Skip to main content

One nation, one religion, one language

Source: Here

 A weekly Christian newspaper reaches my home every Sunday. It's not free, of course. I conceded to the request of an acquaintance and paid the annual subscription. The paper usually goes directly to the newspaper stack unread. Today as I was about to shelve it, a report caught my eyes. 

 The front page report was about a Catholic priest who was arrested in Jharkhand on charges of forced conversions and encroachment of tribal lands. The report also mentions the earlier arrest of a Missionaries of Charity [Mother Teresa's congregation] nun for allegedly selling the child of a young unwed mother. Arrests of Christian missionaries on fabricated charges are becoming a routine affair in many North Indian states, adds the report. 

 Religion doesn't interest me at all and I usually don't care about such affairs. I don't think converting anyone from his/her religion is necessary in order to do charitable services. However, if anyone wishes to adopt another religion, he should have the liberty to do so. Who else but the individual concerned has the right to decide which god he will worship? What has the government or judiciary got to do with that?

 I don't accept the argument that the Christian missionaries are involved in rampant conversions. If it were so, why doesn't the Christian population in the country increase? The percentage of Christians in India was 2.3 in the 1951 census, and it was again the same figure of 2.3 in 2011 census. 

 Someone once told me that many of the converts are "crypto-Christians" [they don't declare their religion openly]. Given the duplicity that is inherent in the Indian DNA, this may not be a far-fetched claim. If the claim is true, what it means is that such people accept a different religion just for the material benefits it brings them. The religion matters little to them; what really matter are the material benefits. Then the solution to the problem is quite simple: give them the material benefits through government policies and projects. Enable them to live dignified lives and they won't change their religions. Why don't the governments do that? 

 The governments seem to be more interested in oppressing certain people, instead. Look at Modi's Kashmir and Yogi's UP, for example. 80,000 troops of soldiers have been keeping the people of Kashmir under virtual lockup from 1 August. The roads are blocked, telephones are dead, shops remain closed, and newspapers have shut down. "The state has gone back by 30 years," as a resident told a reporter of the Caravan magazine. 

 The Frontline quotes Akhilesh Yadav that "no section of the population (in Yogi's UP) is safe from the marauding Sangh Parivar-driven vandals." Fear is the dominant emotion in the state. Anyone can be lynched with impunity, any woman can be raped and/or killed, anything can happen to anyone. 

 That fear is permeating out of the state into other parts of the country. The arrests of missionaries are just the tip of the iceberg. Anyone can be labelled antinational or something like that and be arrested today. 

 The greatest tragedy probably is that the majority of Indians seem to love all these. That is the biggest achievement of Modi. He has the support of the majority for perverting the national psyche. India is not one nation any more. The steamroller is moving on, however, and the ever-rising number of arrests is part of the game of One nation, one religion, one language. 

 I am taking my blog to the next level with Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa

Click here to download my book 'God's Love Song' - absolutely free just for a day. [Offer closes at 12 noon 23 Sep IST]

Comments

  1. JeniferSeptember 23, 2019 at 8:05 PM

    Totally agree with you.
    But am afraid Modi bhakts would misunderstand you and may b backlash you.

    www.shaandaarjenie.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 23, 2019 at 8:43 PM

      The bhakts generally don't understand much of what i write and hence leave me alone.

      Delete
  2. Cook with sweetannuSeptember 24, 2019 at 12:19 PM

    I really don't like to make any political comments but glad you express your views on how you feel.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Swiddle D'CunhaSeptember 24, 2019 at 5:00 PM

    I agree to your view. This accusation on the Christian community is age old.Its easy to accuse others but do they have the guts or the will to do what the missionaries are doing?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 24, 2019 at 9:02 PM

      That's a valid question. I have witnessed what the Missionaries of Charity do for the lowest sections of people. No organisation will ever be willing to do that sort of service.

      Delete
  4. PragnyaSeptember 24, 2019 at 5:44 PM

    Reading this article I can't bring myself to comment to one side. It is a grey area. The works of missionaries are questioned for long. Specially around the Bihar-Jharkhand-Odisha belt.

    Moving to one nation,one religion,one language talk, India is a diverse nation. How can we eliminate our diversity and merge all based on political agenda? No sane Indian would go by the slogan.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 24, 2019 at 9:09 PM

      In a forthcoming book, “The RSS Roadmap for the 21st Century”, to be released by none less than Mohan Bhagwat, the author states that the final goal of RSS is to create a Hindu Rashtra with little space for non-Hindus. Though a few "sane" people like you argue that it would be neither feasible nor desirable, the majority of Hindus in India seem to be waiting just for that.

      Delete
  5. GhazalaSeptember 24, 2019 at 7:25 PM

    It's sad that now such things are happening and we are silent and help less.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 24, 2019 at 9:10 PM

      Silent and helpless. Yes. Those who have families to care for won't dare to question the dominant forces. If you question, you're likely to end up in jail if not in your grave. That's the real India today.

      Delete
  6. URUSeptember 25, 2019 at 12:10 AM

    When it comes to converting people to give some benefits in someone's name I am not sure I understand it. .. it's charity if you want to do it just do it why conversion or even bother telling i am doing and showing it to others. That's hypocrisy. | #Damurureads #myfriendalexa

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sindhu Vinod NarayanSeptember 25, 2019 at 12:12 PM

    Being in a secular country people have their freedom to follow the rleuguon they wish to and that shouldn't be forced.#myfriendalexa #tmmreads

    ReplyDelete
  8. simi gnSeptember 25, 2019 at 6:35 PM

    so well written up it was great reading ...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Debidutta MohantySeptember 26, 2019 at 5:10 PM

    I was able to relate with every word. I have several Christian friends and a product of missionary school. People mix politics and religion to extract their own benefits. I am glad you had the courage to narrate it the way it is.

    ReplyDelete
  10. UnknownSeptember 26, 2019 at 7:02 PM

    I think if one has to do charity we must not ask the religion. Charity should be done to upliftment of those who are in need.

    ReplyDelete
  11. suhavijaySeptember 26, 2019 at 8:15 PM

    Totally agree with you. Charity shouldn't be dependant on religion

    ReplyDelete
  12. AmritKaur_AmySeptember 28, 2019 at 7:04 PM

    I can here agree with you as I don't see every religion secured in One Nation India.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

  Image from here Fiction Jaichander Varma could not sleep. It was past midnight and the world outside Jaichander Varma’s room was fairly quiet because he lived sufficiently far away from the city. Though that entailed a tedious journey to his work and back, Mr Varma was happy with his residence because it afforded him the luxury of peaceful and pure air. The city is good, no doubt. Especially after Mr Modi became the Prime Minister, the city was the best place with so much vikas. ‘Where’s vikas?’ Someone asked Mr Varma once. Mr Varma was offended. ‘You’re a bloody antinational mussalman who should be living in Pakistan ya kabristan,’ Mr Varma told him bluntly. Mr Varma was a proud Indian which means he was a Hindu Brahmin. He believed that all others – that is, non-Brahmins – should go to their respective countries of belonging. All Muslims should go to Pakistan and Christians to Rome (or is it Italy? Whatever. Get out of Bharat Mata, that’s all.) The lower caste Hindus co...
121 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Romance in Utopia

Book Review Title: My Haven Author: Ruchi Chandra Verma Pages: 161 T his little novel is a surfeit of sugar and honey. All the characters that matter are young employees of an IT firm in Bengaluru. One of them, Pihu, 23 years and all too sweet and soft, falls in love with her senior colleague, Aditya. The love is sweetly reciprocated too. The colleagues are all happy, furthermore. No jealousy, no rivalry, nothing that disturbs the utopian equilibrium that the author has created in the novel. What would love be like in a utopia? First of all, there would be no fear or insecurity. No fear of betrayal, jealousy, heartbreak… Emotional security is an essential part of any utopia. There would be complete trust between partners, without the need for games or power struggles. Every relationship would be built on deep understanding, where partners complement each other perfectly. Miscommunication and misunderstanding would be rare or non-existent, as people would have heightened emo...
9 comments
Read more

Tanishq and the Patriots

Patriots are a queer lot. You don’t know what all things can make them pick up the gun. Only one thing is certain apparently: the gun for anything. When the neighbouring country behaves like a hoard of bandicoots digging into our national borders, we will naturally take up the gun. But nowadays we choose to redraw certain lines on the map and then proclaim that not an inch of land has been lost. On the other hand, when a jewellery company brings out an ad promoting harmony between the majority and the minority populations, our patriots take up the gun. And shoot down the ad. Those who promote communal harmony are traitors in India today. The sacred duty of the genuine Indian patriot is to hate certain communities, rape their women, plunder their land, deny them education and other fundamental rights and basic requirements. Tanishq withdrew the ad that sought to promote communal harmony. The patriot’s gun won. Aapka Bharat Mahan. In the novel Black Hole which I’m writing there is...
61 comments
Read more

A Lesson from Little Prince

I joined the #WriteAPageADay challenge of Blogchatter , as I mentioned earlier in another post. I haven’t succeeded in writing a page every day, though. But as long as you manage to write a minimum of 10,000 words in the month of Feb, Blogchatter is contented. I woke up this morning feeling rather vacant in the head, which happens sometimes. Whenever that happens to me but I do want to get on with what I should, I fall back on a book that has inspired me. One such book is Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince . I have wished time and again to meet Little Prince in person as the narrator of his story did. We might have interesting conversations like the ones that exist in the novel. If a sheep eats shrubs, will he also eat flowers? That is one of the questions raised by Little Prince [LP]. “A sheep eats whatever he meets,” the narrator answers. “Even flowers that have thorns?” LP is interested in the rose he has on his tiny planet. When he is told that the sheep will eat f...
8 comments
Read more