Posted on 05/19/2014 2:20:20 PM PDT by steve86
The majority party and its leader Narenda Modi have ridden the wave of religious fanaticism. Minorities are appealing to the legacy of democracy and pluralism
India is officially in the hands of the Hindu right wing. The Catholic Church and other religious minorities are concerned but they are grinning and bearing it, grasping onto the old and deep-rooted legacy of democratic values and pluralism that characterizes the Indian nation. Their concerns stem from the contiguity of India’s leaders with groups of Hindu fanatics. This is the landscape that has been emerging in the Indian sub-continent since the official general election results came out.
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So Modi seems to be holding out the olive branch to the opposition party, in order to reassure Muslim and Christian minorities (who make up 13.5% and 4.5% of the population respectively): In a nation that is 75% Hindu, BJP and Narendra Moni’s victory does not promise anything good for these minorities. The pedigree of this nationalist leader and his party is in fact rather controversial. The power held by the BJP, a party which appeared on the political scene in 1980, has been fuelled by a nationalist ideology referred to as hindutva. Hindutva promotes “one people, one language, one culture”, endorsing cast discrimination and discrimination against religious minorities which should be subdued or wiped out in the name of Hindu supremacy. The party, which came to power for the first time in 1998, showed its approval for extremist movements such as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (the National Volunteers Organisation) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (world council of Hindus), and did not hesitate to take advantage of the religious factor to win votes.
(Excerpt) Read more at vaticaninsider.lastampa.it ...
That’s true, but with those greater numbers, there is a greater opportunity to band together and defend yourselves. In China, we are starting to see this, as the government is encountering resistance to persecution they never saw before.
Pakistan’s Christian population has been stable for a few years. They live in segregated, impoverished communities, with a lot of the persecution being state-sanctioned executions and more often oppression through land management, forcing them into disease and starvation.
There is both truth and error in your assertion. There is actually more aggressive Hindu proselytizing going on in many rural areas that rely on intimidation to 'call back' converted Christians to Hinduism than aggressive Christianity.
However you are correct that due to several incidents, the Indian government has cracked down hard on most all Christian missions to India. India IS a Hindu culture and country, period.
In the West, a church relies on church members for provisions for it's existence.
In India, church members rely on the church for their provision. Western churches in India sometimes last only as long as the sponsored church figures out that no provision will be forthcoming from an Indian congregation or Western resources to provide for the social Gospel become exhausted.
That said, private Hindu schools that tout a 'better education' do the same exact thing you assert Christian churches do. Bait and switch is an art form in India.
Another method is to distribute food to poor people for a while, and then tell them if they want more food distribution, they have to convert.
Hindus do the same exact thing. I saw this with my own eyes. This technique is not germane to Christians in India.
Yet another method is printing pictures of Jesus kicking the heads of Hindu deities.
Never ever saw anything remotely like that when I was living there nor when I was there 3 weeks ago. Such is a sure-fire way to start a mob riot. I watched a mob of hundreds of Hindus materialize in mere minutes and go beserk over a man who took a chicken and killed it for a sacrifice to one of his gods. Anyone distributing offensive pictures like you describe would cause an instant riot much more severe I am certain.
I remember on FR a member here went to India to visit a Christian mission he had been donating money to, and they had sent photos of their church that was burned down supposedly by Hindus. When he arrived in India he found there was no burned church and no real mission. It was a scam.
Happened to us and several other congregations I know. Sometimes Hindus often masquerade as Christians to get money using the internet and even Facebook. One has to be very wise and discerning, and often it requires an actual trip to verify that whom you are supporting are who they claim they are.
Indian society does not have the same morals or cultural restrictions on cheating that ours does. This is a difficult issue to teach Indian Christians there who live in a culture that requires one to cheat and step on others to get ahead.
So you are going to teach Indians about democracy? Your wife was harrashed by hindus is again a make up story.I request Mods here to shut this Jerk off the Free republic.
I knew the Lotus Petal sitters would show up about now.
Have the mods email me and call my wife — Steve
I’m sure you consider anything out of the Vatican to be “Jerk” also.
I understand there have been corruption scandals. The "ultra left leaning" I don't know much about.
My wife is very thankful she was able to come here. Wish her family could come as well. Some of the relatives cope better than others with the Hindu badgering and mail stealing.
Part of their apartment building collapsed last year (twice), which I posted about here on FR, and that added to the stress.
There were parts of India I wanted to visit, such as the Himalayan Hill Stations, but I will never make it there.
Persecution is a real thing, but the “threat” of persecution is tenuous.
Though undoubtedly there are other examples, the most prominent time that Hindu extremists oppress Christians seems to be when there are accusations of proselytization.
While this is still intolerable, it is a far cry from the innumerable rationalizations that Muslims use to persecute others.
In any event, there is the optimism of the wait and see attitude.
There have been some "christian" sects (not orthodox, not catholic) that go around demonizing Hindus to get more money/funding from the naive west. You don't go around to a Hindu living next door and bark how satanic he is and should convert AT his doorstep.. oh btw these guys don't spare the Catholics too! they come to our doors and call us heathens! Speaking to one of them candidly I found out they even have targets. The more they convert, the more money they make!!
The average Hindu cannot distinguish one sect from the other and its the catholic church's that are more visible and unfortunately targeted. When I told a few Hindus about the differences they were actually surprised. They thought all Christians were Catholics! There will be elements that will take advantage of the fact that the right wind ins in power. Now Modi to show credibility needs to ensure that doesn't happen. Oh btw, the nutcase Togadia (the most venomous of them all) and Modi actually cannot stand each other ever since Modi the demolished Hindu temples, churches AND mosques that were illegally built on government land. So no, he isn't the spawn of Satan that some of you make him out to be..
Please point to where I made ANY exaggerated claim.
I'm AM a catholic living IN INDIA! So I would think my experience would count more than yours which from what I can tell is a second hand account at best.
I would thing my SIL's entire Catholic convent (where she and my wife grew up and the sister still lives nearby) would count more than you.
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One of the things that amazed me about many Hindus was their inordinate pride in their country. They are so proud of all that chaos, noise, rotting heat, mountain poverty, undernourished animals everywhere, deathly skinny cows, pollution in every village, city, state, province, polluted water, air, soil, government disasters...and corruption in EVERY single solitary corner of their world. Even the "pristine" Himalayas are riddled with pollution...even Everest.
We worked with Indians in the middle east and visited India for almost four weeks while we were over there. WHAT an eye-opener it was for me. An adventure, as my husband used to say.
If any of them come to live here in the US they rarely return there to live. No comparison.
Oh really? How about this... my whole family, and its congregation's experience counts as well..
Please point to where I made ANY exaggerated claim.
Not even gonna bother with this... the fact admins had to delete some of your comments in another thread on the same topic speaks for itself.
That's certainly a new one for the FR mods.
Please follow through with your own claim and show us the exaggerated claims I made.
Or are you making things up?
"congregation's"
"Congregation" means something entirely different within Catholicism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_%28Catholic%29
You are using it in the protestant manner. Which makes me think you're a protestant.
Do some research into the religious war that followed the partition of India.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
Congregation used as a general term is quite common in the south of India in churches.. now how do I know that, because I live there. Or, now are you going to tell me I failed in English next?
The Romans had nothing like the caste system in India.
That's it. And the Congress Party actually favored Moslems and was left leaning, and of course filled with corruption, so Modi seems to be a good choice.
Any second or third hand quote is suspect.
sorry, steve, but I can tell you for a fact that for Christians in India this will be a tense time but definitely not a “best to be a hindu from now”
“hinduism teaches them to murder Christians”? You forgot the sarcasm tag...
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