I’ve never been to Orissa and in general I don’t know much about eastern India outside of Bengal, so sorting out what has been happening in Orissa over the past few weeks is difficult. As I attempt to address this issue, I’m not interested in pointing fingers or arguing with religious zealots; rather, I’m interested in getting a balanced perspective on what is actually happening. (Take a deep breath. Now begin.)
Let’s start out with the New York Times, and focus on some of the basic facts. First, there has been a wave of anti-Christian violence following the vicious murder of a prominent VHP leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, and four associates. Swami Laxmanananda had been an advocate for local Hindus, and had worked against Christian missionaries and conversion in the area. Here is some of what’s followed:
Here in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped. Today it is a heap of rubble on an empty field, where cows blithely graze. (link)
There has also been violence between Christians and Hindus in five other Indian states — suggesting that what started in Orissa has the potential to turn into a communal bloodbath at the national level.
A local Bajrang Dal leader is quoted in the New York Times as saying that the violence is just a “spontaneous reaction” to the killing of a locally beloved leader, but whether or not that is so it is unclear whether Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati’s murder was motivated by Christian anti-Hindu feeling or a more generalized hostility towards organized religion associated with Maoism and Naxalism, or some mixture of the two (see this). Adding to the confusion, the Times and other news agencies have reported that local Maoists have claimed responsibility (see the Times of India), but last week three Christian tribals were arrested for the killing. According to the Indian Express, the three were in fact Maoists (as I understand it, the majority of Maoists in the area come from Christian backgrounds.).
Not that all that should matter now — the focus should obviously be on stopping any further violence from occurring, and in rectifying the wrongs that have been committed against people on both sides. The murderers of Swami Laxmanananda should go to jail, as should all those who have participated in recriminatory violence against Christians subsequently.
Another vitally important factor is the local element. This is not just a matter of Hindus vs. Christians. According to the Times, there is a pronounced local and tribal element to the polarization of the communities:
Behind the clashes are long-simmering tensions between equally impoverished groups: the Panas and Kandhas. Both original inhabitants of the land, the two groups for ages worshiped the same gods. Over the past several decades, the Panas for the most part became Christian, as Roman Catholic and Baptist missionaries arrived here more than 60 years ago, followed more recently by Pentecostals, who have proselytized more aggressively.
Meanwhile, the Kandhas, in part through the teachings of Swami Laxmanananda, embraced Hinduism. The men tied the sacred Hindu white thread around their torsos; their wives daubed their foreheads with bright red vermilion. Temples sprouted.
Hate has been fed by economic tensions as well, as the government has categorized each group differently and given them different privileges.
The Kandhas accused the Panas of cheating to obtain coveted quotas for government jobs. The Christian Panas, in turn, say their neighbors have become resentful as they have educated themselves and prospered.
Their grievances have erupted in sporadic clashes over the past 15 years, but they have exploded with a fury since the killing of Swami Laxmanananda. (link)
Knowing about the longstanding hostility between the Kandhas and the Panas in this district changes how we might think of this conflict in certain ways. For one thing, the particular configuration of the tribal relationship to “formal” religion means that it’s unfair to say that the Christian Panas are involved with a “foreign” religion, while the Hindu Kandhas have a “local” religion. In fact, both communities have changed, and tribal religious practices before the entry of formal Hinduism may not have looked much like Hinduism at all (I do not know the specifics here, but this is a common observation by anthropologists who have studied tribals; see Kancha Iliah, for starters).
Given all that, in an ideal world, the conflict would remain a local one, sorted out by local police and the courts. Unfortunately, it does not look like that is going to be the case.
Finally, the Times describes one of the most egregious incidents of recriminatory violence that has followed the murder of Swami Laxmanananda, the murder of a priest and gang rape of a nun:
Two nights after his death, a Hindu mob in the village of Nuagaon dragged a Catholic priest and a nun from their residence, tore off much of their clothing and paraded them through the streets.
The nun told the police that she had been raped by four men, a charge the police say was borne out by a medical examination. Yet no one was arrested in the case until five weeks later, after a storm of media coverage. Today, five men are under arrest in connection with inciting the riots. The police say they are trying to find the nun and bring her back here to identify her attackers.
Given a chance to explain the recent violence, Subash Chauhan, the state’s highest-ranking leader of Bajrang Dal, a Hindu radical group, described much of it as “a spontaneous reaction.â€
He said in an interview that the nun had not been raped but had had regular consensual sex. (link)
That last bit just takes the cake.
depressing–ouch, you got me! (OTOH, neither calabresi nor melamed are wasps!!) Full cite: Property Rules, Liability Rules and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral, 85 Harvard Law Review 1089 (1972)
Does anyone know what Kandha means in Oriya ?.. In Tamil, Kandha is a name of a famous Hindu God.
Mira
Why does Moornam and all the people ‘in his camp’ feel like they are being persecuted by the simple appearance of a post like this on a website? What makes the synapses fire up, the nostrils flare, the tortured wails of it all? I mean, really, why? Why the pain?
palate cleanser That was not a rhetorical question. You wanted to know how anyone could consider uncoerced conversions immoral. The answer partly depends on what you define as coercion,a factor which varies with the circumstances and characteristics of the coercee. Coercion can range from offering material temptation, influencing the uneducated,promises of faith healing, threats of social isolation, brain washing in institutions (patriotic re-education in a different context) all the way to the point of the sword. I just wanted to define the parameters of the debate.
104 · Lupus Solitarius said
i am interested in which of these you think are happening, some examples, why the “victims” shouldn’t let themselves be subjected to such coercion – say in the case of material “temptation” (don’t worry, god will get them on the day of reckoning!), and what you think the appropriate response should be in these cases.
Palate Shall write down a detailed reply tomorrow…gotta sleep.
I think the local and the specific is always a good place to start. But in doing so, some of the larger trends can be obscured by this. There is constant social violence of myriad kinds in India that relates to identities of many kinds (jati, communal (i.e. politicized religion), gender, etc.) often overlapping – and there are those who are more like bullies (nationally, locally, regionally, etc.) and those who are more disempowered. Here it’s obvious (to me anyway and it seems to others) who the perpetrators are (Hindutvaites) and who the less powerful are (Christians), but my guess is that this type of violence is escalating both for short term electoral strategies and for underlying economic factors like the food crisis, fuel price inflation, etc. I tried to cover some of this here.
Does anyone know what Kandha means in Oriya ?.. In Tamil, Kandha is a name of a famous Hindu God.
In Oriya, it is just a name as other tribes we have – Kolha, Munda, Santal. For example, the name Santal Pragana is derived from their name. As Siddharth (#100) stated, they were subjects of Gadjata Hundu Kings of Orissa. I have looked at the history books in which there was significant contact between Orissa and south during the rein of Oriya king Pratap Rudra and Vijaynagar king Krishna Deva Raya – the latter married the daughter of Pratap Rudra, who was king of Puri. So, the tribal culture of Orissa might have been in contact with the culture of Tamilnadu since early 1200.
This is VERY dicey ground to be on, no? Does the violence make me uncomfortable and feel gross in the details? Yes. But does that mean I can condemn it…yes, but only accepting at the same time what my position is as an observer. This is true for understanding other issues in South Asia as well, from corruption to “caste.”
As people raised in the U.S., we frequently can’t effectively assess what is “more” and what is “less” because under Western eyes (2 points), we frequently don’t have the familiarity to do so. But we can try, because it doesn’t mean that benchmarks don’t exist – and in fact, I think trying to find these benchmarks by turning to and engaging with an indigenous website like Kafila or an Indian magazine like Tehelka rather than the New York Times is more helpful at starting to learn.
More to the point, this all gets at the idea that we can acknowledge that power differences exist – locally, regionally, nationally, globally – that affect people in India, and this in turn effects how violence plays out. Our ignorance doesn’t mean we can’t acknowledge what we do know – that Hinduism is a majoritarian political ideology as much as it is a religion in India, just as Christianity has ties to anti-casteist movements, even if to our eyes, everyone is committing violent acts. So we can hesitatingly speak and ask people who are more in tune because of greater local knowledge but shared similar sensibilities for some help in understanding. Without them, we can’t really undersatnd any of this, imo.
I’m with you here though. Though I don’t think that we (ABDs) should be attempting to rectify anything until we have a far greater understanding of the specifics than at present. Develop local knowledge and/or leave South Asia to those who have (through life or effective study), as far as I’m concerned.
The video at http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/72529/08_2008/weekend3008_1/religions-new-converts-violent-intolerant.html also gives some additional context on the issue.
Phulbani, in the map at http://www.orissalinks.com/orissagrowth/wp-content/uploads/image/orissa-forest-map-malkangiri-phulbani-nayagarh.GIF, is the earlier name of Kandhamala district, and is also the name of the district HQ of that district.
You are probably not aware that Christianity in India is as rife with casteism as Hinduism. There were even riots between upper caste Christians and low caste Christians over the issue..
33 · JP said
JP: An effort along the lines you mention is being made. See http://www.orissalinks.com/orissagrowth/archives/1632 . You may write to me if you would like to help out further.
The hostility between the Kandhas and the Panas has an interesting history. The British, without actually witnessing a single event, alleged that the Kandhas practiced human sacrifice. In colonial narratives, the Panas acted as an intermediary between the Kandhas and low-land populations and often supplied the victims. Kandhas would buy the victims from the Panas and would proceed to look down upon them as thieves as opposed to their own guilt-free status as ‘buyers’.
Colonial intervention to stop the practice continued from 1820s till 1860s and often acquired the proportions of extremely violent protracted battles between Hindu kings and Kandha leaders on one hand and British forces on the other. Scores of Hindu and Kandha political leaders were publicly hung. Points are: first, much more was at stake than a specific ritual and second, the colonial campaign mounted to suppress the killing of human beings in the context of religious rituals, ended up killing many in the name of civilizing justice.
A consequence of the colonial intervention was increased friction between the Kandhas and the low-land populations. Late 19th and early 20th century instances of Kandha attacks on low land Hindu peasant-caste populations as well as Panas are not rare. Question is why has this historic conflict taken up a communal tone this time around ??
Also, interesting comparison to be explored between the “success” of missionaries working in India’s Northeast states (where Christianity has taken a strong hold among the ethnic populations) and Orissa.
many of the hill tribes that became xtian were the ones least touched by indian cultural influences. e.g., the nagas, mizos, etc. the british showed up and closed off some of these territories from what recall, and allowed missionaries free reign. christianity allowed these groups to have their own ethnic identity which set them apart from the peoples of the hindu lowlands, and they took it. also, look at the literacy rates in these states, and you might wonder about the material consequences of this civilizational alliance. compare literacy rate by state with % of xtians by state.
but i have had interaction with several muslims after Gujrat and the overwhelming sentiment wasn’t rejoice, but fear! Don’t generalize exceptions please.
wait, how many muslims did you interact with? why should we generalize from your interactions what the overwhelming sentiment wasn’t rejoice? anyway, frankly you just didn’t really engage with my comment, you just pretended as if i said something different from what i did. yes, i agree most muslims are not crazy enough to enjoy getting attacked by their neighbors, i didn’t say that the overwhelming sentiment was rejoice, i said some of the fundies were happy. i assume most gujarati muslims aren’t fundamentalists? most muslims were probably not happy that bush was reelected in 2004, but there are some muslims who were really happy sitting in afghanistan…..
sure, you did say just that. But in the same way, why don’t you say the holocaust made some jews happy and the action of christian evangelicals made some hindu fundamentalists happy and so on. These kind of statements de-sensitize the horrible stuff that happened in Gujrat.
111 · Ponniyin Selvan said
“aware” is hardly the word to use here. ‘caste’ is a social structure – and it pervades every south asian religious “community” that I know of – Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc. It does so to lesser or greater extents and changes over time (e.g. Kerala once had one of the most oppressive caste systems in South Asia…not anymore). But what I get from your point is useful – my comparison was absurd – we need to look at how society is actually operating to get a sense of what is happening at a local level – like Amardeep attempts above. What i should have said is that at the level of national politics, the political significance of “Hinduism” is very different from that of “Christianity”.
But yes, it’s complex, and you can find examples of almost anything you want to prove in India (maybe that’s Nehru’s legacy…you can find a quote from him for almost any case you want to make :). Again, that’s why I’m making the point that people without local knowledge of South Asia – including many ABDs, would be better off with a strong sense of humility about these issues – self-included- particularly when it comes to making strong statements about them. But it’s difficult, because we know there’s a reality there – we just can’t describe it very effectively as outsiders / people not in the know.
why don’t you say the holocaust made some jews happy and the action of christian evangelicals made some hindu fundamentalists happy and so on.
the second is probably to some extent true; evangelicals are their own worst enemy and make for much better opponents than mainline protestants and catholics who know that cultural sensitivity is important to maintain the long term social stability in uncivilized lands. like most holocaust analogies that one is way wrong; the number of ultra-orthodox and orthodox jews declined precipitously because of that event (because of the tendency toward apostasy from orthodoxy there the hasidic rebbes in particular were not keen on immigration to america before world war ii). i have heard some ultra-orthodox talk about how the holocaust validated their faith in god, but it was more a personal existential thing, not one aimed toward group numbers. but, it is a fact that many jewish rabbis were not excited with the opening of the ghettos and granting of citizenship to jews in the early 19th century. this is because the same process also meant that the rabbis no longer had power over jews as intermediaries between the gentile state and the jewish population. and, not coincidently the same period was one characterized by wholesale conversion to christianity or defection to reform judaism within the german speaking lands.
It’s a dog eat dog world, and in India especially, it’s god eat god. Survival of the fittest is the only rule. If you were dirt poor and could guarantee your children at least one good meal per day by converting to another religion and then give them a possible chance at a good education by pretending to still be a member of the religion you converted from, wouldn’t you? I would.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if these “christians” who were threated to “reconvert” back to “hinduism” banded together and said, “yes, we will convert. Now take us to the famous Jagannath Mandir in Puri (the most famous mandir in Orrissa) so we can have darshan! (tribal and scheduled caste hindus are forbidden entrance into the mandir, Indira Gandhi was denied entrance due to her marriage to a Parsee)
If they convert they should be afforded all the religious rights that the upper caste hindus have, otherwise what is the use?
and it pervades every south asian religious “community” that I know of – Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc.
but it doesn’t pervade them all equally as you say. that’s key. not only that, a large subset of hindus believe in caste as a divinely ordained institution (some even pop up here now and then), non-hindus (i include dharmic religions which are not hinduism in this) practice and perpetuate caste as a human institution which appeals and satisfies their lower natures (everyone who is no one wants to feel superior, so to find someone to be their hewer of shit). castes are obviously not just an indian thing, the eta in japan are a caste, and in france until the 20th century there was an endogamous community of craftspeople who were subject to many ritual taboos which are common to outcastes everywhere. but it would be nice to quantify the difference between outlooks, e.g., compare the salience and relevance of caste in diaspora communities of various religions where institutional frameworks don’t exist to perpetuate it.
Christianity (British General Baptists)arrived in coastal Orissa in 1822. The mission measured its success in terms of the numbers of converts; by this measure, the early evangelical project was a failure. The major reason was caste based solidarities among the local Hindus. Evangelicals attacked caste based discrimination not because they had a more egalitarian vision of the society, but because caste proved a major hindrance to their project of conversion. In the 1870s, the evangelical project moved towards the hinterlands; Baptists, Catholics and various other denominations were at work in the Kandhamals by the 1900s.
If you take a look at the Christian Literature in Oriya between 1820s and 1930s two general trends emerge: (a) an embarrassingly indiscriminate attack on Hindu Gods, family systems, morals and ethics. Even the Hindu women’s sense of hygiene is not spared. (b) A strong effort by Oriya-Christians to indigenize Christianity. For instance, some upper and middle caste Oriya-Christians worshiped Jesus as the True Jagannatha (Jagannatha being the Hindu Deity at Puri) and used the medieval Hindu literary genre of Purana to talk about Christ.
In the context of the increasing Hindu-Christian conflict in Orissa, local Christian leaders might help the situation by reinventing the earlier trend of indigenization. Contemporary Oriya-Christian literature is perhaps not doing enough here. Secondly, more importantly, the evangelicals in Orissa must find a way to praise Christianity without denigrating Hinduism.
Having said that, the state must first provide them security !!
Secondly, more importantly, the evangelicals in Orissa must find a way to praise Christianity without denigrating Hinduism.
uh, this is like saying that candidates should run without negative ads 😉 though perhaps it is more feasible than that case….
The Hindu millitants are certainly organized, and much of this – especially as it spread from Orissa to Karnataka, where the nationalists are in power, is clearly premeditated. There is no excuse for it, and it’s a travesty that Christians now feel unsafe in the country. Does India really wish to emulate the failed states Pakistan and Bangladesh, which persecuted their minorities to oblivion?
On the the other hand, Christian missionaries have been getting away with agressive proselytizing in India for two hundred years. Right now, it’s American fundamentalist organizations that are particularly obnoxious and doing the most harm.
It is time to ban those American organizations.
Perhaps this violates Anglo-American sensibilities about “freedom”. But consider this: both Russia and China banned Western missionaries. In the economic sphere, too many countries that followed America’s advice were lead to ruin. Those that showed some degree of independent thinking have fared better – like China. In the sphere of values, we are learning that the same is true.
jingler, how many foreign nationals are there? i clicked around this site and looks like a lot of the mission people are from northeast or south india and indian nationals. that’s the general pattern in places like africa, indigenization happened a long time ago. btw, china probably has more christians % wise than india!
120 · Siddharth said
they’re all pushing similar product with comparable promises. none of these can close the scale unless you add an element of fearmongering, negative advertising, or economic/survival (dis)incentives.
between its advocacy of expulsion for “obnoxiousness” (i am sure these same people cry foul when met with the response “go back to india” in response to their complaints about amreeka), and its eager embrace of the totalitarianism of russia and china, post 122 is a keeper…
uh, this is like saying that candidates should run without negative ads 😉 though perhaps it is more feasible than that case….
Point taken. The difference is, here, a negative ad might actually win a few votes, there, it might get one a whack on the head, given how things are !
and its eager embrace of the totalitarianism of russia and china
don’t debase language. russia is not totalitarian, and china is no longer either de facto. sorry, but this is the same hyperbole escalation which analogizes iran with nazi germany. and some european countries have weird laws re: religion. germany banned scientology.
127 · razib said
heil razib!
it might get one a whack on the head
“for what is a man profited, if he shall gain his life, and lose his own soul?” i think part of the issue is that some evangelicals view themselves as battling against time as the jaws of hell close in on those lost in the darkness. so there’s an internally coherent logic there. since hindu gods are no-gods and demons to them their blasphemy is no blasphemy at all. of course, if they put themselves in the shoes of others they would see the problems with this tack, but as i said, i think the sword of damocles hangs over the unsaved….
of course, if they put themselves in the shoes of others they would see the problems with this tack
One of the consequences of the Hindu-Christian encounter was that some of the Victorian missionaries did try to put themselves in the shoes of others. In 1850s they realized that they could not ask critical questions to Hindus without doing so with regards to their own faith. This fed an increasing trend of skepticism and atheism and eventually led to the publication of Essays and Reviews in 1860 which was then considered to be a more serious blow to Christian dogma than Darwin’s Origins of Species.
Razib, sure, but does that fit under restrictions of religion, or just basically shutting down fraud, as we would with any business? If you look into it, I think it’s the latter. . . .
Razib, sure, but does that fit under restrictions of religion, or just basically shutting down fraud, as we would with any business? If you look into it, I think it’s the latter. . . .
there’s a regular pattern of christian missionaries lying to isolated people to get them to convert. isn’t that fraud? e.g., i’ve seen/read stuff where they tell isolated people that president of nepal or indonesia is christian, and if they don’t become christian they won’t get favorable treatment. this is fraudulent, but they justify it, because they want these people to have salvation by any means necessary.
It was interesting to see that Amardeep said he wanted a balanced view and then started using the NYT as a source. SINCE WHEN DID ANYONE IN SM , IRRESPECTIVE OF POLITICAL LEANINGS, CONSIDER THE NYT TO BE A BALANCED SOURCE WHEN IT CAME TO INDIA.
As for understanding the violence, the one thing this shows is what happens to a hindu leader who depends on dialogues and non-violent actions. Given the consequences this had for Laxmananda, who in their right mind would continue to use the same methods? (Not everyone enjoys emulating a lemming.)
133 · DizzyDesi said
do you have evidence of that?
OK, fine, then if those facts are correct, shut that down too on grounds of fraud. I thought you were objecting to the Germans’ treatment of Scientology–if you’re on board w/ shutting them down on general legal principles, as I am, Razib, great!!
135 · rob said
what i know about Scientology is that its financial fraud, and even in the liberal US financial fraud and commercial speech enjoy a much lower level of protection. for some reason, they target dentists, and a clueless friend of mine almost got sucked in via a program designed to double the revenue of his practice.
i don’t know what germanys raison d’etre is, but i thought i’d throw this tidbit out there. not that i’m endorsing a clampdown, i’d fault on letting things fall wherever they fall, buts that not in vogue these day vis a vis financial transactions, as we all know. uh oh, slippery slope.
119 · razib said
I think you’re conflating to some extent the three different phenomena that make up ‘caste’ in India today – one is the ideology of caste ‘casteism’ which is the ritual degredation by group on the basis of purity/pollution you were referring to, among others beliefs/practices; another is the governmental use of caste (which extends to other types of identities as well); and the third is jati as a social structure. What I was referring to was the social structure, which is I would assume is connected to an extent to the ideology. I don’t know to what extent people who are not self-identified as “Hindu” (a group that can include Muslims, dalits, adivasis, neo-Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs, Jewish people, Parsis, and others) participate in jati-like systems involving social organization by group, and further to what extent these rest on ideas about purity, deference, etc. But I do know that there are other divides that, depending on what context you’re looking at this in, that might be as or more relevant than “religion” (e.g. South vs. North; ethnicity/language; public vs. private sector employment; etc.). And if you chose to go with the religious/communal division, like we both said, you’d have to assess the differences that play out within each group as well – which gets even more complicated and dangerous because of how overwhelmingly dominant the “religious” identity is for political use in India and therefore how easily misunderstood it is.
So yeah you could try to look at different ways in which diasporic communities of different religious identities deal with caste in multiple forms (social, political, ideological) – but what framework of caste would you use to do this and how would you compare different communities both within a specific religious identity as well as among them? From my vantage point, it’s more trouble than it’s worth 🙂
110: Chitta
Why does Rajdeep have to shout so much? He is sounding like a desi Hannity 🙁
that might be as or more relevant than “religion” (e.g. South vs. North; ethnicity/language; public vs. private sector employment; etc.).
religion and ethnicity are more important than public vs. private sector employment. the first two are universal reasons for killing & raping neighbors; the latter not so much. so you need to weight the parameters appropriately. a verbal description loses information.
but what framework of caste would you use to do this and how would you compare different communities both within a specific religious identity as well as among them?
implicit association tests with various identifiers. most ethnicities have more than one religious group, and all religious groups have more than one ethnicity (well, perhaps aside from sikhs). control for each background condition and check the variation across implicit tests. there will be confounds, but this is a way we might get beyond blah blah blah blah ad infinitum.
Not to worry. The global credit crisis will severely crimp the West’s wealth and standard of living for the next two generations, which will automatically put an end to their mission of saving souls.
What goes around, comes around.
M. Nam
that’s right.. I think you would now have second thoughts on this statement
somehow showing Chrisitanity in better light than Hinduism. 🙂
I doubt the hypothesis that Christianity is somehow anti-casteist compared to other religions in India. I have read that missionaries used to meet every year in India in colonial days (maybe they do it even now) and compare their notes and see how successful they are in harvesting souls. Maybe if we can get the minutes of such meetings we’d have some ideas. It is not just the low castes that have converted into Christianity. They have used different strategies for different castes.
Where do you live, exactly?
If only that were true.
140 · MoorNam said
You need a special “missionary visa” to enter India for that purpose ; so the argument of foreign organisations proseltyzing is probably lame excuse.
103 · Ruby said
I think “good questions” spurs the grey cells/curiosity and an attempt to answer them stimulates intellectually ?
I don’t know what you’re referring to.
118 · Soca Chutney Mix said
I am not sure about the factual correctness of your statement. Only non-hindus are not allowed as according to wikipedia article on jagannath temple
118 · Soca Chutney Mix said
You will definitely not have the Goa inqusition 🙂 I think non-entry of temple is actually a regressive practice trying to understand it socio-historically context…there could have been a lot of resentment amonst the ruling priestly class for conversion acts such as these in Goa which could have occurred elsewhere in the country.
This is interesting. Any pointers ?.
It is true that you cannot ridicule one set of stories while believing in a different set of ridiculous stories.. 🙂
I am all for conversion, if it helps really poor people a better quality of life. But then, then conversion in Africa and Latin Africa has done nothing much in that respect. Development should be left to non-religious groups. In my opinion the best route to peace regarding many of India’s religious woes are to stop foreign money and missionaries as well as banning bajrang dal.
Trying to get a balanced picture, are we?
If you do the former, you won’t need to do the latter since bereft of purpose, it will automatically cease to exist.
M. Nam