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On faith

I have written several things that irritated Indian Christians in my last few columns -- and I have received quite a lot of mail from them in this context: ranging from the disappointed to the peeved. I am sorry I have hurt some feelings, but I think it is appropriate to consider Hindu outrage. I ask my interlocutors -- where were you when everybody from Alan de Lastic to the Southern Baptists heaped disdain on Hindus? Why did you not raise your voice then? Why did no Indian Christian in the Indian media -- and there are many -- defend their fellow-Indians?

The papal visit to India was an excellent example of the contempt with which some Christians -- Catholic or Protestant -- hold Indians, in particular Hindus. The amount of calumny heaped upon Hinduism by Christians in centuries past would fill entire volumes -- and a good introduction to this can be found either in the superlative study The Raj Syndrome by historian Suhash Chakravarthy (Penguin India) or in Missionaries in India by Arun Shourie.

I don't happen to have either of these books with me at the moment, but I shall be glad to quote some choice passages in future. It surely is a great tribute to the Hindu's tolerance that even after all these centuries of violent abuse, a Pope is welcomed in India -- note that China, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, etc refused him entry, not to mention all the Muslim nations of Asia.

It is a fact that the canards and the tirades and just plain lies of the missionaries are unbelievable. Swami Vivekananda (or maybe it was Mahatma Gandhi), was moved to suggest something to the effect that if all the mud at the bottom of the Indian Ocean were thrown at the missionaries, it would not come close to the blackening of Hinduism by them through lying.

Yet, the Pope wouldn't consider apologising to Hindus -- as he has to others such as Native Americans who have been similarly ravaged. Nor would he say anything that would appear to give Hinduism respect as a major world religion -- the subtext of papal verbiage was always that Hindus were merely following some silly ancient myths (the unkind word "pagan" leaps to mind, or is it "heathen"?) and were Hindus only because they hadn't seen the 'true light' of Christianity.

This kind of sanctimonious self-righteousness is -- in a word -- nonsense. In fact, a case can be made that Hinduism is a more enlightened and rational religion than any of the Semitic religions, with their jealous Gods and Absolute Certainties. Not for nothing did 17th and 18th century Europeans call it 'the Enlightenment' when they exchanged church dogma for rationality.

I personally would say that Buddhism is the 'best' religion, if such a thing made sense -- for it has inherited the brilliance of Hinduism, while having cleansed itself of the excrescence. There is no reason for a Christian to feel superior to a Hindu or Buddhist based on their religions. Quite the contrary.

At bottom, a Hindu like me is simply tired of the continuous defamation of Hinduism that seems to come so naturally to certain Christians -- this is surely because Hindus are passive and do not push back. As someone who has seen a lot of the seamy side of Christianity as it is practised, I am appalled at the hypocrisy, nay the chutzpah, of fundamentalist Christians assailing Hinduism when there is so much wrong in their own house -- physician, heal thyself first.

For instance, why aren't they going out and offering succour to their fellow-Christians in the ghettos of the Bronx? After all, blacks in inner-city ghettos in the United States often have standards of living and life expectancies worse than in sub-Saharan Africa. Because these blacks are already Christian somehow they don't count in fundamentalist 'compassion'? Or how about attempting to convert a few Muslims -- after all, they honour Jesus as a prophet, too? Or some Chinese Communists?

Moreover, there is so much baloney in the way many Americans practise Christianity that it is largely something that cannot be taken seriously as a religion -- it is a series of bizarre and primitive cults. I find much of it laughable and inane. But this is not something known to the average Indian living in India, who, with his/her Macaulayite brainwashing, surely ascribes nobility and sacredness to all Christian clergy.

The sad truth is that a lot of them -- certainly among the Americans -- are money-grubbing charlatans who wouldn't recognise spirituality if it were presented to them on a plate with watercress around it. This reality ought to be realised by Indians -- a Pat Robertson is not a holy man, for instance. He is a businessman, 'harvesting' souls for profit.

There is another side to Christianity, I freely admit. That which has the philosophies of Thomas Aquinas; the compassion of Francis of Assisi; the devotion of Jeanne d'Arc; the genuine service-mindedness that has sent many to far-off places to help those less fortunate than themselves. There is also the everyday faith of people like my friends the Swansons, who live upright, moral, godfearing and good lives.

I saw this side of Christianity at my Jesuit-run boys' high school in India. I remember with particular fondness the old headmaster, a wheezy, kindly old man, who clearly did not enjoy his duty of whipping the students for various transgressions. Many of the Jesuits were dedicated teachers. I remember what my class teacher inscribed in my 'autograph book' -- "cultivate compassion", said he, all those years ago.

Just as Christianity has a good side to it, so does Hinduism -- it is, to a believer, an entirely satisfying and sufficient religious model of the world. A knowledgeable Hindu finds the whole question of conversion redundant -- there is nothing, philosophically speaking, that he would gain from converting to another faith. Material blandishments may be another matter.

I was once again reminded of the good side of Christianity when I saw the just-released film, The End of the Affair, based on my favourite among all of Graham Greene's novels. With Ralph Fiennes excelling in the title role of the tortured, jealous and baffled narrator -- a stand-in for Greene as it was a highly autobiographical, first-person novel -- it is a very good film. It is about a torrid romance in World War II London between the narrator, Maurice Bendrix, and a married woman, Sarah Miles, played luminously by Julianne Moore.

Bendrix is madly in love with Sarah, and she with him, apparently; but she, quite mysteriously, breaks off the relationship. He is violently angry, uncomprehending, and suspicious -- that she may have taken another lover. Instead, what emerges is an astonishing tale of faith and what the human heart will do for love -- Sarah's choice turns out to a truly remarkable instance of the power of faith and belief. I could relate to that because I, too, believe.

I will mention in passing that Ralph Fiennes is a great actor in these tortured roles -- I loved him in The English Patient and also in the more understated role with overtones of moral ambiguity in Quiz Show (another excellent but dark film that exposes the dark side of American society -- no wonder it didn't do well at the box office). Greene would have been proud of the character Fiennes plays here.

But going back to Greene, I have always been fascinated by the fact that he became a Catholic as he felt his Anglican church was not devout enough. And a major thread in many of his works, especially my other favourites, The Heart of the Matter , The Power and the Glory , Brighton Rock, is the idea of decrepit faith -- with failed priests, morally ambivalent anti-heroes and others who are touched by God in ambiguous ways. 'Greeneland' is full of these.

Of course, Greene is using the Christian concept of God's Grace even for sinners -- but I could just as well posit this in terms of the Hindu concept of advaita or pantheistic monism. That there is no difference between God and Creation, that God's Grace is inherent in all of us, in every living being, and that it is a matter of discovering it. In other words, I would argue that there is no underlying difference between the Hindu and Christian ideas of Redemption.

But this is where the problem arises: fundamentalist Christians cannot -- I think their religion explicitly prohibits them from doing so -- concede that there are different paths to the same Truth. That one could be an ardent theist with no resort to Christian dogma bewilders them. Isn't it obvious that it is indeed possible to believe in God without Christianity? People did do so before Christianity appeared on the scene.

There is a collision between that unfortunate exclusivist Christian perspective and the Hindu ethos that accepts that there are many ways to the Truth. A Hindu is truly baffled that the religion of Jesus Christ -- whom he will readily accept as a great soul, even as a divine person in a pinch -- should be so narrow-minded as to insult his own deeply-held beliefs. That Christians could earnestly believe that Christ is the only way to Heaven is totally puzzling to the Hindu.

The early teachings of Christ (and there was some recent news about a set of Dead Sea Scrolls from Kirbat Qumran that had been suppressed by Benedictine monks, which demonstrated this fact) were remarkably close to those of the Essenes (and perhaps to the Gnostics), who were later burned at the stake as heretics after the Second Synod at Nicae. And the Essene faith had many elements that were Indic, predominantly Buddhist.

The historic Christ himself would not have, I conjecture, found it difficult to accept Hindu/Buddhist ideas of faith. There is the controversial Holger Kirsten book Jesus in India that posits that Christ spent several of his 'lost years' in Kashmir learning from Buddhist monks and perfecting his yogic skills, whence his later miracles. A lot of Christian practices, including the system of celibate monks and nuns, are clearly modelled on earlier Buddhist practices.

I continue to believe that a great deal of good can come of a genuine dialogue between Hindus and Christians. But until Christianity accepts that Hinduism as an equal -- this has to be a dialogue among equals -- there is no way of proceeding. Hindus are willing to accept Christianity, despite its many failings, as an equal. But at the beginning of 2000 CE, Christians largely show no respect for the ancient Asian faiths.

This is the crux of the matter. Hinduism has its merits: even the caste system, the focus of most Christian criticism of Hinduism, is far less pernicious than apartheid, slavery and anti-Jewish pogroms. Hindus demand respect, and deserve it. If this is not given, then Christians cannot expect respect in return.

Postscript: Several readers wrote that they did not donate money to the Orissa cause because they were afraid the money would not go to the really needy, but ''would be swallowed up by the government". Reader Ragu from Papua New Guinea said he has earmarked money, but has had a hard time finding a reputable agency. If anyone can help, please let me know -- I have referred him to IDRF so far. My old schoolmate Shambhu S pointed out that more money had been raised by IDRF in the US for Orissa than for Kargil. This was news to me.

Readers including Uday from India agreed with what I said about rediff.com's J&K series being against the national interest. Others including reader Zaigham from Arizona disagreed. I need to clarify what I meant: I think that a particular series was slanted in a way that would make it prime material for Pakistani propaganda -- as I have seen them use Praful Bidwai's writings in Frontline. God knows we don't need to encourage Pakistan to send more terrorist/mercenary infiltrators.

I am not advocating censorship -- in fact, I want such series written about others: Sikhs, Dalits, Pandits, tribals, Naxalite victims, Narmada dam victims -- with equal commitment and sympathy. Their stories need to be told, and I hope such series will appear regularly on rediff.com

But I also honestly believe that the human rights of terrorists and outlaws are not greater than the human rights of ordinary citizens. The J&K series tended to portray the terrorist as somehow worthy of greater sympathy than the victims of terror, of ethnic cleansing, of barbarism. I object to that. For what I consider a balanced view of the events in J&K, try Manoj Joshi's The Lost Rebellion: Kashmir in the '90s (Penguin India).

Reader Vianni thought I was suggesting that Indian Christians were anti-national. Hardly -- I cannot make such sweeping generalisations about a large and diverse group. However, according to the Hindustan Times , when Partition was under discussion, a group of Christian missionaries did demand a 'Christianstan', to consist of parts of the Northeast, Chhota Nagpur and Travancore. This is why secession led by missionaries is not unthinkable at all.

Rajeev Srinivasan