tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320628892565328183.post205703108835816114..comments2023-10-07T06:39:55.892-07:00Comments on Brown Pundits: Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320628892565328183.post-87128433095842634512014-05-22T07:50:51.780-07:002014-05-22T07:50:51.780-07:00Agree on Anti-Conversion bills. State Governments ...Agree on Anti-Conversion bills. State Governments have indeed passed such laws citing preservation of indigenous tribal culture or maintaining communal harmony. But I am not sure if in India's federal structure, Parliament has the authority to pass the same for entire India. <br /><br />As for violence against existing Christians (new conversions very few), again I agree there have been some horrible violent Anti-Christian incidents in past but perhaps here one needs to make a distinction between Christian tribals of Central India and the other Christian communities of India. Christian tribals of Central India and missionaries working among them have indeed been targeted by local Hindu chauvinist groups. <br /><br />But Largest concentration of Christians in India are located in South and North-East where they are a relatively well off section (even form comfortable majority & dominant communities in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland). Not an apologist just that there is a regional angle plus unlike Hindu-Muslim, Dalit-dominant caste, Tribal-NonTribal violence; there is little history to major protracted passionate Hindu-Christian sectarian violence in South & NE (no Christian Nationalist led Partition, no Crusade/Dharamyudhha or paranoia of rapidly rising Christian numbers). Though small in numbers, Christians have been good at adapting to modernity and also very well integrated in broader Indian society and State. Will Sangh ideologues be successful to change these equations in future? To be frank, I do not know. <br /><br />PS: I do recall Modi's Anti-Christian tirade against then Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh in past but interesting to note that this time Naga People's Front and Mizo National Front part of NDA. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01624579286016538505noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320628892565328183.post-52593897421302065362014-05-22T01:24:45.424-07:002014-05-22T01:24:45.424-07:00+1 Good post. Here is a RSS/BJP agenda that you mi...+1 Good post. Here is a RSS/BJP agenda that you missed out on:<br />"Similarly anti-conversion campaigns targeting Christians seem paradoxical and parodic in their demand for Acts of Religious Freedom which literally entail religious unfreedom. Recently, the BJP leader of Andhra Pradesh, Venkaiah Naidu stated that the ‘BJP will bring an anti-conversion law to ban religious conversions in the country if it is voted to power in 2014 General Elections’. <br /><br />In Gujarat, the Modi regime, which effectively presided over the pogroms against Muslims in 2002, also passed the anti-Christian Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act (2003), a notch that bolsters its anti-minority credentials. It is also worth it to remember that the so-called national conversation about conversion was initiated by then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the 1990s. That call for conversation was an incitement to violence. The 1999 Human Rights Watch report correlated BJP electoral victory in Gujarat in 1998 with the violence against tribal Christians in that state by Sangh Parivar organisations such as the Bajrang Dal and the RSS. In fact, the Human Rights Watch report states that the attacks against Christians across the country had increased significantly since the BJP’s Central Government electoral victory.<br /><br />A decade later and anti-conversion laws have been passed in states such as Chattisgarh (2000), Gujarat (2003), Himachal Pradesh (2006), and Rajasthan (2008). This is a consequence of the mainstreaming of Hindu nationalism since the 1990s. The 2006 Himachal Pradesh anti-conversion law was a Congress initiative. These ‘Freedom of Religion’ Acts suggest the protection of religious freedom by checking conversions by force or fraudulence, and target conversions to Christianity. But as many human rights organizations and scholars have pointed out, anti-conversion campaigns and laws have less to do with fraud and more to do with violence against Christians. While this violence gained media attention in December 2007 and in August/September 2008 in the states of Orissa and Karnataka, it continues to escalate and make the news intermittently in other states."<br />http://kafila.org/2013/10/12/india-first-and-the-bjp-anti-conversion-platform-goldie-osuri/<br />-----------<br />The anti-conversion stance of BJP is the one reason why some Buddhists campaigned against them: <br />http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-ls-election-special-the-japanese-monk-who-is-against-the-bjp/20140409.htm<br /><br />N(D)https://www.blogger.com/profile/04406905246490468403noreply@blogger.com