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You seem to implicitly say that missionaries provide long term service
to tribals. Then why is it that most of the converted tribals are still
poor suffering from diseases and lack of education. Their is nothing
wrong in protesting against something that is wrong. The bigger issue is
not getting them converted back but why should there be conversions in
the first place when they are not able to live up to the promises made
during conversion.
>
> In the article, it was made clear that the missionaries were also
> getting the tribals to give up their bad habits, like tobacco.
No where in the article was it mentioned that missionaries were working
against bad habits of tribals. For your benefit, I am posting the
complete article below so that you can read it and verify it for
yourself. Also, for you info, tribal areas of MP and Jharkhand, which
are one of the major concentration areas of missionaries, are one of the
biggest beedi manufacturers and consumers in India. Beedi, I presume you
know, is full of tobacco.
> Read the article again - these tribals had absolutely no help from the
> right-wing Hindus, and all it took to gain their favor was _aspirin_.
Please read my response once again. I was not referring to a particular
group of tribals but tribals in general.
>
> I also have a hard time believing that the right-wingers do all their
> social service totally free from any advertising, etc. The
> missionaries aren't saying "convert and we'll give you aspirin" -
> they're saying "have this aspirin, and hey, are you interested in our
> religion".
Your first sentence is beyond the point as nowhere were we discussing
whether advertising should be there or not. So, I won't go into its
merits and demerits.
With regards to second statement, you might be true in some cases. But
in most cases, yes, they are saying "convert and we'll give you
aspirin".
> It's not a precondition as much as it is regular marketing. I have no
> doubt that the right-wing groups in India also engage in such
> marketing.
>
A few more irrelevant statements.
>
> Oh, I've seen some of the organizations operating among the NRIs here,
> and they definitely have a fair bit of resources. However, you're
> right - they don't have the resources to take care of the poor. Their
> resources, instead, go into promoting political movements in India.
>
If you happen to read the newspapers regularly, you must have read by
now that it is not the right wingers (in your terms) but the congress
that has been implicated in accepting unauthorized payments from NRI's
for political movements. Any such charge against right wingers is
uncalled for because surely, the hostile governments at centre would not
have let any such opportunity pass by to implicate and degrade them.
Most of the NRI organisations are genuine and money collected by them
(please read carefully, I am saying 'most' and not 'all') goes in
funding educational institutions, vanvasi kalyan aashrams, Chitrakoot
University etc.
>
> Surely if everyone were convinced that these people were as honest and
> selfless as they claim to be, everyone would automatically vote for
> them, right? So why even bother with the political machinery when the
> social service machinery should automatically catapult the leaders
> into the realm of sainthood?
>
After having lived in India for so many years (I presume you have lived
in India for sometime), surely you should have realized by now that
social service is least important of all factors in electoral politics.
More important are the factors of liquor, caste, creed, en block voting
by Muslims etc. etc.
> Let me give a local example - in Houston, there were three events in
> the past year that I found interesting, and all three were organized
> by roughly the same people. One was a canned food drive for the local
> food bank. The second was an organized protest against an obscure
> Muslim radio show that once had on an obnoxious guest. The third was a
> city-wide Janmastami program. Would you care to guess the resource
> allocation among the three events? OK, I'll make it easy - would you
> care to guess which of the three events received the least attention?
>
You cannot generalize an issue by picking out isolated examples that
suppport your claim.
>
> I won't mention Napoleon and Hitler, then.
>
It is stupid to presume that Napolen and Hitler were guided by religious
issues or issues that affected German community. And it is even more
stupid to group them together.
Jingoism and racial hatred towards Jews were the guiding principles of
Hitler.
Napoleon was a nationalist and is still admired as one of the greatest
European military generals in his era.
>
> Silly me - I guess I forgot how France and Quebec, with such a strong
^^^^^^^^
Thank god, you had a stroke of self realization! :-)
> emphasis on their cultures (sustained by threat of law) have continued
> to be world leaders. Likewise, I guess I forgot how Iraq, with its
> strong religious backing, has been a shining example how of right-wing
> "religious" support can uplift a country's citizens.
Once again a demonstration of ignorance. France is one of the most
powerful countries of the world, has a permanent place in security
council and has a big say in world politics. It is absolutely wrong to
say that French culture is sustained by threat of law. Having many
French friends and having been to France twice, I can say that French
take extreme pride in their culture. Not without any reason, learning
French is considered trendy among elite.
Again, with the exception of Jordan, Iraq is the most secular of all the
Arab countries. Religion was evoked during the war but it was a tactical
move by Iraq leadership to seek the support of the Islamic nations.
Dictatorship, sustained by a strong army is the reason for the hardship
of its citizens.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
In article <ghenED1HC1.C6o@netcom.com>, Anand Singh <singha@cray.com>
wrote:
>The sarcastic tone of Vivek's letter indicates his lack of understanding
>about the larger issue of Muslim muscle flexing. They always get what
>because politicians succumb to the pressure of vote bank politics.
The sarcastic tone of my letter indicates my lack of respect for
people who carp about minor issues when there are so many major ones
wide open. A few weeks ago, there was an article about how the "evil"
Christian missionaries were converting Gujarati tribals.
In the article, it showed that in many cases, the tribals were being
converted because the Christians were providing _basic_ medical care
for them. So, the right-wing Hindus were up in arms, but over the
years, nobody had apparently given a damn about the plight of these
tribals until the Christians showed up. Isn't it a sad testament that
nobody had bothered to give these people a single aspirin until the
missionaries did? Worse yet, all the right-wing Hindus wanted was to
stop the spread of Christianity, rather than actually helping the
tribals.
It's more than just a little hypocritical that the right-wing Hindus
are championing social service while getting offended when someone
else happens to do it better than they do. I don't necessarily agree
with the actions of the Christian missionaries, but when the Hindus
get upset that tribals are being converted by giving them aspirin, the
question in my mind is "so what prevented you from helping them all
these years?"
>But at the same time, one should try to unite ourselves so that we can
>effectively counter these threats by lobbying against them. There
>strength lies in their unity and our weekness lies in the fragmentation
>within our community.
As long as our community focuses on shows of strength rather than on
any meaningful changes, there won't be any foundation on which to
build real strength. In India, it seems that it's more important to
fight with Muslims to reclaim old temples than it is to actually do
anything about the temples that currently exist. With that sort of
attitude, someone might succeed at building an empire, but it will be
a hollow one for sure.
I could give personal examples of how I've seen these same attitudes
present politically-oriented Hindu groups in the United States, but
that would be a different topic.
-Vivek
--
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