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January 13, 1999
ELECTIONS '98
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'Let us forget Rama, Christ and Allah'
How Readers reacted to Dilip D'Souza's last column
Date sent: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 17:56:02 PST
Again your article does not make sense. What have you done to reduce India's high illiteracy rate? Do you suggest it is Ashok Singhal's creation or the conspiracy of the Sangh Parivar? What has Amartya Sen done to make India what he lectures that India should do? Why does he live outside India and criticise and don't do anything about India's problems? Why don't you also move in with him?
Date sent: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 10:56:41 -0600 (CST)
Dear Dilip, I think the Hindus are living in a delusion that theirs is the most tolerant religion and if the Congress comes to power it will only get worse. On one hand they will say "see how tolerant we are, we elected a Christian PM." On the other, they will fund right wing Hindu groups. Now it is easy to fathom how the Nazis managed to terrorise the highly "educated" German society and make them into "willing executioners." So much for your literacy pitch. I think India is approaching a state where Iran was in 1978/79. Sit back and enjoy the ride. Or better still, go for a 10-year journey of self-discovery into the Himalayas. Sanjay Chawla
Date sent: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 10:11:30 PST
Dilip D'Souza is as usual in his Hindu-bashing mode. While he counts the perversities existing in Hinduism, will he ever try to expose the greater perversities existing in Christianity? Mr Dilip D'Souza, what do you have to say when people belonging to different ethnic groups have to build their different churches? Eg in USA I can see churches for Malayalam people, churches for Korean people etc? Moreover, if he thinks that 20 million Christians cannot pose a threat to Hinduism, my contention is that, true today they may not be able to do so but if this goes on unabated then the day is not far away. What does he have to say about the entire north-eastern region which these missionaries have successfully converted to Christianity? The results are only too visible. So Mr D'Souza try to see the hidden agenda in the nefarious designs of these missionaries. If at all these missionaries are so concerned about the poor masses why can't they help them without inducing them to convert? Now that even some very respected Gandhians have also asked for a legal ban on the conversions, I think there is no doubt that this treacherous act of conversions should be stopped as soon as possible and our misguided brothers and sisters who were forced to go to Christianity should come back. Vimal K Kansal
Date sent: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 21:13:42 -0600
Dilip's articles are sensible and well presented. I was sorry to see that a couple of hard-core supporters of the VHP-RSS have dashed off some hate-mail to him. As a Hindu brought up in Baroda, and educated at the Maharaja Sayajirao University (I'm a '93 graduate), I've seen the worst side of Sena hoodlums. Since the hostels contained quite a few sensible groups of students, who were also (unlike the general Indian public) unafraid to stand up and speak out, we saw a regular series of brawls between the students and the Sena groups. The engineering hostels, in fact, were areas where the Sena guys wouldn't dare enter. Matters came to such a pitch that ultimately a separate police force was formed for policing the hostels and keeping things quiet. As one who had always strongly opposed the rise of such forces who force their brand of 'culture' on everyone, I am ashamed to see that they have achieved such boldness to actually attack other communities. I still have enough faith in India and Indians to think that this fanaticism will wane and slowly die off, as we achieve more prosperity and literacy. A small note to non-Hindu readers: please calm yourself about the rise of this VHP-RSS. Please place this in the context of India's and the overall Hindu communities record for religious tolerance over the centuries, as compared to nations the world over.
Date sent: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 18:27:25 -0500
I do agree with Dilip D'Souza that basic amenities are far more important to the people than religion and that we should try to eradicate the caste system. The Hindutva group is making a concerted attempt to create a classless Hinduism. But unfortunately, instead of working together to do away with this evil, Christian groups in India are exploiting the situation to attain their own narrow ends. Further the premise that the RSS or VHP is only concerned with religion and not the welfare of the people is another myth. The RSS runs schools and hospitals in tribal areas. There are at least 1,100 schools and another 300 are to be opened by March. In addition, these institutions are solely funded by individuals unlike the Christian institutions, which are liberally financed by state and central governments as well as foreign sources. Hindu bashing is not going to solve this problem. Both sides need to take a hard look at themselves and their weaknesses. Only then can the distrust between them disappear.
Vivek Gumaste
Date sent: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 19:44:22 PST
Day to day happenings in the name of Hindutva, or Christ, or Islam rises a question in my mind: "Should a man need religion now?" In earlier days religions were meant to regulate man and to compose a man as human. But I don't feel nowadays religions do their jobs that were meant to be done by them. Now the question arises. Should a man need religion now? In the name of religion, fundamentalists do cheap bargains for conversion and reconversions. In the name of religion, we politicise every issue like sexual harassment of women. In the name of religion, we organise the youth force to bring down holy shrines. In the name of religion we authorise Goonda Raj... In our day to day life, as a common man, we admire Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan despite him being a Muslim and a Pakistani. Our youngsters hum Sayooni on Channel [V]... We have our children educated in missionary schools... How does religion matter? Why are not individuals being given the choice to declare themselves as not belonging to any religion? Let us stop spoiling cricket pitches in the name of religion. Let us stop converting the helpless folk. Let us not do any reconversions as well. Let us not bomb another Coimbatore. Let us not witness another December 6. Let us forget Rama, Christ and Allah. Let us remember first that we are humans And let us utter Jai Hind!
Date sent: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 13:15:43 -0600
I am a daily reader of Rediff. Kudos to Dilip D'Souza. Thank god for his far-sightedness. He has thrown light on one of the many problems affecting my motherland India for the last 6,000 years. As we all know there are thousands of people in India, struggling to get above the poverty line. They are oppressed in every way. Literacy is one of the several ways of getting above the poverty line. Literacy does not mean just reading some books or cramming a few lines of a book. Rather, it helps a person to realise who he is and what the purpose of his existence is in this world. Or, to put it more clearly, he learns to understand what the real truth is. Now what is the real truth behind all that is happening in my motherland? I think only in eternity we shall see, who was true, who was phony. I am waiting for that day when the living god is going to appear in His Glory to reveal the truth. In fact He was already here, and has already shown us the truth but nobody wants to listen, including me. He is going to come once again. We all live in this world for a few years, may be till 70 or 80 or utmost 100 years. In this short 29,200 days that we live on this earth we go through various circumstances in our lives. Based on the circumstances around us, or, depending upon the part of the planet that we come from, we tend to form our opinions and ideas about life. But, the unfortunate part is, we tend to form our ideas just based on our circumstances and don't give any room to our creator to tell us the truth about our lives. How long is my motherland going to ignore the creator. How long??????????? Once we start knowing the creator, and learn to do things, in his way, the darkness that is hovering over our motherland will start going away. We will all be true, honest citizens. We will become responsible, hard working citizens, who care for others. I wish all the Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist leaders and people understand this fact and build a beautiful India, my motherland India. Unless we heed the voice of the creator we will be not be able to solve any problems facing our country. It will turn to be a bigger mess with every election. But if we heed his voice and learn to walk in his ways, he will take care of all our needs and we will see great harmony and peace and order. Let's pray for that and work for it. Be it Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Indian, American, Briton, any nation, any group of people the only solution is listen to the creator's voice. Responses, ideas, suggestions welcome. Johnson
Date sent: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 14:26:35 -0500
Open your mind before you write about some religion. Why don't you write the same about Bukharis and Imams? A day will come when pseudo secular writers like you will be punished for spreading false propaganda. If Ashok Singhal is blamed for expressing his views, you are in the same boat propagating misinformation. What right did Amartya Sen have talking about defence matters and lowering our image internationally? Regarding literacy, I think you are not educated enough to understand statistics. Singhal has nothing to do with literacy. It's for the government, and what were you doing all these fifty years of Congress rule? Why don't pseudo secularists like you live with the present government for at least five years? What is wrong being nationalistic? If the literate go for voting we know what the result will be. I was educated in a Christian convent and I was forced to sing Christian songs and go to churches. Why don't you write on our behalf to uphold the rights of students in Christian institutions? Srinivas
Date sent: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 10:40:06 -0600
As you do in most of your articles, you're again barking up the wrong tree. Let me explain. You claim that the Hindutva forces are interested in keeping people illiterate. Let's think about who has more to lose if people become literate. The literate people will generally be well-off and hence will not fall for the missionary crap. If tribals are literate, they'll be able to see the real fangs of the missionaries and will not fall for such things as you mentioned, 'the white powder'. If people are more educated, they'll be able to see Christianity for what it really is, a personality cult. And when it is compared with Hinduism, it does not stand anywhere near it. Thus missionary forces will not be able to convert them. Within Hinduism also, educated people will be able to distance themselves from the once-needed-now-defunct caste system (or more the ills of it like untouchability). People like you think of yourselves to be superior to the rest of the population.
Date sent: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 16:28:43 PST
I used to be a secular Hindu from urban India -- not any more. The double standards of people like Dilip D'Souza have made me vote for the Shiv Sena. India is a Third World country. Only a 50-year-old economy. With Bad Neighbours & many Bad People. You can't fix the world, OK. If in a family a father is not earning enough money & when his children grow up they can say 100 different things that father did this mistake & that mistake & can criticise him for everything he has done. The bottom line is -- it's very easy to criticise someone. If Ashok Singhal is a Bad Man, why don't you be a Good Man ????? In the 1980s, Soviet Russia said that they were giving education to Afghans. But the fact is they were invading Afghanistan. These are the same words that are being used by radical Christians in rural India. Giving education is fine. It's a good thing. But don't convert. If someone tries to say that Christianity is good, I'll say yes, it is fine. But if someone says Christian religion is better than Hinduism, I'll say BIG NO 100 times. Don't fool people by saying that we're giving education to "Adivasis". That's totally false. Hindus are Very Tolerant. If these problems would have arisen in Pakistan, many Christians would have been killed by now. Try to solve problem. Don't add to them, Mr D'Souza. Vijay |
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