The reports connected with the spate of attacks on the Christian
community around the country generally mention organisations like the
Bajrang Dal, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Hindu Jagran Manch for
their involvement in the anti-Christian campaign. For most people, these
seem to be separate organisations which are responding to local
situations. It is difficult for them to connect all these attacks to a
coordinated centre or a single organisation.
CONTINUOUS
HATE CAMPAIGN
If any
evidence is required to show that the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS)
is the centre from which the anti-Christian crusade emanates, one has to
only read the literature produced by the RSS. The Organiser, which is
the English weekly run by the RSS, has been running a continuous hate
campaign against the Christian communities in its columns for quite some
time. In fact, if one reads the issues of the weekly for the past two
months, one would think that the Christian community, which constitutes
2.5 per cent of the population today, poses the greatest threat to the
majority Hindu community and the integrity of the country.
The
Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram are the two major
organisations set up by the RSS who are conducting the current war
against Christianity. Under their umbrella, many other outfits such as
the Bajrang Dal and the Hindu Jagran Manch are working as the
instruments for the intimidatory campaign against the Christians.
The RSS
has officially declared that India faces a grave threat from
Christianity. It talks about a plan to evangelise India by 2000 AD by
which every village is to have a church and the Bible in every home.
This "diabolic" plan is attributed to the Vatican and a
western conspiracy. That this is not a stray allegation is confirmed by
the fact that Karyakari Mandal (National Executive) of the RSS, which
met in Nagpur between December 9 to 12 last year, adopted a resolution
against conversions in which it is stated that "evangelisation by
2000 and beyond is a project that has been meticulously and jointly
operated all over the world, particularly in Bharat."
It is
ostensibly to counter this Christian conspiracy to implement a mass
conversion plan that the RSS has geared up all its organisations to
counter the Church. The seriousness with which the RSS has taken this
threat is also seen by the fact that in the five-day Chintan Baithak,
organised by the RSS last December, one of its ideologues, P
Parameswaran, spoke about the challenges that they were likely to face
in the coming years. He "warned the country to face the challenge
of evangelisation by 2000, when the Vatican plans to increase the church
activities manifold."
AREAS OF
ATTACK
The war
on Christianity which has been stepped up by the RSS after the Vajpayee
government came to power is concentrated in the Adivasi areas as the RSS
itself recognises that the Church is most active among the Adivasis and
the poorer sections.
The
columns of the Organiser have also concentrated attacks on the Christian
educational institutions. They are called "sheep in wolf's
clothing" and accused of being centres for converting Hindu
students to Christianity. One of the articles says: "Their
educational institutions admittedly provide good education but they, as
is often reiterated, also generated a feeling that subtle methods were
employed by them at indoctrination of tender minds towards the Christian
faith." (Organiser, January 10, 1999).
Another
novel argument produced by the author of the article is that the convent
education of the Christians has resulted in replacing ignorant
non-believers by well educated and aggressive non-believers. "These
non-believers may well have caused the current turmoil" referring
to the recent attacks on the Christian community.
The
Organiser has added one more pet target for attack, apart from its usual
vilification of Mother Teresa. Dr Amartya Sen who is satirically
described as a "permanent resident of officially Christian
Britain" cannot be forgiven for highlighting the fact that literacy
and education should be one of the priorities of the country. This, to
the RSS, sounds suspiciously as endorsement of Christian educational
activities. It is not the "lunatic fringe" in the VHP alone
which is denouncing Sen; the inspiration comes from the RSS.
The
editorial line, which conveys the official position of the RSS, is more
strident and threatening. After the rape of nuns in Jhabua, when the
Christian community organised protests all over the country, the
Organiser editorial denounced those who dared to protest as
"Lunatic Lucifers," Lucifer being the Biblical term for the
devil. The editorial dated December 13, 1998 demanded that "The
leaders of the Christian community should look inward and apologise for
the un-Christian acts perpetrated in their zeal for proselytisation,
which anyway has a not-so-hidden agenda." It goes on to warn the
Christians to keep quiet or risk being branded as anti-national: "Lucifers
are playing with fire. Their current minority madness smacks of
separatist and alienating tendencies that were behind the
partition."
FASCIST
DOUBLESPEAK
Upset by
the adverse coverage in the media, both the RSS chief Rajinder Singh and
its general secretary H.V.Seshadri issued statements published in the
Organiser. Seshadri's statement reveals the mindset and culpability of
the RSS in putting the anti-Christian plan into action. First of all he
denies that attacks on Christians have taken place. He claims that
official enquiries have shown these are "concocted and blown out of
all proportion with a view to maligning Hindu organisations." Next
he justifies the attacks and blames the Church for them: "the RSS
also wishes to emphasise that attempts at conversion of the vanavasis,
backward and other poorer sections of Hindu society by the Church...are
bound to provoke severe reaction among the Hindus" (emphasis
added). Next, in the typical RSS fashion, the attackers are depicted as
the victims. Criticising those who are influenced by Christian
propaganda, he states that "Such one-sided reaction may well
further embitter the feelings of persons who are already the victims of
aggression." Not only are the Christians the culprits provoking
"a severe reaction," those who support them are embittering
the "feelings" of "victims of aggression." The
victims here are the poor Bajrang Dal and Hindu Jagran Manch activists.
There can be no better example of fascist double-speak.
The
Organiser also provides glimpses of the communal poison that the RSS
combine is injecting against the Christian community in the field. The
hatred built up against "missionaries," nuns and priests is
provided an ideological and organisational direction by the RSS. The
December l2 issue of the Organiser carries a vituperative attack on
"Christian friars and nuns engaged in converting gullible patients
and their relatives to Christianity" in hospitals in Orissa. It
cites as evidence such goings-on in a hospital in Bhubaneshwar and
asserts this is happening elsewhere too. It is such vicious propaganda
which created the atmosphere which led to the torching of Staines and
his two sons.
SHOCKING
BRAZENNESS
The
language and the tone is comparatively restrained in the Organiser, when
compared to the crude and lying propaganda conducted in the RSS run
papers in the states. An RSS paper, the Rashtradeep, brought out from
Cuttack, in its report on the Staines murder, brazenly asserted that
Staines had brandished a revolver threateningly, which led the crowd to
attack him. There are a number of statements by VHP-Bajrang Dal
spokesmen in Orissa who have indirectly justified the Manoharpur
outrage. But none match the shocking brazenness of the BJP MP from
Balasore, Kharavela Swain who declared Graham Staines a "social
criminal" and "those who burnt him have done so with the aim
of protecting Hindu culture and Hindutva." These remarks at a press
conference at Baripada were reported in Dharitree, on a well known daily
in Orissa, on January 31. This is the same line of argument as
Seshadri's that conversions by Christians "are bound to provoke a
severe reaction."
The term
"evangelisation" which means preaching the gospel, is
deliberately distorted to depict all Christian activities as
"forcible conversions." The constitution in article 25(1)
provides the right to profess and practice and propagate religion. This
is objected to by the RSS. It wants the "right to propagate"
deleted just as it is opposed to article 30(1) which guarantees the
rights of minorities to run their educational institutions.
There are
some Christian sects which resort to evangelisation aggressively. If
these activities transgress the law in any manner, such as causing
offence to the religious sentiments of others, they can be dealt with
according to the law. Similarly, there are certain Church groups,
affiliated to the CIA, who have aided and assisted secessionist groups
in the North East. Such cases are to be dealt by the concerned
authorities. CIA infiltration is not a feature unique to any Christian
related organisation. The CIA is known to infiltrate political parties,
institutions, and the media, including the RSS outfits.
HEIGHTENED
AGGRESSIVENESS
To depict
such things as a Christian conspiracy to subvert the Hindu community,
and therefore India, is a product of the communal and fascist outlook of
the RSS. In its perverted vision of nationalism, any ethnic community or
religious group which does not get assimilated into the Hindu fold is to
be treated as alien and obliterated.
There is
ample material in the RSS papers such as Organiser and Panchajanya about
the RSS role in the anti-Christian build-up. While this has always been
the approach in the RSS ideology and practical activities, what is new
is the heightened aggression and intimidatory tone in the RSS
pronouncements against the Christian community and the Church. This has
come about after the BJP came to power at the centre. There is a visible
ring of authority, and the demand that the media conform to its diktat
stems from the fact that the RSS perceives itself as exercising the
levers of power. After all it now operates from the PMO, the home
ministry and the information and broadcasting ministry.
A reading
of the RSS papers and documents clearly shows that it is instrumental in
the anti-Christian campaign. Utilising the BJP being in the central
government, the RSS wants two things done. Firstly, the RSS wants to
check and eliminate Church activities in the Adivasi areas. It has been
its long standing complaint that Church activities are going unchecked
among the Adivasis. It was to counter it that the RSS set up the
Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram. But now having the central government at its
command, the RSS decided to embark on coercive tactics to achieve its
aims. Secondly, the RSS wishes to desperately penetrate the North
Eastern region, particularly the Christian majority areas. Here too,
official backing for its aggressive efforts is seen as essential to
achieve its aims.
While
undertaking this plan, the RSS is aware that it can go about this only
step by step. The compulsions of the Vajpayee government dependent on
allies for a majority calls for a degree of restraint. Gujarat is an
exception, since the BJP is well entrenched in government and the RSS
network is powerful in the state. Here the wholesale intimidation and
terror tactics can be freely used with active complicity of the state
administration. The way a small and defenceless minority is being
systematically suppressed in Gujarat is a warning of what is in store if
the Hindutva forces gain ground in the rest of the country.
(Source: People’s Democracy,
February 28, 1999)