Expel Foreign Christian Missionaries, says RSS Chief
Lucio Mascarenhas.
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The Times of India, Bombay Edition, 3rd October 2000. Report by Rajesh Ramachandran for the Times of India News Service. Re-Edited by Lucio Mascarenhas.
NEW DELHI: The Federal President or
sarsanghchalak of the Hindu fascist 'National Self-service League,' (
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: RSS), K. S. Sudarshan asked the central government to throw out all foreign Christian missionaries from India.
Addressing about 21,000 volunteers in full uniform at an exclusive RSS meet during the
Vijayadashmi function of the Delhi provincial unit at the Raja Gardens on Monday, Sudarshan said the government should establish an indigenous church on the lines of the Communist China government's sponsored
Chinese Patriotic Church.
According to a senior RSS leader who was present at the occasion, the RSS chief said, "It is advisable to have a totally Indian church like the one in China and all foreign churches and missionaries should be asked by the government to pack up and go."
Seeking a completely indigenous church, Sudarshan said those who do not believe in the equality of religions should not be allowed to propagate their intolerant religion in India.
The RSS wants India to emulate the Communist China government which, according to RSS leaders, threw out all foreign missionaries and established its own version of a Christian church.
The idea of a 'government sponsored church' that is being floated by the RSS implies that Indian Churches will have to cut off their links with foreign churches and missionaries. For instance, if the plan is implemented, Catholics will have to sever links with the Vatican. Sudarshan also alleged, "The Baptist church in north-east India is involved in insurgency and is driving Bangla-speaking Hindus out of Tripura, forcing Hindus not to observe
Durga Puja (a festival worshipping the goddess Durga) or wear a bindi and bangles."
RSS Extends Swadeshi To Churches Now
India Express, Bombay Edition, 8th October 2002; Express News Service. Re-Edited.
NAGPUR, 7TH OCTOBER: Intensifying its campaign against foreign missionaries in the country, the RSS today asked Christians to free themsleves from the clutches of foreign chruches and set up a
swadeshi (indigenous) church.
In a statement which is bound to rake up controversy, RSS chief K. S. Sudarshan, in his maiden address at the RSS'
Dussehra rally in Nagpur, commonly perceived as a forum for laying down the organisation's policy - maintained that while the majority of the Christians were patriotic, foreign missionaries have wreaked havoc with the unity and integrity of the country. He, in fact accused them of conspiring to destabilise the nation.
The Indian Peoples Party (
Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP), the political arm of the RSS and the major partner in the coalition constituting the present federal government, was quick to defend the RSS chief's statement. "We believe that Indian Christians are capable of spreading Jesus Christ's message across the country. They need not seek the help of foreign missionaries," senior leader J. P. Mathur said in New Delhi today.
"It has been noticed that in may areas, particularly in the north-east, foreign missionaries have created unhealthy and undesirable elements," he added.
Sudarshan asked the Christians in India to take the initiative by setting up their own church on the lines of the Jacobite sects that had split from the Jacobite Patriach of Antioch, and the Protestantized Jacobite
Marthoma sect in Kerala, south India.
Citing instances to buttress his argument, the RSS chief accused the Baptist church of playing havoc in Tripura, where the Hindus were being driven out and tribals harassed in the name of Christianity.
He denied that the RSS was anti-Christian and anti-Islamic, as being made out by certain quarters. "None of the Hindu organisations were found guilty of the criminal assault on a nun in Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh, the killing of an Australian missionary and his two sons in Orissa and the attacks on missionary schools in Agra," he said. On the contrary, Sudarshan added, a terrorit outfit, the
Deendar Anjuman, was found to be involved in carrying out the bomb blasts in churches in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa. The RSS chief also urged the Muslims to keep a vigil on the anti-national activities of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and provide information about it to the authorities.
Referring to Islamic fundamentalism, Sudarshan said that the Muslim clergy, the mullahs and maulavis, have not allowed Muslims to either identify themselves with their ancestors or proclaim their loyalty to the country.
RSS Warns Against Christian Conspiracy
Report by Vidhyadhar Datay, the Times of India News Service. The Times of India, Bombay Edition, 19th October 2000.
BOMBAY: Did you know that the Nandurbar district of the Maharashtra province is being run by Christians as an independent state - the writ of Indian law does not run here, neither is Indian currency accepted?
Were you aware that the United States has a grand gameplan to convert the entire north-east into an independent Christian state? These somewhat startling claims were made by Madhu Kulkarni, the western India zonal president of the 'National Self-service League' (RSS), one of the main constituents of the Hindu fascist 'Sangh Parivar' (League Family) during a Seminar held at the Govindadham Hall, Khar, Bombay, recently.
In his 80 minute address in which he accused the church of launching a "domestic aggression" in India, Kulkarni matched, if not bettered, his federal President K. S. Sudarshan's diatribe against Christian missionaries in Delhi last Sunday. But while the main focus of his attach was the Christian community, Kulkarni could not resist a passing missive at Muslims as well, when he asked RSS activists to spread the group's ideology in their own homes.
"This is not happening," he said at the end of his speech. "Why else are girls from good families eloping with Muslim boys?"
Kulkarni also hit out at non-government organisations (NGOs) who, he said, were abetting the Christians in their devious plans. Nearly thirty thousand NGOs, he alleged, received funds from Christian organisations for gathering information which was then used by the church - for instance, the latter used caste differences to drive a wedge between people.
The NGOs, some of whom used appealing names like 'Nirmal' (Pure), collected such information under the pretext of conducting surveys and then sent the reports of these surveys ot 'Christian headquarters' for further action.
Kulkarni, however, did not specify what he meant by 'Christian headquarters.'
After attacking the church in Nandurbar, where the large tribal population was "living in a Christian state, where neither Indian currency nor Indian laws were accepted," Kulkarni moved on to the north-east. The area fell prey to the influence of Christian missionaries during the days of English rule, when Hindus were not allowed to work in the north-east, he said.
"After Independence, the Christian priests ran away but we allowed them to come back," he said. "The United States has a plan to make the region into a Christian state. Don't think that the work has stopped."
Kulkarni conceded that Hindu society was also to blame for several problems - untouchability, for instance, which was still very prevalent in rural India.
But these could be solved only by Hinduism - no other force could save the nation, he reiterated.
He added that there was more to the RSS than batons (dandas), Khaki shorts and drills. "We are running dispensaries and doing other social work," he said. And this was what people needed to know, he told the RSS workers.
"Go out and inform people about the
Sangh during the 'National Awakening Movement' (
Rashtriya Jagran Abhiyan) from 5th November to 5th December," he exhorted. "Work in such a way that the whole of Hindu society identifies with the RSS."
Conversions Affect
Letter to the Editor, the Mid-Day, 19th October 2000.
In 'Irreligious Spirit' (Letters to the Editor, Mid-Day, October 13), the writers have attacked the RSS and its chief K Sudarshan for stirring up Sectarianism and being anti-Christian. They have referred to Sudarshan's recent statement that foreign missionaries should leave the country so that denationalisation of Indian Christians can be prevented.
However, Gandhi and Dr. Ambedkar made much more severe statements against missionaries. Gandhi said, "If I had the power and I could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytising... As I wander about throughout India I see many Christian Indians ashamed of their birth... their ancestral religion and dress... For Hindu housholds, the advent of the missionary has meant the disruption of the family." (
Young India, August 20, 1925).
Rajkumari Amrita Kaur, a Christian lady in the Jawaharlal Nehru ministry said, "Many converts have been denationalised."
Ambedkar, though against Hindu traditions, said, "Conversion to Christianity or Islam denationalise the depressed classes." (
Pakistan or the Partition of India)
A report by the Justice Niyogi Commission, appointed by the government of the former
Madhya Bharat ('Central India') province in 1954 to inquire into the conversion of tribals to Christianity by foreign missionaries, said, "Conversions are mostly brought about by undue influence, misrepresentation, or, in other words, not by conviction but by various inducements offered... in various forms."
Our Supreme Court holds "There is no fundamental right to convert another person because that would amount to taking away freedom of conscience guaranteed to all citizens alike."
And, do the writers know that the Minority Commission of India has declared that six Indian provinces have now become
Hindu minority provinces?
V. T. Walawalkar, Prabhadevi, Bombay.
Lucio Mascarenhas.
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