December 6, 2020in Articles, In News
The Treachery of Christian Crusaders entering India
Treachery(noun): A violation of faith; betrayal of trust, an act of perfidy, faithlessness, or treason.
Cultural aggression is more disastrous than armed aggression
Ananthasayanam Iyengar, Former Lok Sabha speaker.
The article on Graham Staines’s illegal activities in Orissa generated a lot of hate from Indian Christian converts. Christians attacked the Mission Kaali team and claimed the article ‘glorified the killer’ and that the sexual abuses by Graham Staines were never proven. While the article explicitly condemned violence of any forms, Indian Christian converts indulged in spreading ‘digital violence’ against Mission Kaali rather than engaging in a fact based and civilised dialog.
To the Christians preaching hate against Hindus, we suggest reading this article and doing an honest introspection.
The 10/40 Window-The prime target of Christian crusaders of all denominations
Human suffering is wide spread in the world from the streets of New York to the streets of Melbourne and from Karachi to Damascus. Anyone with genuine intention of alleviating suffering could perhaps go to South American countries like Venezuela, Mexico, Columbia, Argentina etc. as people over there face political instability, poverty, medical and food shortages. Or better still, they can look in their own backyard in the poorer neighborhoods in the Western countries where these missionaries hail from. Why are the Christian missionaries particularly focused on India?
The answer is the ‘10/40 window’. Bill Broadway wrote an article in Washington Post titled Missionaries Go Quietly Where Gospel Is Unwelcome. Bill explains in the article the concept of 10/40 window. It is the “rectangular stretch (of land) between latitudes 10 degrees and 40 degrees north from West Africa to East Asia”, an area that is home to the world’s largest number of “unreached groups” by the Church.
The 10-40 window.
The Church’s doctrine of expansionism and supremacy aims to destroy indigenous population, culture, history and heritage. Broadway also spoke to many Christian Aid workers who admitted they falsify information on visa applications to gain entrance in Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim countries. Many non-Abrahamic countries in Asia have restrictions on Christian missionaries. Due to the restrictions, missionaries often identify themselves as teacher, nurse, doctor, urban planner, geologist, artist, businessmen/women, engineer, etc. Under condition of anonymity the missionaries who were interviewed by Bill said local authorities were aware of their activities and have a tacit understanding with missionaries out of the fear of being labelled communal. The missionaries were ‘unapologetic’ of their actions and said they are ‘compelled’ by their god yahweh to “share the gospel” and proselytize.
Christian crusaders from the west have targeted the Indian sub-continent since the 16th century under the garb of trade. More recently overseas Christian missionaries use various deceitful tactics to enter India for undertaking illegal conversions.
Missionary Visa
The Indian government offers ‘Missionary visa’ as one of the 18 different types of visas for visitors to enter India. A visitor with a missionary visa can only undertake Government of India approved missionary activities. The visa conditions explicitly states that the recipient of this visa privilege cannot indulge in any ‘proselytising’ activities.
It needs to be acknowledged India had stopped issuing Missionary Visa since the 1950’s. However, this visa category still exists. This raises the question; does the Indian government officially encourage conversion of Hindus? Should it be construed that the existence of the missionary visa category is the Indian government’s tacit encouragement of Christian conversions in India even though it violates constitutional provisions?
Missionary activities
In July 1956, several Indian states mulled enacting laws to stop rampant conversions by Christian missionaries. But the ‘visionary’ Prime Minister at that time, Nehru wrote to the Christian Council of India to allay their fears and said “The question of foreign missionaries in India is not considered by us from the point of view of Christianity but from the point of view of foreigners coming to India”. Alarmed by the intent of Nehru’s letter, C. Rajajgopalachari said “Hinduism could never tolerate a proselytising faith”. Nehru downplayed the serious issue of conversion of Hindus by foreign Christian missionaries.
In the same year, Madhya Pradesh government constituted a seven-member committee headed by a former judge Chief Justice of High Court named Bhawani Shankar Niyogi to investigate the Christian missionary activities in Madhya Pradesh. The Niyogi Commission undertook a detailed investigation by visiting 14 districts, more than 700 villages and contacted 11,360 people. The commission concluded in its report that “A vile propaganda against the religion of the majority is being systematically and deliberately carried out so as to create an apprehension of breach of public peace. There has been an appreciable increase in the American personnel of missionary organisations in India. This increase is obviously due to the deliberate policy of the International Missionary Council to (exploit) opportunities opened in newly independent countries by mass evangelism through the press radio and television”. The committee proposed nineteen measures “to save tribes from missionary clutches and the State from missionary fifth columnism” (Source: The Guardian “Christian Missionaries under fire in India, 2017).
The recommendations of the Niyogi commission are available here. Regrettably none of the Niyogi commission’s recommendations were implemented till date despite its relevance even today.
Visa privilege violations
In reply to a Right to Information (RTI) application to Ministry of Home Affairs in 2011, it was confirmed that foreign missionary visa holders do not have permission to work in tribal and protected areas of India.
While Indian Christians cry hoarse over perceived persecution by Hindus, do they support foreigner’s violating visa conditions to spread Christianity? Do they also support misrepresentation, falsification of information on visa applications and outright lying to gain entry into India? Why are missionaries so interested in India that makes them break laws of a sovereign nation? Why do they specifically go to protected tribal and adivasi belts to ‘teach’, or ‘provide medical camps’? Why this attempts to establish supremacy over Hindus?
An article by George Abraham in National Herald (Oct 2020) titled “NRIs free to invite Hindu priests and build temples but Christians not welcome in India!”, raised the issue of deportation of Christian pastors and priests from Indian airports. Indian Christian bodies argued that the pastors and priests where ‘falsely accused of evangelising”. They drew false equivalences between Hindus living in foreign countries who invite Hindu gurus for private functions and Christian pastors who are deported from India because of evangelisation. Mission Kali has exposed numerous Christian ministries and NGO’s who are violating Indian visa rules.
History of visa violations
Christian evangelists have a history of violating Indian visa rules. Below are some notable examples:
1. Graham Staines (1965 – 1999) entered India posing as a ‘philanthropist’ and settled with his family in Government prohibited zones of Odisha. Graham and his family broke the law for 40 years, carried on illegal activities in sensitive areas by disrespecting tribal beliefs, culture and converted them to Christianity. Odisha has the ‘The Odisha Freedom of Religion Act, 1967’ which prohibits religious conversions. Despite laws in place, Graham Staines choose to violate visa rules and state laws in a desperate bid to convert people using, coercion, inducement, misrepresentation, threat, and use of unethical methods.
2. Daniel Courney (2007 – 2017), an American evangelist entered India on a Tourist visa, and indulged in rampant conversions in Andhra Pradesh. He is a rabid Hindu hater and insulted Hindus and India many times. To prevent deportation he married a local Andhra woman but was finally deported and blacklisted by government authorities. Rumours have it that he is currently in Nepal and converting locals there and clandestinely trespasses into India.
3. John Allen Chau (2018), an American missionary, in his zeal to proselytize, broke India’s visa rules by trespassing into protected Andaman Nicobar area and attempted to contact endangered Sentinel tribe and potentially exposing them to modern-day diseases.
John Allen Chau
Visa violation using misrepresentation and deception has long been a tactic of foreigners to enter India for conversions. Pauline A. Brown in her book “Jars of Clay: Ordinary Christians on an Extraordinary Mission in Southern Pakistan” details the lengths missionaries from the United States go to procure Indian visa for conversions. Pauline writes about a woman named Hannah who in 1954, went as far as to change her citizenship from American to Canadian to gain entry into India. For that Hannah took up a ‘nursing and midwifery course’ in Canada, raised funds from local Churches.
For more cases of rule breakers could be found in the Visa Fraud section of Mission Kali’s website. It is replete with visa violations by Christians. The Organiser.org website recently published an article “Is Christian Evangelical Network Hijacking Indian Immigration System? – A LRPF Investigation” that exposed many more cases of visa violations by Christians.
State collusion
Some Indian governments are guilty of compromising India’s pluralism. In 2012, UPA government headed by Congress Party covertly gave a free hand to foreign missionaries to proselytize Hindus. Case in point, former Indian Ambassador to the US Ronen Sen, used his position of power to aid and abet conversion. Read the full story here.
The UPA government without public consultation or knowledge relaxed restrictions on the entry and stay of foreign missionaries. The government also decided to end the requirement of Protected Area Permit needed by foreigners to enter Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya. Incidentally, Church sponsored secessionist activities are very high in these three states. Furthermore, UPA government attempted to demonise Hindus further by bringing in the draconian Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill in 2011.
Conclusion
India’s identity is Hinduism that provides the freedom to practice other religions. Coercion and guilt tripping Hindus to accept Abrahamic superiority is against the values of this great pluralist nation. Foreigners who falsify their identity to enter India and undertake conversion of Indians are not only a security risk but also show blatant disregard for sovereign laws of India. They need to be exposed, caught and punished as per Indian laws. Indian Christian converts are either with Bharat or with foreigners who want to wipe out Hinduism. Indian Christian converts need to truthfully introspect and take a stand. Now!
