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'When (and why) did Christians replace Muslims as the pet-hate of the saffron brotherhood?'

A little over a month ago, delegates of 19 countries met in the United Nations on a subject not on the agenda: "slavery". Not medieval slavery but modern slavery. The country in question, Sudan, where a mere 50 dollars (Rs 2,250) buys a living human body, who is then subjected to "murderous labour, rape, hunger, torture and totality of degradation".

"Sudan's slaves come from the south of their country. They are trapped in the three-decade-long civil war between the Muslim north and the largely Christian south. Khartoum sends armed raider-trains southwards, to take and sell slaves, and grab food sent to war victims by international organisations." (The New York Times, September 3, 1999)

Meanwhile: • TDP and INLD slam diesel price hike; TDP calls opposition to Pope's visit "unwarranted"; MDMK, Lok Shakti, Trinamul say ditto. Is this the first sign of trouble for NDA? • Congress says Rajiv Gandhi's name should be removed from the Bofors chargesheet because he's dead and can't defend himself. For a party which was voted to power in 1984 over the bodies of 3,000 Sikhs isn't such deference to the dead out of place? • When Sushma Swaraj says that the Bofors investigations will be taken to their logical end, does she also include an NRI family close to the Prime Minister? • Does Industry minister Murasoli Maran's pathological hatred for Suzuki have anything to do with the fact that Hyundai and Ford are both based in Tamil Nadu? • Even while the selectors ignore him, Mohammed Azharuddin is landing endorsements and contracts. Do sponsors know more about Indian cricket than our cricket-writers?

The UN committee met to discuss penalties--not against Sudan for buying and selling human beings like meat, but against Christian Solidarity International (CSI), a foreign organisation trying to prevent it. One of the 19 nations had complained that CSI had sponsored a Sudanese rebel to speak at a committee session in Geneva. The country was Sudan.

CSI apologised but the vote went 18-1 against it. It was stripped of its credentials as an NGO. Only the United States opposed, what NYT columnist Abe Rosenthal called, "permitting a slave-taking nation to stifle an organisation that struggles for slave-freeing." Among the countries which backed Sudan were Cuba, China, Lebanon, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal, Algeria.

And INDIA.

It takes little nuggets of news like this one, unreported by our "patriotic" diplomatic correspondents, to truly understand how the visceral hatred against Christians, Christian organisations and Christian missionaries that has suddenly gripped our political masters, is assuming pandemic proportions. And how this great nation is being ravaged by the hate-mongrels.

With a thriving "slave industry" of our own--bonded child workers in the jewel, carpet, bangle, textile, granite, firecracker and sex industries--India, you would think, would back a body trying to free the enslaved. But the saffron-tainted efforts to paint Christians as "Public Enemy No 1" back home appear to have also discoloured our collective world-vision.

Supplementary, my dear Watson: When (and why) did Christians replace Muslims as the pet-hate of the saffron brotherhoodlums?

From the demolition of the Babri masjid in Ayodhya to the blood-curdling murder of Graham Staines and his two sleeping children in Orissa, from the pogrom in Bombay to the torching of "churches" in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh--it's one long, sad story of Misplaced Majority Machismo, saffron and otherwise. And the vote against CSI merely underlines our score: 0-5.

In the eyes of the world, "secular" India today perhaps seems only slightly different from Islamic Pakistan--in its abrasive and aggressive intolerance of other religions--and that's a real bad state to be in for the land of Gandhi, Buddha and Teresa. And in opposing the Pope's visit the way we have, we've gone and killed another guiding light of our philosophy: 'Athithi Devo Bhava' (the guest is god).

To start with, look at how we talk about our guests: The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) general secretary Ashok Singhal says "nobody is happy with the Pope's visit except a few Catholics and maybe Sonia Gandhi". VHP national committee member Mohan Joshi calls the Pope a "big dictator". The Pope is coming here on a religious visit; he should not be given a "state welcome", pipes in another, because the Shankaracharyas and Pramukhswamis are not given a state welcome on their visits abroad.

Then, look at what we expect from our guests: The Pope, says the VHP, should come here as a "Head of State" and not as a head of a religion; and that he should declare Christianity is not the only way to salvation. The Pope, they say, should also say sorry for the inquisition during Portuguese rule in Goa 400 years ago, apologise for conversions by missionaries, and promise that the missionaries will not try and convert any more people.

Calling the leader of the Catholic world a "big dictator" may earn the sangh parivar and its political patrons a few cheap whistles from its core audience. But the objections to the Pope's visit are so frivolous that they are laughable:

a. Our swamijis have to "earn" the right to be accorded a "state welcome", like the Pope, not threaten their way to it.
b. The Pope is the head of a city-state which is also the capital of Catholicism. How can you cut off one portion from the other?
c. Hinduism preaches that all religions are equal and lead to the same God. How does it matter if people chose a different vehicle?
d. Organisations like ISKCON preach Hinduism abroad. Will it agree if it is told what to do like the Pope is being asked to?
e. Since when have goons taken over as the spokespersons of Hindus that they can hold this country's reputation to ransom?
f. As for the apology, shouldn't Atal Behari Vajpayee apologise for the 3,000 year oppression of dalits, so what if the Congress was in charge for 45 of those? Shouldn't upper class Hindus say sorry to lower class Hindus? Should Hindu men say sorry to Hindu women for sati?

And shouldn't we say sorry for the slavery in Sudan which we are encouraging by voting against CSI?

After the spate of hate from the BJP's blood-brothers, that champion of free speech, Union Home Minister L K Advani, says the VHP-types are entitled to their opinions. Which one/s? The one which say the Pope is a "big dictator"? And if you, suddenly, believe in freedom of speech so much, isn't the Pope -- like the VHP -- also entitled to his opinions? And aren't Hindus and others who wish to convert to Christianity entitled to theirs in the matter of choosing the religion they wish to follow?

In depriving people of the Freedom of Religion guaranteed in the Constitution is Advani guilty of breach of oath of office?

Clearly, all this name-calling will amount to very little because the Pope will come, kiss the ground upon alighting in Delhi like he does in any part of the world, complete the tasks that have been lined up for him, and return home. But the egg that is on India's face with its ceaseless attacks on Christians and Christian icons will take a long time to remove.

Identifying the right rival is a vital part of battle, and in targetting Muslims all this while, the "Hindu Nationalist Party" at least had a convergence of interest with the West as a figleaf. But Christians? Some say that the entry of Sonia Gandhi into Indian politics had something to do about it. Surely, it can't be anybody's contention that Sonia is the Pope's moll?

So why are the BJP and its allied organisations deliberately spreading terror among a small, most peaceable community? Why are they trying to stifle the extraordinary efforts being made by Christian missionaries and organisations in rural health and education by allowing/ encouraging/ patronising/ sponsoring this campaign of hatred? Unless, of course, like the Congress it is in its interests to keep people poor and unhealthy and illiterate?

The theory that they fear the "overdrive of conversions" to Christianity by the missionaries will drown Hindus is only likely to convince the Arun Shouries of the world who floated a similar theory vis-a-vis Muslims and, post-Babri masjid, has happily forgotten about it. Despite the best efforts of the missionaries, the overall Christian population, according to the 1991 census, has actually dipped vis-a-vis the 1981 one.

As Dilip D'Souza rightly points out, for Christians to overtake Hindus, there will have to be 800 conversions every day for the next 50 years (The Times of India, October 26). In Orissa, where Christians account for only 2.98 per cent of the population, there are barely 500 conversions each year. Yet, there were no less than 30 communal clashes in 10 of the state's 30 districts. (The Sunday Times of India, October 24)

And, as Archbishop Alan de Lastic put it so succintly in The Hindustan Times (October 24), the saffron brotherhood's canard of conversions is an insult to the Indian people, particularly tribals and villagers: "They are the same people to whom politicians run during elections; they are the same people who are known for their political maturity. How is it possible that people who are credited with intelligence, discrimination and discernment in choosing their leaders will be naive in opting for their religion?"

It's tempting to see a grand electoral design in most things the sangh parivar does, a design whose ultimate aim is to empower the BJP. If the Babri masjid controversy -- and the trail of death it left across the country -- polarised the Hindu-Muslim vote to the benefit of the BJP, it's likely that some wiseheads in Nagpur and Jhandewalan (or whereever the wiseheads sit) have realised that tribals can constitute a votebank and have set about encashing it.

Insecurity -- whether among Hindus or Muslims or Christians -- is the BJP's 'vishnu chakra' and after succeeding in the scaring the first two, it's got down to the third. Is it any surprise that it's done extraordinary well in the tribal belts of Orissa this time? Or in the tribal belts of Gujarat? Or Madhya Pradesh?

As political theories go, this is probably not earthshakingly prescient, but if anybody has a better explanation why a party which claims the backing of 600 or 700 or 800 million Hindus feels a threat from a community which is less than a tenth of its size, I'd like to hear it. Or does India's vote "permitting a slave-taking nation to stifle an organisation that struggles for slave-freeing" prove it all?

Any which way you look at it, though, the dangers of the exclusive sectarianism that the BJP feasts on at an individual level is becoming clearer by the day. In equating all Indian Muslims as outsiders merely because of their religion, in objecting to a prime ministerial candidate merely on grounds of her foreign origin, in opposing Christian missionaries merely because of the work they do, the party and its allied organisations are playing with fire.

How are you so sure they won't tell you who you should marry and who you should not, next?

Krishna Prasad