[sacw] sacw dispatch (28 May 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch
28 May 2000

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FASCISM OF THE SANGH IS WAGING WAR AGAINST ALL OF INDIA'S MINORITIES

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Dialogue, what dialogue, and with whom?
Ideology, not theology, is the issue

It is not a crisis between Hindus and Christians; it is a war that the
fascism of the Sangh is waging against all of India's minorities, the
Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, as well as the Christians

The Sangh Parivar has a fascist ideology. To talk of a bilateral dialogue
between Christians and the Parivar is to betray all of India's minorities,
its Dalits and its marginalised that are also victims of the Parivar

BJP plays on Church differences, clerical naivet=E9. 'We are attacked as a
community, and we respond as a denomination'

By John Dayal

(This article seeks to explain the motives behind the Sangh Parivar's
repeated suggestions for a dialogue between the church hierarchy and the
Parivar. It also analyses why central minister of state of Rajagopal and
National Commission for Minorities Christian member John Joseph want such
dialogues to begin in Kerala. The National Commission for Minorities has
thoroughly discredited itself in rushing to the defence of the Parivar in
the rash of anti-Christian violence witnessed across the country in recent
weeks. John Dayal argues that the Hindutva fascist thesis of One nation, One
People, One Culture is a xenophobic political ideology with roots in the
Nazi-fascism of Europe of the early 1920s, and not a matter of religion,
theological reflection and dialogue. The Parivar has targeted all
minorities, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists and not just the Christians, by
co-option (Buddhists and Sikhs) or violence (Muslims), and it can be
countered only ideologically. If any single community, Sikh or Christian or
Muslim, thinks it can reach a bilateral peace with the Sangh Parivar, it is
only deceiving itself, and allowing the Parivar to buy time. The Sangh is
cleverly suing for dialogue with the Hierarchy to stave off an international
rebuke, which will affect international funding, and have other
repercussions for the cosmopolitan image that the Parivar is now trying to
project internationally through its spokesmen in the Indian Diaspora of the
NRIs. If they are sincere, the government and the BJP should call for a
national dialogue involving all communities, not just Christians, on steps
to further strengthen the freedom to profess, practice and propagate one's
religion, rights that were won in the dialogue that the Constituent assembly
had, and whose results are amply reflected in Articles 25 and 30 )

The day after Atal Behari Vajpayee led his council of ministers at the
swearing in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan, there was considerable
speculation about one minister among north Indian journalists gathered in
Parliament's Central Hall, the place where political foes meet in goodwill
over a cup of tea, and gossip is generated which becomes reality the next
day. The man under review was O Rajagopal. North Indian journalist wondered
why Vajpayee had broken his own rule about taking people who had lost the
Lok Sabha elections. Several heavyweights of the BJP had had to cool their
heals in the wilderness till they could be rehabilitated with dignity.

Rajagopal's claim to a berth in the Council of ministers was that he alone
was a senior enough BJP politician from Kerala, and the state had to be
represented both in the council of ministers and in the checklist of the BJP
which wanted at least of its cadres in every ministry, as the top man or the
second in command. (Just for the record, Ram Jethmalani, once a vice
president of the BJP, is now technically an Independent member of
parliament). This was the only way the party was at all times kept in the
picture on matters of policy, and of course in ensuring that its own writ
was not disregarded by a minister belonging to some other party in the
ruling national Democratic alliance.

But political observers were not convinced if the loser had become a winner
just for this reason. Sangh Parivar insiders then explained to the
bewildered northerners just what Rajagopal meant to the BJP. Rajagopal's
inclusion, they said, had promised that the Christian church would be
'delivered' to the BJP through his strong hold in Kerala.

=46or good or for bad, this is the impression that the Bharatiya Janata Part=
y
and the Sangh Parivar has of the Church in India. They firmly believe that
Kerala is the soft under-belly of the Church, and whatever be the movements,
currents or theological pursuits anyone else in the country may be following
for the moment, he, she or they could always be brought to heel through the
Kerala route.

This understanding is part of the Sangh Parivar's overall assessment and
categorisation of the Christian community in India. The North Eastern
Christians, of Mongoloid stock and Baptist, Presbyterian and Catholic
denominational adherence, have all been termed anti-national and supportive
of violence and secessionist movements, to be politically denounced across
the country. This is one reason whey the BJP reacted with such violence
recently to the revival of the Forum of Christian Members of parliament,
whose convenorship is with MPs from the North East. There is no way the BJP
can sit quite if it feels that the 800 odd members of parliament are going
to be sensitised on pro-Christian issues by these MPs of the North east.

The tribals of the larger Gondwana belt, from Rajasthan in the west to Bihar
in the East, are not adivasis but Vanavasis to the BJP, forest dwellers of a
larger Hindu Diaspora to be challenged for their current faith but be wooed
constantly through the 'ghar wapsi' programmes as part of an aggressively
spiralling co-option programme. The entire Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad, ekal
school and sundry other programmes of the Parivar have been structured on
this premise, and ironically, the fund collection programme for the tribal
area involves seeking donations from western church based organisations as
much as from Non resident Indians.

As far as the BJP is concerned, there are but few Christians in the north,
living as the remnants of the British Raaj in UP and Rajasthan; and even the
few lakh Dalit Christians of Gurdaspur in Punjab can be neatly bracketed and
ignored. The Christians of the Konkan belt encompassing Goa, Maharashtra
(mostly Mumbai) and Karnataka are still to invite a close BJP study, with
their strong linguistic cohesion, their apparent western mein, and yet their
strong nationalistic tradition. After all, the movement against the
Portuguese was initiated by Goan Catholics, long before the 1847 movement
was a reality elsewhere in the country. The strong Christian communities of
Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have invited the study of the Parivar, but are
at present not part of its political programme, left to its allies in the
Dravida groups to woo, a job that Karunanidhi is apparently doing with some
success in Chennai.

The blatant manner in which Prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the
Sangh Parivar have rejected the Christian demand for Dalit Christians being
given equal rights within their brethren from the Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist
faiths, is also part of the Sangh's attitude to the Dravida Dalit
Christians. It is to be remembered that the Hindutva opposition to equal
rights for Dalit Christian is not so much as to deny the Christians
anything, or that it will be a big strain on the national exchequer the cost
may be negligible in the context of the massive national budget), it is
essentially a punitive measure to keep Dalits from wandering into
Christianity. If they do, they lose whatever rights they have. In is locking
the stable doors on a entire group deemed to be vassals, and correctly
presumed to be ready to flee the caste stranglehold a the first opportunity.
No one need misunderstand the Sangh's attitude and thesis on this. They know
very well that even after two hundred years of British Raj, there were not
many conversions in the north, because of the harsh caste regime as well as
for the presence of large intermediate castes, which acted as a buffer
between the missionaries and the poor, preventing any large-scale
conversions in two centuries. Dravida land was not so easily contained, and
large numbers had indeed become Christians ( and Muslims) in the past. Even
the Hindutva elements in the Congress realised this, and brought forth the
Presidential order of 1950 to check any more group movement. The centre
understands the Dalit Christian movement essentially as a Dravida Christian
Dalit movement, outside of Kerala, even if major rallies are held in New
Delhi. Incidentally, when Vajpayee and other Sangh leaders mocked at the
Church hierarchy which called on them at various times during in 1998-2000,
the reference was always to the caste system within the church, an issue of
some gravity only in Tamil Nadu.

The demography of the South, and electoral politics of Karnataka, Andhra and
Tamil Nadu also ensures that the Christian cannot be easily wooed by a north
India based BJP. There are too many local and easily available
opportunities, whether it is in Telugu Desam, Janata party or the Dravida
Groups, on offer to Christians as an alternate to the Congress if they so
desire, leaving them no reason to respond to the BJP's warmest overtures.

Kerala is a different kettle of fish. To the Parivar, every parameter in
Kerala seems to make the Malayalee Christian subject of much curiosity and
interest for its think tanks and its socio-political strategicians.

The first is the obvious one. The Malayalee religious, priest and nun,
diocesan Catholic or Pentecost and evangelical missionary, seems to dominate
the religious horizon. The Kerala Diaspora permeates all parts of the
country, every diocese, almost every parish. This is the strength of the
Church in many ways. The BJP believes that any success it scores with the
Kerala Christians will therefore automatically become operative in the rest
of the country. The wide variety of denominations available in the ancient
Church in Kerala, many of them with their headquarters in the state, also
makes its possible for the Parivar to play on theological, doctrinal or
dogmatic fissure lines to get someone or the other on its side in any given
controversy or political situation. Not many have forgotten that anytime the
church has shown any semblance of solidarity in the face of Parivar
persecution, the Parivar or its allies have been able to find someone or the
other in the state, often very vaguely identified and defined, who is
willing to assume the posture propagated by the Parivar. Divide and rule is
an imperial practice that the BJP mastered long ago, and used with
considerable finesse at every opportunity and with every community. (As an
interesting aside, it must be remembered that the BJP has successfully, if
only for the time being, wooed the Shia community in Lucknow, after failing
to make any dent in the Sunni solidarity after the Babri Masjid demolition.
Progressive opinion within the Muslim community says that the BJP has
sharpened the divide between the two sects, Sunnis and Shias, in Uttar
Pradesh to suit its own politics).

The BJP is also looking at the electoral politics of Kerala, a state it has
long sought to enter, in vain so far. After penetrating the Konkan community
in the northern districts during the Emergency, and moving to the upper
caste youth in the succeeding decades, the BJP realises it has to grapple
with the community and political equilibrium in the state. The two Fronts,
UDF led by the Communists and its rival led by the Congress, each have a
strong base among the religious communities. Christians in a manner of
speaking hold the balance of power in the state, and their support is
crucial for a party to survive in the state. For historical reasons, the
community has been with the Congress or some of its breakaway groups which
bank entirely on their support.

The Left antagonised the Christians not so much for ideological reasons as
for its chief minister EMS Namboodripad in 1958 bringing up legislation,
which would have effected managements of educational institutions.
Namboodripad eventually was dismissed at the behest of Indira Gandhi, then
ruling the Congress. But the Church's suspicion of the Marxists has
remained as a lasting and powerful memory. The CPM has lived to rue it, for
while the Left is supportive of the Christians during the troubles in many
states, and has earned the admiration of Christian activists, it has not
been to get the Christian hierarchy on its side in any real measure.

The Church is increasingly becoming disgusted with the corruption rampant in
the political world. In Goa, church rejection of corrupt politics and
politicians led to the defeat of the Congress in the last Lok Sabha and
assembly elections, and a victory by default of the BJP alliance. Even in
Kerala, tainted candidates of the Congress lost, because they had lost their
traditional base among the Christians. The Congress in Kerala can become
vulnerable.

The Christian community in Kerala is therefore, not surprisingly, becoming
an attractive subject of Sangh attention. It has made no bones about it.
Denominations are not of essence. Everyone is in focus, Catholics, Orthodox,
Protestants, Pentecost, Evangelicals, and Brethren..

Soon after Rajagopal was made a minister, newspapers, including some very
friendly with the Sangh, wrote long articles on how wooing, and not
confrontation, would be the new BJP mantra in Kerala. Rajagopal himself made
it a point to respectfully call on venerable bishops, and offer his service
to more down to earth missionaries. Working through small favours for petty
problems - and several of the problems, including denial of visas to
visiting missionaries were creation of the BJP government itself --
Rajagopal has been able to win a toehold in the community.

He addresses meetings large and small, and has won over several important
community leaders who now speak good of him, even if they still harbour
suspicion about his party, the BJP.

Rajagopal has a strong ally in national Commission for Minorities Christian
member John Joseph. A Hyderabad-based Keralite, Joseph did a three-year term
in the Commission as a nominee of PV Narasimha Rao. His first stint is
remembered best for the delay in the Christian marriage laws coming up
before Parliament. After a gap of three years, Joseph was again nominated,
overruling the recommendations of the Church for a Dalit priest. No major
church or group recommended him for nomination as a representative of the
community. Joseph, an ever smiling middle aged man, is at pains to explain
that he is not a BJP nominee but has been recommended by his good friend
Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. But his current
political Karam Bhumi remains Kerala.

Joseph was a member of the NCM team, which visited a handful of places in
western Uttar Pradesh, which had witnessed violence against convents, nuns
and priests. The NCM found each one of the cases to be a mere act of crime,
and ruled out any communal angle to the incidents. The clean chit to the
Hindutva forces was hotly contested by the Church, by the victims and by
human rights groups, including the United Christian Forum for Human Rights,
the ecumenical Hyderabad-based All India Christian Council and the all India
Catholic Union, for all three of which I am the spokesman in New Delhi. The
nuns and priests who were the victims, each complained that the commission
had used only small and convenient portions of their testimony to reach its
conclusions, entirely disregarding the brunt of their witness of increasing
communalism and threats in their respective areas. The nuns of Mathura spoke
of their terror, and the residents of Kosi Kalan of how the assailants beat
the priest to the moth of death, and then nonchalantly drank and feasted on
the Church lawns before making away with their booty, the priest still lying
bleeding nearby. Another priest, from Haryana gave a written statement
saying that while he had indeed said the attack on two nuns by a scooterist
could be an accident - a scrap of sentence used by the commission - he had
also told Joseph and other members how a Cross was burnt, together with a
Crescent, during the Dussehara Ravana fireworks. His full statement on
rising communalism in Haryana was disregarded.

The prime minister himself led the attack on Church spokesmen, while his
party's official voice, Venkiah Naidu, singled me out for the honour of a
personal attack in a full press conference at the party headquarters. The
prime minister's point was that one should not question the integrity of the
National Commission for Minorities as it could have serious consequences. He
also maintained there would be serious consequences if an impression went
around abroad that Christians were not safe in India.

It is worth pointing out to the Prime minister that the best way to avoid
such an impression gathering force is to make sure there is no violence,
communal or bureaucratic, against the minorities and the Christians in
particular and that there is an immediate end to the Sangh Parivar's
billion-dollar hate campaign against Indian Christians. It is also
worthwhile reminding him that it was the Sangh Parivar which led the attack
on the Minorities commission when its then chairman, law professor Tahir
Mehmood during 1999 slashed the BJP government for its anti-minority
attitude.

But perhaps the Prime minister needs to be reminded, again, that it was he
whose response after seeing with his own eyes the destruction of three
dozen churches in the Dangs in 1998, was to call for an national debate on
conversions. It is for him to introspect if he was callous towards the pain
and tears of the minority community? His slogan was avidly picked up by his
Parivar, and still resounds in most statements they make, whether at an
academic seminar or at a street rally where they burn the effigy of Pope
John Paul II for 'abetting terrorism in Northeast.'

The Parivar, which has spawned a small-scale industry manufacturing
anti-Christian literature, is not willing to look at objective truth, nor at
statistics. It is of course incapable of understanding the nuances of human
freedom, Constitutional guarantees. It is futile to expect it to
compassionately study the theology that says that Conversion is a gift, a
grace, of the Holy Spirit, a free choice of a sane human being exercising
freedoms given him by God and reaffirmed by the Constitution of an India
that rejoices in its freedom and in its plural cultural heritage.

To the Parivar, there is only one Mantra. Stop Conversions, and everything
will end.

This is reflected in all their actions, and in all their moves.

When Law minister ram Jethmalani responded to persistent community requests
and said he would bring forward the Christian marriage Bill 2000, he did not
publish the drafts that the community had given the government several
times. He brought forth a draft reflecting the Sangh's political and
ideological compulsions. The draft took away the right of a partner to marry
his or her Christian intended spouse in a Church ceremony. This was an
ancient and established right in India, but Jethmalani's draft took it away.
When the church protested, the government sought to put the hierarchy
against the women's lobby, denomination against denomination. Its efforts
did not succeed, but there is tangible fear that the government will press
with its changes in the Marriage bill.

The law ministry is already targeting the hierarchy and human rights
activists for opposing its bulldozer attitude. In an interview that he gave
not to an indeop4nbdent jo9urnal but to the official mouthpiece of the RSS,
minister of state for law Rajagopal held the Catholic church leadership
responsible for shooting down the Bill. In his powerful counter-attack,
Rajagopal blamed a section of the Christian leadership 'with good contacts
in the press' for raking up a hysteria.

Rajagopal gave ample proof of the sort of dialogue he wanted, saying
'representatives of various Christian organisations were invited from
Nagaland to Kerala and by and large the invitees appreciated the
government's initiatives and endorsed the proposals in the draft bill.'
Anyone who was present in the Vigyan Bhawan meeting where this 'dialogue'
took place would remember the chaos that resulted from the government
packing the hall with hand-picked persons, some of them screaming at senior
church leaders who questioned the ministers' attitude. In his interview,
Rajagopal identified Catholic Bishops Conference of India president Alan De
Lastic as the main person to hold up the Bill. 'From the government's part
we decided amendments could be incorporated at the discussion stage in
parliament. But the Catholic Church insisted that even the introduction
should wait till the amendments were carried out."

Rajagopal is not one who leaves anyone in doubt as to what he means. He told
Organiser, the RSS weekly, "I have a feeling that there are a few elements
who have good access to the press are more interested in creating
misunderstanding against Vajpayee government than the welfare of their
community members. The very same elements were behind creating a hysteria
among minorities about Vajpayee government by highlighting isolated
instances of attacks on some Christians in different places by criminals as
a concerted attack on the Christian community itself under this government.
After all we do not want to push reforms down the throats of Christians.
Also we do not want to do something that would give a handle to anti-BJP
propagandists who always alleged that BJP is all out to implement hidden
agenda."

The minister does not see the humour of his own remarks

But he has reason to smile in another matter. With the tension of the
Marriage Bill's delay, harsher FCRA regimes and a grass-root level pressure
of the Sangh has unnerved some in the Christian community. There are a few
stray and innocent voices that have emerged saying there is no harm in a
dialogue with the Sangh Parivar. After all, Christianity is all about
dialogue, both within the church and outside.

Not many have understood what the Sangh means by a dialogue. It is not a
seminar where BP Singhal of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad comes and makes a
statement and a Christian representative makes a statement. Nor is it a
television debate, which, irrespective of the result, is good publicity for
the persons participating. Even in these debates on camera, Christian
representatives have seen how the Parivar spokespersons keep on repeating
the same old manufactured lies like a goebblesian zombie.

To the Sangh Parivar, a dialogue is a monologue in which it speaks its mind,
and the other has to lump it. Whatever the other party says is not heard,
and if heard, rejected to their face , and in very blunt language.

The Christian hierarchy knows it itself. At the height of the violence in
December 1998, it agreed to a 'dialogue' held at the CBCI centre. The
organisers of the dialogue were a Christian from the US and a bunch of
persons representing the BJP and its wings in New York. Some local
Christians were also roped in. BJP general secretary Narendra Modi came,
accompanying KS Sudershan, then the main ideologue, and today the Supremo of
the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh. They heard out the community and then
spoke, briefly and bluntly, rejecting every thesis that was given of India's
plural heritage and the individual decision in a change of religion. They
spoke with the arrogance of representing all Hindus, in India and in the
world, and became quite after it was pointed out that it was the majority
Hindu vote that had kept the BVJO from reaching a majority in parliament -
that the average Hindu was against their communal thesis. The meeting ended
with the organisers saying there would be more meetings in the future, but
it was clear to us who participated that the Sangh Parivar was never
interested in a dialogue.

Dialogue and democracy is alien to the Parivar's ideology. It has no scope
for dialogue even within itself. There are no elections within the Sangh,
nor any debate. It is an aadesh, an order from the to which comes the holy
word.

The Hindutva fascist thesis of One nation, One People, One Culture is a
xenophobic political ideology with roots in the Nazi-fascism of Europe of
the early 1920s, and not a matter of religion, theological reflection and
dialogue. The Parivar has targeted all minorities, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists
and not just the Christians, by co-option (Buddhists and Sikhs) or violence
(Muslims), and it can be countered only ideologically. If any single
community, Sikh or Christian or Muslim, thinks it can reach a bilateral
peace with the Sangh Parivar, it is only deceiving itself, and allowing the
Parivar to buy time. The Sikhs have seen through this game, especially after
the Sangh set up a new wing to carry on its subtle war on the Sikh faith,
insisting it is only a sect of Hinduism. The Akali spectrum has come out
against this, and the future predicts a growing protest in the Punjab
against the Sangh. The Buddhists have long victims of this cooption, and neo
Buddhists as well as Tibetans and others have had to go on record to say
they do not see themselves as just a new variety or Hindus.

The Sangh is cleverly suing for dialogue with the Hierarchy to stave off an
international rebuke, which will affect international funding, and have
other repercussions for the cosmopolitan image that the Parivar is now
trying to project internationally through its spokesmen in the Indian
Diaspora of the NRIs.

If they are sincere, the government and the BJP should give up their hate
and seek a for a national dialogue forgiveness from all communities, not
just Christians, and discuss steps to further strengthen the freedom to
profess, practice and propagate one's religion, rights that were won in the
dialogue that the Constituent assembly had, and whose results are amply
reflected in Articles 25 and 30 of the Constitution. As far as Christians
are concerned, we have had a dialogue with other communities stretching back
Twenty centuries. `this dialogue of life continues.

______________________________________________
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