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 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
47 comments
Read more

Break Your Barriers

  Guest Post Break Your Barriers : 10 Strategic Career Essentials to Grow in Value by Anu Sunil  A Review by Jose D. Maliekal SDB Anu Sunil’s Break Your Barriers is a refreshing guide for anyone seeking growth in life and work. It blends career strategy, personal philosophy, and practical management insights into a resource that speaks to educators, HR professionals, and leaders across both faith-based and secular settings. Having spent nearly four decades teaching philosophy and shaping human resources in Catholic seminaries, I found the book deeply enriching. Its central message is clear: most limitations are self-imposed, and imagination is the key to breaking through them. As the author reminds us, “The only limit to your success is your imagination.” The book’s strength lies in its transdisciplinary approach. It treats careers not just as jobs but as vocations, rooted in the dignity of labour and human development. Themes such as empathy, self-mastery, ethical le...
3 comments
Read more

Rushing for Blessings

Pilgrims at Sabarimala Millions of devotees are praying in India’s temples every day. The rush increases year after year and becomes stampedes occasionally. Something similar is happening in the religious places of other faiths too: Christianity and Islam, particularly. It appears that Indians are becoming more and more religious or spiritual. Are they really? If all this religious faith is genuine, why do crimes keep increasing at an incredible rate? Why do people hate each other more and more? Isn’t something wrong seriously? This is the pilgrimage season in Kerala’s Sabarimala temple. Pilgrims are forced to leave the temple without getting a darshan (spiritual view) of the deity due to the rush. Kerala High Court has capped the permitted number of pilgrims there at 75,000 a day. Looking at the serpentine queues of devotees in scanty clothing under the hot sun of Kerala, one would think that India is becoming a land of ascetics and renouncers. If religion were a vaccine agains...
8 comments
Read more

Indian Knowledge Systems

Shashi Tharoor wrote a massive book back in 2018 to explore the paradoxes that constitute the man called Narendra Modi. Paradoxes dominate present Indian politics. One of them is what’s called the Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS). What constitute the paradox here are two parallel realities: one genuinely valuable, and the other deeply regressive. The contributions of Aryabhata and Brahmagupta to mathematics, Panini to linguistics, Vedanta to philosophy, and Ayurveda to medicine are genuine traditions that may deserve due attention. But there’s a hijacked version of IKS which is a hilariously, if not villainously, political project. Much of what is now packaged as IKS in government documents, school curricula, and propaganda includes mythological claims treated as historical facts, pseudoscience (e.g., Ravana’s Pushpaka Vimana as a real aircraft or Ganesha’s trunk as a product of plastic surgery), astrology replacing astronomy, ritualism replacing reasoning, attempts to invent the r...
10 comments
Read more

Ghost with a Cat

It was about midnight when Kuriako stopped his car near the roadside eatery known as thattukada in Kerala. He still had another 27 kilometres to go, according to Google Map. Since Google Map had taken him to nowhere lands many a time, Kuriako didn’t commit himself much to that technology. He would rather rely on wayside shopkeepers. Moreover, he needed a cup of lemon tea. ‘How far is Anakkad from here?’ Kuriako asked the tea-vendor. Anakkad is where his friend Varghese lived. The two friends would be meeting after many years now. Both had taken voluntary retirement five years ago from their tedious and rather absurd clerical jobs in a government industry and hadn’t met each other ever since. Varghese abandoned all connection with human civilisation, which he viewed as savagery of the most brutal sort, and went to live in a forest with only the hill tribe people in the neighbourhood. The tribal folk didn’t bother him at all; they had their own occupations. Varghese bought a plot ...
8 comments
Read more