tolerated. Different religions should coexist and live in mutual harmony," he said.

"You should not try to convert by force, fraud or inducements," former President R. Venkataraman told the conference. Induced conversions are a grave threat to national and world peace and harmony," he said.

(source: Hindu seers condemn religious conversions in India - By Sugita Katyal Yahoo.com). For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and Christian Aggression.

From earliest times, visitors from the West, have written about Hindus and Hinduism. Their writings are filled with language of the "treacherous lie" and "idolatrous worship." They claimed Hindus as having "superstition" not faith. They saw the sacred waters which were "stagnant," "unsufferably foul," and "loathesome," not cleansing. And they saw Hindus who were "deeply perverted," and not religious.  More than anything else, it was the multitude of divine images or "idols," as they called them, that elicited the strongest response of Westerners in their encounter with Hinduism. 
Ralph Fitch in the 1500s expressed astonishment and even repugnance at the panoply of images. He wrote: " Their chiefe idols be blacke and evill favoured, their mouths monstrous, their eares gilded and full of jewels, their teeth and eyes of gold, silver, and glasse, some having one thing in their handes and some another."

James Kennedy, who lived in Banaras as an employee of the London Missionary Society wrote: " Everything you see is wild, grotesque, unnatural, utterly wanting in verisimilitude and refinement, with nothing to purify and raise the people, with everything fitted to pervert their taste and lower their character...." 

(source: Banaras: City of Light - By Diana L. Eck p. 17-18). Also refer to Poll: Christians 'addicted to pornography'

For those who came from the West to convert India into Christianity or to rule over India, the British in particular, saw India with a different eye. They saw nothing good in this country. Why? Because they wanted to justify conversions or British rule over India. Thus, they did the greatest damage to the image of this country.

A word on missionaries: they claim they brought “light” to this country. Rabindranath Tagore says: they started fires. 

(source: Image & image-makers of MEA - M. S. N. Menon TribuneIndia 12/22/2001).

Divide and Convert; Divide and Rule

French-born Michel Danino has been settled in Tamil Nadu for 25 years; he has given many lectures in India and is co-author of The Invasion That Never Was. He is also the convener of the International Forum for India's Heritage. He has written on the devastation caused by Christian missionary activities in the North-East. 

"The last point was brought to us in sharp focus during our interactions with a few tribals of Arunachal, who voiced the same distress at the methods used to secure conversions to Christianity: not only monetary allurements, but psychological pressure on the sick, promises of cure upon conversion, pressures to rope in the rest of the family when the promises don't materialize, and finally to throw out of the family those who continue to "worship Satan". 

In fact some missionaries and Christian educational institutions openly refer to tribals, Hindus, and Buddhists as Satan ka bachcha (children of Satan) while Christians are Ishwar ka bachcha (children of God). 

We heard several heart-rending tales of teenage boys or girls having been thus expelled from their families when they refused to convert, accused by their own parents of being "Satan". Converted families are then instructed not to have contacts with the non-Christians, as a result of which they refuse to take part in traditional harvests and other aspects of the community's collective life; the centuries-old harmonious working of the community suddenly becomes divided, and indeed division is a great way to secure conversions: "divide and convert", until you can "divide and rule". That ultimate step is already visible in the militant movements of the North-East, most of which are rooted in Christian ideology. Witness the conversions the militants secure at gunpoint in remote villages at night, a fact asserted to us repeatedly. I remembered a Don Bosco father in Tamil Nadu telling me a few years ago how "tribes have no future within the Indian Union" and explaining why he was exhorting them "to take up guns". It all fell into place."

(source: Divide and Convert; Divide and Rule - By Michel Danino - rediff.com).

Unethical Conversion - By Francois Gautier 

Take, for instance, the forced conversions in the north-east. Christian missionaries, with active monetary and political support from the West, have been converting poor and innocent tribals in the north-east of India without any hindrance for the past 300 years. As a result, Nagaland is today 90 per cent Christian, Mizoram 86 per cent and Meghalaya 64.6 per cent.

This process is going on full speed at this very moment: There are now 1,20,000 Christians in Tripura, a 90 per cent increase since 1991. The figures are even more striking in Arunachal Pradesh, where there were only 1,710 Christians in 1961, but 1,15,000 today, as well as 700 churches. All this is often done by means of ‘economic conversions’. "Miracle boxes" are put in local churches: The gullible villager writes out a request - a loan, a  pucca house, fees for the son’s schooling. A few weeks later, the miracle happens. And the whole family converts, making others in the village follow suit.

Is this ethical? No country in the world would allow this. France, for instance, has a minister in charge of keeping a tab on "sects". And sects means anything which does not belong to the great Christian family. Recently, two French schoolteachers were imprisoned by the police for a few days because they were Brahmakumaris and had used some Brahmakumari precepts in their teaching. 

What conversions do to the psyche of India is catastrophic. They threaten a whole way  of life, erasing centuries of tradition, customs, wisdom, teaching people to despise their own religion and look westwards to a culture which is alien to them. Look how the biggest drug problems in India are found in the north-east, or how Third World countries, which have been totally Christianised, are drifting away without nationalism and self-pride. "I was told after conversion that I should not wear a bindi on my forehead, as it is a heathen custom",  says Shanta (not her real name) of Agartala, whose family converted recently to Christianity. Her friend Sushma, who has come back to her original religion, says that one of the Indian missionaries from Kerala told her "that I would go to hell if I ever entered a temple again. But I don’t understand, she continues, when I was a Hindu, I found nothing wrong in going to a church, or to a mosque for that matter". 

(source: Erasing Age-old Traditions in Northeast - By Francois Gautier - timesofindia.com).  

Religious Colonialism 

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) the English novelist and essayist, born into a family that included some of the most distinguished members of the English ruling class has written in his book - The Perennial philosophy

"The religions whose theology is least preoccupied with events in time and most concerned with eternity, have been consistently less violent and more humane in political practice. Unlike early Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism (all obsessed with time) Hinduism and Buddhism have never been persecuting faiths, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism which has gone hand in hand with political and economic oppression of colored people."

"The greatest evil the church has brought forth ; it raises in every communion a selfish and partial orthodoxy, which consists of defending all that it has and condemning all that it has not".

" Most European and American authors of books about religion and metaphysics write as though nobody had ever thought about these subjects except Jews, the Greeks Christians of Mediterranean Basin and western Europe.------Like any other form of imperialism, theological imperialism is the threat to world peace".

(source: The Perennial philosophy - By Aldous Huxley  p. 194 - 204). For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism. 

God's Word ?

The Bible is endorsed in England as "God's Word" by Act of Parliament, it is believed by many that everything in it is historically and scientifically true. The creation of the world, the origins of the human species, God's plan for salvation and everything else is the Absolute Truth to millions of pious Christians. Wars were fought over it, Governments rose and fell through it, blood was shed in it's name, people were conquered and enslaved on its teachings, persecution was justified by its myths and personal prejudices and hatreds were keep inflamed by its quotes. Its supporters use its verses to denigrate and denounce other belief systems and certainly in the past to justify burning people alive. 

Evangelicals use a highly critical method of examining the Sacred Scriptures of the Hindus in order to expose their flaws and contradictions and to refute them by appealing to logic, science and ethics. None of these methods are ever applied by them to their own Bible which is seen as so sacred and self evidently perfect that any attempt to censure it would be blasphemy warranting the wrath of God and the righteous indignation of pious Christians and punishment of eternal damnation. 

Hindus are now the favoured target group for the Southern Baptist Evangelicals who are now pouring hundreds and thousands of dollars into the conversion of the Hindus in India. Hindus are seen as an easy target because of their openness, respect for other religions and deep sense of the spiritual —values which can easily be exploited in the conversion strategy.

Historically Evangelism goes hand in hand with imperialism, chauvinism and western supremacy. The missionaries of old were always followed by the soldiers and the merchants. The missionaries stole the spirituality of the natives, the soldiers stole their land and the merchants stole their resources. The English Imperialist agenda was justified by the pious desire to bring "The light" to the heathens of the third world! The real agenda was for material exploitation. The genocide practiced by the (Protestant) Founding Fathers of America, by the (Anglican) English in Tasmania, by the (Calvinist) Dutch in South Africa are all well documented historical facts.

The new converts, coddled in the niceties of modern day Christianity are never taught the true history of the church, about the wars of religion, the inquisition etc. and how much the Bible was used to justify the imperialist expansion of the Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and the English. The entire edifice of Apartheid in South Africa was theologically justified by the Dutch Reformed Church, on the basis of Scripture. The Dutch Calvinists, like the American Protestants saw themselves as the "New Israel" entering into the land of Canaan (Africa and America respectively.) The pagans that they came across were the "New Canaanites" of the Old Testament. Therefore it made sense to them that the sociopolitical policies of Yahweh regarding the "Old Canaanites" viz. total annihilation, was still valid.

(source: http://srimatham.com/srimatham/bibleunmasked/bibleunmarsked.html).

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Visions of the End of the World – By Subhash Kak 

Ideas about the impending end of the world have had something to do with the recent world events in the Middle East and Asia. Jews, Christians and Muslims, who look at their texts literally, believe that the Day of the Judgment is round the corner and very soon the redeemer will appear in the world. But, their visions of the end are different, hence the conflict.

The number of these fundamentalist – or evangelicals -- is large enough to influence governmental policy in the United States. It has been estimated that about 20% of the Americans are evangelicals (according to one survey, 33% of the Republican Party voters). Their great influence also stems from the fact that George Bush himself is a born-again Christian. 

This Christian belief in the end of the world is centered on the idea of Rapture, when born-again Christians will be lifted out of their clothes and meet Christ in the sky. The evangelicals in USA are also pushing very strongly for conversion in the non-Christian nations because it is essential for the Rapture to happen. Some Christian groups, like the Mormons, do not only wish to convert the non-believers, but also their deceased ancestors. Saving the already dead earns extra brownie points. 

(source:  Visions of the End of the World – By Subhash Kak - sulekha.com).

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Tripura Hindus vow to oppose Christian Terrorism

The Background

There are at least two large Christian terrorist groups operating in Tripura, the ATTF(All tiger tripura force) and the NLFT(National Liberation fron of Tripura). These groups have announced their intention to "free Tripura of Hindu rule" and establish a "country
for Jesus Christ". Thousands of people have been killed by them and lakhs displaced, many have been forcefully converted. Among other things, the NLFT has also killed Hindu priests and banned Hinduism for the last 4 years.

These incidents have been covered up by the secular press, sometimes under the guise that tribals in Tripura are not Hindus and it is a tribal conflict. This article describes that the tribals have declared that they always were Hindus and that they will oppose this
terrorist might of the church in the North East.

Jamatia Hoda's no to `taxes', to carry on resisting ultras

The State-level conference of the Jamatia Hoda, the highest body of the community, has decided to ban payment of all kind of tax to the militants. They also decided to carry on the struggle against the insurgents, specially against the National Liberation Front of
Tripura, who are interfering with the religious and social affairs of the community.

The 410th conference of the Hoda, which the leaders claim was established in 1,590 also resolved unanimously that the Jamatia are Hindus and they will continue with this identity. Two Akra's (leader) of the community Bikram Bahadur Jamatia and Hari Charan Jamatia were re-elected in their posts.

The conference held at Hadupa village under Teliamura Police Station in West Tripura district assumed special significance in view of the present onslaught against the Hindu tribals by the NLFT. They were forcing the tribals to convert into Christianity and also was preventing them from performing their traditional rituals.

The Jamatias, the most organized tribal community in the State first revolted when the NLFT issued notification imposing ban of performing of Garia Puja and Durga Puja, last year. The Jamatia Hoda decided to defy the ban and performed both the festivals.

Since then, the two Akra's are organizing a massive agitation against the militancy. They also organized volunteer forces to resist the entry of militants in Jamatia dominated villages. The two-day conference on December 9 and 10 has approved it and decided to
further intensify the agitation.

Inspired by the Jamatia's few other tribes like Reangs, Chakmas and Uchoi's also launched anti-militancy agitation in villages dominated by them.

(source: Publication: Assam and North-East Date: December 1-15, 2000 - URL: http://www.axom.faithweb.com/news/dec11.html). 

Percentage of Christians in India - A Christian strategy

"How missionaries lull stupid Hindus can be seen from the census of 1941: That year, for the first time, heads were counted community-wise instead of on the basis of religion. That is, a tribal was classified merely as one who belonged to a scheduled tribe despite his being a Christian. Result, the all-India figures for Christians were shown as 6,040,665 -- which was less by 256,098 than the figure recorded in 1931. However, the Census Commissioner of India, Mr Yeats, made a note where he disclosed that about 1/20th of the total tribal population were Christian. Meaning, there was actually an increase of 3,474,128 persons among the Christian community during 1931-41" 

Missionary activities in the Indian NE and in tribal areas: 
Manipur 19.4 34.1
Meghalaya 35.2 64.5
Nagaland 52.9 87.4
those are the percent increases in Christian pops from 1961 to 1991

(source: Towards Balkanisation, V: Adivasis - By Varsha Bhosle and The battle for the millennium - By Varsha Bhosle rediff.com). 

975 die at Catholic healing centre in Kerala

Thiruvanthapuram (Kerala): The Divine Retreat Centre in Kerala's Muringoor's claim to fame is that it is the largest Catholic healing centre in the world. It's catch line: come away by yourself to a lonely place and rest a while.

However, there is a catch. More than 975 mysterious deaths have happened in the centre - that Kerala Police is now investigating - and there have been allegations of rape and murder.

Says Superintendent of Koratty Police, K J Martin, "Based on the investigations, we have registered a case against the main people from the Divine Retreat Centre. The case has been handed over to a special investigation team now."

Police say that the 975 mysterious deaths took place between 1996 and 2006 - that makes it as many as eight deaths every month for the last 10 years. Officials say several bodies were disposed of, without informing the police and documents forged to make them look like natural deaths. However, predictably, the centre says all such allegations are baseless. The centre's director and eight others in the organisation have been booked under various charges including forceful confinement and sexual exploitation.

(source: 975 die at Catholic healing centre in Kerala - ibnlive.com).

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Ugly propaganda

A propaganda film Gods of the New Age, produced by Jeremaih Films, is a warning against Asian and especially Hindu influences in modern Western culture and religion. It contains the dirtiest tricks of propaganda: Bhagwan Rajneesh (alias Osho) is depicted as a typical representative of Hinduism, well-known shots of naked sadhus at the Kumbh Mela are claimed to have been "smuggled out of India", Satan is claimed to be the mastermind behind the Kundalini Yoga because the Kundalini energy (whatever it may be) is represented by snake, Rajneesh followers jumping up and down in a frenzy are presented as displaying the severe psychological damage done by Yoga, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is credited with a "strategy to convert the world", Mahatma Gandhi is presented as a sex pervert, the swastika is used to link Hinduism with Auschwitz, and the viewers are warned: "The religion that has all but destroyed India has now infiltrated the West."

(source: Indigenous Indians : Agastya to Ambedkar - By Koenraad Elst p. 285-286). Also refer to Poll: Christians 'addicted to pornography'

(Note: While ugly propaganda is being carried out against Hinduism - rampant Child Abuse Revelations in Catholic Church Continue.....(refer to Bishop Quits, Admits Sex Misconduct - Palm Beach, Fla., Bishop Resigns After Admitting Sexual Misconduct - http://www.hinduismtoday.com/hpi/2002/3/11.html and Vatican 'ordered abuse cover-up - BBC News.com and Sexual abuse charges rock Catholic Church in US and A Church in Crisis -msnbc.com). For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and Christian Aggression.

Lala Har Dayal (1884-1939) India's Freedom Fighter wrote about the missionary activity in India:

“The missionary is the representative of a society, a polity, a social system, a religion and a code of morality which are totally different from our own. He comes as a belligerent and attacks our time-honored customs and institutions, our sacred literature, and traditions, our historical memories and associations. He wishes to give us a new name, a new place of worship, a new set of social laws. He has declared war to the knife against everything Hindu. He hates all that we hold dear. Our religion is to him a foolish superstition; our customs are the relic of barbarism; our forefathers are to him black heathens condemned to burn in the fires of hell for ever. He wishes to destroy our society,  history, and civilization. Our Shastras, Darsanas and Vedas are for him so much waste paper. He regards them as monstrous machine devised by misguided priests to prepare millions for damnation in the next world. He condemns our manners, pooh-poohs our holy love, laughs at our heroes and heroines and paints us black as the devil to the whole civilized world. He is the great enemy of the Hindu people – the Principle of Anti-Hinduism Incarnate – the Ravana of today who hates all that we cherish, despises all that we revere, all that we are prepared to defend with our very lives…. 

“He looks forward to the time when the Smritis shall be unknown to the descendants of present day Hindus, and the Ram Lila shall have become a meaningless word in their ears. He shall cover Indian with acres of burial-grounds; cremation is anathema to him. He is the arch-enemy who appears in many guise, the great foe of whatever bears the name of Hindu, the ever-watchful, ever-active, irreconcilable Destroyer of the work of the Rishis and Maha Rishis, of that marvel of moral, intellectual and civic achievement, which is known as Hindu civilization. Let us labor under no delusions on this point. You may forget your own name; you may forget your mother. But do not for a moment forget the great, all-important, outstanding fact that the missionary is the most dreadful adversary you have to meet….the greatest enemy of dharma and Hindu national life in the present age.” 

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) Indian art historian, a remarkable critic, scholar and mystic, late curator at the Boston Museum, who dazzled the Western world with his message concerning the spiritual greatness of Indian art. He wrote on the role of Christian Missions in India: 

" The Hindu and the missionary conceptions of toleration are poles apart. The missionary is bent upon destroying heathendom; there probably could not be found a Hindu desirous of destroying Christianity. For the Hindu, religious formulas are not absolute truth, but truth is a mythical and allegorical form; how is that which is infinite be compressed into the tiny vessel of a single dogma? 

A missionary after a painfully intense discussion once exclaimed to me “The light that is in you is darkness.” Of course, I never dreamed of thinking that of him. For him, light had to be filtered through a glass of a familiar color before it could be recognized as light.  

The most subtle and in a certain sense, I suppose, effective proselytizing agency in India is the Mission School. When adult conversion was found to proceed slowly, it was decided to reach the children; hence the education bribe. The magic word itself stills opposition and enquiry; everyone is convinced that India needs educating. The education is undertaken with an ulterior motive, that of conversion."

(source: Essays on National Idealism - By Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers.1981 p.125-152).

Aid Workers ?

The arrest of US Christian aid workers by the Taliban in Afghanistan has brought to light the "growing phenomenon" of "placement of evangelical Protestant missionaries in Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu countries using visas falsely identifying them as secular workers", media reports say. The missionaries are particularly active in "10/40" window, the rectangular area that stretches from latitudes 10 degrees north from West Africa to East Asia, the Post said adding this includes "most of the world's 1.2 million Muslims, 800 million Hindus and 350 million Buddhists." Most often called aid workers -- are being despatched by Christian groups in the US, Britain, Germany, Australia and other countries to the region. The US State Department and the bipartisan Commission on Religious rights set up by Congress insist that the right to convert is a "human right." The State Department makes it a practice of listing every year with disparaging remarks in its annual Report, countries where conversion is not welcome.

27 per cent of the Richmond-based Baptist mission board's 5,000 missionaries are stationed in the 10/40 Window -- up from just one per cent 15 years ago. Christian missionaries list their occupation as teacher, doctor, nurse, geologist, urban planner, artist, business person or engineer, according to several missionaries who asked not to be identified.

(source: ndtv.com). 

Since the post-Independence political set-up adopted the Westminster system of governance the Christianised mindset of Indian people developed a Christian perspective, which usually “operates in the garb of ideologies such as progressivism, liberalism, humanism etc” (Centre for policy studies, March 1999). This made the task of the RSS more difficult.  But they continued their resistance against the politics of conversion played by the Christian Missionaries.  

The Christian management is never prepared to practise the conceptual equality of all the religions ( Sarva Dharma Sambhav ) as its scriptures do not sanction such philosophy.  It will therefore continue its cultural intrusion with huge amounts of foreign funds under its disposal and support of the larger section of educated Hindus with christianised mindset.  The Hindu nationalists on the other hand, are not prepared to compromise with the forces detrimental to their national interest.  The BJP, as a leader of coalition Government and due to compulsion of coalition politics is therefore in a dilemma.  In view of its commitment to the concept of one nation, one people and one culture, it will never support proselytisation.  The party in its 1998 election manifesto maintained: “Our national vision is not merely bound by the geographical or political identity of Bharat but it is referred by our timeless cultural heritage”  

(source: Politics of Christianity and Hindu Nationalists - By R. Upadhyay - saag.org).

A Christian radio channel after the Earth quake in Gujarat is reported to have said - "Please give us funds for the people of Gujarat, but remember these funds will not be used for removing the damage, because that has already been done. The money would be to help the people see the path of the book, for it is in the saddest parts of their life that a soul is the most malleable"

***

Hindus have nothing against Jesus Christ. But they are definitely against Christianity as a cult put up by St. Paul, which believes in the St. Caprian's axiom, Extra ecclessiam nulla salus (outside the church no salvation). 

Sarva Dharma samabhava is a heathen idea, a doorway to hell. Evangelizing the heathen is the holiest task of a believing Christian.

J. C. Kumarappa who was a faithful Christian himself exposed the political ambition of the missionaries: ``Before these Christian missionaries landed in Africa, the Africans had their land with them, but not the Bible. Now they have their Bible with them, not their land.''  A famous Gandhian thinker J. C. Kumarappa, himself a good Christian, said the western nations have four arms - 1. The Army, 2. The Navy, 3. The Air Force, 4. The Church.

When C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer was the chief minister of Travancore, the temples of the State were thrown open to the harijans and the Archbishop of Canterbury resented the legislation on the ground that it gave a serious setback to the conversion of harijans into Christianity.

The very literature produced by the International Missionary Council and World Council of Churches put in circulation through evangelical literature societies and proclamations made by Billy Graham and other evangelists that they must produce at least one thousand million converts, for this they have to work in Asia, especially India.

``In fact missionary activity is like ideological warfare. It is systematic, motivated and directed, that looks to establish a particular religion for all human beings, in which the diversity of human race, mind and needs is forgotten. The global missionary business is one of the largest businesses in the world. Not only Catholic church but also various Protestant organizations have set aside billions to convert non- Christians to Christianity. Organized conversion activity is like trained army invading a country from the outside. The missionary army goes to communities where often there is little resistance to it, or which may not be aware of its power or motives. It will take advantage of the communities that are tolerant and open-minded about religion and use that to promote a missionary agenda that destroys this tolerance'' - David Frawley.

The Christian missions work through the World Council of Churches and International Council. These organisations work under the direction and control of the governments of the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia.

Dr. S. Radhakrishnan told an audience in Oxford that to the Indian Christian, Jesus was the white man's god marching with a sword in one hand and the Union Jack in the other.

The growth of Baptist churches page 115 claims ``the government of Meghalaya is run by Christian officers. This is a rare privilege in India. The recent developments are a god given opportunity to the Garo Hills for the furtherance of his kingdom.'' The Laussane Covenant states ``we believe that we engaged in a constant spiritual warfare.'' The text continues in military terms: ``god's army'', ``battle'', ``weapons'', etc

(source: The eleventh commandment: 'thou shall not convert' By Laura Kelly - The Hindu Tuesday, March 13, 2001. The author of Conversions in India a Geopolitical time bomb to be published later this year). Refer to Jesus Christ: Artifice for Aggression - By Sita Ram Goel

The Niyogi Committee Report On Christian Missionary Activities

The Report also noted “various methods of propagating Christianity.”  Missionary publications “attacked idol worship in rather offensive terms.” Dramas in which idol worship was ridiculed were performed in schools and elsewhere.  Songs to the same effect were composed and sung.  Rama was “described as a God who destroyed Ravan and was contrasted with Jesus who died for the wicked.” Methods evolved for conveying Christianity in Hindu cultural forms were also in evidence.  Some of them were plainly dishonest, as for instance, “the expression occurring in Tulsidas’s Ramayan, viz.  ‘Gidapujan’ was interpreted to the people as ‘Girjaghar’ i.e., a Church.”  But, on the whole, preference was given to vicious attacks on Hinduism, which was held up as a false religion.  “Such virulent and sinister attacks on Hinduism,” observed the Report, “are in no way a departure from the manner which characterised the Christian preaching in the past, which Gandhiji referred to, particularly Bishop Heber’s famous hymn, ‘where every prospect pleases and only man is vile’.”

(source: Vindicated by Time The Niyogi Committee Report On Christian Missionary Activities - By Sita Ram Goel). For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and Christian Aggression.

Refer to jesusneverexisted.com.

Powder-milk Christians ?

Mark Tully, former BBC bureau chief in Delhi, and author of several books including No Full Stops in India and The Heart of India, has said about Christian Evangelism in India:

"The bulk of their converts came from the untouchable community and the tribes. One Roman Catholic friend of mine still refers to Harijan converts as 'powder-milk Christians', and there is no doubt that these people - the poorest of the poor were attracted by the missionaries' promises to feed their bodies, rather than the prospect of spiritual nourishment... Harijans also expected Christianity to give them the dignity that they were denied by Hinduism, but here they were to be bitterly disappointed - especially by the Roman Catholic Church". 

Tully’s spiritual instinct surface again when he produced several series on religion, which included Last Among Equals, an investigative report on how caste discrimination in the Christian Church has led to the exploitation and even murder of Dalit Christians. His more recent series on Jesus Nazareth, Four Faces, explored the mystery of Jesus. This project took him to Israel, Egypt, Rome and even India, where he talked to an expert in comparative religion about the links between Jesus and Hinduism’s ‘‘friendly god’’ Krishna.

(source: Indian Express  01/06/02). For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and Christian Aggression.

Dr. Radhakrishnan put the matter straight when he told a missionary friend: 

"You Christians seem to us Hindus rather ordinary people making extraordinary claims." 

He also said that Hinduism was  "more modest and logical" in teaching that "the divine immanence in every man and women makes it possible for all to seek the truth in their own ways." Finally, he pointed towards a living example of what religion means to the Hindus.  "The fact of Gandhi," he said, "is a challenge to the exclusive claims of Christianity."

(source: Radhakrishnan: A Biography - Sarvepalli Gopal p. 195). Refer to Jesus Christ: Artifice for Aggression - By Sita Ram Goel

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, famous for his work on the Indian Constitution, had said, "By joining Islam or Christianity, the Depressed Classes would not only go out of the Hindu religion, but also go out of the Hindu culture....Conversion to Islam or Christianity will denationalize the Depressed Classes."

Sir Vidiadhar S. Naipaul, noted author, in his recent book 'Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey, has dealt with the issue of conversions in Islamic countries. He suggests that conversions ‘occur when people have no idea of themselves, and have no means of understanding or retrieving their past.... For the new fundamentalists..., the greatest war was to be made on their own past and everything that linked them to their own earth.’ He also says, "Islam is the most uncompromising kind of imperialism because it seeks as an article of the faith to erase the past."

The Christian missionaries in India were (and still are) a divisive force, which used the Adivasis for advocating covertly a breaking-up of the country. Prof. A. K. Kishu, Secretary General of the Indian Council of Indigenous and Tribal people, has been lobbying hard at the U.N. so that the Adivasis are recognized as “the original settlers of India”. Koenraad Elst, Belgian scholar, author of ' Negationism in India'  writes that the missionaries were ultimately all set to trigger a Christian partition in India: “at the time of Independence, Christian mission centers had dreamed up a plan for a Christian partition in collaboration with the Muslim League. The far north-east, Chotanagpur, and parts of Kerala were to become Christian states, forming a non-Hindu chain with the Nizam’s Hydrebad and with Pakistani Bengal. The secret agreement between the Muslim League and missionaries acting as “representatives of tribal interest” is sometimes used as, proof that “Muslims and tribals are natural allies”.   

Swami Dayananda Saraswati has said that Conversion is Violence. "The native cultures of South America, North America and Australia have all been destroyed. What about the Hawaiian culture? Gone! All the tribal cultures in Africa have been destroyed. How many cultures, for the past two thousand years, are methodically destroyed? The humanity is the sufferer and is poorer for it." Destruction of religion is destruction of culture."

(source: Conversion is Violence - By Swami Dayananda Saraswati). Refer to Jesus Christ: Artifice for Aggression - By Sita Ram Goel

Cunningham's Misleading Archaeology and Missionary Zeal

Major General Alaxander Cunningham, a retired army engineer was appointed in 1861 as the first archaeological surveyor under the then British administration in India, not because he had any special know how or knowledge but because as early as 1842 when he was a mere Lt. A.D.C. to the Governor General Lord Auckland, Cunningham had suggested in a letter to Col. Skyes (a director the British East India Company) a scheme for falsifying Indian archaeology as an "undertaking a vast importance to the Indian Government politically and to the British public religiously (so that) the establishment of the Christian religion in India must ultimately succeed." 

(source: Some Missing Chapters of World History - By P.N. Oak 1973. p. 16).

Lord Macaulay describes the Catholic theory in these words: "I am in the right and you are in the wrong. When you are stronger, you ought to tolerate me, for it is your duty to tolerate truth: But when I am the stronger, I shall persecute you, for it is my duty to persecute error."

(source: Eastern Religions & Western Thought - By Dr. S. Radhakrishnan p. 325).

Prominent Portuguese names were given to everyone who converted to Christianity in Goa. Names like Albuquerque, Sanitago, etc. Just like the slaves in America were given names like Washington or Jefferson from slave owners.

India in 1857:The activities of Christian missionaries was a major contributor to the Great uprising of 1857. The great historian R. C. Majumdar wrote:

"The sensitiveness of the sepoys to their religious beliefs and practices and the dread of conversion to Christianity worked as a nightmare upon their minds. ...A vague dread that the government was determined, by hook or by crook, to convert the Indians to Christianity pervaded all ranks of society, and the sepoys, fully shared these apprehensions with the rest... The aggressive attitude of the Chrisitian missionaries... in matters of proselytization had been frequent subjects of complaint." Among such aggressive activities, Majumdar noted the practice of missionaries of "open unchecked denunciation of their cherished social usages and customs in most violent language, and filthy abuses of their gods and goddesses by bands of Christian missionaries".

Sadly, for the Christian Missionaries, Sardar Patel foiled their plans. Even after independence, the missionaries seem to have been involved in secessionist activities in India’s north-east as well as on the Burmese side of the border. Always pretending to act as mediators, they appear to have actually helped the separatists with vital information. Since then, they have been dictating policies in Nagaland, Megalayam and Mizoram, which recently celebrated with great fanfare its century of Christian rule.  In the Forties, when missionaries were active in China, this denationalization process was summed up in the line, “One more Christian, one less Chinese.” From this perspective, conversion is more than just a Hindu becoming a Christian, it is the transformation of an Indian into an extension of Western culture and influence.

The Christian missionary motives are clear, there is no doubt about the ultimate purpose of selfless service. The South Indian Missionary Conference of 1858, set forth very clearly the goals of education in India: “The object of all missionary labor should not be primarily the civilization, BUT the evangelization of the heathen….schools may be regarded as converting agencies and their value estimated by the number who are led to renounce idolatry and make an open profession to Christianity.” Has this policy really changed today? Not that much. The International School of Kodaikanal, under the guise of “religious studies” still tries to convert its students, many of whom are Indians.  

(source: Indigenous Indians: Agastya to Ambedkar By Koenraad Elst. And Rewriting Indian History – By Francois Gautier pages 53-54. 

Dr. Julius Richter of the University of Berlin wrote in 1913: " Wherever missionary enterprise comes into contact with non-Christian religions, it sets itself to oust them and put Christianity in their place." Wherever, Christians and Muslims relentlessly pursued their act of conversion with blind fury they did a thorough job of destroying the indigenous culture and the intrinsic worth of society.

Professor F. S.C. Northrop, in his book The Meeting of East and West,  has written: "The acceptance of Christianity in the Orient presents dangers as well as political advantages. For no one in the East or West has yet shown how it is possible to convert Oriental people to the Christian religion without at the same time destroying the intuitive aesthetic unique cultural values of the East."  

William Ernest Hocking, (1873–1966), American idealist philosopher, reported in a statement  about Indian Christians made by one of the best known missionaries:

"It is remarkable fact that the outstanding Christians in India are the first generation.. We had thought that the third and fourth generation would be much more outstanding...The reasons why the first generation people were wonderful was because they brought over their Hindu culture, and they were at home in their own categories. They had their roots in the cultural past: therefore they were natural. The second generation were taken out, and became neither good Europeans nor good Indians. The second and third generation Christians are neither this nor that. In that period, the Indian Christian had lost his soul. A nationalist said to me, 'Your Indian Christian is a man out of gear; he isn't in gear with your people, and he out of gear with us.' 

(source: Conversion to Christianity: Aggression in India - By Dr. M. S. Srinivasan p. 76). For more refer to chapter on European Imperialism and Christian Aggression.

Swami Vivekananda asked of the Christian Europeans "And may I ask you, Europeans, what country you have ever raised to better conditions? Wherever you have found weaker races, you have exterminated them by the roots, as it were. You have settled on their lands, and they are gone for ever. What is the history of your America, your Australia, and New Zealand, your Pacific Islands and South Africa? Where are the aboriginal races there today? They have all exterminated, you have killed them outright, as if they were wild beasts. It is only where you have not the power to do so, and there only, that other nations are still alive."  

(source: Vivekananda vol. V p. 537). Refer to Jesus Christ: Artifice for Aggression - By Sita Ram Goel

Native Americans and Australian Aborgines, were deprived of their lands, converted to Christianity and were left in reserves, where they can only atrophy and disappear. The 1830 Indian Removal Act forced the tribes into smaller and smaller reservations. If one went to look at the history of Christian conversions among the Native American tribes, the role played by English schools (where the students had compulsorily to bear a Christian name) in wiping out native memories of their own religions, is striking. (Of the close to two million American Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts in the United States, almost one million live on or near a reservation. Isolation makes it harder for American Indians to move off the reservations and find good jobs in towns and cities. This isolation also contributes to depression and the abuse of alcohol among Indians.).
Please refer to Trails of Tears for Native American History  - http://users.rcn.com/wovoka/underdg7.html http://www.chota.com/cherokee/trail.html  

Soul Wound: The Legacy of Native American Schools

"The white man's superior technology, hunger for land, and ethnocentrism seemingly knew no bounds. The white threat to Indians came in many forms: smallpox, missionaries, Conestoga wagons, barbed wire, and smoking locomotives. And in the end, it came in the form of schools." 

                                                                        - Cornell Pewewardy.  

Refer to Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust - By Kevin Annett and documentary Unrepentant and Canada's Genocide

"Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches in a very brief time and thus rise to a high estate, disproportionate to their merits. It should be kept in mind that their insatiable greed and ambition, the greatest ever seen in the world, is the cause of their villainies."  

                    - Bishop Bartolomé de Las Casas, from Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies (1542).

***

"Kill the Indian, save the man"  - was the motto of Captain Richard H. Pratt (1840 - 1924) Founder of the Carlisle Indian Schools.  

When extermination of Native Americans failed, "civilizing" became the new US policy. This meant that the Indians would become "civilized" - read, deculturalized - or else. The Carlisle kids were forced to speak English only, practice Christianity and work for no or low wages. Indian people were made U.S. citizens, on June 2, 1924. After 80 years under the Indian Citizenship Act, Native peoples remain the most economically impoverished segment of American society, with all the attendant problems of poverty.

U.S. and Canadian authorities took Native children from their homes and tried to school, and sometimes beat, the Indian out them. Now Native Americans are fighting the theft of language, of culture, and of childhood itself.  

Dolphus is one of more than 100,000 Native Americans forced by the U.S. government to attend Christian schools. The system, which began with President Ulysses Grant's 1869 “Peace Policy,” continued well into the 20th century. Church officials, missionaries, and local authorities took children as young as five from their parents and shipped them off to Christian boarding schools; they forced others to enroll in Christian day schools on reservations. Those sent to boarding school were separated from their families for most of the year, sometimes without a single family visit. Parents caught trying to hide their children lost food rations.  

Virtually imprisoned in the schools, children experienced a devastating litany of abuses, from forced assimilation and grueling labor to widespread sexual and physical abuse. Canada imported the U.S. boarding school model in the 1880s and maintained it well into the 1970s—four decades after the United States ended its stated policy of forced enrollment. Abuses in Canadian schools are much better documented because survivors of Canadian schools are more numerous, younger, and generally more willing to talk about their experiences.

A 2001 report by the Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada documents the responsibility of the Roman Catholic Church, the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the federal government in the deaths of more than 50,000 Native children in the Canadian residential school system.

The report says Church officials killed children by beating, poisoning, electric shock, starvation, prolonged exposure to sub-zero cold while naked, and medical experimentation, including the removal of organs and radiation exposure. In 1928 Alberta passed legislation allowing school officials to forcibly sterilize Native girls; British Columbia followed suit in 1933.

(source: Soul Wound: The Legacy of Native American Schools - amenestyusa.org).

The purpose of Native American boarding schools was to remove Native Americans from their home and cultures in order to change their identities and lifestyles to be like the "white man". Native American children were forced to think and act like the dominant white culture and were not allowed to practice their traditional ways. Not only were languages and beliefs changes, but appearances as well. Hair styles, clothing and even names and body languages were changed. The intention was to completely erase the Indian way of life.  

According the Stephen Bates, Church in UK is accused of Racism -The  Roman Catholic church in England & Wales has been accused of discrimination against ethnic minorities by the director of the church's association for racial justice. Roman Catholicism in Britain is perceived as the most white of the major Christian denominations, though estimates put its communicants’ number at 12 per cent from ethnic minority backgrounds. 

(source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/171000/detFOR03.asp )

The Philippines, is perhaps the most staunch Christian ( today 83% of Philippinos are Christians) nation of Asia, remains among the most backward. Ethiopia, the world's oldest Christian country, adhering to Christianity for more than a thousand years, is also the poorest country in the world. More than a thousand years of Christianity did not mitigate the awful poverty of its people and religion did not help raise their standard of living. Conversion to Christianity did not raise these countries economically.  " In the 16th century, friars (priests) marched with the soldiers (of Spain) and soon accomplished the nominal conversion to Roman Catholicism of all the natives. Native religion was vigorously suppressed." Military conquest by Christians won't happen today, but the Philippines provide an important economic message. Despite of centuries of Christian rule, they are poor. So are the Christian countries of Central and South America, and so too would likely be a Christian India -  contrary to the impression missionaries tend to create." 

(source: Hinduism Today June 1999). 

Swami Vivekanada responded to a concerted attack on Hinduism:

"We who had come from the east have sat here day after day and have been told in a patronizing way that we ought to accept Christianity because Christian nations are the most prosperous. We look about us and we see England the most prosperous Christian nation in the world, with her foot upon the neck of 250,000,000 Asiatics. We look back into history and see that the prosperity of Christian Europe begin with Spain. Spain's prosperity began with the invasion of Mexico. Christianity wins its prosperity by cutting the throats of its fellow men. At such a price the Hindoo will not have prosperity."

"When someone suggested to him that Christianity was a saving power, he opened his great dark eyes upon him and said: "If Christianity is a saving power in itself, why has it not saved the Ethiopians, the Abyssinians?" 

(source: Hinduism for Our Times - By Arvind Sharma Oxford Univ Pr  June 1996 ISBN 0195637496 p. 72-73). 

In an interview with Prabuddha Bharata in 1899, Vivekanand said: "Every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less, but an enemy more." Earlier, he had set this statement in the founding document of the Ramakrishna order in 1897. Here Vivekanand says, if India embraces a foreign religion, "the Indian civilization will be destroyed. For whomever goes out of the Hindu religion is not only lost to us but also we have in him one more enemy".

 (source: The Hindu Soul in search of Its Body - Balbir Punj).

Col. Satish Oberoi (Retd) has written about the exclusive nature of the Semitic religions: "Not all religions/faiths venture into conversion activity. Religions, which do so as their main objective, are exclusive faiths whose followers worship exclusive gods. These exclusive gods bless only those who worship them through their favored emissary. Often these gods even threaten and punish those who do not worship them. Christianity and Islam fall in this category.

The Bible-derived creeds are founded on a central figure (Jehovah, God, Allah or History) who commands the exclusive and overriding allegiance of the believers. 

He is jealous, cruel and brooks no rival. 

To equate or identify Him (e.g. Allah) with gods worshipped by people of other faiths (e.g. Rama or God of the Bible) is to insult him by denying his supremacy.

(image source: toomanytribbles.blogspot.com).

***

Does conversion improve lot of the people? If we see the condition of the people who were forced to convert to Christianity and Islam in Africa and South America, we see that their condition, material or spiritual, hasn't turned for the better. Even in India, the organized/ exclusive religions are demanding that converted people must be given "reservations". Even the much- criticized caste distinctions have been retained in the converted people."

(source: Conversion Imbroglio - Col. Satish Oberoi). 

The conversion of a few Catholics to Protestantism was condemned by the Pope in these words — 'these rapacious wolves are preying upon my innocent sheep'. . The concept of 'stealing' in the matters of faith is alien to Indian tradition. The Encyclopaedia Britannica observes, "Christianity, from its beginning, tended toward an intolerance that was rooted in self-consciousness... Christianity consistently practised an intolerant attitude in its approach towards Judaism and paganism as well as heresy in its own rank" (p.288 Macropaedia-vol 16, 15th edition).

One can disagree on the Vatican's strategy to hard sell Christianity but hardly doubt its intentions. The Church, flush with resources, now uses modern management tools and propaganda techniques to continue with its agenda. In contrast, Hinduism is not only a non-proselytising religion but also non-exclusivist. Without a centralised Church or a mandatory dogma, it believes that paths to God can be as varied as there are human beings. All monotheistic religions believe in 'One God' (the God they preach) but Hinduism believes that 'God is one'. The Church believes in dominating, Hinduism believes in synthesis. 

The arrogance of the whites, their Biblical zeal and war-like tactics combined to motivate their proselytising efforts. This is the Vatican's unfinished agenda, which probably expressed itself in Pope's November 1999 call for the evangelisation of Asia in the third millennium AD.

(source: Conversion Bill - By Balbir Punj - Times of India). 

The doctrine of ever-lasting punishment for "unbelievers" in Christianity is repugnant to the Hindus: "Seeing that we live in this world but a few years and our sinful actions are, as to their Duration, transitory; why then should the Punishment be Eternal?

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