Hinduvta's killing Hinduism - MEGHNA PANT

My site is worth $1335.9.
How much is yours worth?

Mar 20 2015 : Mirror (Mumbai)

BY INVITATION - Hinduvta's killing Hinduism

MEGHNA PANT





Why Hindu extremists must stop the mindless violence against Christians in India now

In 2010 I visited The Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata to pay homage at Mother Teresa's tomb. Along the road towards the building were swarms of the sick, disabled, disfigured, the mentally ill, the aged, and the homeless.A leper put his hand out. I took a coin from my purse. I meant to place it on his outstretched palm. But on leaning over, I cringed. I try to be kind, each day a little more, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't touch him. So I tossed the coin in his direction, avoided his reddened eyes and quickly walked away in shame.
I entered the Mother Teresa's sober tomb and my shame worsened. While I shuddered at the thought of touching a leper, she had embraced those with the disease. She had given shelter to hundreds of destitute while living in austerity that was in deep disproportion to her fame. Only a person in possession of a great sense of service to others could have spent her entire life like this.
Five years later, RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat claimed that the primary objective of Mother Theresa's missionary work was conversion.
Three weeks later a 71-year-old nun of a convent school was gang-raped near Kolkata by six men. It was one of India's most shameful moments.
I have spent a big portion of my life around Christians.My school, Villa Theresa, was Roman Catholic and St Xavier's, where I went for college, was run by Indian Jesuits. We sang `Jana Gana Mana' in the morning, followed by The Lord's Prayer. We went to the school church and sat on the pews listening in rapture to stories about Saint Francis of Assisi and Shivaji.We prayed to Lord Jesus and we prayed to Lord Shiva. Diversity was a way of life, not an effort at brainwashing or conversion.
The Christians in India are a small minority. At 2.5 per cent of the total population, they are significantly smaller than other minorities, like say the Muslims who are 14 per cent of our populace. And even in those small numbers, they have given India its most prized asset: Education.
And what is India giving back to them?
In recent months many acts of violence have taken place against the Christian community, including burning of churches, re-conversion of Christians to Hinduism by force, distribution of threatening literature, and defacement of Bibles. This week, around the same time as the nun was raped, a cross at a church in Haryana was forcibly replaced with a Hanuman idol.
The ongoing violence is a matter of great national shame, especially in our country that has a history of tolerance.Worse still, most of it is politically motivated. According to media reports, much of it stems from fringe elements of Hindu organisations such as the Bajrang Dal, Vishva Hindu Parishad, and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. They're doing this to avenge Christian missionaries and their alleged `aggressive conversion drives' which they think have forced good Hindus to covert.
Forced conversions? Look at our population figure. Does it look like we're running out of Hindus? Read our law. Article 25 of the Indian Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Conversion is an individual choice. If a person wants to convert their religion, their shoes, their refrigerator, it is their choice. It is not the business of the state to check whether someone is spreading their mat or crossing their heart or ringing a bell.
Yet, since December 2014 the VHP and RSS have been conducting re-conversion ceremonies of Christians to Hindus for their ghar wapsi (homecomings) campaign, and attacks on Christian institutions are becoming more frequent.
Instead of leading by violence, the first call of the weak-minded, why don't fanatics lead by example? Make Hinduism a religion that attracts those in need of faith.Instead of disparaging dead saints and denigrating charitable work for the poor, look after your people by providing basic education, decent living conditions and selfless service to those in need.
These extremists are emboldened because they expect Christians not to react.After all, Christians in India are generally viewed as a peace-loving community. Christians don't regularly attack our temples, bomb our malls or rape our women.
But against the power of evil, even the good fold into a Faustian pact. If such attacks continue then at some point the Christian community will react. At some point they will snap. Julio Ribeiro tells us that they're already feeling under siege. So what will they do? It will be sad if Christians also become the bad guys. It will be shocking if Christians also start seeing violence as necessary in the name of a higher good. It will be even worse if they take back what they've given so generously to our nation: Their educational institu tions that shape the brightest minds in India and give the youth a moral rudder, and their charitable institutions that provide selfless service to the needy. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
Prime minister Modi, the finest thinkers of our nation have said attacks on Christians increase each time your party rises to power; back in 2003 and again since 2014.
You remember what it's like when your government is accused of allowing sectarian violence, religious intolerance and bloodshed to spread?
We are happy that you are finally speaking out against these acts of religious fanaticism. We know that you are as concerned about extremism as we are. But that is not enough. You have to do something to stem the violence. You have to take punitive action. You have to stop the aggressors.
Don't let this unconverted Hindu woman be shamed in front of her Christian friends. Don't let the rights of religious minorities in our predominantly Hindu country be forsaken.
Stop this madness now.
If not you, Mr Modi, then who?
Meghna Pant is an award-winning author, journalist and columnist.

Arise Goan brethren.....herald 15.03.2015

My site is worth $1335.9.
How much is yours worth?

Arise Goan brethren, your land needs you




I t is Sunday evening and the sun is still quite high in the sky. A group of senior citizens sits at the corner of a beach. They can’t go any further as a hotel has blocked access to the rest of the sandy shore. Once upon a time, in their youth, these men had played football on the sand and drew the ramponn bringing in fish they sold making their living off the sea and its resources. Today the beach is off limits and the fish have disappeared from the sea.



Further inland, an elderly woman hesitates to speak to her neighbour. She is unsure whether the family living in the gated complex just across from her house speaks Konkani. Most of the residents in the complex don’t know the language. When she first came to live in this area there were only trees in front of the house and she woke up to the sound of birds chirping. Today, she wakes up to the sound of car horns blowing.



In government offices a non- resident Goan lady runs around as she attempts to get justice. In her absence her parcel of land has been usurped and she gets little help and even less sympathy from an indifferent administrative machinery. She has to then go to the media and get her story published before anybody takes notice.



Goa has changed. Unquestionably and even perhaps irrevocably. From the quiet, peaceful land where neighbours borrowed sugar, tea leaves and cooking oil, where they shared their fish, sweets and cycles, where they sat on their balcao and hailed everyone passing by, to a land where neighbours are strangers, and the only thing they share is the air they breathe.



Long years ago, when the Portuguese still ruled Goa, a Goan journalist reporting on the situation in the colony, returned to Bombay and wrote a book he titled ‘ Sorrowing Lies My Land’. Today, a 100 years old, that journalist, Lambert Mascarenhas, will in a few days from now be collecting the Padma Shri Award. In a free land he has been recognized, but how much has changed from the days in the 1950s when he published his novel? Is Goa laughing today? Or is it still sorrowing? In a land where narcotics are sold openly, where gambling is legalized, where women are constantly rescued from prostitution, where fields sprout up concrete jungles, where bribes are the only way to get a file moving in a government office, can there be laughter? There is music, the loud strident blast of the electronic version, but missing is the soft soulful sound of the guitar being played on the streets. In the villages little boys still go fishing with rods and lines, in the cities their compatriots are fishing on their electronic gaming machines. The little girls are still sweet and lovely, but the monsters that lurk are more frightening than ever and even the schools are no longer safe for our daughters.



Goa is definitely not smiling. Why should it? The land is bleeding. Populated by three times more people than it was five decades ago, its green hills ravaged by indiscriminate mining, its pristine shores ruined by tourism, and the land in between a messy network of potholed roads the glaring evidence of corruption.



What has the Goan given back to his land? For centuries he lived entirely off the land but with a tender attachment to the red soil. He tilled it, sowed his food and nourished it again for another cycle of growth. But that stopped.



For the last few decades the Goan has been only living off the land, exploiting it but giving nothing back. Mining, tourism and real estate, the three main industries are exploitative of the land. They use the natural resources but give the land nothing in return.



It is time to curb this overexploitation.



It is time the Goan wakes up from his slumber and fights for his land.



In life you don't always get what you deserve. You get what you bargain for, what you fight for. Goa too has not got what it deserves. It deserves a better breed of politicians, a breed that will feel with their hearts, think with their minds and do with love for the land. That won’t happen unless you fight for Goa, defend your land, the land that is slowly dying for you.



In any culture the children inherit from their ancestors, they are preferred when it comes to rewards. Why shouldn’t it be so with Goa? Shouldn’t jobs in government go to Goans on merit? If there are qualified and experienced Goans, shouldn’t they be given preference. Otherwise they will be forced to migrate abroad in search of the elusive job.



Goans have fought many battles and won them, but the war has not ended. A single victory in a battle does not win the war.



The Goan fought for Konkani and Goa won the battle to make it’s mai bhas the state’s official language, and then won the battle to get the Indian government to include it into the VIII Schedule of the Constitution.



And then? The war hadn’t ended but the soldiers slowly deserted the field and today fight among themselves. Today the battle is not about Konkani but about the script.



Isn’t this, the act of dividing the people, also the work of corrupt politicians? Another battle is looming ahead. The battle for the very survival of Goa. Not too long ago, the state wrote to the Centre and sought special status for this land. The government, then headed by Manohar Parrikar, wrote: “ Over a period of time, unrestricted migration into this tiny state is threatening to make the Goans a minority in their own state. The apprehension is that by 2021 the migrant population will outnumber the local Goans.” The year 2021 is less than six years away, making the threat all the more real and alarming.




But what has happened after that? Are Goans going to sit and allow themselves to be outnumbered? Are they going to only listen to the promises of the politicians and fail to act when they are broken? Isn’t this the same government that promised to move offshore casinos out of the River Mandovi? Politicians have fooled the Goan for years. There have been promises but little or no delivery. The time to reverse that is come.



Goans have to come together to save Goa. Your voice has to be heard, your demands acceded to, your aspirations fulfilled.