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November      Last updated: Nov 20,  5:00 p.m.

The Moving Fingers

SOCIAL TURMOIL : NEED TO ASK WHY?

M.V. Kamat

FOR over a decade if not more now, a sandalwood smuggler and murderer, Veerappan, has been functioning without being caught in the forests of Karnataka and adjacent Tamil Nadu. He has even had the cheek to give a filmed interview to a Chennai journalist. The police of two States have been after him and yet he remains free. Shouldn't we ask ourselves how come the minions of law and order can't nab him in all these years?

In Orissa, in the district of Keonjhar, a murderer called Dara Singh has been moving around freely in the villages and among the tribals apparently without the least fear of being betrayed to the police. For all one knows, the police, too, may be hand-in-glove with the tribals to protect Dara Singh. Shouldn't we ask why this is possible? Instead, our secularists have remained content to blame the Bajrang Dal, the RSS, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the BJP and finally the BJP-led Government in the Centre hinting that they are all involved in protecting Dara Singh . Orissa, it is necessary to point out here, is governed by the Congress party. Law and order are, under the rules of the Constitution, State subjects. The Centre cannot intervene unless there are conditions of civil war in the State. If, then, the Orissa Government cannot apprehend Dara Singh it either means that the whole Government is corrupt or has no intention of arresting Dara Singh, the most wanted man in the State. It could also mean that the people of Keonjhar, not to speak of the entire State are in sympathy with the murderer. If this is true, Dara Singh represents a point of view in his persona and the thinking of an entire society.

Now two missionaries (one, Graham Staines with his two young sons) have been murdered in recent times not because they were Christians per se but because they were reportedly attempting to convert people to Christianity. The Indian Constitution permits the practice and propagation of faith, but in the same breath it says that this is subject to law and order. This means, in effect, that conversion attempts are permissible with the consent of the people. What if the people--howsoever minuscule in number--protest against conversion and create a law and order problem? Don't people have the right to protest? Is that prohibited under the Constitution?

For over a thousand years India's Hindu population remained weak and open to Islamic and Christian marauders. When Islam was in power there were large-scale conversions of Hindus. The blame, surprisingly, is laid on the Hindus themselves for being so caste-ridden. Admitting that it is caste-ridden, does that confer a holy right on an outside agency to break up an existing culture? Have Hindus run rampant in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, Spain, Italy and other non-Hindu countries to force an alien religion on the people there through violence?

The point is made that anti-Christian violence has flared up only after the BJP-led Government came into power in Delhi. The implication is that it is the BJP that is primarily responsible for the anti-missionary violence in recent times. The presumption is that conversion should be considered a rightful activity and permitted without hindrance. This is an astounding stand to take.

What is not realised by our liberals is that there is a strong subterranean sentiment among many Hindus against conversions. That sentiment is now erupting. It would have erupted at some point in time whether or not there was a BJP-led Government in Delhi. Such strong feelings cannot be suppressed for ever. Granted that the existence of a BJP-led Government has given an impetus to the anti-conversion forces,shouldn't that be all the more reason why there should be an open debate on the subject--if not a referendum? Let the country speak.

If Orissa has a Congress-led Government, what about Bihar? There it has a Government led by Laloo Prasad Yadav, with whom the Congress has an understanding. Bihar is a lawless State and the Government's writ plainly does not run anywhere, not even in the State capital Patna. It is here in the poorest, most illiterate States of India that Christian missionaries have pitched their tents. The missionary aim, apparently, is to hit Hnduism at its weakest and most susceptible. Should this be permitted? An editorial in a national paper says that the Chapra incident (where a nun was allegedly stripped and made to drink urine) "is clearly a part of the larger game aimed at altering the pluralist basis of Indian society". That is a most illiterate remark to make. Parsis, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs make our pluralist society and there has never been an attack on them because they don't go in for secret conversions. Even Muslims are chary of conversions either because they don't have enough funds or have a healthy respect for Hindus. Only Christians apparently think tribals and other weaker sections of society are fair game. This is increasingly being resented and if Christians do not realise that, they realise nothing.

Let us admit, for the sake of argument, that anti-missionary elements in Hindu society have been, as one national newspaper wrote, "emboldened only in the past few months particularly after the BJP-led coalition came to power at the Centre". Is it presumed that if there were a Congress or Leftist Government in the Centre, there would have been no anti-missionary activities and no violence against priests and nuns? If that is the contention, then our secularists are sadly out of touch with reality. Under a non-BJP Government, matters would probably have taken a more serious turn and there would have been more and uncontrollable violence in the country because of frustration. The truth is that evangelism is now a thing of the past. "My god is better than your god, my religion better than your religion" is reflective of a state of mind that is medieval and should have no place in contemporary life.

In a civilised society there can be no place for conversions. Pluralism means each unit in a plural society respects the feelings, faith and sentiments of the rest. If that faith is not kept, tensions arise that in turn lead to violence. Conversions have to be banned as a matter of principle. Provoking one section of society on the ground of the right to convert is inbuilt in our Constitution and then refusing to face the wrath of the offended shows a lack of respect not only to one's co-citizens but to the Constitution as well, a point that cannot be stressed too much. Laxman rekhas are meant to be respected, not trampled upon. Traditional Hindu tolerance should not be mistaken for license. The country has had enough of destabilisation movements for it to take kindly to present-day evangelists.