Touching the Untouchable: India Targets Christian Converts [Breakpoint]

Breakpoint.org ^ | May 3, 2004 | Chuck Colson

[Paul_B]

For nearly her entire life, Muniyamal Krishnan has worked around human waste. In her job as a "human scavenger," she has cleaned latrines and carried buckets of waste on her head. Obviously, she didn't choose this line of work; it was all she could get -- and for religious, not economic reasons. Krishnan is an "untouchable," the lowest caste in Hindu society.

For millennia, the "untouchables" have suffered unimaginable discrimination at the hands of their fellow Hindus. As a result, millions have converted to other faiths, including Christianity. But now, Hindu nationalists, with the Indian government's blessing, want to deny them that opportunity.

In Hinduism, the "untouchables," who call themselves "dalits," are said to be the descendants of the illegitimate children of the union of prehistoric lower- and upper-caste people. Their place in life is believed to be deserved. As Stephanie Giry, an editor at FOREIGN AFFAIRS magazine, recently wrote, the belief in the dalits' "tainted origin" forced them into "the most squalid jobs."

The resulting social structure is every bit as oppressive and dehumanizing as apartheid. Dalits are forced to worship in different temples and aren't allowed to eat or drink in their employers' homes.

For many dalits, the best way to escape the misery to which Hinduism consigns them is conversion to another faith, especially Christianity. I have preached in Indian prisons and seen "untouchables" flock to Christ. Conversion, however, doesn't mean an end to discrimination, since their Hindu neighbors still view them as "untouchables," and because they become Christians, they forfeit Indian government programs put into place to benefit them.

Still, as a non-Christian dalit leader told Giry, conversion to Christianity is worth it to his people. He said that his people "gain dignity and access to the Christian community's vast network of social services." He then added, "whatever the government can do for dalits, Christian missionaries can do better."

But if the Indian ruling party, the BJP, has its way, dalits will no longer have that option. The BJP, which espouses Hindu supremacy, has introduced the Orwellian -- named "Freedom of Religion Bill" in India's Gujarat state. It punishes anyone who converts another person through "allurement" with three years in prison and a $2,200 fine, an enormous sum by Indian standards. The law prohibits conversions performed by "religious priests," meaning Christianity and Islam, since Hindu and Buddhist conversion rites aren't officiated.

Giry points out, as well, that the law instructs local magistrates, mostly upper-caste Hindus, to look for any evidence of "allurement," which is conveniently, by the way, undefined. Thus, the people who have oppressed the dalits for generations have the authority to block their conversions. And this statute is considered a model for similar legislation across India.

This year, India will be a subject of debate in the presidential campaign because of the "outsourcing" of American jobs to Indian firms. We need to insist that the talk in the campaign go beyond "call centers" and computer programmers. If we're putting business in India, our policy- makers ought to be demanding that India respect the most basic of human freedoms, freedom of religion.

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FURTHER READING & INFORMATION Stephanie Giry, "Chennai Dispatch: SOL," NEW REPUBLIC, 26 April 2004. (Available to subscribers only.) https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20040426&s=giry042604

Daniel Lak, "Dalits' political awakening," BBC NEWS, 28 September 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/459591.stm

Nirmala Ganapathy, "In Venkaiah's town, Dalits can't share the well," INDIAN EXPRESS, 26 April 2004. http://www.expressindia.com/election/ fullestory.php?type=ei&content_id=30800

Girish Kuber, "Are the Dalits becoming just an election statistic?" ECONOMIC TIMES, 12 April 2004. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/611033.cms

Gary Haugen, THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT INJUSTICE (InterVarsity, 1999). http://www.pfm.org/BPtemplate.cfm?Section=PF_Store&template=/ Ecommerce/ProductDisplay.cfm&ProductID=132

[Van Jenerette]

...for later reading.

[Cronos]

India has the right to freedom of speech, so lunatics like the CM of Gujarat can stick around, just like we allow the KKK to stick around. But the central government must stop this law from being enacted or repeal it. Luckily, most of India is sane, but states led by lunatics like Gujarat or Bihar or UP are extremely embarassing to the Indian government and to its people. If the federal government does nothing to stop such fascist tendencies, the country will lose out. The opening up of their economy has cleared some of these problems in their urban areas, but it must spread to all parts of their country if they really want to be a developed nation.

[Cronos]

The thing about hinduism, as AIFI said, is that it's not really a religion, more like a meta-religion (in the same way that XML is a meta-language) -- it does not really have any prescribed holy books or Gods or ceremonies.

Reading it's mythology and history is fascinating. Pre-Buddhist times, hinduism started off a Vedic Hinudism (from the Vedas) witha high emphasis on ceremonies, sacrifices (animal too, there was a horse sacrifice or ashwamedah(?)).

Very very Aryanic. The Gods worshipped were also Vedic gods -- like Indra, analogous to Thor, the god of thunder and of war. The VEdis 'Gods' started out in primitive Aryanic as two families of Gods -- the Daevas and the Asuras. Over time, the Indic people favoured the Devas and the asuras got relegated to being the bad gusy (and after Chrstian and Muslim influences, they got potrayed as demons, which is strange as hinduism has no concept of hell).

In the nearby Irani peninsula (another Aryan people), the Iranis favored the ahuras (the difference betwen sanskrit and avestan (ancient farsi/persian) is that the sanskrit 's' becomes the avestan 'h' like sindhu (people of sindh/the indus river (now in pakistan) were called Hindu (*))
So, when Zoroaster came along and created his dualistic religion (the predecessor to Mazdaism and influencor of Manichaenism) in ~700BC, he choose the god of good and light as Ahura Mazda.
The daevas got relegated to status of minor gods/household gods.

Further west, in the nordic areas, the nodrics were a lot more primitive, they retained the two families of Gods as more or less equal -- the Aesir and the Vanir.

In Greece, one family was favoured and the other forgotten (plus Greek religion had a lot of influence from Egyptian and Canaanite religions through the Minoan civilisation).

I'm not sure about the Celtic Gods, but they seem to be vaguely like traditional Aryanic Gods with the element of "magic"


(*)Even the term Hindu or Hinduism is non-sensical -- as I stated before, no-one knows what the Harappans called themselves, but the Vedic tribes called themselves Bharatas (after a particular clan), so the indian alter-ego, Bharat. However, the religion practised in the sub continent was hardly unified, with a myriad of Gods, regional Gods, etc. The Persians were the first to give the people of the subcontinent ONE name -- they called them the people of the Indus river or Hindus who lived in Hindustan, so at its root, Hinduism is geographic in its definition analogous to Indian.

After Buddhism, which was a reaction to the over -ritualised Vedic religions and which is intrinsically ATHIESTIC (the next time a far eastern Buddhist calls Buddha a God, you can tell him he's wrong, he's a follower of Mahayana, and that the Buddha's central theme was that you don't need the Gods, you can obtain salvation/nirvana on your own -- this is the teaching as practised by the first Buddhists who knew from Buddha's teachings that he said he was NOT a god. These Buddhists are however a small community mostly based on Sri Lanka called Hinayana Bhuddhism)

Anyway, after Buddha, india had its first Emperor Ashoka who ruled over most of the Subcontinet and over land that is now India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, parts of Iran, Central Asia, Burma and Tibet. Thsi guy converted to Buddhism and what hapens when your all powerful ruler converts, yes, everyone converts (and most were fed up of VEdic hinduism), except the priests who now no longer have jobs. AND VEDIC HINDUISM DIES OUT

After Ashoka's dynasty dies out, these priests hit upon a brilliant scheme to take back the land -- they deify Buddha and make him an incarnation of one of the non-Vedic gods -- Viushnu.

Vishnu has a dozen differnt "incarnations", from half men half lions to dwarves etc., in short, one size fits all, if you got a person you think is a God, and you dont' want to expand your pantheon, you make him an incarnation of Vishnu (Ram and Krishna are incarnations of Vishnu too!)

And, most importantly, VISHNU IS NOT AN ARYAN GOD, no one knows where he came from and when he started getting worshipped. He's not mentioned anywhere in the Vedas and he's NOT represented in Harappan civilisation. The only "deity" hinted at in Harappan civilisation is Shiva, an ascetic figure with snakes draped around his neck (as an aside, the strange thing about the Harappan civilisation is that it has no temples or palaces, and very straight roads, almost like a civilisation made up solely of atheistic merchant republics with no priests and no kings)

The Hindu "trinity" consists of Brahma the creator (again no mention of him in th Vedas), Vishnu the sustainer or protector and Shiva the destoyer.

This "trinity" only seem to appear a bit after Christianity first reached india (carried along by St. Thomas), so tis seems more than likely that the priests incorporated elements of Christianity into their religion, so that the broader term hinduism ws not threatened by this new, strange religion. Vishnu is an malgamation of gods, kind of like the Egytian Amun-Re. If you have a local god and you want to make him pan-Indian, you claim he's an incarnation of Vishnu. Ta da!

anyway, so, after that long ramble, I get to the point, hinduism is NOT a religion, its more like a way to live, analogous to Roman paganism. The only reason it survives is because of its wealth of philosophical teachings (far more than Greek teachings). The hindu fundamentalists in India define themselves primarily as being NOT MUSLIM. The Islamic conquest of India was particularly painful with nearly 100 million slaughtered over the centuries. So, its no wonder they've turned belligerent. Opening up the economy and modernising would secularise the nation and enable it to prosper. Thats the only way india can free ITSELF from its cycle of death, by modernising and opening up its economy

[Cronos]

AIFI is detailing th traiditional Hindu belief that the world is nothing more than maya, an illusion. The belief goes that the world is a dream though up by Brahma who wakes up in the morning and creates the universe and at the end of HIS day, the universe gets destroyed, then he gets up the next day and does it all over again for 100 of HIS years until he too gets destroyed and the universe ends, very similar to the nordic thoughts on Ragnarok or Gotterdaemurüng.

As I said earlier, what we call hinduism today is not Vedic, but a mixture of Vedic hinduism, Dravidian ieas (Shiva), amalgamation of Gods and heroes (Vishnu, Ram, Krishna), influences from Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism.

Actually, interestingly enough, Christianity too had influences from hindisma nd Zoroastrianism which were condemned as heresies and wiped out. The GNOSTIC heresy is similar to the hindu concept of maya, illusion and was most likely influenced by that or by Buddhism (which had spread as far east as persia and was probably present to some extent in the Roman Empire. the Manichaen heresy tried to take the zOroastrian belief in TWO competing deities -- one good and one evil, both of equal strength.

Actually, Judaism and Ch5ristianity are heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism -- prior to their exile by the Babylonians, and subsequent rule by the Persians, the Jews had no conept of Hell, of Angelic beings as distinct from the Godhead or the concept of a messiah. All of these ideas are Zoroastrian in origin. Have you ever seen picture sof temples/palaces in Assyria or Persia with those winged bulls with mens heads? Those are the Persian angels.

To all my jewish freeper friends, remember that under the Persians, ZOROASTRIANS, you were allowed to return to your homelands and practise your religion freely. Zoroaastrians didn't discriminate. It would be grand if Iran throws off its islamic yoke and returns to Zoroastrianism.

[Cronos]

AIFI is correct, Hindusim has its fringe lunatics who, thankfully don't define the entire community. This is quite unlike the islamics....

But,if india doesnt stop these lunatics, itll give india a disgraceful reputation like Iran.

on the plus side, India DID condemn to DEATH that Sing guy who murdered the Missionary Graham Staines, so I take that to mean that india as a whole condemns these lunatic fringes.

[Cronos]

AIFI is correct, Hindusim has its fringe lunatics who, thankfully don't define the entire community. This is quite unlike the islamics....

But,if india doesnt stop these lunatics, itll give india a disgraceful reputation like Iran.

on the plus side, India DID condemn to DEATH that Sing guy who murdered the Missionary Graham Staines, so I take that to mean that india as a whole condemns these lunatic fringes.