The USCIRF and its (Hindu)India-bashing
Tomorrow, May 2nd
2016, the U S Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is
scheduled to release its annual report. In the context of the ‘Hindu
Nationalist Government’ of India denying visa to USCIRF recently, and the IB stating
that USCIRF reports were based on “half-truths, hearsay and standalone cases,”
I have a premonition regarding what is coming!
The US Commission on
International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) had in the past unleashed a torrent of
invective directed at India, which in its strange wisdom, considers to be a
country intolerant of religious minorities! The 2015 USCIRF Report was suffused
with hypocrisy and double standards that the SundayGuardian editorially mocked
it that were authors of it to ever get tasked to write a history of the
subcontinent, they would affirm that it is not Pakistan but India where the
share of minorities in the total population has fallen precipitously since 1947!
How do we counter portrayal
of our country as a den of fanatics, with the ulterior motive of providing an
excuse for the US administration to threaten sanctions and other punitive
measures against India? The saddest part of it that the most active “informers”
supplying the material against India are the evangelist Christian groups,
particularly the CBCI! People who preach religious tolerance to India must ask
themselves, does “respectful coexistence of diversity” mean that every Indian
has to be a Christian to be SAVED and reach heaven or paradise or has to be
either killed or converted to Islam, the one and only true faith?
Hindu Dharma, unlike
Christianity and Islam doesn’t divide humanity into those chosen by God and those
eternally damned. It requires regarding all as brothers and sisters! Not even
the lunatic fringe among the Hindus, do not consider that India’s Constitutional
promise of secularism, liberty, equality, and democracy to minorities was inappropriate,
with the country’s huge diversity: half-a-dozen major religions, 14 official
languages and hundreds of dialects, many scripts and literature. There is only
an assertion about a common culture. Does that hurt the USCIRF to know that an
80+percent majority in India embrace the rest as brothers and sisters under an
overlapping cultural umbrella; that the mother society feels for the children who
have taken up different faiths for whatever reasons? Why is the USCIRF so
mystifyingly blind as not to see that
the 3% Christians and the 14% or so Muslims in India, live as full
citizens in political, social, cultural and the religious life of India, and enjoy greater rights and freedoms in than any
similar minorities in any other country including the United States?
But of course, the
USCIRF cannot keep ordering India for a grovelling “outreach” to extremist
Muslims and Christians! Hindus have been happy to live their lives without
bothering about Faiths of others. Why are Christians, Muslims (and atheists
too) waging war on beliefs that mean nothing to them Well, if it comes to a
confrontation that USCIRF is attempting, why can’t we Hindus insist and
maintain that we reject all religions that do not agree with Indian thought and
values? Muslims attempt to wall off outside influences, permitting only an
Islamic education for their children and disengaging from the wider non-Muslim
community everywhere. Christians believe that Jesus said “"I am the way,
and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” and "I
am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through
Me..."If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now
on you know Him, and have seen Him." Isn’t that denying those who do not
become Christians access to God?
And what do the
HINDUS believe: They hold on to the Upanishadic philosophy "Ekam sat vipra
bahudha vadanti" —"that which exists is One (God): sages call it by
various names! Is there a more inclusive philosophy? The
moderation of the majority, has ensured the safety of the minority, and those
who ignore this fact are diverting attention from countries where religious
persecution is the norm!
Other than the USCIR,
the U.S. State Department too has its annual International Religious Freedom
report, a country-by-country catalogue of the treatment of religious groups around
the globe! It is actually international policing! How many of us remember enormous
kleptocracy named the UPA, remote-controlled by an Italian Catholic lady, had made the unprecedented step of inviting UNCIRF to
visit Gujarat and Orissa to study Muslim/Christian persecution by the
respective State Governments run by BJP and ally to play politics unmindful of
the reputation of the country? Has the US Congress been informed that when in the
so called Christian countries churches are closing down in India churches are
annually increasing in number?
Noted anthropologist
France Boss has held that “if we wish to take over the direction of a society
we must either guide it from within its cultural framework or else eradicate
its culture and impose a new culture.” What the BJP is trying to do is to ‘guide
India from within its cultural frame work’? America doesn’t have much of a
culture, being in fact a “refugee settlement” of sorts! They maynot understand
this! But if religious freedom is truly the “civilizing discourse of our time” India
will participate in it holding its head high and proclaiming that, WE ARE PROUD
OF OUR RECORD!
Fantastic article exposing hypocrisy of USCIRF. Read 89 articles unmasking Religious Freedom lies: uscirf.blogspot.com
ReplyDelete“Christian ReligiousFreedom" = "Muslim Sharia"
In USA, Several states like Indiana, Arkansan have tried to pass ReligiousFreedom aka Anti-Gay law. Gov. Bobby Jindal issued a religious-freedom executive order. As per ACLU, Bobby's order makes discrimination legal. Bobby’s order would allow a catholic hotelier to deny venue to gays or hindus because he believes only in catholic marriage blessed by a catholic priest.
"Religious Freedom" is a cleverly crafted metaphor. It is about taking away others freedom in the name of religion. For all practical purpose, Religious Freedom is christian right to act as per cannon regardless of damage to equality. This is similar to Muslim demand for Sharia.
This reminds of Humpty Dumpty quote: “When I use word religious-freedom, it means just what I choose it to mean". In Indiana, Religious-freedom means anti-gay. In Virginia, It is anti-atheist. Globally, It is pro-christian and a weapon to beat others.
I remember Pope John Paul II during visit to India went to Rajghat and wrote in the visitors' book a quote from Gandhiji himself: "A culture cannot survive if it attempts to be exclusive!"Look who was writing about Indian culture which with open arms had received religious philosophies like India Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and as a sovereign democratic republic gave religious, cultural, political and economic freedom to all citizens without any differentiation: and the Pope represents a culture which denies even a basic human right - access to God-- for those who do not believe in Christ! A religion that divides human beings into sinners and the saves, those chosen by God and those eternally damned! Pope's insinuation was a snub to the country that hosted him and the government led by the "Hindu Nationalist Party, BJP! He forgotthat this culture has survived for almost 10000 years, outliving many great ones in human history, the Hellenic, the Roman, the Chinese, and so on! Historically, India's Hindu Dharma allowed assimilation of religious faiths from outside without the horrors of genocide as was the case with Islam and Christianity. The ground reality here is that when Hindus willingly capitulated, yes bent over backwards to please and be "secular", to Islamic/Christian mores—in the name of tolerance, multiculturalism, political correctness, or just plain cowardice, they are becoming more emboldened, making more demands and threats! They also make bold to produce such rhetoric intended to cleaving and widening gulf, which at this point looks like, not between minorities and the majority, but between those who consider this land sacred and those who consider it just their transient abode!
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