Stop violence against Christians in Karnataka

[S.A.T.A]

Why would Christians join RSS in its demand for banning the reason they are there?

You obviously did not catch the sarcasm there...

 

[The Messiah]

Hypothetically Hindu society has no problem with that.

Good atleast you accept that people should be allowed to convert if its there own initiative and belief rather than being misled by priests.

Instead of burning priests and beating them like hooligans should state machinery be used to prosecute because afterall BJP is ruling party so there should be no difficulties.

 

[nrj]

Pragmatic Hindus faced embarrassment due to fanatic political players who are self-declared guardians of Hinduism. Former ones do not indulge in such loud talk nor claim their authority over religion & its practitioners.

History deters pragmatic Hindus to even imagine a scenario of them thanking extremists. Fanatics should first answer their actions done in the name of Hinduism.

 

[S.A.T.A]

Good atleast you accept that people should be allowed to convert if its there own initiative and belief rather than being misled by priests.

Instead of burning priests and beating them like hooligans should state machinery be used to prosecute because after BJP is ruling party so there should be no difficulties.

The problem is an ideal state of affairs does not exist.Hindu society would have had any need for other measures if the state had prevented the evangelists and other groups from violating the ideal rules of conduct.since the state has taken a back seat then the society will follow its instincts.

 

[S.A.T.A]

If Pragmatic Hindus had done what the Hindus society required them to do,then there wouldn't have been any need for self declared guardians to guard it.The history of Hindu society is replete of instances where its own hobnobbed with the enemy and held the gates of destruction and misery open,all in the name of convenient pragmatism.We need somebody to guard us from the malice of pragmatism that has been the cause our doom in the past.

 

[nrj]

Intentions do not justify the actions. Especially when actions are taken to target people of other religion & not the perpetrators.

Make no mistake, Hinduism did not require pragmatic hindus to commit genocides & device hate to make a point.

We need somebody at the gates to guard & thus appointed judicial system in a secular democracy. If others are unhappy with foundation, they should leave & create their own state with autocratic leaders as head to evade future doom structured by pragmatic hindus.

Fanatics should try that & meet pragmatic hinuds after a period of time to examine who faced doomsday.

Verbal ejaculation instrumenting hate towards other religions is not taught by hinduism. And this country will surely not allow them to go unpunished since they took law in their hand to commit barbaric atrocities.

 

[Armand2REP]

hoo no bro ! here in india, more then 90% people are forcefully converted for sure. i mean not by pointing the guns or threatening them, but by misusing their helplessness, weaknesses poverty and problems, saying conversion will be the solution for there problem, and they will be helping them out. Even if people don't have such issues, still the missionary people have the training and ability to make people fall for them.

Why should it be a crime to help people out and give them hope? The attacks on Mother Teresa were downright shameful.

Myself one among who strongly oppose most of the ideologies of RSS, i even served RSS as mukya sikshak (head master) of a sector for 2 years. i don't think RSS as a terrorist group or any such though never came to me when i was in it. This violence act might be a plot of few extreme minded people, who might be in RSS can also be found in other groups also. that had to be controlled and punish the guilt, if they where found guilty by the court of law.

I am not saying anything like shutting down RSS indoctrination camps, if they want to congregate with that belief than so be it. Even Aryan Nation has a right to exist. It is when it becomes violent that it needs to be clamped down. Christians have a right to their belief and the right to preach it just like RSS does its message. The difference is RSS message comes with fear of losing Hindu society while Christians are trying to build one on hope. It is that fear that RSS prays on.

Mangalore being a coastal region and was one of the breading places for christian missionaries for long before, now from past decades, the coastal region of Karnataka had become a strong hold of RSS and other such groups also., and as there is a BJP government in Karnataka, there is no such control on RSS activities and the government is busy in it's own problems. so in this case western Karnataka, mostly the western ghats and the coastal region is a clashing ground for RSS and christian groups, as of now. if law is enforced properly , this issue will be resolved in no time, but Karnataka BJP is not in a mindset to put breaks on RSS

Christians are doing what they always do. RSS is afraid of it which promotes intolerance.

broadly talking and not pointing to any individual: Freedom of choice is freely given by sanathana dharma to choose any religion.
if you are converting to any religion you have to go through few religious rituals to be called christian or Muslim. but if you wanted to be a Hindu, you just have to say i'm a Hindu, that's all. coz sanathana dharma doesn't need any propaganda or conversion system to survive in the world. it's been one of the most oldest religious system and survived.

You might have to go through rituals to be Catholic. You don't have to do anything other than accept John 3:14 to be Protestant.

As of i say, one of the oldest religious system which was long there before testimonies where in making, before Lord Jesus was born, and seen islam being born, Now if anyone have to call Sanathana dharma as a PAGAN religion, i can accept it only if they mean , A person who follows a polytheistic or pre-Christian religion (not a Christian or Muslim or Jew),
NOT ACCEPTABLE :- if they mean, A person who does not acknowledge god or your god,
coz they already said we are polytheistic, worshiping more then one god!.
if they have other meanings for it, then i have to ask them what we should call them at the time when Lord Jesus was not even born ? they will either be Jews or pagans them selves. (not being offensive here, just a point of view)

Christians can't accept any God other than theirs. That is why it is monotheism and the message will reflect that. Anyone not revealed to the living God in life gets the opportunity at death to see him and make the choice. When Jews are exposed to the teachings of Christ they have to make the choice to except him or not. There are half as many Messianic Jews in the West as there are Jews in Israel. The Fire and Brimstone preaching is not my message of choice to convert people but it does wake people up to what they are doing.

i oppose if any religion teaching which aims at prosperity at the cost of other religions. I'm surely not against any religion in the world, even not against Islam. i truly admire every religion which guided human being to this advance level of thinking, but again the EVIL called conversion, which even Islam Era did it in India centuries ago, we are still paying for it, Indian Muslims, genetically not at all a Muslim, there ancestors are from Indian soil itself. Sanathana dharma survived the 7 centuries of Islam dominance but still prevailed. All means of conversion evils has the strength in disguise to engulf the bush fire into wild fire in centuries to come, perhaps near decades.

What you want is the status quo. It doesn't sound bad but it keeps things like arranged marriages, caste system and oppressed women around. It has to go along with the dinosaurs. We live in a New World with times a changin. You have to keep up or get left behind.

 

[Rage]

How the Hindus society defends its social cultural space should be self evident,whether it is through intellect,social organization,economics,spiritual values or pure street power.The respective challenges elicits the appropriate response.Since Hindus rarely or never encroach into the 'others space' there probably very little concern on the front.But if the others are worried about that, then it is appropriate that they must join the Hindus society in its demand for banning forced conversion and proselytization.

Your evasive answers serve to reveal to me the false bravado behind your post.

The fundamental problem with the vicious, vicariously sympathetic and culturally fanaticist Hindu is that he cannot asseverate his opposition the moment he is removed from his numbers. Which serves to tell me that his opposition is essentially political, not constitutional or ethological.

It is not the fact that the poor are being fed he is worried about, or that they are enticed with food, clothing and an education; or that they violate 'his cultural provisions'; for if he was concerned about their' cultural inclinations, he'd have concern for their bodies as well, and would be actually out there providing food and shelter to them in much larger numbers, missionaries be damned. It is the fact that he experiences a loss of his power over them, that they are no longer dependant on him: Neither ritually, nor socioheirarchically, nor ideologically nor even materially. It is this fear, that prompts him to express his violent reproval. And the educated, highfalutin ones such as yourself are merely eloquent extentions of that expression.


You have still not provided an answer to the following:

"What exactly is the definition of 'satisfactory'? Who particularly, within the melange of ethnicities and doctrinal and cultural traditions that is Hinduism, does this 'satisfactorily' refer to? Because, certainly, the myriad sub-sects within Hinduism have their own standards and definition of 'satisfactory'. And how exactly do you propose to deal with other Indic faiths that 'violate' your social or cultural Hindu provisions, such as the millions that have converted to Buddhism under Ambedkar?"

You allude to "street power" in your post. Does that street-power include the right to torch religious institutions? To kill, or maim, or injure until surrender? Since these are 'actual facts as they happen', that we are talking about, you will agree that street power has the tendency to deteriorate into such things in India?

"Do you ascribe the same 'right' to defend 'it's space' to other communities? How do you suggest they go about doing it?"

 

[Tomcat]

dear esteemed mebers ,

I as a Hindu have no problems with any abrahamic religions as dose a vast majority of Hindus it will be good to remeber that it was because of the Genorsity of the Native Hindu population that Christanity established a Covenent in India nither do we as a people have any problems with People converting out of their onw will but on the other hand when the Ground realities are diffrent in many parts of India where Evalangicals diliberatly bad mouth Hinduism the Previous Pope is on record with the Harvest of soul speech To many of you Hinduism might be alien and Pagan. but to us it is only thing we have to hang on to.

as for attacking christians why dont you look at the North east and Cry the same but no some times i do think like the Jews the Hindus are Cursed by god to enduer shame and degradation all the time . this has to change and It has to accepted that India is a Hindu majority country and should be respected

 

[JBH22]

You must be naive if you don't know that is what missionaries do. Showing the people charity is a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith.

i asked you something but you have not replied anyways i'll repeat it. What's your take on Missionaries who fund and incite violence against non-Christians in the North East.
what about the blashphemous pamphlet that depicts Hindus as ignorant idol worshipers aren't they same lot as taliban except they come from US?

As far as tolerance India has no lesson to learn from anyone infact come here we'll teach you how a Christian women (how much i hate her) has become the most powerful woman in a country 80% Hindus.

A Muslim who has become our president and was for years at the forefront of developing Indian missile programs.

all this bullshit while in EU immigrants are killed by Skinheads and most importantly what has France done for Arabs they are still looked down as lowly creatures stacked in suburbs. Put your own house in order before giving others advice

 

[KS]

We already had this discussion. No one points a gun at their head or threatens them with violence to convert. It is their own CHOICE. There is no Inquisition or Crusaders murdering Hindus to scare them to convert. On the other-hand, RSS is stiring up violence against Christians. That is terrorism and the instigators must be prosecuted. The anti-conversion law is unconstitutional as stated by the High Court... "If I am dying and I want to change my religion, will I wait for some babu to tell me I can do it?"

Your feelings towards evangelicals are irrelevant. What matters is freedom to CHOOSE.

How cute. Shall we hear the perspective of a local Catholic from Mangalore ?

I'm a Catholic Christian from Mangalore. Born and brought up there. Lived there for 25years of my life. I nor any one in my family or any of the fellow Catholics I know has faced any hate crime or discriminated against due to religion. In fact there are a few radical Christian sects who have recently started operations in the region, who are creating communal problems not only for non-Christians, but even for Catholic Christians, who have been living there in peace with other communities for many centuries. These new radical christian sects are mostly funded from foreign countries and they are run like multi-national companies. The more the members they get, the more the funds they can get.

Look they have the Right to Preach any religion.But if they continue denigrating the local culture,customs and denigrate Hindu gods as demons sooner or later it is going to boil over. It does not take rocket science to figure that out.

You do that at your own risk...

All the other homilies are unnecesary.

 

[Armand2REP]

i asked you something but you have not replied anyways i'll repeat it. What's your take on Missionaries who fund and incite violence against non-Christians in the North East.
what about the blashphemous pamphlet that depicts Hindus as ignorant idol worshipers aren't they same lot as taliban except they come from US?

I already answered it. Anyone that promotes violence towards others must be prosecuted. Blasphemy to you is freedom of speech to them. Should it be illegal to portray the Prophet Muhammed... no.

As far as tolerance India has no lesson to learn from anyone infact come here we'll teach you how a Christian women (how much i hate her) has become the most powerful woman in a country 80% Hindus.

If she was so powerful she could enforce religious tolerance.

all this bullshit while in EU immigrants are killed by Skinheads and most importantly what has France done for Arabs they are still looked down as lowly creatures stacked in suburbs. Put your own house in order before giving others advice

We aren't the ones who go rioting through the Arab banlieues tearing up the community. I haven't seen any skinheads terrorizing France, just a bunch of Arabs threatening and committing honour killings of converts to Christianity. We don't tolerate terrorism. What RSS does is bullshit.

 

[S.A.T.A]

@Rage

Like i have stated elsewhere an individuals state of impoverished destitution has very little do with his her system of belief,hence any promise to ameliorate his poverty by an action religious conversion is nothing but an act of fraud and deception. pedophiles and rapists often entice their victims by offering them sweet inducements before submitting them to acts of depravity, surely the fact that the victims legitimate cravings were satisfied by the perpetrator of the crime should not necessarily become an alibi for the criminal. The Hindu society does not believe that the Christian evangelists are interested in a spiritual upliftment by their acts of inducing conversion, if that is the case they would not have any need for allurements and deception,not to mention vitriolic anti Hindu propaganda that usually accompanies such a process.

This leaves the Hindus society with a strong suspicion that conversions are nothing but an act of intruding into and progressively constrict the Hindu socio-cultural space by means of hook and crook, hence the Hindu community has the legitimate right to defend its space through all the means and resources available to it.So long as Christian and other non Hindu religious group take to deception and other morally devious behaviors to expand their host at the expense of the social stability of the Hindu society, then they should be ready to face the consequences that entail a Hindu response.

Every community has the right defend its extant social space, which is why in the other post i requested Muslims and Christians to join the Hindus in their long standing demand for banning the specter of mass organized conversions. Its well known facts that Christian and Islamic groups have not made themselves part of such cause and their continued remonstrations against various moves instituted by various state govt's to regulate these religious conversions, leaves nobody in doubt as to who is intruding into whose social space.

All subsections that constitute the larger Hindu social fabric are unanimous in their desire to defend the Hindu space from encroachments through means of sly and deception. There is note of discordance here.

I personally do not condone wanton violence nor is the Hindu society in favor of instability caused through violence, a tensed state of atmosphere in the society affects its progress, and as the most important stake holder the Hindu society unavoidably suffers the most.

Breakdown of law imperils social order and order is what sustains a society. However it must be remembered that mere existence of law does not automatically instill social order. Take for instance the violence in Guajarat,iam sure our laws had provisions that forbid acts of violence targeted at a particular a community, however what good did the law to do to the Hind passengers of the Sabarmati express, or what good did it do to the Muslims who died in the riots that followed.

It is imperative that laws and its adherence be observed universally by everyone in order for it to function. The primary function of law is ensure the social well being of the larger society and its constituents by ensuring there is consistency in observation of social order. In Gujarat for instance Hindu community was visited upon by an act of violence both unprecedented and unexpected, some thing that the Hindu society was unprepared for. Law by itself was not deterrent enough to ensure order, but the society, notwithstanding the failure of application law, has to ensure that the order be established in order for the society to survive.

While many had expected the hapless Hindu to carry placards and form picket lines outside the western railways headquarters demanding better safety for railway passengers, the Hindu society reacted in very much an expected manner. The violence as much as undesirable as it was, was clearly an act to restore the familiar order. the act of violent retribution was an attempt by the Hindu society to restore the deterrence, whose absence caused the train burning. In future any unilateral act to disturb order,esp against the Hindu society, will be avoided because we now know those acts have terrible consequences. Consider this as the society's balancing act.

While we may have notions of how a society must respond to breakdown in social order to its disadvantage, but usually the response is random and many time unequivocal. Violence is uncontrollable, hence it is important that in order to avoid such unwelcome circumstances, the reason that lead up to such violence are abjured.

 

[nrj]

Now since the politically motivated groups using hinduism as capital for their rise, have realized that their violent actions involve terrible consequences; may be they'll think twice before repeating same thing again.

Law & Authority should act as deterrent against any communal crime. But as it appears that, it failed miserably in case of Gujarat (which was completely unrelated here). So-called hindu society had political stakes in the outcome of conflict so they not only allowed it to take place but also encouraged it.

If one has to believe Mr.slimy Justice Saldanha, he says BJP in Karnataka conspired against Christians with RSS & puts blame on former K'tka home minister Acharya, a sangh loyalist who allowed the situation to get worse, meaning authorities failed to act as deterrent against communal crime. In such situations when state machinery has craved religious motives, I doubt the success of hollow public calls made by extremists to other religions asking to work together in ensuring communal harmony.

Replace the state ruling party & religion in above example.

This is the state of affairs in this country where political parties have failed their basic responsibility to keep religion away from influencing governance.

Which makes me come back to my original point that, religious leaders should refrain from indulging in political equations. If Christians are facing violence, they should knock court instead of issuing public statements which wouldn't yield anything for the poor worshiper of certain faith.

Established system is not short of any resources or tools to prevent communal violence. Hence every time such issues happen, it is very clear that the respective govt authority is compromised & has clear profits from ongoing conflict allowing people sit back to enjoy show saying 'violence is uncontrollable'.

Most importantly, there are people in every religion brainwashed to believe in payback which involves violent/non-violent exploitation of other community. Unless people behind such propaganda are pulverized, it will be impossible to ensure unbiased functioning of modern India in dealing with its communal diversity.

 

[Armand2REP]

Mangalore? Don't confuse Maoists with Christians.

 

[Tshering22]

Mangalore? Don't confuse Maoists with Christians.

I think we know our problems well, Buddy. At least I am from a place where I have seen this. Missionary jokers can fool the biased media in western and southern parts of India but not us people from Northeast who know this menace very well. Maoists are in tandem with local Maoists in southeast India.

Not only Maoists in southeastern state(s) but also tie up with other terrorists in local region in our place. They don't care whom they tie up with as long as it is against the country.

 

[JBH22]

I already answered it. Anyone that promotes violence towards others must be prosecuted. Blasphemy to you is freedom of speech to them. Should it be illegal to portray the Prophet Muhammed... no.

Indeed we both have different views on freedom of speech and making mockery.
I would like to issue Jesus condoms then I want to see the reaction

If she was so powerful she could enforce religious tolerance.

last time i checked she was voted as India's most powerful women and one of the most powerful person on earth by Forbes.
If I follow your logic then Barack Obama should be able to do same around the globe since he tops the list of powerful persons

We aren't the ones who go rioting through the Arab banlieues tearing up the community. I haven't seen any skinheads terrorizing France, just a bunch of Arabs threatening and committing honour killings of converts to Christianity. We don't tolerate terrorism. What RSS does is bullshit.

No you tolerate terrorism when it suits your interest...
As I told you before linking any right wing Hindu group to RSS is a sign of your incomprehension of this organisation don't just yap the vomit of sh!tty reports.

 

[Rage]

@ S.A.T.A.,

your cleverness at mincing words will not a cogent argument make.

Take for example this sentence: "surely the fact that the victims legitimate cravings were satisfied by the perpetrator of the crime should not necessarily become an alibi for the criminal."

I think you will agree that this makes absoloutely no sense.


Not least because in this case we are not talking about perpetrators of a 'crime' committing an act of rape or arson, although in the warped, highly subjective and narrow minds of Hindu fundamentalists, it may be an act of 'cultural sacrilege', but of satisfying an expressed desire for change: of community, of belief system, of material and social status and of support structure, which is a legitimate right.

Your assertion that "individual's states of impoverished destitution" have nothing to do with "his or her religious belief" is nothing but an illusion. I am tempted to asseverate that it is the typical result of upper-caste, upper-class Hindu breeding, but I will attribute it to the zeal and alacrity with which you defend your narrow, rather subjective and intrinsically caste- and class-based parochial interests in the hope that you will see it is a selfish and edacious position.


Culturally specific religious beliefs and religious practices are the product of culturally specific material and social tangibles in either of two senses: a) generative, as in either originating iso-culturally or otherwise super-imposed from outside and perpetually by a dissimilar culture and b) evolutionary, as in the Indian experience, where various cultural strains have simultaneously and differently evolved, borrowing from each other and from the environment around them and in many instances from other cultures through conquest or acquisition. In the Dalit context, particularly his socio-religious cultural practice is derived from both. The Dalit's particular religious belief, of his role in the theologico-social hierarchical order, is a function and a cause of his particular material condition. It is a function because his particular upbringing and the travails of his status by virtue of birth ensure that he is an iterator of the context and the practice that led to his condition. It is a cause because his particular status leads him and most others to believe that he is entitled to his condition. It is both an enabling and a mitigating factor. When the Dalit decides to improve his physical and social condition, either from his own will or through exhortation or from exposure or through encounter with others, he meets opposition of both a pseudo-religious and social-cultural nature. The pseudo-religious is in fact, part of the cause that has led him to his condition in the first place. The social-cultural is more correctly ascribable as a material opposition: because it opposes any upliftment that intensifies competition for resources, prevaricates exploitation of a financial, menial labour or human resource nature and creates a new political force that has socio-political ramifications. This scenario of dialectic opposition has been played out throughout India, and you know it, on the farms and fields, in the villages, in the bastis and slums of cities: it is ubiquitous and boasts of an exploitative and appropriative nature: from the moneylender seething from no longer being able to extort from an individual who has been educated about alternative lending rates to village upper-castes disgruntled at the marginalised's sense of 'entitlement' at community resources to the outrage of the community over intermingling to local political parties worried about alternative sources of power coalescing around another centre. To pre-empt this, they indulge in opposition of varied sorts: from social ostracization to withdrawal of social and material support to allegations of forced and selective conversion, in many instances, to outright persecution. Which is for a man with limited means, seeking to mobilize himself upward, something that weighs hard on both him and the family. When the opposition of hectors grows too strong to bear, it is then that the desire for an alternative support structure becomes truly strong, the desire for an alternative community not astringent upon those beliefs which held him back: which is nothing but the desire for 'conversion' . The desire for 'conversion' then is nothing then but the desire for an alternative community, an alternative support structure, which is every man's fundamental right and which has everything to do with an "individual's impoverished condition". It is through the de-valuing of former ideals which held him back, the valuing of this community and it's support that one comes to value the 'ideals' by which they stand by and eventually to come to adopt them. Ironically, the 'solution' to the 'problem' of conversion is for the Hindu upper-castes that exercise power and authority over various social and metaphysical processes to actively recognize and redress this as a 'problem': the large social inequities that plague the vestigial caste-system, especially as those at the bottom of it seek to mobilize themselves upward, and to recognize that they have just the same right to upward social mobility, political organization, education and freedom of expoitation and the entitlement to community and state resources as they do. But it is a solution that is wasted on many.


The innate desire for 'conversion' is a function of social and tangible variables. And it has everything to do with community and process, and the freedom from restriction on operation and metaphysical bounds that bind behavior and govern relations within these two domains, that drive people to seek alternative social structures based on alternative beliefs as an emancipation from their social condition. Which is why Dalits don't just convert to Christianity, they convert to Buddhism, Sikhism and Islam, too. The desire for change Is innate, and it stems from the tangible, not the metaphysical. The metaphysical acceptance of belief is a concomitant of the process.


If we were to address this as an economic Demand-Supply side argument, that would be the demand. There is a latent intention, on the part of that strata of Hindus persecuted through centuries by social practices masquerading as 'pillars of stability', to escape the wanton rigidity and en-trammels of this system. Indeed, it is the fact that they have not reacted en-masse to this system, that has contribute to its 'stability'. And the fact that they have not reacted is explained because of a lack of power. (Social-political) power, as indeed the ancient Vedic scriptures will tell you, comes from three things: land, wealth and weapons - all three of which this marginalized sub-stratum has been progressively denied or had usurped from them. In ancient society, priests and the princely constituted the landed, wealth was the preserve of traders and the armed forces where made up by the warriors. Those vestigial traits in different forms, still dominate much of India today, since we have achieved no broad-based land and social re-organization. Conversion, for many is simply a means of empowerment through a de-recognition of that system. It is on the chart of social mobility, a crucial first step and process for the state has failed them, through a non-identification with a system; through a non-identification with a last name and social sequiturs that constitute the intrusions of that system. It is the reason why they don't stop at conversion and go on to organize themselves politically, where conversion is a crucial part of that process, appeal to qualitatively non-Hindu egalitarian notions of entitlement to mobilize for positive discrimination and have re-modelled and pronounced subaltern ideologies and histories of both pre-modern and independent India in an attempt to escape intense class consciousnesses. It is a multifidous approach to neo-empowerment, one that is only possible through a covert or outright rejection of the system. For the system, impervious to maneuvre, must be rejected outright. Furthermore, that desire and movement for political and social change is a Constitutional right. Christian evangelical missionaries and other pastors do not create that need; they merely cater to it. Their intentions in doing so may be parochial, we can never say, since deterministically anything is possible. Clearly, in some instances, money is traced to outside sources. Clearly, other nations may have a vested interest in shaping and modeling belief systems. But clearly, the scale of this activity can never be enough to justify the allegations of mass conversion being engaged in levitically. Moreover, in many instances, the evangelists themselves come from marginalized sections and identify with them communitarianly. In many more still, the preachers are sought by the people, themselves. But in all of this, an important movement is achieved: that of advancing the cause and social positions of the disenfranchised, and not of the absorptive community's own desiderata, but of that of the marginalized themselves. No Dalit has ever converted, because his new faith or community would erode his social and material-physical status. It has always involved at least equal or better opportunity. And where Dalits have re-converted, it has always been after they have been reassured of equal access to those opportunities. Typically, when the dis-enfranchised convert, it means a new identity, a new ontology and a new community for those subjects of conversion. And it is to them, one that does not discriminate, one that does not subjugate and one that does not astringe their social mobility.

In all this, I am careful to not enumerate those that have 'converted' for purely religious purposes, those that have come into contact with and been enamoured by a doctrine and those that have converted purely for convenience-purposes. All those, except the last, are usually identifiable by their zeal and passion.


I also want to suggest to you, that in suggesting an appropriating of the right to violence in the face of what you view as a state failure to tackle the nefariousness of 'conversion', what you are, in fact, suggesting is anarchy. The characteristic of any functioning state is the monopoly over the legitimate exercise of violence. In our society- a functioning democracy, that right is given the most legitimacy by the fact that those who exercise it are bequeathed authority by and are therefore accountable to the people. The mechanism for redressing disputes over the exercise (or the lack-) of authority already exists. When one social group abstracts that appanage to justify or condone an act of violence:- whether it be for a real or perceived trespass over it's cultural hegemony, that monopoly no longer exists. When this happens often enough, the state is made more redundant. This problem is made more complicated by two things: when that hegemony is rendered in didactic terms, in the terms of one group that simply possesses a pre-eminance of power in political, economic or financial terms ; and when other groups engage in the same acts of violence in reaction to or to pre-empt the former's. The expropriation of the monopoly over violence and its de-legitimation, progressively by even more groups, and the rhetorical pronouncement of extra-legal judgments over cultural, religious and political sanctities contributes to exactly that kind of discord we call anarchy. And when any one party breeds that discord through concessionary abstractions of the right to violence, who is to stop others from doing so? When everyone abstracts that right, giving everybody else both a cause and a motive to abstract it, you lead to complete breakdown and total collapse of the state. That is the logical end to this proposition, we call autonomously-guaranteed cultural hegemony.


To me, it has always been farcical that one community would begrudge another's social advancement, even at the cost of their imagined notions of social 'stability'. Real social stability comes from everyone having enough, from one not having too much more than the other and from an equal treatment of and an equal opportunity for all to advance and make up the shortfall. It is the reason they convert. If your stated goal is to eliminate conversions, to preserve the "stability" supposedly but really not inherent in vestigial social-hierarchical order but rather in the coercion it enabled through the disambiguation of power, then it is a selfish and untenable goal. It is selfish goal because it premises itself entirely and only upon the view and the interests of one single section of community and its perceptions about the interests of other; it is untenable, because sooner or later the bough has to break.

* P.S. Sorry for the late answer. I was/am vacationing, in Goa.

@Rage

Like i have stated elsewhere an individuals state of impoverished destitution has very little do with his her system of belief,hence any promise to ameliorate his poverty by an action religious conversion is nothing but an act of fraud and deception. pedophiles and rapists often entice their victims by offering them sweet inducements before submitting them to acts of depravity, surely the fact that the victims legitimate cravings were satisfied by the perpetrator of the crime should not necessarily become an alibi for the criminal. The Hindu society does not believe that the Christian evangelists are interested in a spiritual upliftment by their acts of inducing conversion, if that is the case they would not have any need for allurements and deception,not to mention vitriolic anti Hindu propaganda that usually accompanies such a process.

This leaves the Hindus society with a strong suspicion that conversions are nothing but an act of intruding into and progressively constrict the Hindu socio-cultural space by means of hook and crook, hence the Hindu community has the legitimate right to defend its space through all the means and resources available to it.So long as Christian and other non Hindu religious group take to deception and other morally devious behaviors to expand their host at the expense of the social stability of the Hindu society, then they should be ready to face the consequences that entail a Hindu response.

Every community has the right defend its extant social space, which is why in the other post i requested Muslims and Christians to join the Hindus in their long standing demand for banning the specter of mass organized conversions. Its well known facts that Christian and Islamic groups have not made themselves part of such cause and their continued remonstrations against various moves instituted by various state govt's to regulate these religious conversions, leaves nobody in doubt as to who is intruding into whose social space.

All subsections that constitute the larger Hindu social fabric are unanimous in their desire to defend the Hindu space from encroachments through means of sly and deception. There is note of discordance here.

I personally do not condone wanton violence nor is the Hindu society in favor of instability caused through violence, a tensed state of atmosphere in the society affects its progress, and as the most important stake holder the Hindu society unavoidably suffers the most.

Breakdown of law imperils social order and order is what sustains a society. However it must be remembered that mere existence of law does not automatically instill social order. Take for instance the violence in Guajarat,iam sure our laws had provisions that forbid acts of violence targeted at a particular a community, however what good did the law to do to the Hind passengers of the Sabarmati express, or what good did it do to the Muslims who died in the riots that followed.

It is imperative that laws and its adherence be observed universally by everyone in order for it to function. The primary function of law is ensure the social well being of the larger society and its constituents by ensuring there is consistency in observation of social order. In Gujarat for instance Hindu community was visited upon by an act of violence both unprecedented and unexpected, some thing that the Hindu society was unprepared for. Law by itself was not deterrent enough to ensure order, but the society, notwithstanding the failure of application law, has to ensure that the order be established in order for the society to survive.

While many had expected the hapless Hindu to carry placards and form picket lines outside the western railways headquarters demanding better safety for railway passengers, the Hindu society reacted in very much an expected manner. The violence as much as undesirable as it was, was clearly an act to restore the familiar order. the act of violent retribution was an attempt by the Hindu society to restore the deterrence, whose absence caused the train burning. In future any unilateral act to disturb order,esp against the Hindu society, will be avoided because we now know those acts have terrible consequences. Consider this as the society's balancing act.

While we may have notions of how a society must respond to breakdown in social order to its disadvantage, but usually the response is random and many time unequivocal. Violence is uncontrollable, hence it is important that in order to avoid such unwelcome circumstances, the reason that lead up to such violence are abjured.

 

[Nagraj]

these western missionaries will lose all support in west if people knew what these bigots have brought upon he land.

 

[lcatejas]

Stop Conversion ... all attacks will stop...