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

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
17 comments
Read more

Ram, Anandhi, and Co

Book Review Title: Ram C/o Anandhi Author: Akhil P Dharmajan Translator: Haritha C K Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2025 Pages: 303 T he author tells us in his prefatory note that “this (is) a cinematic novel.” Don’t read it as literary work but imagine it as a movie. That is exactly how this novel feels like: an action-packed thriller. The story revolves around Ram, a young man who lands in Chennai for joining a diploma course in film making, and Anandhi, receptionist of Ram’s college. Then there are their friends: Vetri and his half-sister Reshma, and Malli who is a transgender. An old woman, who is called Paatti (grandmother) by everyone and is the owner of the house where three of the characters live, has an enviably thrilling role in the plot.   In one of the first chapters, Ram and Anandhi lock horns over a trifle. That leads to some farcical action which agitates Paatti’s bees which in turn fly around stinging everyone. Malli, the aruvani (transgender), s...
8 comments
Read more

The Blind Lady’s Descendants

Book Review Title: The Blind Lady’s Descendants Author: Anees Salim Publisher: Penguin India 2015 Pages: 301 Price: Rs 399 A metaphorical blindness is part of most people’s lives.  We fail to see many things and hence live partial lives.  We make our lives as well as those of others miserable with our blindness.  Anees Salim’s novel which won the Raymond & Crossword award for fiction in 2014 explores the role played by blindness in the lives of a few individuals most of whom belong to the family of Hamsa and Asma.  The couple are not on talking terms for “eighteen years,” according to the mother.  When Amar, the youngest son and narrator of the novel, points out that he is only sixteen, Asma reduces it to fifteen and then to ten years when Amar refers to the child that was born a few years after him though it did not survive.  Dark humour spills out of every page of the book.  For example: How reckless Akmal was! ...
5 comments
Read more

The Venerable Zero

Ancient India was a powerhouse of new concepts in mathematics and astronomy, asserts William Dalrymple’s new book, The Golden Road . India stood out most dramatically in scientific rather than spiritual ideas. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, wrote in his classic Discovery of India : “It is remarkable that the Indians, though apparently detached from life, were yet intensely curious about it, and this curiosity led them to science.” Why does the present prime minister of the country choose to highlight the religious contributions? Well, you know the answer. While reading Dalrymple yesterday, I was reminded of a math prof I had for my graduation course. Baby was his first name and I can’t recall the surname. ‘Baby’ was a common name for men in Kerala of the mid-twentieth century. The present General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is a 71-year-old Baby from Kerala. Our Prof Baby was a middle-aged man who knew a lot more than mathematics. One day ...
12 comments
Read more