Forcing The Issue
SUGATA SRINIVASARAJU
In Karnataka, the Sangh's busy drumming up evidence
A month after the attacks on Christian prayer halls and churches in Karnataka, an uneasy quiet prevails at the epicentre, Mangalore. The Sangh parivar, with tacit support from the government, now seems to be concentrating its energies on proving that forced conversions are indeed taking place, say members of the New Life evangelical order and human rights activists.
This "drumming up of records and legitimising a lie", rights activists G. Rajashekar and K. Phaniraj indicate, became obvious when members of the Sangh parivar made organised presentations before a non-government fact-finding committee headed by retired police officer Y.R. Patil. Although home minister V.S. Acharya had during the attacks told Outlook that the police had registered no cases of forced conversions in Mangalore in the last few years, Sangh activists "suddenly" produced copies of FIRs. "It looks like an orchestrated effort to bring in an Anti-Conversion Bill," says Rajashekar.
"It was astonishing that a non-government panel was holding its sittings in the circuit houses and the deliberations were dominated by Sangh parivar men. Some Christian priests who participated in these sittings in Mangalore were shouted down," says Phaniraj. "We would like to know who booked these circuit houses. We also wonder how a non-government committee can advertise asking people to depose before it."
George Verghese, a prominent member of the New Life order in Udupi, maintains his evangelical order has never been into forced conversions. "When we meet people in a sinful or a difficult environment," he says, "we only share our personal testimony with them. We don't distribute pamphlets. We don't preach against any religion. People who come into New Life don't change their religion, only their heart. We don't offer any inducements. There are nearly 25 pentecostal churches in the region; if money is being offered, then people would have moved from one church to another collecting money."
In fact, pentecostal churches in the region not only face violence from fundamentalist Hindus but are treated indifferently even by the mainstream Catholic churches. "The attacks on pentecostal prayer halls have been happening since 1997 (Surathkal) but the Catholics haven't reacted," says Phaniraj. They seem to be condemned to eternal damnation.
Source: Outlook India
Date: October 27, 2008 |
